Domestic and family violence leave

NSW public service employees

All NSW public service employees are entitled to 20 days of domestic and family violence leave per calendar year. This includes part-time and casual employees - this leave is not pro-rata.

You can take domestic and family violence leave to:

• find safety
• find safe accommodation
• attend medical, legal, police or counselling appointments relating to the violence
• attend court or legal proceedings relating to the violence
• organise alternative care or schooling for your children
• do anything else to become safe and recover from the violence
• do anything to deal with the impact of the violence that is impractical to do outside of your normal work hours.

You can take this leave for part of a day, a whole day or consecutive days. You don’t need to use all of your other leave before you can take domestic and family violence leave. You don’t need to get your leave approved before you can take it. However, you should let your employer know as soon as possible that you need to take leave.

If you are a casual employee, you can take the leave on the days you are rostered to work and have agreed to work.

You are entitled to be paid your full rate of pay when on leave. This includes penalty and shift allowances. You should receive the same pay that you would have if you had worked instead of taking leave.

When approving your leave, your employer must be satisfied on reasonable grounds that there has been domestic and family violence. For this reason, they may require you to provide evidence, which could include:

• a document from the NSW Police Force, a court, a domestic violence support service or a member of the legal profession
• a provisional, interim or final Apprehended Violence Order (AVO)
• a certificate of conviction
• a family law injunction
• a medical certificate
• a statutory declaration signed by you
• any other evidence that would satisfy a reasonable person that domestic and family violence has occurred.

You can’t accumulate this leave from year to year. 

Australian public service employees

All Australian public service employees who are experiencing domestic and family violence can take paid leave under the Australian Public Service (APS) enterprise agreements. This includes causal employees.

The type of leave you can take is called miscellaneous leave. There is no limit to the number of days of miscellaneous leave you can take.

You can take this leave:

• to make yourself safe
• if you are sick or have been injured by domestic or family violence
• to find alternate accommodation
• to attend counselling, medical, financial or legal appointments.

You can also take miscellaneous leave if you are providing care or support to a family or household member who is also experiencing family and domestic violence and is:

• sick or injured as a result of the violence
• affected by an unexpected emergency as a result of the violence.

You can take this leave for part of a day, a whole day or consecutive days. You don’t need to use all of your other leave before you can take domestic and family violence leave. You don’t need to get your leave approved before you can take it. However, you should let your employer know as soon as possible that you need to take leave.

You are entitled to be paid your full rate of pay when on leave. If you are a casual employee, you are entitled to be paid the full rate of pay for the hours you were rostered to work. You should receive the same pay that you would have if you had worked instead of taking leave.

In most cases, you won’t be required to provide evidence of the domestic and family violence. However, in limited circumstances your employer can ask you to provide evidence. You will only be required to provide a statutory declaration, unless you want to provide another form of evidence, such as a medical certificate, AVO, a document issued by the police, a court, a family violence support service or lawyer.

Your employer must take all reasonable steps to ensure your information remains confidential. They must take a ‘needs to know’ approach and ensure only the necessary people know about your situation.

Your pay slip won’t include any information about domestic and family violence.

For more information, see Uncapped domestic violence leave for APS on the Australian Public Service Commission website.

National employment standards

Under the National Employment Standards (NES), all employees including casuals are entitled to 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave, even if your award or contract provides less. This entitlement also applies to employees of small businesses.

You are entitled to the full 10 days immediately as soon as you start working.

You can take this leave to deal with the impact of family and domestic violence if it is not practical to do this outside of your work hours. This may include:

• arranging for your safety or the safety of a close relative (including relocating)
• attending court hearings 
• accessing police services.

You can’t accumulate this leave from year to year. At the beginning of each year of work, your entitlement resets to 10 days.

You must be experiencing family and domestic violence to take this leave. Family and domestic violence means violent, threatening or other abusive behaviour used to coerce or control you, harm you or make you fearful. It must be done by a close relative or member of your household. A close relative can include:

• your current or former spouse, de facto partner, child, parent, grandparent, grandchild or sibling
• your current or former spouse or de facto partner's child, parent grandparent, grandchild or sibling. 

You can take this leave as one block of 10 days, separate days or any separate period less than a day.

You are entitled to be paid the full rate of pay that you would have received if you had worked, instead of taking leave. This includes your base rate plus any loadings, allowances, overtime and penalty rates, bonuses, incentive payments or other separately identifiable amounts. If you are a casual employee, you are entitled to be paid the full rate of pay for the hours that you were rostered to work.  

Paid family and domestic violence leave must be recorded on a pay slip as normal pay for ordinary hours of work, or any other kind of payment for performing work, such as an allowance, bonus or overtime. You can also request that the leave is recorded as another type of leave. 

Your leave doesn’t have to be approved before you take it. However, you must let your employer know as soon as possible that you need to take leave.

Your employer can ask you to provide evidence of the family or domestic violence. This can be:

• a statutory declaration
• a document from a family violence support service
• a document issued by the police or the court.

You should check your award, enterprise agreement or contract of employment to see if you are entitled to more family and domestic violence leave than the minimum available under the NES.

For more information, see Family and domestic violence leave on the Fair Work Ombudsman website.

Flexible work arrangements

If you are experiencing domestic or family violence you may also be able to request flexible work arrangements. This may include changing your:

• hours of work, for example, start and finish times
• patterns of work, for example, split shifts or job sharing
• location of work, for example, working from home.

You should speak to your employer about what flexible work arrangements are available to you.

For more information, see Flexibility in the workplace on the Fair Work Ombudsman website.

You also be able to access additional support from your workplace employee assistance program.

Protection from adverse action

Your employer can’t take adverse action against you for experiencing domestic or family violence or taking domestic and family violence leave.

Your employer can’t do, or threaten, any of the following:

• dismiss (fire) you
• not pay you or allow you to take leave
• change your job in a way that has a negative effect
• treat you differently to other employees.

Support for family or household members of victims

If you need to care and support a family or household member experiencing domestic and family violence, you can use family and community service leave (FACS) leave or sick leave.

The person you are supporting must be a family member or relative. This includes your:

• spouse or de facto partner
• child
• parent, including a foster parent or legal guardian
• grandparent
• grandchild
• a relative that you live with, and that you are related to by blood, marriage or affinity.

If you don’t have any FACS or sick leave, you should speak to your employer about using other types of leave you have accrued, such as annual leave. If you don’t have any leave accrued at all, you should speak to your employer about taking leave without pay.

For more information, see Leave.