A sustainable family payment system

The Australian Government is making changes to the Baby Bonus that maintains support for new parents with the upfront costs of having a baby, while ensuring the family payments system is sustainable into the future.

For babies born on or after 1 July next year, the rate of the Baby Bonus will be:

• $5000 for first children and all multiple births; and
• $3000 for all subsequent children, for example second and third children in a family.

The Baby Bonus will continue to provide Australian families with financial support when a new baby arrives. Paid Parental Leave and Dad & Partner Pay are also available for eligible working parents.

This change recognises that families buy the big ticket nursery items when their first child is born.

Most families don’t face the same upfront costs for a second or third child as they do for the first. Expensive items such as the cot, pram, change table and baby capsule are generally reused for younger siblings.

It’s important that the family payment system is sustainable into the future. Since 2007 we have been delivering new support for families, as well as making responsible and targeted decisions to ensure this support is available to families for the long-term.

This change will deliver a saving of $505.9 million over the forward estimates.

This Labor Government is delivering more assistance than ever for low and middle income families – with Paid Parental Leave and Dad & Partner Pay, dental care for kids, the Schoolkids Bonus, boosts to family payments and the child care rebate, and tax cuts.

This year the Australian Government will deliver more than $20 billion in payments to support low and middle income families.

The Government has found savings to keep our budget in good shape and to deliver on Labor priorities – like Paid Parental Leave, the biggest pension increase in our history and the Schoolkids Bonus.

Maintaining strong fiscal discipline gives the Reserve Bank the maximum flexibility to cut rates as it has decided to do a number of times recently, benefiting millions of Australian families.

In fact, a family with a $300,000 mortgage is now paying $4,500 a year less in repayments than they were under the previous government.