High Court delivers sanity in ruling on personal/carer’s leave

In fantastic news for all businesses, the High Court of Australia has sensibly overturned a Federal Court decision which quite unfairly awarded part-time employees the same number of days of paid personal/carer’s leave as full-time employees, regardless of the number of hours that the part-timer actually worked.

For example, a part-time employee working 2 days per week would also have 10 days personal/carer’s leave per annum – effectively 5 weeks paid leave based on their ordinary hours of work.

That was clearly a ridiculous decision which clearly disregarded the obvious intention of the relevant provisions of the Fair Work Act and decades of custom and practice.

What is also great is that, in its decision, the High Court has set some clear and sensible principles as to how to determine how much personal/carer’s leave employees get:

• The 10 day entitlement in the National Employment Standards means two standard five day working weeks
• 1 day is a notional day that represents 1/10th of an employee’s ordinary hours in a fortnight or 1/26th of an employee’s ordinary hours per year

What do you need to do?

You just need to ensure that your administration of personal/carer’s leave and the entitlements that your people receive align with the principles set out above. 

The Fair Work Ombudsman has updated their advice accordingly and this can be accessed here.

If you have any queries, please feel free to contact us at enquiries@ridgelinehr.com.au.