EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
Statutory Rules No. 49
Seamen’s War Pensions and Allowances Act 1940
Seamen’s War Pensions and Allowances Regulations (Amendment)
Issued by the authority of the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs
Section 59 of the Seamen’s War Pensions and Allowances Act 1940 (the Act) provides that the Governor-General may make regulations, not inconsistent with the Act, prescribing all matters which are by the Act required or permitted to be prescribed, or which are necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.
This Regulation lists a range of educational schemes. By virtue of amendments made to the Act by the Student Assistance Legislation Amendment Act 1988, overpayments arising under any of the listed schemes are recoverable by deductions from a pension, allowance or pecuniary benefit payable under the Act.
Details of the Regulation are set out below. The provisions of the amending Regulation came into operation on the commencement of the Student Assistance Legislation Amendment Act 1988.
Regulation 42 - Recovery of overpayments - prescribed educational schemes
Section 55A provides for the recovery of overpayment of pension, allowance or other pecuniary benefit arising under the Act, the Veterans’ Entitlements Act 1986 or the Social Security Act 1947.
Subsection 55A(1) authorises recovery through the courts or by deductions from a pension, allowance or pecuniary benefit payable under the Act, or a combination of court action and deductions. In the case of an amount overpaid under the Social Security Act 1947 subsection 205(1) provides for recovery by means of deductions only.
The new paragraph 55A(1)(aa) inserted by the Student Assistance Legislation Amendment Act 1988 (Act No. of 1988, Assented to 1988), and a consequential amendment to subsection 55A(2), enables student assistance overpayments to be recovered by deductions from payments under the Act to the person overpaid, or from payments to another person, with that person’s consent. This is in line with existing powers to recover Social Security overpayments under the Act.
The relevant student assistance schemes for the purposes of new paragraph 55A(1)(aa) are set out in the new Regulation 42.