A new paid domestic violence leave entitlement came into effect on 1st of August 2023, which replaced the previous five days of unpaid family and domestic violence leave entitlement. The entitlement will provide 10 paid days of leave per 12 months, to employees of small businesses who are experiencing family or domestic violence.
Key features of this entitlement are;
It is available to all full-time, part-time, and casual employees.
The leave is not pro-rated for part-time or casual employees. They are entitled to the full 1 paid days.
The leave does not accrue, therefore is available from the first day of employment and at the beginning of each yearly anniversary of employment.
It is to be treated as a distinct separate leave entitlement and not to be drawn from any existing paid leave entitlement.
Payslips are not to explicitly describe this leave, if taken, as ‘family and domestic leave’ or similar.
Notice and evidence requirements remain the same as the previous entitlement.
The same entitlement became available to medium and large enterprise employees earlier this year in February.
In other news, the federal government minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Tony Burke, announced last month that the government intends to introduce new legislation to make it easier for casual employees to secure permanent employment with their employer.
Specific details of the legislation are not yet available. Broadly speaking, the legislation will include an updated definition of ‘casual employee.’ Casual employees under this new definition will presumably have more leverage to access permanent employment from their employer.
According to the minister, the new legislation will close a “loophole,” in current legislation which recognises an employee as being casual only in writing (I.e., As per their contract), but not in practise.
The new legislation will theoretically allow casual employees working ‘regularly’ to choose to become permanent, rather than relying on the employer to initiate the conversion, as is necessary under the current legislation. How exactly an employee arrives at this decision and the conversion process are yet to be clarified under the new legislation. The predicted impact on employers will be that they may find it more difficult to refuse requests for casual conversion and limit the reasonable grounds an employer can rely on to not offer to convert.
Critics such as the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), have argued that the changes reduce flexibility for both employers and employees. Employers may therefore find it harder to address frequent and unpredictable changes in labour resourcing, that occurs for example in industries such as hospitality, retail and disability services. As a result, employers may have to wear overtime costs from engaging permanent employees to work outside of their regular roster, that they might not otherwise incur if the same employees were casual.
The minister estimates the changes will impact approximately 850,000 casual employees Australia wide.
More on these changes once the legislation is introduced to parliament.
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