Straight to content

SOCIAL SECURITY

Back to front page

Baby Bonus to be abolished and replaced

The Treasurer announced that the Government will replace the Baby Bonus from 1 March 2014 with the following arrangements:

  • Family Tax Benefit Part A (FTB Part A) payments will increase by $2,000, to be paid in the year following the birth or adoption of a first child or each child in multiple births, and $1,000 for second or subsequent children. The additional FTB Part A will be paid as an initial payment of $500, with the remainder paid in seven fortnightly instalments.

  • Parents who take up Paid Parental Leave (PPL) will not be eligible for the additional FTB Part A component, but will benefit from improved access to PPL as their family expands. As part of this package, parents will be able to count time on Government PPL where it occurs during the work test period for a subsequent child, in the same way that employer-funded parental leave can be counted now.

Family payments: indexation pauses for upper income limits and supplements

The Government will maintain the higher income thresholds for family payments and supplement amounts at their current levels for a further three years until 1 July 2017:

  • The current upper income test limit of $150,000 for Family Tax Benefit Part B (FTB Part B), the dependency tax offsets, the PPL Scheme and Dad and Partner Pay will be maintained. The FTB Part A upper income-free area will remain at $94,316, plus an additional $3,796 for each child after the first.

  • FTB supplement amounts will also be maintained at current levels of $726.35 per child per annum for FTB Part A and $354.05 per family per annum for FTB Part B.

The FTB Part A lower income-free threshold (currently $47,815) and the FTB Part B secondary earner income threshold (currently $5,037) will continue to be indexed.

Back to front page