New Zealand and Australia
Can I get the Australian Age Pension as a New Zealander?
Usually yes, but not by the route most people assume. Under Australia's ordinary rules only a 'protected' Special Category visa holder counts as an Australian resident, and whether you are protected depends on where you were living back in February 2001. The Social Security Agreement between the two countries gets around that. For the purposes of the Agreement, every New Zealand citizen lawfully living in Australia on a Special Category visa counts as an Australian resident, protected or not, and can claim the Age Pension that way. You still need ten years of Australian residence, and your New Zealand years can be counted towards it.
What is the Special Category visa, and why does it matter?
When a New Zealand citizen arrives in Australia on a New Zealand passport without another visa, they are normally granted a Special Category visa, usually shortened to SCV. It lets you stay indefinitely and work without restriction. You do not apply for it in advance. It is simply granted on arrival.
For most purposes that visa makes life in Australia straightforward. For social security it does something odd, and the oddity is the whole reason this question is confusing.
Why does February 2001 keep coming up?
Because Australia changed the rules on that date and split New Zealanders into two groups.
The Department of Social Services states it plainly: "Since 26 February 2001, only 'protected' SCV holders meet the definition of Australian resident." A non-protected SCV holder does not meet that definition and is "generally not entitled to Australian social security payments".
You are automatically a protected SCV holder if either of these is true:
- you held an SCV and were in Australia on 26 February 2001, or
- you held an SCV and were in Australia on it for 12 months in total during the two years before 26 February 2001.
There are further categories for people who were temporarily overseas on that date, and some people had to apply for a determination within a set window that has long since closed.
Read on its own, that rule says a New Zealander who moved to Australia in, say, 2010 can never get the Age Pension without taking out a permanent visa or Australian citizenship. That is where most explanations of this stop, and it is not the end of the story.
So can a non-protected SCV holder claim the Age Pension?
Yes, through the Agreement, and this is the part that gets missed.
Australia and New Zealand have a Social Security Agreement, and it carries its own definition of who counts as an Australian resident. The Department of Social Services describes the effect directly. Article 5(1) extends the definition to all New Zealand citizens lawfully residing in Australia on an SCV, so that "irrespective of whether they are protected or non-protected, SCV holders who meet Article 5(1) of the Agreement can use the Agreement to satisfy the definition of 'Australian resident' in subsection 7(2) of the SSAct."
The Guide then says what that allows: claiming and qualifying for the Age Pension under the Agreement, subject to meeting everything else.
So protected status decides which door you go through, not whether you can get in. A protected SCV holder claims the Age Pension the ordinary way. Everyone else claims under the Agreement. Services Australia's own residence page hints at this in one line that is easy to skim past: "There are exceptions if you are claiming under a Social Security Agreement."
How many years do I need?
Ten. Services Australia puts it as: "To get Age Pension you generally need to have been an Australian resident for at least 10 years in total. For at least 5 of these years, there must be no break in your residence."
On the day you claim you must also be living in Australia, physically in Australia, and an Australian resident.
Do my New Zealand years count towards the ten?
They can, and this is the second thing the Agreement does for you.
Article 12 covers what is called totalisation. The Department of Social Services describes it as meaning "that periods of working age residence in New Zealand can be added to periods as an Australian resident at any time to meet the minimum residence requirements for an Australian benefit".
Two conditions worth knowing:
- If you are living in Australia long term, there is no minimum period of Australian residence before you can totalise. Someone living long term in New Zealand instead needs at least one year of working age residence in Australia, six months of it continuous.
- Where your Australian and New Zealand years overlap, the overlap counts once, not twice.
"Long term" has a definition of its own under the Agreement: physically present in the country and either there for at least 26 weeks already, or intending to stay a year or more.
What this guide does not tell you
It does not tell you the amount. The Age Pension is means tested against your income and your assets, and what you would actually receive depends on both. A claim made under the Agreement can also be worked out differently from a domestic one, and that calculation is its own subject.
It also leaves alone: the residence rules for payments other than the Age Pension, what happens to your entitlement if you leave Australia after being granted it, whether taking out Australian citizenship is worth doing for other reasons, and how any New Zealand Superannuation you already receive interacts with an Australian payment.
One practical note. Protected status turns on where you were living a quarter of a century ago, and Services Australia holds the record of it. If you do not know which group you are in, that is a question to put to them rather than to work out from your own memory of 2001.