Wednesday, 8 June 2022

Long service leave

Mr M O’BRIEN (Malvern) (19:11): (6410) My adjournment matter is directed to the Minister for Industrial Relations, and the action I seek is for the minister to urgently investigate what appears to be a gross failure by a Victorian government agency, Monash Health, to observe the Long Service Leave Act 2018 to the detriment of one of my constituents. Parliament amended the Long Service Leave Act in 2017 to reduce the qualifying period for long service leave from 10 years to seven years. The government stated:

Employees will be able to take long service leave after seven years’ service on a pro rata basis …

My constituent Mr Tim Whitbourn was employed as director of shared services by Monash Health at the time. In 2019 Mr Whitbourn sought advice from the Victorian Public Sector Commission on the long service leave changes. He was informed, ‘Our understanding is that changes to the Long Service Leave Act apply to executives in public sector entities’. On the basis of the legislative change and the advice provided by the VPSC, when Mr Whitbourn resigned from Monash Health in May 2020 after nearly nine years of continuous service he was paid $66 978 for accumulated long service leave as part of his termination payment. But six months after Mr Whitbourn’s departure Monash Health sought the repayment of every cent of the accumulated long service leave payment he had received.

Victorian workers may well ask what the point is of changing the law to allow for the pro rata long service leave benefits after seven years when the Labor government’s own agency, Monash Health, believes this law does not apply to it. Remember, the government changed the law two years before Mr Whitbourn left Monash Health after nearly nine years of service. Remember also, the VPSC advised the statute change meant public service executive contracts did not need to be individually updated given this was a whole-of-government change.

My constituent has done the right thing. He believed this government when it said long service leave now accrues pro rata after seven years. He believed the VPSC when it advised the statute change applied to public sector executives. Now my constituent is being chased by Monash Health because six months after he left their employment they say that as an executive with nearly nine years service he is not entitled to a cent of long service leave benefit.

In the classic movie A Few Good Men Colonel Nathan R Jessup famously said, ‘I don’t know what the hell kind of an outfit you’re running here’. The Minister for Industrial Relations may face a similar challenge. I call on him to urgently intervene and ensure that the government’s long service leave promise made to Victorians such as Tim Whitbourn is kept by Monash Health.