Leave entitlements

Your specific leave entitlements may differ under various laws, awards or agreements. The following is a general guide to the main types of leave available for permanent employees.

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If you are a permanent employee (full-time or regular part-time) or an employee engaged for a fixed-term contract of employment, you are normally entitled to various types of paid and unpaid leave, and to about 10 paid public holidays throughout the year. Regular part-time employees generally receive, on a pro rata basis, annual leave equivalent to that of full-time employees who do the same type of work.

For example, if you were employed half-time (19 hours per week) and were entitled to four weeks recreation leave, you would be entitled to four weeks annual leave per year at a rate of 19 hours per week (i.e. 76 hours).

Casual employees (including part-time casual) are normally not entitled to any sort of leave or paid public holidays. Instead they receive a higher rate of pay (a ‘casual loading’). But laws, awards and agreements sometimes give long-term casual workers (usually casual workers who have worked regularly for the same employer for over 12 months) some leave entitlements.

Annual leave

Full-time employees normally receive a minimum of four weeks of annual or recreation leave each year. If you regularly work on a shift work roster, you may get five or more weeks.

Some employers have rules about how much annual leave you can build up by not taking your full quota each year. For instance, some employees may not accumulate more than six weeks annual leave.

Sometimes an award or agreement gives you ‘annual leave loading’ (around 17.5 per cent). Sometimes the annual leave loading is absorbed into the base pay rates in awards and agreements and is not paid as a separate component of your wage.

Sick leave

Employees generally receive 5–10 days paid sick per year. Sometimes sick leave is accrued over the period of employment. Sometimes a sickness certificate from a medical practitioner must be provided in order for the leave to be paid.

Parental leave

Parental leave refers to maternity leave (for women), paternity leave (for men) and adoption leave. You may be eligible if you are a long-term casual employee.

Maternity leave

Awards or agreements may also allow maternity leave to commence up to six weeks before the birth. Some part of the leave may also be paid leave under an award or agreement.

Paternity leave

Fathers may be eligible to take paternity leave at the time of birth of a child, and may also take another period of paternity leave afterwards. Some part of the leave may be paid leave under an award or agreement.

Adoption leave

Some employers offer adoption leave, which can be taken to care for an adopted child.

Bereavement leave

Permanent employees may receive two or three days of paid bereavement leave on the death of a close family member.

Family or carer’s leave

You may be able to take leave to care for ill family members. Where personal leave is available under an award or agreement, it generally replaces separate entitlements for sick leave and bereavement leave, so that personal leave can generally be used for either sick leave, bereavement leave or carer’s leave purposes. Generally, up to five days carer’s leave can be taken each year.

Long service leave

Paid long service leave is awarded to permanent employees (and in some cases, to casual employees) after a specified period of continuous employment with the same employer.

Jury duty

Each state and territory has different rules about jury duty. Generally, your employer must allow you to perform jury duty. If you are called on to serve on a jury during a trial, you may be entitled to paid leave for the time you are on jury duty. Usually the court pays you a certain amount for your service, and your employer is required to make up the difference between the court’s payment and your normal pay.

Minimum leave entitlements (the Australian Fair Pay and Conditions Standard)

The minimum terms and conditions of employment introduced by the WorkChoices workplace relations system are legislated in the Workplace Relations Act 1996. These conditions are set out in Part 7 of the Act, in the Australian Fair Pay and Conditions Standard (the Standard).

These conditions of employment are:

  • minimum and classification-based rates of pay and casual loadings
  • a maximum of 38 ordinary hours of work per week (which can be averaged over a period of up to 12 months, by agreement), plus reasonable additional hours
  • four weeks of paid annual leave per year (5 weeks for shift workers) for full-time employees (pro-rata for part-time employees) – with scope to cash out up to two weeks leave per year
  • ten days of paid personal/carer’s leave per year for full time employees (pro-rata for part time employees), two days of unpaid carer’s leave per occasion and two days of paid compassionate leave per occasion
  • 52 weeks of unpaid parental leave (which may be taken as maternity, paternity and adoption leave).

Workplace agreements and contracts of employment

Terms and conditions of employment in a workplace agreement or contract of employment cannot fall below the minimum entitlements guaranteed by the Standard.

  • The Standard prevails over a workplace agreement or contract of employment to the extent that the Standard provides a more favourable outcome for an employee in a particular respect.
  • The Standard does not apply to pre-reform certified agreements and Australian Workplace Agreements made before the commencement of WorkChoices, or preserved State agreements. These instruments continue according to their terms until they are terminated or replaced.

Awards

Award terms about annual leave, personal/carer’s leave and parental leave are preserved (which means they remain in awards, but cannot be varied) and will continue to apply only where they are more generous to an employee than the Standard.

The 'more generous' test is based on a comparison of the total annual quantum of leave that the employee is entitled to, and is applied on an individual basis.

  • Where a preserved award term provides more leave than the Standard, the preserved term will apply in full, to the exclusion of the Standard, including all administrative rules (e.g. accrual, crediting, accumulation and payment).
  • Conversely, where the Standard provides an equivalent or higher amount of leave than a preserved award term, the Standard applies in full.

Award terms about long service leave, superannuation (until end of 30 June 2008), jury service and notice of termination are also preserved award terms. This means that they continue to apply (for existing and new award reliant employees) but the terms may not be varied by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.

  • The more generous test has no application in relation to these matters as they are not dealt with by the Standard.