Members will recall from an earlier alert that on 8 May 2018, the Victorian Long Service Leave Bill 2017 was passed. As a result, the Victorian Long Service Leave Act 1992 has been repealed and replaced by the Victorian Long Service Leave Act 2018 (LSL Act 2018), which took effect on 1 November 2018.

It is important to note that this does not affect employees covered by CoInvest, which administers the Victorian Construction Industry Long Service Leave Act 1997 (amended 2004).

The major changes under the LSL Act 2018 are as follows:

• Employees will be entitled to take pro-rata long service leave after seven years continuous service.

• Employees will be entitled to take long service leave one day at a time provided employer and employee agree.

• Employment will be deemed ‘continuous’ (i.e. count as service) for employees on up to 12 months paid or unpaid parental leave, with any paid or unpaid parental leave beyond 12 months not breaking continuity of service (but will not count as service unless the employer and employee otherwise agree).

• Introduces another averaging method for calculating normal weekly hours where an employee has changed their working hours during their employment, being the averaging of weekly hours over the full period of continuous employment.

Members seeking further information should contact the IR Department on (03) 9411 4560.