Leave Entitlements for Residential Builders

What it is

The National Employment Standards set the leave floor for every employee in Australia. MA000020 sits on top and in places pays more. A builder who runs leave straight off the NES will underpay.

Long service leave is not an NES entitlement and sits outside this entry. Construction workers can accrue state and portable long service leave at once, and the two interact badly. See our entry on long service leave versus portable schemes.

Annual leave and the loading that catches everyone

Section 87 of the Fair Work Act gives full-time and part-time employees 4 weeks of paid annual leave for each year of service, based on their ordinary hours. It accrues from day one, including during probation, and rolls over. Casuals get none. MA000020 then does two things the NES does not.

Clause 31.2(a) pays leave at ordinary time rather than the base rate: the employee gets what they would have received for working ordinary time hours. Because clause 22.3 makes the industry allowance an all purpose allowance, the residential industry allowance sits inside that amount. So does the tool allowance.

Clause 31.2(b) adds a loading of 17.5 per cent on that amount, then goes past the NES: "This loading will also be payable on accrued leave paid out on termination of employment." The NES requires untaken annual leave to be paid out at base rate with no loading. The award requires the loading.

Paying out final annual leave at base rate with no loading is the most common leave underpayment on a residential site. It compounds, because the loading runs on a figure that already includes the industry and tool allowances.

Personal, carer's and compassionate leave

Section 96 gives 10 days of paid personal and carer's leave for each year of service. It accrues progressively and accumulates from year to year. It is 10 days, not 76 hours, so a worker on longer shifts draws more hours. Casuals get 2 days of unpaid carer's leave per occasion.

Compassionate leave is 2 days each time an employee meets the criteria. It does not accumulate, it is not part of the personal leave balance and casuals take it unpaid.

Paid family and domestic violence leave

Section 106A gives every employee 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave in a 12 month period. Three features catch builders out:

• It is available in full at the start of each 12 month period and does not accumulate. It resets on the work anniversary, not 1 July.
• It is available in full to part-time and casual employees. A casual labourer has the same 10 days as a full-time leading hand.
• Section 106BA pays it at the employee's full rate of pay, not the base rate. For a casual, that is the rate for the hours they were rostered.

Parental leave, which moved on 1 July 2026

The NES gives 12 months of unpaid parental leave after 12 months of service, plus a right to request a further 12 months.

The Commonwealth Paid Parental Leave scheme is separate money, paid by government, and it did change. The Paid Parental Leave Act 2010 sets the maximum at 130 flexible PPL days for a child born on or after 1 July 2026, which is 26 weeks, up from 120 days for children born between 1 July 2025 and 30 June 2026.

Superannuation is now paid on it. Employees receiving Parental Leave Pay for children born or adopted from 1 July 2025 receive a superannuation contribution of 12 per cent on the payment. The ATO pays it directly to the fund, and those contributions have been flowing since July 2026. The builder does nothing.

One caution: the Fair Work Ombudsman's parental leave payment page still said 24 weeks in July 2026. The Act is the better source.

Community service leave and public holidays

Community service leave covers voluntary emergency management and jury duty, plus reasonable travel and rest time. There is no cap, and except for jury duty it is unpaid.

For jury duty the employer pays full-time and part-time employees for the first 10 days at base rate. You can reduce that to make-up pay, the gap between the court's payment and base pay, only by asking for evidence of what the court paid. Builders who never ask, pay the lot. Casuals get nothing.

On public holidays an employer can require attendance only where the request was reasonable and the refusal was unreasonable. Both limbs have to hold. Employees who normally work that day are paid base rate for the hours they would have worked.

RDOs and the Christmas shutdown

Clause 16.1 sets ordinary hours at 38 a week averaged over a 20 day 4 week cycle. Under clause 16.2 an 8 hour day is worked, 7.6 hours are paid and 0.4 accrues, so 19 days produces one paid RDO.

Clause 31.3 lets an employer direct annual leave over a Christmas or New Year shutdown, on two months' written notice or a shorter agreed period, in writing and reasonably. The trap is that the direction only reaches leave the employee has actually accrued. For anyone short, unpaid leave needs written agreement. It cannot be directed.