Australian Permanent Residency Benefits
Australian Permanent Residents enjoy a range of benefits and entitlements when they relocate to Australia.
Few of these are listed below:
Social Security
The Department of Human Services provides social security payments and services through
Centrelink. Centrelink helps newly-arrived permanent residents look for work, find courses or training and with the process for overseas skills recognition.
A new Australian Permanent resident should contact Centrelink on arrival and register themselves and family to claim any benefits.
Australian Permanent residents may be eligible for certain Social Security benefits and payments on relocating to Australia.
For more details contact a nearby Centrelink office.
Healthcare
Australia offers high quality of healthcare services for its citizens and residents. Australian government provides help with medical expenses and hospital care through a scheme called Medicare.
Australian Permanent residents, can receive immediate entitlement to Medicare. This entitles them to:
- Free treatment as a public patient in a public hospital;
- Free or subsidised treatment by doctors in a general practice; and
- Subsidies on some medicines and treatment by participating specialists.
New migrants should visit a nearby Medicare office on arrival with their passports and travel documents to enroll in Medicare.
The government also encourages all Australian residents to take private health insurance, which covers some or all treatments as a private patient in a private or public hospital and can cater for some services that Medicare does not cover (eg. Dental and optical services).
Schooling & Education
Australia offers a high-quality of education for its residents and international students. Public school education provided by State and Territory government is almost free. There are also a number of other private and semi-government funded schools offering a range of choices for both students and parents.
Schooling in Australia is for 13 years. Primary schooling is six or seven years and secondary schooling is five or six years. School education is compulsory until age 15 or 16.
Students holding temporary visas may have to pay higher fees and cannot avail of most subsidies available for Australian Permanent residents and citizens.
After completion of school education, students may enroll in Vocational Education or University studies.
Permanent residents and Australian citizens pay a much lower fee for Higher Education than international students and temporary visa holders.
Australian Permanent residents and citizens can also avail of HECS-HELP. These are federal government loans and subsidies provided to relieve students of the cost of tertiary Education. Australian citizens (and in some cases overseas professionals completing bridging studies in order to be accredited permanent residents) are able to obtain interest free loans from the government under the Higher Education Loan Programme (HELP)
In addition, qualified students may be entitled to Youth Allowance or Austudy Payment to assist them financially while they are studying. These support payments are means and assets tested.
Employment & Business
Australian Permanent residents can seek and work in almost all sectors of the Australian economy including state and federal government jobs. There are a few jobs in the government sector (eg: Defense, Intelligence etc.), which require applicants to hold Australian citizenship before being eligible to apply.
Australian economy is robust and unemployment rates are lowest in a decade. New migrants normally start working in different jobs initially to get experience of the local industry, before settling into a chosen career.
Currently unemployment is very low at just about 4.5% of the population. Australian workplace laws provide a rights and protections for workers which cannot be taken away by contracts. Most sectors of the economy have Industrial relations law that are some of the best in the world.
Australia's employment and recruitment are mainly done through job placement agencies and online job sites, which would account for nearly 150,000 jobs per week.
On arrival most new migrants register with job agencies and recruitment firms who assist in getting a job.
Other benefits of Australian Permanent residency include:
- Ability to sponsor family members for certain Australian visas.
- Children born in Australia to Australian Permanent residents automatically become Australian citizens.
- Australian Permanent residents have right to seek Australian consular assistance while overseas.
Additional advice for new Permanent resident arrivals
Besides applying and availing all of the above benefits, new migrants to Australia must
- Apply for a Tax File Number
- Opening a Bank Account
- Apply and get a Driver’s License etc.
- New Migrants without English language skills can also seek help for learning English through an Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP).
