From 1 January 2010, the National Employment Standards (NES) replace the non-pay rate provisions of the Australian Fair Pay and Conditions Standard (the Standard).
Entitlements to personal / carer’s leave and compassionate leave under the NES are:
Paid personal / carer’s leave
- Who: for all employees except casuals.
- When: when the employee is sick or injured or when the employee needs to care for an immediate family or household member who's sick, injured or has an unexpected emergency.
- Immediate family is an employee's:
- spouse
- de facto partner
- child
- parent
- grandparent
- grandchild
- sibling, or a
- child, parent, grandparent, grandchild or sibling of the employee's spouse or de facto partner.
You can use the Leave Calculator to calculate personal leave entitlements under the NES.
Unpaid carer's leave
- Who: for all employees, including casuals.
- When: same as for paid carer’s leave. (Full and part-time employees can only use this when they have used up all of their paid personal / carer’s leave).
Paid compassionate leave
- Who: for all employees except casuals
- When: an immediate family or household member:
- gets an injury or illness that threatens their life; or
- dies.
Unpaid compassionate leave
- Who: for casual employees only.
- When: same as for paid compassionate leave.
Note: An employee is not entitled to take or acrue any personal / carer's leave or compassionate leave while getting worker's compensation payments. This applies unless there's an applicable federal, state or territory law about workers compensation that says otherwise.