Biz Momentum Blog

The commonwealth government has introduced a paid parental leave scheme for all eligible Australians. The scheme is scheduled to begin 1 January 2011 and YOU NEED to be aware of your obligations.

While nothing is set in concrete the government recently released draft legislation which is expected to be passed soon. Basically the scheme provides primary caregivers of newborn children with 18 weeks paid parental leave.

Some of the details are:

• There will be a phasing in period of 6 months where the draft indicated that the employer will not be required to pay the caregiver and where the caregiver will claim directly from the Family Assistance Office. You will be required to pay eligible primary caregivers from 1 July 2011.

• The commonwealth will prepay you the funds you need to make payments.
• The Fair Work Ombudsmen will be responsible for investigating where an employer refused to make payment or where the employer is alleged not to have paid the caregiver the correct amount.
• The commonwealth have proposed to make payments to other persons such as grandparents where they have custody of the child. 

It is important to keep up to date and be kept informed of your obligations that this legislation will require of you.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 at 7:57 am and is filed under Agreements, Awards, Employee Entitlements, Enterprise Flexibility, finance and money, Policies you must have, Risk Management, Wages and Conditions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.