Leanne Dorricott, Senior Associate, Corrs Chambers Westgarth

Federal and state legislation provides employees across all jurisdictions with minimum annual leave entitlements.

For national system employees, these entitlements are provided under the National Employment Standards (NES), as set out in the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (FW Act): Pt 2-2 Div 6 .

For employees not covered by the FW Act, annual leave entitlements are prescribed by the relevant state legislation.

The basic entitlement to annual leave of an employee under the NES and state legislation is four weeks of paid annual leave for each year of service with the employer. In all jurisdictions, annual leave accrues gradually throughout the year and any unused leave is rolled over to the following year.

Modern awards and enterprise agreements made under the FW Act may also contain provisions dealing with annual leave, although such provisions may not derogate from the annual leave entitlements of employees under the NES.

Some modern awards and enterprise agreements include terms allowing annual leave to be cashed out with the employee’s agreement, or the employer to direct an employee to take annual leave to reduce an excessive balance.

See Annual leave under National Employment Standards and Annual leave under state/territory law.