CM - it's not specifically her company that's dictating this, to the best of my knowledge it's federal legislation that places a limit on the amount of parental leave that can be taken by both parents. My understanding is that because the full amount of legally allowed parental leave can actually be taken by either parent (it doesn't have to be the mother - I think this is in place to ensure adequate leave rights for fathers should they be the sole or primary carer for whatever reason), the law is in place to prevent both parents within a family unit taking the full amount of parental leave as allowed by the award.
But it only applies to parental leave, annual leave does not going to affect parental leave entitlements.
Wow - learn something new every day! Thanks for that Suse.
I don't want to hijack the thread, but DF was never given any parental leave. He was told he could take his annual leave for as long as he likes (or had banked up) but was not given any paid leave. Is parental leave paid or unpaid? or both? I think I have some research to do before we have another.
Parental leave is unpaid.
As Suse said, it is driven by federal legislation. Basically it gives either parent the right to be at home caring for their child/ren without reprisal from their workplace. This applies even to casuals like me! provided there has been 12 months continuous employment at the same company.
(According to legislation) you are entitled to 1 year of unpaid leave, with a further 12 months if agreed by your workplace (in Argon's case it would seem they are ok with this).
The parent who is not taking long parental leave is entitled to one week at the time of birth. They can apply for an extension of short parental leave up to 8 weeks.
- this is what prompted me to look into it - DH's work told him he may not be able to take it - but he is legally entitled to one week.
As for annual leave, it is a separate thing, it is paid leave not unpaid and it forms part of your partners wages/salary... it is between them & their employer when they take it.
If your DH was given annual leave CM, he should still ahve been entitled to 1 week unpaid parental leave - the question is would you want to take it, if you have paid leave banked up, kwim?
My info is from the wageline website, I'm pretty sure it applies federally.
Thanks Jasp - makes perfect sense. He probably would have taken an extra week unpaid if he knew he could His annual leave began the day I was due, but I went 12 days over. Oh well.
Sorry to hijack - back to OP now
Thanks for letting me butt in.
Thanks everyone. Reading all your comments, and talking to DH last night (he basically told me I was a stress head!) I'm sure that any annual leave he takes does not need to be taken into account.
What was worrying me was that they can ask you to sign a statutory declaration and part of that is meant to be how much leave your partner is taking. I didn't want to say three weeks, and then have it slip out at work that he was going to be with me for two months, so they would think i lied!!
fwiw - i think it's to do with the wording - paternal leave v maternity/maternal leave v PARENTAL leave
paternal/paternity leave is the amount offered by your employer (in this case, three weeks paid - for my DH, it's a single week of leave). maternity leave is offered by employer as well - and generally includes the period of 6weeks post birth.
paternal leave is the period covering the first twelve months of the childs life, in which EITHER parent is able to take the time unpaid after the expiry of any paid leave. basically it's leave without pay, and only one parent can be on that type of leave at any time
please make sure you tell your employer DH gets paid PATERNITY leave, not PARENTAL leave - it should eliminate any confuzzlement!
I went through all of this when organising my own maternity leave, it's really a headache isn't it?
I'm in Victoria & I also had to sign a stat dec stipulating how much parental leave my DH was taking when I put in my own application for 12 months parental leave.
My DH was entitled to 4 days off, starting the day I went into labour. To me this is just ridiculous so he is having 6 weeks annual leave instead.
As the stat dec was asking about parental leave NOT annual leave I didn't feel obligated to tell them anything. I said he was not taking any parental leave & left it at that.
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His annual leave began the day I was due, but I went 12 days over. Oh well.
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