Long Service Guide is a small reference site that answers one question: how much long service leave do you get, and when. It covers all eight states and territories, because each has its own Act and the answers differ.
Who writes it
The site is written and kept current by Sergio, its editor. Sergio is a person, not a firm or a department, and works on the site alone. There is no legal practice, union or employer group behind it, and nobody pays to have a rule described one way or another. Who is accountable in law is set out in the Terms and on the Privacy page.
What the site does
Every rule on these pages comes from the Act of the state or territory it describes, or from the official government page that explains it. Next to each rule you can see the section it rests on, and the Sources list at the foot of each page names each source and the day it was last read there. A calculator then applies the rule to your own dates: you enter when you started, when you finished or the day you want the answer for, and the reason employment ended if it has. The result shows its arithmetic in words so you can check it against your payslips and your contract.
The aim is a page you can rely on and then verify. Where the Act was read and is silent on a point, the page says the Act is silent; it does not fill the gap with a guess.
Who it is for
- Employees working out how close they are to an entitlement, or what a resignation, a redundancy or a dismissal does to it.
- Casual and part-time workers, who often find the answer buried in definitions of continuous service.
- Small employers and bookkeepers who want to see the statutory rule before they ask an adviser.
What it does not do
The site gives general information. It does not give advice about your own case, it does not say whether an employer has complied with an Act, and it is not a substitute for the regulator, a tribunal, a court or a lawyer. An award, an enterprise agreement or a contract can give more than the Act, and the calculator does not read yours. Whether your service is continuous, and whether a reason for leaving falls within a ground in the Act, can turn on facts that no page can see. Where a decision rests on those facts, each state page names who to contact first, the body that decides where the Act names one, and where free help is available.
It does not sell anything, ask you to sign up or keep what you type. Nothing you enter into the calculator leaves your device. See the disclaimer for the full limits.
How the figures are kept right
Each rule is read in the Act itself, or in an official government page where the Act cannot be read, and the text read is kept with the figure. The "checked" date in each page's Sources list is the day that reading was made. Arithmetic the site derives, such as weeks of leave after a given number of years, is labelled as the site's own working. The full process, including what happens when a rule changes, is on the methodology page, and every change is dated on What's new.
Found a mistake?
Tell the editor. A figure that does not match the Act, a section number that has moved, a rule that changed after the checked date or an official source that explains something better are all worth reporting. Send the page address and, if you can, the section or the official page you are looking at. How to do that, and what to expect back, is on the contact page. Corrections are made first and logged afterwards, and a corrected figure shows its new checked date.