[Matthew Saunders]

Hi all,

By my reading of the regulations there are two ways an MRCA recipient can be entitled to a rebate, and either way their eligibility can’t be confirmed doing a Centrelink or DVA online check as these will always come back as “Not entitled”:

REGULATION 134 (b1) persons who have received a lump sum mentioned in section 234 (1) (b) of the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004 of the Commonwealth or are receiving a weekly amount mentioned in that paragraph, and do not have income and assets that would prevent them from being granted a pensioner concession card (assuming they were eligible for such a card),

MY INTERPRETATION: For these, I think we should refer the applicant to the DVA to get a letter to say that they have received a lump sum or weekly payment AND that they meet the assets and income test required for other eligible pensioners under the Veteran Entitlements Act 1986 (Cmwlth),assuming that they are not actually entitled as they are paid under a different Act to other pensioners (as Trevor pointed out as well). If a letter is provided from DVA, it would be OK to grant the rebate but ongoing future verification would be difficult if not impossible, without getting the owner to get a yearly letter confirming their eligibility (maybe keep them on and do every 3 to 5 years?).

REGULATION 134(d) persons who receive, or who at some point in their life have been eligible for, a Special Rate Disability Pension under the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004 of the Commonwealth.

MY INTERPRETATION: These ones are a bit easier to confirm as they only need to have been entitled at some stage in their life to receive a disability payment under the MRC Act and they are then eligible and continually eligible for life. For these we will need a letter from DVA confirming this.

Unfortunately in either case, their eligibility will always come back in regular batch verifications with Centrelink/DVA as not being entitled, so you will be forever overriding these as being eligible.

I agree with Trevor that there are only a small number of them so it is easy to monitor. We only have one MRCA rebate at the moment.

Kind regards,
Matthew