Question re paid parental leave

[peanutter]

Hi there

Hopefully a simple question ...

If someone gets pg during or shortly after their unpaid 12 months leave, and so wants to take paid parental leave in the 12 months after returning to work, do they get it?

ie: if my DH has been employed for 6 years at his work, but returns to work in August after 12 months unpaid leave, but we want him to take PPL in (say) April, is that ok?

TIA

[Bern]

im pretty sure you have to have worked at least 8 hours a week in the last 13 months to be able to get it.

ETA - 13 months prior to EDD i think?

[Jennifer13]

Have a look at the govt site that lays out the conditions. I can't remember off the top of my head but there is another thread around here that was asking the same kind of thing.

[FabFiona]

I wasn't eligible for the Government scheme. I had only returned to work from unpaid maternity leave for 5 months before starting maternity leave again. I was totally spewing, but after I whinged and complained I understand the rationale.

From the FAO website...

The Paid Parental Leave work test
To meet the Paid Parental Leave work test you must have:

worked for at least 10 of the 13 months prior to the birth or adoption of your child, and
worked for at least 330 hours in that 10 month period (just over one day a week) with no more than an eight week gap between two consecutive working days.
A working day is a day you have worked for at least one hour.

There are some exceptions if you do not meet the work test due to pregnancy complications and/or premature birth.

You do not need to be working full-time to be eligible for Parental Leave Pay. You may meet the work test even if you:

are a part-time, casual or seasonal worker
are a contractor or self-employed
work in a family business (such as a farm)
have multiple employers, or
have recently changed jobs.
If you work for a family business (such as a farm), you can include your hours of work even if the business is not generating any income, providing you are undertaking the work for financial gain or benefit.

[Muppity]

If you mean the govt scheme then yeah - got to have been working at least 10 months.

If it is employer paid then it depends on their policy but usually there isn't a timeframe (or at least not in places that I have worked)

[briggsy's girl]

with the 10 out of 13 months criteria, you also can't have more than 8 weeks between work days - so even if you're back at work 10 months (August to June for instance) because there is more than 8 weeks before that (the first 12 weeks) where there was no work, you wouldn't qualify

[FabFiona]

When I looked into this (desperately trying to qualify!) I was also told that any employer paid maternity leave would count towards the 10 months of work required as long as it wasn't 8 weeks between the paid period and returning to work.

[briggsy's girl]

yeah it has to be paid service, and there still can't be more than 8 weeks between days worked

[peanutter]

what if (hypothetically) DH goes back to work next week, then I have a baby in March, and I get 12 weeks paid maternity leave (not Gov't) and then DH takes PPL?

so DH would have been working from 11 July until (say) mid June ... so not more than 8 weeks leave .... can he take the PPL after my leave runs out? or does he have to take it as soon as the baby arrives?

It looks like the key date is the date of the birth/adoption, so this doesn't seem to help, but maybe I'm reading it too literally??

[Bern]

no you dont have to take it straight away you can nominate when you want it to start, but at a certain amount of weeks it starts to decrease. 12 weeks wont affect it though i think its like at 30something weeks.