Medicare follows residence and a visa, and it reaches a New Zealander on the day they land
This replaces the general rule for you
New Zealand citizens: Medicare from the day they are lawfully present
The definition of Australian resident in section 3(1) of the Health Insurance Act 1973 lists New Zealand citizenship with lawful presence in Australia alongside Australian citizenship and a permanent visa. There is no qualifying period and no permanent visa requirement, and lawful presence is supplied by the Special Category visa granted on arrival. A New Zealander is therefore an eligible person for Medicare on the same footing as a citizen, which is a markedly better position than the one the same person holds under the Social Security Act 1991, where entitlement turns on having been in Australia on 26 February 2001.
Medicare benefits are payable for a professional service rendered to an eligible person, and an eligible person is an Australian resident or an eligible overseas representative. The definition of Australian resident in section 3(1) of the Health Insurance Act 1973 is not the tax definition and not the social security definition: it requires residing in Australia plus one of a short list of statuses, and the third item on that list is a New Zealand citizen who is lawfully present in Australia. No qualifying period, no permanent visa, no waiting. Holders of ordinary temporary visas are outside it unless they have applied for a permanent visa and clear a set of exclusions. For visitors, section 7 authorises reciprocal agreements with other countries under which a visitor is treated as an eligible person - and it names no country at all.
At a glance
- Qualifying period for a New Zealand citizen
- None: paragraph (c) of the definition of Australian resident in section 3(1) of the Health Insurance Act 1973 asks only for New Zealand citizenship and lawful presence in Australia
Lawful presence is supplied by the Special Category visa itself, which is granted on arrival under section 32 of the Migration Act 1958.
- Countries with a Reciprocal Health Care Agreement
- 11, named by Services Australia as Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom
The names are the agency's, not an instrument's. No Act, regulation or order read for this record names any of them.
- The one agreement Services Australia prints a limit on
- Italy: cover for a period of 6 months while the visitor is here, where the other ten sections state no period
The limit is in the agency's own words on the page that lists the countries. The agreement itself is in the Australian Treaty Series and was not read.
- Countries named in the Health Insurance Act 1973
- None: section 7 authorises an agreement with the Government of another country and names no country, and the stored reading of the Health Insurance Regulations 2018 contains no mention of a reciprocal agreement
The agreements themselves are treaties and are published in the Australian Treaty Series, not on the Federal Register of Legislation.
Requirements
- Residing in Australia, plus Australian citizenship, a permanent visa, a resident return visa or endorsement, or New Zealand citizenship with lawful presence
- A holder of an ordinary temporary visa qualifies only by having applied for a permanent visa that has not been finally determined, and only if the protection-visa and parent-visa exclusions in paragraph (f) do not apply
- A visitor from a reciprocal agreement country is treated as an eligible person during the stay, subject to the agreement's own terms
- Enrolment is with Services Australia; the Act makes eligibility a matter of status rather than of registration
In detail
Three statutes, three meanings of resident
Australia uses the word resident in three places in this corpus and means something different each time. For income tax, section 6(1) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 asks whether a person resides in Australia and adds a domicile test, a half-year test and a superannuation test. For social security, section 7(2) of the Social Security Act 1991 requires residing in Australia plus citizenship, a permanent visa, or Special Category visa status that is protected under a rule dated to February 2001. For Medicare, section 3(1) of the Health Insurance Act 1973 requires residing in Australia plus a status from its own list, and that list puts a New Zealand citizen who is lawfully present in Australia alongside a citizen and a permanent visa holder with no date and no waiting period. A New Zealander who arrived last week is covered by Medicare and is not an Australian resident for social security.
The reciprocal agreements are not in the statute book
Section 7 of the Health Insurance Act 1973 gives the Commonwealth power to agree with another government that each will treat the other's visitors as its own residents for medical, hospital and other care, and subsection (2) makes a visitor covered by such an agreement an eligible person during their stay. Neither subsection names a country. The Health Insurance Regulations 2018 were read and contain no reference to a reciprocal agreement either. The only instrument on the register with Reciprocal Health Care Agreements in its title is a 2017 order about holders of Subclass 410 retirement visas who applied before December 1998, and it too names no country: it works by reference to the terms of the relevant agreement. The list exists only as a set of treaties and as a page published by Services Australia, which says there are eleven.
What applies to you
New Zealand citizens: Medicare from the day they are lawfully present
The definition of Australian resident in section 3(1) of the Health Insurance Act 1973 lists New Zealand citizenship with lawful presence in Australia alongside Australian citizenship and a permanent visa. There is no qualifying period and no permanent visa requirement, and lawful presence is supplied by the Special Category visa granted on arrival. A New Zealander is therefore an eligible person for Medicare on the same footing as a citizen, which is a markedly better position than the one the same person holds under the Social Security Act 1991, where entitlement turns on having been in Australia on 26 February 2001.
- New Zealand citizenship
- Residing in Australia and lawfully present, which the Special Category visa provides
What the law says
«Australian resident means a person who resides in Australia and who is: (a)an Australian citizen; or (b)a person who is, within the meaning of the Migration Act 1958, the holder of a permanent visa; or (ba)a person who has been granted, or who is included in, a return endorsement or a resident return visa in force under the Migration Act 1958; or (c)a New Zealand citizen who is lawfully present in Australia; or»About this source
The Commonwealth of Australia's statute book, run by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel under the Legislation Act 2003. It carries every Act, legislative instrument and notifiable instrument of the Commonwealth, each as made and as compiled, and it is the only publisher in this corpus whose own enabling Act gives its text a standing in court: section 15ZB of the Legislation Act 2003 says proof is not required in a court or tribunal of the text of a registered law, and section 15ZA presumes an authorised version of a registered compilation correctly shows the law as in force on the compilation date. Addressing is by register identifier rather than by name - C1958A00062 is the Migration Act 1958, F1996B03551 the Migration Regulations 1994 - and /latest/text serves the current compilation. Every compilation page prints its compilation number, its compilation date and the last amending Act or instrument taken into account.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Three things, each of which has already bitten. First, an unknown identifier does not 404: the site serves its own home page, so a wrong guess looks like a short page of search boxes rather than an error, and an absence inferred from one would be invented. Second, a long instrument is served in volumes and /latest/text gives volume 1 only - the Migration Regulations 1994 run to four volumes and Schedule 2, where every visa subclass actually lives, is in volumes 2 and 3 at a separate address. Third, and most important, nothing in the HTML served at /latest/text claims to be an authorised version. Section 15ZA makes an electronic copy one only if it is downloaded from an approved website in a format prescribed by the rules and either the site or the copy says so in the way the rules prescribe; the Act's own example of such a format is a locked pdf file. The words authorised version do not occur anywhere in any of the readings stored from this publisher except in the Legislation Act 2003 itself, so what we quote is the register's text without the status the register is able to give it. The presumption in section 15ZA(5)(h) is also expressly subject to section 15Q(4), under which a compilation need not take account of a retrospective commencement, so a compilation can be accurate on its face and behind the law. It is not a source for the Immigration Rules equivalent - departmental policy and procedural advice are published by Home Affairs, not here - nor for any state or territory law, which has its own register, nor for the text of a treaty, which is published in the Australian Treaty Series.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«eligible person means an Australian resident or an eligible overseas representative.»About this source
The Commonwealth of Australia's statute book, run by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel under the Legislation Act 2003. It carries every Act, legislative instrument and notifiable instrument of the Commonwealth, each as made and as compiled, and it is the only publisher in this corpus whose own enabling Act gives its text a standing in court: section 15ZB of the Legislation Act 2003 says proof is not required in a court or tribunal of the text of a registered law, and section 15ZA presumes an authorised version of a registered compilation correctly shows the law as in force on the compilation date. Addressing is by register identifier rather than by name - C1958A00062 is the Migration Act 1958, F1996B03551 the Migration Regulations 1994 - and /latest/text serves the current compilation. Every compilation page prints its compilation number, its compilation date and the last amending Act or instrument taken into account.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Three things, each of which has already bitten. First, an unknown identifier does not 404: the site serves its own home page, so a wrong guess looks like a short page of search boxes rather than an error, and an absence inferred from one would be invented. Second, a long instrument is served in volumes and /latest/text gives volume 1 only - the Migration Regulations 1994 run to four volumes and Schedule 2, where every visa subclass actually lives, is in volumes 2 and 3 at a separate address. Third, and most important, nothing in the HTML served at /latest/text claims to be an authorised version. Section 15ZA makes an electronic copy one only if it is downloaded from an approved website in a format prescribed by the rules and either the site or the copy says so in the way the rules prescribe; the Act's own example of such a format is a locked pdf file. The words authorised version do not occur anywhere in any of the readings stored from this publisher except in the Legislation Act 2003 itself, so what we quote is the register's text without the status the register is able to give it. The presumption in section 15ZA(5)(h) is also expressly subject to section 15Q(4), under which a compilation need not take account of a retrospective commencement, so a compilation can be accurate on its face and behind the law. It is not a source for the Immigration Rules equivalent - departmental policy and procedural advice are published by Home Affairs, not here - nor for any state or territory law, which has its own register, nor for the text of a treaty, which is published in the Australian Treaty Series.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«10Entitlement to Medicare benefit (1)Where, on or after 1February 1984, medical expenses are incurred in respect of a professional service rendered in Australia to an eligible person, medicare benefit calculated in accordance with subsection(2) is payable, subject to and in accordance with this Act, in respect of that professional service.»About this source
The Commonwealth of Australia's statute book, run by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel under the Legislation Act 2003. It carries every Act, legislative instrument and notifiable instrument of the Commonwealth, each as made and as compiled, and it is the only publisher in this corpus whose own enabling Act gives its text a standing in court: section 15ZB of the Legislation Act 2003 says proof is not required in a court or tribunal of the text of a registered law, and section 15ZA presumes an authorised version of a registered compilation correctly shows the law as in force on the compilation date. Addressing is by register identifier rather than by name - C1958A00062 is the Migration Act 1958, F1996B03551 the Migration Regulations 1994 - and /latest/text serves the current compilation. Every compilation page prints its compilation number, its compilation date and the last amending Act or instrument taken into account.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Three things, each of which has already bitten. First, an unknown identifier does not 404: the site serves its own home page, so a wrong guess looks like a short page of search boxes rather than an error, and an absence inferred from one would be invented. Second, a long instrument is served in volumes and /latest/text gives volume 1 only - the Migration Regulations 1994 run to four volumes and Schedule 2, where every visa subclass actually lives, is in volumes 2 and 3 at a separate address. Third, and most important, nothing in the HTML served at /latest/text claims to be an authorised version. Section 15ZA makes an electronic copy one only if it is downloaded from an approved website in a format prescribed by the rules and either the site or the copy says so in the way the rules prescribe; the Act's own example of such a format is a locked pdf file. The words authorised version do not occur anywhere in any of the readings stored from this publisher except in the Legislation Act 2003 itself, so what we quote is the register's text without the status the register is able to give it. The presumption in section 15ZA(5)(h) is also expressly subject to section 15Q(4), under which a compilation need not take account of a retrospective commencement, so a compilation can be accurate on its face and behind the law. It is not a source for the Immigration Rules equivalent - departmental policy and procedural advice are published by Home Affairs, not here - nor for any state or territory law, which has its own register, nor for the text of a treaty, which is published in the Australian Treaty Series.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«7Agreement for reciprocal treatment of visitors to Australia and other countries (1)The Government of the Commonwealth may enter into an agreement with the Government of another country under which each Government agrees to arrange for visitors to the country of that Government from the country of that other Government to be treated, for the purpose of the provision of medical, hospital and other care, as if they were residents or citizens of the country of that Government. (2)A visitor to Australia to whom an agreement under subsection(1) relates shall, subject to the agreement, be treated as an eligible person for the purposes of this Act during his or her stay in Australia.»The power is to make agreements; the agreements are treaties and are not registered on the Federal Register of Legislation. The statute therefore cannot tell a reader which countries are covered.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Commonwealth of Australia's statute book, run by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel under the Legislation Act 2003. It carries every Act, legislative instrument and notifiable instrument of the Commonwealth, each as made and as compiled, and it is the only publisher in this corpus whose own enabling Act gives its text a standing in court: section 15ZB of the Legislation Act 2003 says proof is not required in a court or tribunal of the text of a registered law, and section 15ZA presumes an authorised version of a registered compilation correctly shows the law as in force on the compilation date. Addressing is by register identifier rather than by name - C1958A00062 is the Migration Act 1958, F1996B03551 the Migration Regulations 1994 - and /latest/text serves the current compilation. Every compilation page prints its compilation number, its compilation date and the last amending Act or instrument taken into account.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Three things, each of which has already bitten. First, an unknown identifier does not 404: the site serves its own home page, so a wrong guess looks like a short page of search boxes rather than an error, and an absence inferred from one would be invented. Second, a long instrument is served in volumes and /latest/text gives volume 1 only - the Migration Regulations 1994 run to four volumes and Schedule 2, where every visa subclass actually lives, is in volumes 2 and 3 at a separate address. Third, and most important, nothing in the HTML served at /latest/text claims to be an authorised version. Section 15ZA makes an electronic copy one only if it is downloaded from an approved website in a format prescribed by the rules and either the site or the copy says so in the way the rules prescribe; the Act's own example of such a format is a locked pdf file. The words authorised version do not occur anywhere in any of the readings stored from this publisher except in the Legislation Act 2003 itself, so what we quote is the register's text without the status the register is able to give it. The presumption in section 15ZA(5)(h) is also expressly subject to section 15Q(4), under which a compilation need not take account of a retrospective commencement, so a compilation can be accurate on its face and behind the law. It is not a source for the Immigration Rules equivalent - departmental policy and procedural advice are published by Home Affairs, not here - nor for any state or territory law, which has its own register, nor for the text of a treaty, which is published in the Australian Treaty Series.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«(f)a person who: (i)is, within the meaning of the Migration Act 1958, the holder of a temporary visa; and (ia)is not covered by regulations made under subsection6A(1); and (ii)has applied for a permanent visa under that Act and the application has not been withdrawn or otherwise finally determined; and»The subparagraphs that follow exclude a person who has made a protection visa application together with a parent visa application, and a person who has applied for a parent visa.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Commonwealth of Australia's statute book, run by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel under the Legislation Act 2003. It carries every Act, legislative instrument and notifiable instrument of the Commonwealth, each as made and as compiled, and it is the only publisher in this corpus whose own enabling Act gives its text a standing in court: section 15ZB of the Legislation Act 2003 says proof is not required in a court or tribunal of the text of a registered law, and section 15ZA presumes an authorised version of a registered compilation correctly shows the law as in force on the compilation date. Addressing is by register identifier rather than by name - C1958A00062 is the Migration Act 1958, F1996B03551 the Migration Regulations 1994 - and /latest/text serves the current compilation. Every compilation page prints its compilation number, its compilation date and the last amending Act or instrument taken into account.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Three things, each of which has already bitten. First, an unknown identifier does not 404: the site serves its own home page, so a wrong guess looks like a short page of search boxes rather than an error, and an absence inferred from one would be invented. Second, a long instrument is served in volumes and /latest/text gives volume 1 only - the Migration Regulations 1994 run to four volumes and Schedule 2, where every visa subclass actually lives, is in volumes 2 and 3 at a separate address. Third, and most important, nothing in the HTML served at /latest/text claims to be an authorised version. Section 15ZA makes an electronic copy one only if it is downloaded from an approved website in a format prescribed by the rules and either the site or the copy says so in the way the rules prescribe; the Act's own example of such a format is a locked pdf file. The words authorised version do not occur anywhere in any of the readings stored from this publisher except in the Legislation Act 2003 itself, so what we quote is the register's text without the status the register is able to give it. The presumption in section 15ZA(5)(h) is also expressly subject to section 15Q(4), under which a compilation need not take account of a retrospective commencement, so a compilation can be accurate on its face and behind the law. It is not a source for the Immigration Rules equivalent - departmental policy and procedural advice are published by Home Affairs, not here - nor for any state or territory law, which has its own register, nor for the text of a treaty, which is published in the Australian Treaty Series.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The eleven countries are named by Services Australia and by nothing else read for this record: section 7 of the Health Insurance Act 1973 authorises an agreement with the Government of another country and names none, the Health Insurance Regulations 2018 do not mention a reciprocal agreement at all, and the Health Insurance (Eligible persons Reciprocal Health Care Agreements and holders of subclass 410 visa) Order 2017 refers to the agreements as a class without listing them. The agreements themselves are treaties published in the Australian Treaty Series, which was not read. The agency's page carries a last-updated date of 10 December 2021, so it is five years old on its own face.
A reciprocal agreement covers medically necessary care during a visit on the agreement's own terms, not the whole of Medicare, and the Act says so: a visitor is treated as an eligible person subject to the agreement.
This record does not cover the Medicare levy or the Medicare levy surcharge, which are imposed by other Acts and were not read, nor private health insurance.
- consolidatesHealth Insurance Act 1973, compilation 136, volume 1 (sections 1 to 106ZR)
Office of Parliamentary Counsel, Federal Register of Legislation · consolidated to 2026-09-19
About this source
The Commonwealth of Australia's statute book, run by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel under the Legislation Act 2003. It carries every Act, legislative instrument and notifiable instrument of the Commonwealth, each as made and as compiled, and it is the only publisher in this corpus whose own enabling Act gives its text a standing in court: section 15ZB of the Legislation Act 2003 says proof is not required in a court or tribunal of the text of a registered law, and section 15ZA presumes an authorised version of a registered compilation correctly shows the law as in force on the compilation date. Addressing is by register identifier rather than by name - C1958A00062 is the Migration Act 1958, F1996B03551 the Migration Regulations 1994 - and /latest/text serves the current compilation. Every compilation page prints its compilation number, its compilation date and the last amending Act or instrument taken into account.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Three things, each of which has already bitten. First, an unknown identifier does not 404: the site serves its own home page, so a wrong guess looks like a short page of search boxes rather than an error, and an absence inferred from one would be invented. Second, a long instrument is served in volumes and /latest/text gives volume 1 only - the Migration Regulations 1994 run to four volumes and Schedule 2, where every visa subclass actually lives, is in volumes 2 and 3 at a separate address. Third, and most important, nothing in the HTML served at /latest/text claims to be an authorised version. Section 15ZA makes an electronic copy one only if it is downloaded from an approved website in a format prescribed by the rules and either the site or the copy says so in the way the rules prescribe; the Act's own example of such a format is a locked pdf file. The words authorised version do not occur anywhere in any of the readings stored from this publisher except in the Legislation Act 2003 itself, so what we quote is the register's text without the status the register is able to give it. The presumption in section 15ZA(5)(h) is also expressly subject to section 15Q(4), under which a compilation need not take account of a retrospective commencement, so a compilation can be accurate on its face and behind the law. It is not a source for the Immigration Rules equivalent - departmental policy and procedural advice are published by Home Affairs, not here - nor for any state or territory law, which has its own register, nor for the text of a treaty, which is published in the Australian Treaty Series.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- consolidatesHealth Insurance (Eligible persons Reciprocal Health Care Agreements and holders of subclass 410 visa) Order 2017
Office of Parliamentary Counsel, Federal Register of Legislation
About this source
The Commonwealth of Australia's statute book, run by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel under the Legislation Act 2003. It carries every Act, legislative instrument and notifiable instrument of the Commonwealth, each as made and as compiled, and it is the only publisher in this corpus whose own enabling Act gives its text a standing in court: section 15ZB of the Legislation Act 2003 says proof is not required in a court or tribunal of the text of a registered law, and section 15ZA presumes an authorised version of a registered compilation correctly shows the law as in force on the compilation date. Addressing is by register identifier rather than by name - C1958A00062 is the Migration Act 1958, F1996B03551 the Migration Regulations 1994 - and /latest/text serves the current compilation. Every compilation page prints its compilation number, its compilation date and the last amending Act or instrument taken into account.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Three things, each of which has already bitten. First, an unknown identifier does not 404: the site serves its own home page, so a wrong guess looks like a short page of search boxes rather than an error, and an absence inferred from one would be invented. Second, a long instrument is served in volumes and /latest/text gives volume 1 only - the Migration Regulations 1994 run to four volumes and Schedule 2, where every visa subclass actually lives, is in volumes 2 and 3 at a separate address. Third, and most important, nothing in the HTML served at /latest/text claims to be an authorised version. Section 15ZA makes an electronic copy one only if it is downloaded from an approved website in a format prescribed by the rules and either the site or the copy says so in the way the rules prescribe; the Act's own example of such a format is a locked pdf file. The words authorised version do not occur anywhere in any of the readings stored from this publisher except in the Legislation Act 2003 itself, so what we quote is the register's text without the status the register is able to give it. The presumption in section 15ZA(5)(h) is also expressly subject to section 15Q(4), under which a compilation need not take account of a retrospective commencement, so a compilation can be accurate on its face and behind the law. It is not a source for the Immigration Rules equivalent - departmental policy and procedural advice are published by Home Affairs, not here - nor for any state or territory law, which has its own register, nor for the text of a treaty, which is published in the Australian Treaty Series.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- consolidatesHealth Insurance Regulations 2018
Office of Parliamentary Counsel, Federal Register of Legislation
About this source
The Commonwealth of Australia's statute book, run by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel under the Legislation Act 2003. It carries every Act, legislative instrument and notifiable instrument of the Commonwealth, each as made and as compiled, and it is the only publisher in this corpus whose own enabling Act gives its text a standing in court: section 15ZB of the Legislation Act 2003 says proof is not required in a court or tribunal of the text of a registered law, and section 15ZA presumes an authorised version of a registered compilation correctly shows the law as in force on the compilation date. Addressing is by register identifier rather than by name - C1958A00062 is the Migration Act 1958, F1996B03551 the Migration Regulations 1994 - and /latest/text serves the current compilation. Every compilation page prints its compilation number, its compilation date and the last amending Act or instrument taken into account.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Three things, each of which has already bitten. First, an unknown identifier does not 404: the site serves its own home page, so a wrong guess looks like a short page of search boxes rather than an error, and an absence inferred from one would be invented. Second, a long instrument is served in volumes and /latest/text gives volume 1 only - the Migration Regulations 1994 run to four volumes and Schedule 2, where every visa subclass actually lives, is in volumes 2 and 3 at a separate address. Third, and most important, nothing in the HTML served at /latest/text claims to be an authorised version. Section 15ZA makes an electronic copy one only if it is downloaded from an approved website in a format prescribed by the rules and either the site or the copy says so in the way the rules prescribe; the Act's own example of such a format is a locked pdf file. The words authorised version do not occur anywhere in any of the readings stored from this publisher except in the Legislation Act 2003 itself, so what we quote is the register's text without the status the register is able to give it. The presumption in section 15ZA(5)(h) is also expressly subject to section 15Q(4), under which a compilation need not take account of a retrospective commencement, so a compilation can be accurate on its face and behind the law. It is not a source for the Immigration Rules equivalent - departmental policy and procedural advice are published by Home Affairs, not here - nor for any state or territory law, which has its own register, nor for the text of a treaty, which is published in the Australian Treaty Series.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- administersReciprocal Health Care Agreements
Services Australia (Medicare)
About this source
The Commonwealth agency that runs Medicare, enrols people in it and pays Medicare benefits under the Health Insurance Act 1973. Its pages are the only published place that names the countries Australia has a Reciprocal Health Care Agreement with: the Act authorises those agreements in section 7 and names none of them, and the Health Insurance Regulations 2018 do not mention them at all. Each page prints the date it was last updated and a QC number.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It states what the agency does, not what the law says, and it is not an instrument: a page describing eligibility is the agency's reading of the Health Insurance Act 1973 and of the agreements, and where the two differ the Act and the agreement govern. The country count on the landing page is not a list - the names are on a separate page which could not be read from here. It cannot be cited for anything outside Medicare, Centrelink and Child Support, and it is not a source for the text of any reciprocal agreement, which is published in the Australian Treaty Series.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
- administersReciprocal Health Care Agreements - When you visit Australia
Services Australia (Medicare)
About this source
The Commonwealth agency that runs Medicare, enrols people in it and pays Medicare benefits under the Health Insurance Act 1973. Its pages are the only published place that names the countries Australia has a Reciprocal Health Care Agreement with: the Act authorises those agreements in section 7 and names none of them, and the Health Insurance Regulations 2018 do not mention them at all. Each page prints the date it was last updated and a QC number.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It states what the agency does, not what the law says, and it is not an instrument: a page describing eligibility is the agency's reading of the Health Insurance Act 1973 and of the agreements, and where the two differ the Act and the agreement govern. The country count on the landing page is not a list - the names are on a separate page which could not be read from here. It cannot be cited for anything outside Medicare, Centrelink and Child Support, and it is not a source for the text of any reciprocal agreement, which is published in the Australian Treaty Series.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source