What is maternity leave?

Maternity leave in Australia is part of a wider parental leave system that provides time off work and income support for parents around the birth or adoption of a child. Two distinct entitlements operate side by side: twelve months of unpaid parental leave under the Fair Work Act 2009, and the federal government's Paid Parental Leave scheme that pays the National Minimum Wage during a portion of the leave.

All eligible employees, including casual employees with twelve months of regular work, are entitled to up to twelve months of unpaid parental leave when they have primary care of a newborn or newly adopted child. They can also request a further twelve months of unpaid leave, which the employer can refuse only on reasonable business grounds. During unpaid parental leave, the employee's job is held open and they have the right to return to the same position or, if that role is no longer available, to a similar position with no loss of pay or status.

The federal Paid Parental Leave scheme, administered by Services Australia, pays the National Minimum Wage to eligible parents around the birth or adoption of a child. As of 1 July 2024, the scheme provides 22 weeks of paid leave, increasing in stages to 26 weeks by 1 July 2026. Both parents can share the leave, with at least four weeks reserved for each parent (to encourage use by the secondary carer), and the leave can be taken flexibly within the first two years of the child's life. Eligibility requires meeting an income test (the primary carer must earn under about 175,788 dollars individually or 364,350 dollars combined as of 2024-25) and a work test (about 330 hours over 10 of the 13 months before the birth).

Many employers also provide additional paid parental leave under their enterprise agreements or workplace policies, often six to twenty weeks at full pay on top of the government scheme. Employers must also pay superannuation on government-funded paid parental leave from 1 July 2025 onwards, addressing a long-standing gap in retirement savings for parents who take leave to care for children. The combined unpaid and paid leave systems together give Australian parents one of the more generous parental leave entitlements among OECD countries.