Unpaid Parental Leave

Employees can take 12 months of unpaid parental leave, and can ask their employer to extend for another 12 months of unpaid parental leave.

To be eligible for parental leave, employees must;

• Have carer’s responsibilities for the child; and
• Have worked for their employer for at least 12 months before the leave starts or expected date of birth of the child if the leave is starting before the birth of a child.

Casual employees are entitled to take unpaid parental leave if they’ve worked for their employer on a regular and systematic basis for at least 12 months. Pregnant employees can start their leave from 6 weeks before the expected date of birth until 24 months from the child being born.

In order to claim unpaid Parental leave:

• Written notice needs to be given to your employer which includes their expected start and end dates and has to be provided at least 10 weeks before the expected start date; and
• If an employee can’t give the appropriate notice, employees are still entitled to take parental leave but have to provide notice as soon as possible.

You can apply to extend your unpaid parental leave period (12 months) for another 12 months. Your request must be made in writing and given to your employer at least 4 weeks before the end of the employee’s initial period of parental leave. Your employer must respond in writing within 21 days

Paid Parental Leave

The Australian Government provides a Paid Parental Leave Scheme which is a payment that supports families when taking time off work to care for a newborn or newly adopted child. The current payment is $882.75 per week before tax.

If your child is born or adopted from 1 July 2024, you are eligible for 110 days or 22 weeks paid parental leave.

If you are in a couple, the most one parent can take is 100 days. The mother or the first parent can give approval to share the parental leave with the second partner. You and your partner can take up to 10 days of paid parental leave together. If you are a single parent you get the full 110 days.

You can use your paid parental leave on any day of the year. You have two years from the date of birth or adoption of your child to use the paid parental leave days.

To be eligible for paid parental leave scheme, you meet;

• The income test;
• The work test;
• The residency rules; and
• Have registered or applied to register your child’s birth with your state or territory birth registry, if the child is a newborn.

Additionally, employers at their discretion may choose to pay you a top-up payment to supplement their Parental Leave Pay. Check with your employer or Union about your top-up payment.

If you are having issues with parental leave at work, please get in touch with us – your first phone call will always be free.