Earlier changes

What's new

16 April 2019

Student Allowance - Personal income

Payments for disability support are exempt as personal income for a student and their partner. Other minor income changes have also been made for clarification. See:

Income Related Rent (IRR)

Payments for disability support are exempt from assessable income for Income Related Rent assessments. See:

Accommodation Supplement and Temporary Additional Support

The internet and other service costs have been included as an allowable cost for Accommodation Supplement and Temporary Additional Support. When rent includes service costs you can only assess the portion of rent that is for accommodation, not the services costs.

See:

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12 April 2019

Special Needs Grant - Rural assistance payments - Upper South Island drought and Tasman fires 2019

Rural assistance has been activated for farmers who have a primary industry in an area affected by the Upper South Island drought or the Tasman District fires. Payments for the affected areas have been approved from 12 April 2019 to 12 October 2019.

See:

Legislation

The following welfare programme has been added, effective from 12 April 2019:

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Service Costs means the cost as reasonably determined by MSD of any services (for example, electricity supply, gas supply, telephone network connection, or broadband Internet connection) provided to or in connection with the premises for consumption or use by the occupants of the premises. Service costs do not include the cost of water supplied to the premises.