We may pay you Carer Payment if you do either of the following activities up to a combined maximum of 100 hours in a 4 week period:
- paid work
- self employed work.
You must still provide care for a significant period each day.
We have some examples to help you understand the rules.
Meeting the 100 hour work limit
Geoff gets Carer Payment to look after their mother who needs constant care. Geoff is an accountant and works part time from 9 am to 2 pm, Monday to Thursday. Geoff travels for a total of 45 minutes each day to get to and from work.
Geoff also volunteers at a local organisation for one hour each Friday morning, which takes 20 minutes to travel to and from.
This means they work for 20 hours and travel for 3 hours and 20 minutes each week, plus one hour of volunteering.
Geoff will need to report their work hours. Geoff doesn’t need to report their volunteer work and their travel time to and from work.
Geoff works 20 hours each week and reports their income and work hours each fortnight. They report working 40 hours each fortnight, therefore they report 80 hours of work in a 4 week period. Geoff meets the 100 hour work limit.
Occasionally exceeding the 100 hour work limit
One day, Geoff’s employer asked if they could work for 8 hours each Friday for the next 3 weeks to cover for another employee. Geoff said yes. Geoff reports the additional hours and works a total of 104 hours for that 4 week period. This was made up of 20 hours for the first week and 28 hours for the next 3 weeks.
Geoff exceeds the 100 hour work limit.
Since the Friday work is temporary and will go for less than 12 weeks, Geoff can choose to use some of their respite days to remain qualified for Carer Payment. If Geoff doesn’t have any respite days we may suspend their payment for up to 6 months.
When it’s time to report their fortnightly income, they can tell us to use respite days for the hours that were more than the 100 hour work limit.
One day of respite can be used for up to 8 hours of work over the limit. As Geoff worked 104 hours, they would be able to use one day of respite to remain qualified for Carer Payment.
If Geoff had worked 10 hours over the limit, they would need to use 2 days of respite to remain qualified for Carer Payment.
Exceeding the 100 hour work limit on an ongoing basis
Geoff’s employer asked Geoff if they could work the additional hours on Fridays on an ongoing basis, and Geoff said yes. This means Geoff would work 28 hours each week. Geoff now exceeds the 100 hour work limit because they’ll be working 112 hours in a 4 week period.
As this is ongoing, Geoff will not be able to use respite days to remain qualified for Carer Payment. Geoff’s payment may be suspended for up to 6 months. We will tell Geoff what he needs to do next.