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Someone to help you with Centrelink
You can ask a person or organisation to help you with all your Centrelink business. We call them a nominee.
There are 2 types of nominees: a correspondence nominee and a payment nominee. You can choose either or both.
Correspondence nominee
You can authorise a person or organisation to help you with your Centrelink business.
What they can do
A correspondence nominee can:
- ask questions about your Centrelink payments and services, including aged care costs
- tell us about changes to your circumstances
- respond to requests for information
- update income and assets details
- come to appointments with you
- complete and sign forms and statements on your behalf
- get copies of your letters from Centrelink and about your aged care costs
- claim payments and services for you.
They can use our online guides to complete the following tasks online for you:
- claim a payment online
- complete a Rent Assistance review
- report employment income
- request a document such as an income statement, payment summary, Centrelink statement and rent certificate
- upload and submit a document to us
- request a replacement concession card
- update your income and assets
- add a Centrepay deduction or update or suspend a Centrepay deduction.
If a nominee submits a claim for JobSeeker Payment or Youth Allowance for job seekers for you online, they can book an appointment with us in the Next steps part of the online claim. You must be at this appointment, and your nominee can also come if you want them to.
What they must do
A correspondence nominee must:
- tell us about any changes in your circumstances within 14 days, or within 28 days if you’re outside Australia
- act in your best interest
- tell us about any changes that may affect their ability to act for you.
You can tell us about changes, even if you have a correspondence nominee.
If you or your nominee don’t do the following, you’re at risk of not meeting your obligations:
- respond to a request
- tell us about changes in your circumstances
- arrange for you to be at an appointment for a JobSeeker Payment or Youth Allowance for job seekers claim that they have submitted on your behalf.
Payment nominee
You can authorise a person or organisation to help you with your Centrelink payments. We call them a payment nominee. Your Centrelink payments will go straight into your payment nominee’s bank account, not yours.
What they can do
A payment nominee can:
- use your Centrelink payments on your behalf
- make or change deductions from your Centrelink payments
- ask us about your Centrelink payments like how much your payment is, why the amount’s changed and when it will be paid.
What they must do
A payment nominee must:
- use your Centrelink payments only for your benefit
- act in your best interest
- tell us about any changes that may affect their ability to represent you
- keep records on how they spend your money
- give us their records on how they spend your money, if we ask for it.
We can review spending records at any time. Your nominee is legally required to give us this information if we ask for it. If they don’t, they may get a fine.
Power of Attorney
You can use a Power of Attorney (POA) or guardianship and administration order to appoint someone to act for you. The POA or order must show they can act on your behalf for financial matters.
They’ll need to give us the following:
- an original or a certified copy of the POA document or guardianship and administration order
- a copy of their identity document.
An identity document can be any of the following:
- Australian birth certificate
- Australian citizenship certificate
- Australian driver’s licence
- valid Australian passport
- foreign passport with a current Australian visa
- ImmiCard.
They can visit a service centre, agent or access point to prove their identity.
Someone to only ask questions for you
You can authorise a person or organisation to only ask questions for you. They can ask us about your Centrelink payments and services, including aged care costs.
We call them a person permitted to enquire.
What they can do
A person permitted to enquire can ask us questions about:
- your Centrelink payment amount and aged care costs
- why a payment has stopped and what you need to do
- changes to payments and aged care costs.
What they can’t do
A person permitted to enquire can’t:
- make updates to your payments and services
- act or make decisions for you
- sign forms or statements
- get copies of your letters.
Someone to update some of your Centrelink information
You can authorise a person or organisation to ask and make some updates to your Centrelink payments and services. We call them a person permitted to update.
What they can do
A person permitted to update can:
- ask about your Centrelink payment amount and aged care costs
- ask why a payment has stopped and what you need to do
- ask about changes to payments and aged care costs
- tell us about changes to your circumstances
- give us information to update your payments and services.
What they can’t do
A person permitted to update can’t:
- make decisions for you
- sign forms or statements
- get copies of your letters.
An organisation to manage your money
You can ask for your payments to go straight to an organisation for them to manage. We call this a group payment arrangement. Both of these must apply:
- you get a pension
- the organisation is approved for group payment arrangements.
We don’t charge you or the organisation to use a group payment arrangement.
What they can do
Under a group payment arrangement, an organisation can help you manage your money. They can deduct any fees, then transfer the rest to you or hold it in a trust account for when you need it.
Someone to ask about your Status Resolution Support Services payment
You can authorise a person or organisation to ask about your Status Resolution Support Services payment on your behalf.
We will need your approval before we can give them your information.
Find out more about Status Resolution Support Services payment.