ANNUAL LEAVE

1.1.   ANNUAL HOLIDAYS

You are entitled to accrue annual leave in accordance with the NES, unless otherwise stated in your contract of employment. For the avoidance of doubt, casual employees are not entitled to annual leave. Your annual leave pay will be at your normal basic pay unless shown otherwise in your contract of employment.

It is the Employer’s policy to encourage you to take all your holiday entitlement in the current year.

You must complete the Leave Request Form, and have it signed by management before you make any firm holiday arrangements.

You must give at least four weeks’ notice of your intention to take annual leave of a week or more and one week’s notice is required for odd single days.

Annual leave dates will normally be allocated on a “first come, first served” basis whilst ensuring that operational efficiency and appropriate staffing levels are maintained throughout the year.

The Employer may experience busy periods during the year and therefore may not be able to accommodate any requests for annual leave during these periods.

Due to the nature of the business, the Employer can only accommodate a limited number of employees taking annual leave at the same time.

1.2   PUBLIC HOLIDAYS

Your entitlement to public holidays is in accordance with the NES, unless otherwise stated in your individual contract of employment. However, due to the nature of the Employer’s work, you may be reasonably required to work a public holiday. You will be given advance notice if work on a public holiday is required.

PERSONAL LEAVE

2.1. ENTITLEMENTS

You are entitled to be paid for personal leave in accordance with the NES, unless otherwise stated in your contract of employment. For the avoidance of doubt, casual employees are not entitled to paid personal leave.

Paid personal leave accrues over the course of your employment.

Employees (other than casuals) will accrue up to ten days of paid personal/carer’s leave for each year of continuous service in accordance with the provisions of the Fair Work Act 2009.

Personal leave accrues, and will be credited to you, progressively throughout the year. Unused leave will not be paid out on termination.

You are entitled to take personal leave:

• because you are not fit for work due to a personal illness or personal injury affecting you or

• to provide care or support to a member of your immediate family, or a member of your household who requires your care and support because of:

• a personal illness or injury affecting the member or

• a sudden or unexpected emergency affecting the member.

If your entitlement to personal leave is exhausted, you may take two days’ unpaid carer’s leave for each occasion when a member of your immediate family or a member of your household requires your care and support because of:

• a personal illness or personal injury affecting the member or

• a sudden or unexpected emergency affecting the member.

An immediate family member is a:

• spouse

• de facto partner

• child

• parent

• grandparent

• grandchild

• sibling or

• child, parent, grandparent, grandchild or sibling of the employee’s spouse or de facto partner.

A household member is any person who lives with you.

2.2. NOTIFICATION OF PERSONAL LEAVE

You must notify the Employer by telephone on the first day of incapacity or at the earliest possible opportunity and, in any case, by no later than two hours before your usual start time. Text messages and e-mails are not an acceptable method of notification. Other than in exceptional circumstances notification should be made personally to your manager.

You should try to give an indication of your expected return date and notify the Employer as soon as possible if this date changes. The notification procedures should be followed on each day of absence unless you are covered by a doctor’s medical certificate. If your incapacity extends to more than seven days you are required to notify us of your continued incapacity once a week thereafter, unless otherwise agreed.

2.3. EVIDENCE

A medical certificate from a registered health practitioner or if not reasonably practical, a statutory declaration is required for all personal leave, unless otherwise agreed by the Employer in specific circumstances. The Employer retains the discretion to require evidence for carer’s leave. The Employer will notify you of this requirement as appropriate.

2.4. RETURN TO WORK

You should notify your manager as soon as you know on which day you will be returning to work, if this differs from a date of return previously notified.

On return to work after any period of personal leave, you may be required to attend a return-to-work interview to discuss the state of your health and fitness for work. Information arising from such an interview will be treated with strictest confidence.

You may be required to provide a certificate from your own doctor stating that you are fit to return to your duties. This will always be required where you have suffered a workplace injury/illness that required medical treatment. If you have been suffering from an infectious or contagious disease or illness such as rubella or hepatitis, you must not report for work without clearance from your own doctor.

2.5. GENERAL

Submission of a medical certificate may not always be regarded as sufficient justification for accepting your absence. Sickness is just one of a number of reasons for absence and although it is understandable that if you are sick, you may need time off, continual or repeated absence through sickness may not be acceptable to the Employer.

In deciding whether your absence is acceptable, the Employer will take into account the reasons for your absences and extent of them, including any absence caused by sickness/injury. We cannot operate with an excessive level of absence as all absence, for whatever reason, reduces the Employer’s ability to operate successfully.

The Employer will not tolerate any non-genuine absences, and any such instances will result in disciplinary action being taken. If considered necessary, we reserve the right to ask your permission to contact your doctor and/or for you to be independently medically examined.

OTHER LEAVE

3.1. PARENTAL LEAVE

If you or your partner become pregnant or are notified of a match date for adoption purposes, you should notify management at an early stage so that your entitlements and obligations can be explained to you.

Under the NES, employees who will have at least 12 months of continuous service as at the expected date of birth of the child, are entitled to 52 weeks of unpaid parental leave. Casuals with regular on-going work are also entitled to unpaid parental leave. You may request an additional 52 weeks of leave which will only be refused by the Employer on reasonable business grounds.

You may take up to 30 days of your entitlement to parental leave as unpaid flexible parental leave. Flexible parental leave can be taken in a single continuous period of one or more days or separate periods of one or more days each. Flexible parental leave can be used in the 24-month period from the date of birth or placement of the child, however, cannot be taken before any other period of parental leave.

Other forms of leave, such as annual leave and long service leave, may be taken concurrently with parental leave, but when combined with the unpaid parental leave must not exceed the 52-week period.

Leave is available only to the primary caregiver of the child, except at the birth of the child where the other parent is entitled to eight weeks of concurrent unpaid leave. Any parental leave taken by the other parent will be deducted from the total entitlement of 52 weeks unpaid leave.

You must give the Employer at least ten weeks prior notice of your intention to take unpaid parental leave. This can be done in accordance with the Employer’s leave application procedures.

When advising of your intention to take unpaid parental leave you must provide the following:

• a medical certificate indicating the expected date of birth of the child, or, where the leave is adoption related, the expected date of placement

• an expected return date and

• details of any parental leave your partner intends to take.

You may be entitled to government funded parental leave. The Paid Parental Leave scheme is fully funded by the Australian Government. Employees who are expecting a child or adopting a child are eligible for up to 18 weeks of paid Parental Leave at the rate of the National Minimum Wage if they meet the Eligibility criteria. For further details, eligibility criteria and to apply for this payment please refer to Service Australia.

You may be entitled to two weeks of Dad and Partner Pay by the Government at the national minimum wage. To be entitled to Dad and Partner pay, you must:

• be the child’s biological father, partner of the birth mother, an adoptive parent, partner of an adoptive parent or the person caring for a child born of a surrogacy arrangement

• be on a period of unpaid leave during the requested period

• care for a newborn or newly adopted child during the requested period and

• satisfy the means test requirements.

Requests are to be made via the Parental Leave Request Form, and the employee and the Employer will need to reach an agreement as to your unpaid leave period. For further details and to apply for this payment please refer to Service Australia

3.2. COMPASSIONATE LEAVE

Full time and part time employees are entitled to two days paid compassionate leave for each occasion when:

• a member of the employee’s immediate family or a member of the employee’s household:

• contracts or develops a personal illness that poses a serious threat to his or her life

• sustains a personal injury that poses a serious threat to his or her life

• dies or

• a child is stillborn, where the child would have been a member of the employee’s immediate family, or a member of the employee’s household, if the child had been born alive or

• the employee, or the employee’s current spouse or de facto partner, has a miscarriage.

For casual employees, compassionate leave is unpaid.

3.3. LONG SERVICE LEAVE

You are entitled to long service leave in accordance with the relevant laws of the state in which you are employed. Long service leave should be taken as soon as reasonably practicable after you become entitled to it.

3.4. COMMUNITY SERVICE LEAVE

You are entitled to community service leave in certain circumstances. Community service leave is for eligible community service activities such as SES and volunteer fire fighting. Community service is generally unpaid.

Your entitlement for payment for Jury Duty will depend on the relevant state and federal legislation.

3.5. FAMILY AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LEAVE

You are entitled to five days of unpaid family and domestic violence leave per annum.

This leave is available to you if you are experiencing violent, threatening or other abusive behaviour by a family member that seeks to coerce or control you and that causes you harm or fear. The leave can be taken where you need to do something to deal with this impact of this, and it is impractical to do so outside of your ordinary hours of work. For example, you may take this leave to:

• make arrangements for your safety, or the safety of a family member (including relocation)

• attend urgent court hearings or

• access police services.

For the purposes of this leave entitlement, family member includes:

• your spouse, de facto partner (including a former spouse or de facto partner), child, parent, grandparent, grandchild or sibling

• a child, parent, grandparent, grandchild or sibling of your spouse or de facto partner, or

• a person related to you according to Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander kinship rules.

Your entitlement to family and domestic violence leave will reset to five days on the anniversary of your commencement each year.

When you wish to take this leave, you are required to provide the Employer with notice as soon as reasonably practicable and advise of the period (or expected period) of the leave.

The Employer may require you to provide evidence that the leave will be, or was, taken for the purposes as outlined in this policy. Depending on the circumstances such evidence may include a document issued by the police service, a court or a family violence support service, or a statutory declaration.

The Employer will ensure, as far as reasonably practicable, that steps are taken to safeguard any information disclosed by yourself concerning family and domestic violence leave. This information will be kept confidential to the extent permitted by law. This policy does not override any legal obligations to disclose information.

3.6. TIME OFF

Circumstances may arise where you need time off for medical/dental appointments, or for other reasons.

Where possible, such appointments should be made outside normal working hours. If this is not possible, time off required for these purposes may be granted at the discretion of management and will normally be without pay.

Forms and Registers

Document Number	Document Name

Amendment Record

Issue#: 1 Issue Date: 13/7/2022

Rev#	Date	Section#	Para.#	Description of Change	Prepared By	Approved By
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Click here to download OM00054 – Employee Leave entitlement policy

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