Purpose:

To provide for long service leave entitlements for workers in New South Wales and to amend related industrial legislation.

Objectives:

• To entitle workers to long service leave on ordinary pay based on their length of service with an employer.
• To outline the calculation methods and conditions for the accrual and taking of long service leave.
• To establish employer obligations regarding the granting, payment, and record-keeping of long service leave.
• To prohibit contracting out of the Act’s provisions and ensure worker entitlements are not diminished.
• To provide for exemptions for employers offering more favourable long service leave schemes.
• To establish enforcement mechanisms, including powers for inspectors and penalties for non-compliance.
• To define liability for directors and managers of corporations in relation to corporate offences under the Act.

Key Provisions:

• Entitlement to Long Service Leave: Every worker is entitled to long service leave on ordinary pay in respect of service with an employer, including service before the Act’s commencement (Section 4(1)).
• Calculation of Leave: Specifies the amount of long service leave workers are entitled to based on years of continuous service, with different rates for service periods before and after the Long Service Leave (Amendment) Act 1963 commencement, and proportionate amounts on termination (Section 4(2)(a), (a2)).
• Taking of Leave: Mandates that employers must give and workers must take leave as soon as practicable or by an agreed postponed date, allowing for the leave to be taken in continuous or agreed separate periods (Section 4(3), (3AA)).
• Payment for Untaken Leave on Termination or Death: Provides for payment in full of ordinary pay for untaken long service leave upon a worker’s termination (other than by death) or to their personal representative upon death (Section 4(5)(a), (b)).
• Prohibition of Payment in Lieu of Leave: Generally prohibits payments in lieu of long service leave, except where specified upon termination (Section 4(8)).
• Definition of Continuous Service: Outlines what constitutes continuous service, including provisions for interruptions, apprenticeships, and business transmissions (Section 4(11)).
• Employer Record-Keeping: Requires employers to keep specific long service leave records for each worker (Section 8).
• Powers of Inspectors: Grants inspectors powers to enter premises, require production of records, and conduct inquiries to ensure compliance (Section 9).
• Penalties and Offences: Establishes penalties for contraventions of the Act, including making false statements, obstructing inspectors, or attempting to evade obligations (Section 10).
• Executive Liability for Corporations: Imposes liability on directors and managers of corporations for certain offences committed by the corporation, particularly regarding long service leave entitlements and record-keeping (Section 10A, 10B).
• Recovery of Long Service Leave Pay: Provides a mechanism for workers to apply for orders directing employers to pay due long service leave amounts (Section 12).
• COVID-19 Pandemic Provisions: Special provisions ensure continuity of service and accrual of long service leave for workers stood down without pay due to the COVID-19 pandemic during a prescribed period (Section 15C).

Evidence of Compliance Requirements For Agricultural Organisations:

• Granting and Taking Leave:
  • Action: Employers must grant long service leave on ordinary pay to eligible workers.
  • Measurement Standards: Calculate leave entitlement based on continuous service:
    • For workers completing at least 10 years service: 2 months for the first 10 years, plus 1 month for each subsequent 5 years completed since the last entitlement.
    • For workers terminating after at least 15 years service: a proportionate amount on the basis of 2 months for 10 years service for service since the last entitlement.
    • For workers terminating after at least 10 years but less than 15 years: a proportionate amount on the basis of 3 months for 15 years service.
    • For workers terminating after at least 5 years (due to employer termination for reasons other than serious/wilful misconduct, or worker termination due to illness, incapacity, domestic/pressing necessity, or death): a proportionate amount on the basis of 2 months for 10 years service.
    • For workers whose service began before 1 July 1963, a different cumulative calculation applies: an amount based on 3 months for 20 years service for the period before 1 July 1963, plus an amount based on 2 months for 10 years service for the period from 1 July 1963.
  • Time Frame: Give workers at least one month’s notice of the date from which long service leave is proposed to be given and taken, unless the worker agrees to a lesser period of notice.
  • Action: The employer must ensure the worker takes the leave as soon as practicable, or on an agreed postponed date.
  • Action: If agreed with the worker, leave may be taken in separate periods. For 2 months leave, in two separate periods. For leave exceeding 2 months but not 19.5 weeks, in two or three separate periods. For leave exceeding 19.5 weeks, in two, three, or four separate periods. Additionally, an employer and worker may agree to 2 or more separate periods of not less than 1 day.
  • Action: If agreed with the worker, a period of long service leave of not less than 1 day may be given and taken wholly or partly in advance.
• Payment for Long Service Leave:
  • Action: Pay the worker’s ordinary pay for the period of leave.
  • Payment Methods: Payments for leave must be made in one of the following ways:
    • In full when the worker commences the period of leave.
    • At the same time as the worker’s ordinary pay would have been paid if the worker had remained on duty (if the worker requests in writing, payment must be made by cheque posted to an address specified by the worker).
    • In any other way agreed between the employer and the worker.
• Termination Payments:
  • Action/Time Frame: If a worker’s services are terminated (other than by death) and untaken long service leave exists, the employer must “forthwith pay” the worker in full their ordinary pay for the untaken leave, less any amounts already paid for that leave.
  • Action: If a worker dies and untaken long service leave exists, the employer must, upon request by the worker’s personal representative, pay in full the ordinary pay that would have been payable for the leave, less any amounts already paid.
  • Action/Documentation: If a worker took leave in advance and did not become entitled to it (or took an excess amount), the employer may deduct the ordinary pay paid for that advance/excess leave from any remuneration payable on termination. The deduction must not exceed the ordinary pay that would have been payable for that period of leave/excess leave had it been taken on termination.
  • Action: Employers must not make any payment in lieu of long service leave or part thereof, except as permitted on termination. Workers must not accept such payments (unless on termination).
  • Action: Employers must not give long service leave or make payments in respect of it to a registered worker under the Building and Construction Industry Long Service Payments Act 1986 or the Contract Cleaning Industry (Portable Long Service Leave Scheme) Act 2010 unless that worker applies to the employer for the leave or payment.
• Record-Keeping Requirements:
  • Record: Employers must ensure a “long service leave record” is kept for each worker employed.
  • Standard: Records must be kept in the way prescribed by regulations (specific format not detailed in this document).
  • Time Frame: The long service leave record for a worker must be kept for a period of at least 6 years after the day on which the worker ceases to be employed by the employer.
  • Action: Employers should be aware that regulations may specify provisions for transferring long service leave records, or copies thereof, to a successor employer.
• Inspection and Audit Requirements:
  • Action: Upon request by an inspector, employers must produce the required long service leave record at such time and place as the inspector specifies.
  • Action: Upon receipt of a written notice from an inspector (served personally or by post), employers must deliver or send by post to the inspector, within the specified time and to the specified place, a copy of any specified part of the long service leave record and any other specified information relating to a payment claim under the Act.
  • Action: Employers must not obstruct any inspector in the exercise of their powers under the Act.
  • Action: Employers must comply with any requirement or direction lawfully given by an inspector under the Act and furnish any information lawfully demanded by an inspector.
• Compliance with Orders and Prevention of Evasion:
  • Action: Directors and individuals involved in the management of a corporation must take all reasonable steps to prevent or stop the commission of “executive liability offences” (offences related to long service leave entitlements under Section 4 and record-keeping under Section 8).
  • Measurement Standards for “reasonable steps” (examples include but are not limited to):
    • Assessing the corporation’s compliance with the relevant long service leave provisions.
    • Ensuring that the corporation arranges regular professional assessments of its compliance.
    • Providing the corporation’s employees, agents, and contractors with appropriate information, training, instruction, and supervision to enable them to comply with the long service leave provisions relevant to their roles.
    • Ensuring that the plant, equipment, other resources, structures, work systems, and other processes relevant to compliance are appropriate in all circumstances.
    • Creating and maintaining a corporate culture that does not direct, encourage, tolerate, or lead to non-compliance with the long service leave provisions.
  • Action: Directors and individuals involved in the management of a corporation must not aid, abet, counsel, procure, induce, conspire with others to effect, or in any other way be knowingly concerned in, or party to, the commission of any corporate offence under this Act or regulations.
  • Action: Employers must not do any act or thing for the purpose of, or which has the effect of, directly or indirectly avoiding or evading any obligation imposed by this Act, or defeating, evading, avoiding or preventing the operation of this Act in any respect.
  • Action: Comply with any orders for the recovery of penalties or long service leave pay made by the Local Court or Industrial Relations Commission.

Metadata Keywords:

Long service leave, employment law, New South Wales, worker entitlements, industrial relations, employer obligations, record-keeping, compliance, corporate liability, employee benefits.

Publication Information:

Publication date: Not specified in document (Act 1955 No 38) Version number: Historical version for 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025 (accessed 25 July 2025 at 23:06)

Agricultural Industry Alignment:

All of the listed agricultural industries: Beef & Veal, Chicken, Coarse Grains, Cotton, Dairy, Eggs, Fisheries, Forestry, Horticulture, Oilseeds, Pig, Sheep Meat, Sugar, Wheat, Wine, Wool.

Date Added to database:

This document was parsed and added to the database on 25-07-2025

URL:

https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/whole/pdf/inforce/2025-04-22/act-1955-038 →