Family leave

Family leave includes various types of leave that employees can use to balance their work and family responsibilities.

Employee entitlements are outlined in the Industrial Relations Act 1999 (PDF, 1.9MB) and includes:

The family leave provisions of the Act apply to all employees whether or not an award or agreement covers their employment.

For the purposes of the family leave provisions the following definitions are applicable:

long-term casual employee is defined as a casual employee who has been engaged by an employer on a regular and systematic basis for at least one year.
short term casual employee is a casual employee, other than a long term casual employee,
members of the immediate family are defined as the employee's spouse (including a former spouse, defacto spouse and spouse of the same sex as the employee), and a child, ex-nuptial child, stepchild, adopted child, ex-foster child, parent, grandparent, grandchild or sibling of the employee or the employee's spouse.

If the provisions under the Act are more favourable to an employee, the Act will override family or parental leave provisions under an award or agreement. The entitlements under the Act in most instances will be more favourable than the provisions contained within the Family Leave Award 2003.

The Family Leave Award 2003 applies only to employers and employees who are subject to a Queensland State award or agreement where:

The award has a clause deeming the Family Leave Award 2003 to be part of the award; or
The industrial agreement is listed in the schedule of the Family Leave Award 2003.

Last updated: 11 June 2008

Employment conditions

Family leave