Personal/carer's leave
Personal and carer's leave allows employees take time off to help them deal with personal illness, caring responsibilities and family emergencies.
Personal/carer’s leave accrues progressively throughout the year based on the employee’s ordinary hours of work. It accumulates from year-to-year, so any untaken entitlement from one year carries over to the next.
The yearly entitlement is 10 days for full-time employees. Part-time employees receive personal/carer’s leave on a pro-rata basis based on their ordinary hours of work. All employees (including casuals) have access to unpaid carer’s leave.
Employees generally do not receive payment for untaken personal leave upon termination of their employment unless a modern award or enterprise agreement provides for this entitlement.
An employee may also have to take time off to care for an immediate family or household member who is sick or injured or help during a family emergency. This is known as carer's leave but it comes out of the employee's personal leave balance. Casuals and employees who have exhausted their paid carer’s leave entitlement are permitted to take up to two days unpaid carer’s leave per occasion.
An immediate family member is a:
- spouse or former spouse
- de facto partner or former de facto partner
- child
- parent
- grandparent
- grandchild
- sibling, or
- child, parent, grandparent, grandchild or sibling of the employee's spouse or de facto partner (or former spouse or de facto partner).
This definition includes step-relations (for example, step-parents and step-children) as well as adoptive relations.
A household member is any person who lives with the employee.
Sick and carer's leave accumulates when an employee is on:
- paid leave such as annual leave and sick and carer's leave
- community service leave including jury duty
- long service leave.
Sick and carer's leave doesn’t accumulate when the employee is on:
- unpaid annual leave
- unpaid sick or carer's leave
- unpaid parental leave
- unpaid family and domestic violence leave.
Generally, to take personal/carer’s leave, employees need to notify their employer as soon as practicable and advise of the expected period of the leave. Employers can also request evidence when taking personal/carer’s leave in the form of a medical certificate or a statutory declaration.
Employers can legitimately withhold payment where an employee is not entitled to paid personal/carer’s leave because of a failure to comply with their obligations in relation to notice and/or evidence.Medical appointments and elective surgeries that are pre-arranged will generally only be covered by sick leave if an employee is not able to work because of a personal illness or injury.
Sick and carer’s leave is paid at an employee’s base pay rate for each hour or part of an hour of leave they take. An employee who takes paid sick or carer’s leave is paid for the hours they would normally work during the period they took leave (not including overtime hours).
The base pay rate doesn't include separate entitlements such as:
- incentive-based payments
- bonuses
- loadings
- allowances
- overtime
- penalty rates.
For more information: https://www.fairwork.gov.au/leave/sick-and-carers-leave
Compassionate Leave
Employees can take compassionate leave if:
- a member of their immediate family or household dies, or contracts or develops a life-threatening illness or injury
- a baby in their immediate family or household is stillborn
- they have a miscarriage
- their current spouse or de facto partner has a miscarriage.
Employees are entitled to 2 days compassionate leave each time they meet the criteria, which can be taken as a single continuous 2 day period or 2 separate periods of 1 day each or another arrangement agreed to by the employer.
Employees don't accumulate compassionate leave and it's not a part of their sick and carer's leave entitlement. Employees can take compassionate leave any time they need it.
An employee taking compassionate leave has to give their employer notice as soon as they can (this may be after the leave has started). Provided that it is reasonable, an employer can request evidence about the reason for compassionate leave (for example, a death or funeral notice or statutory declaration).
Fore more information: https://www.fairwork.gov.au/leave/compassionate-and-bereavement-leave
Family and Domestic Leave
(pre February 2023)
All employees (including part-time and casual employees) are entitled to 5 days unpaid family and domestic violence leave each year.
Family and domestic violence means violent, threatening or other abusive behaviour by an employee’s close relative that:
- seeks to coerce or control the employee
- causes them harm or fear.
(from February 2023)
All employees (including part-time and casual employees) are entitled to 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave each year. This replaces the unpaid entitlement. This applies from 1 February 2023 except for employees of small businesses which applies from 1 August 2023. Note, small business employers
The 10 day paid family and domestic violence entitlement will:
- be available to full-time, part-time and casual employees
- be available at the commencement of each year rather than accruing through the year
- be payable at the rate the employee would have earned had they worked instead of taking the leave.
For casual employees, the rate of pay will be worked out as if the employee had worked the hours in the period for which the casual employee was rostered.
For more information: https://www.fairwork.gov.au/leave/family-and-domestic-violence-leave