Paid Parental Leave Amendment (COVID-19 Work Test) 2021

✦ Plain-English Summary

# Paid Parental Leave Amendment (COVID-19 Work Test) 2021

## What it does
This law changes how the government counts work when deciding if you qualify for paid parental leave during COVID-19. If you received a COVID-19 government payment (like JobKeeper), the time you were getting that payment now counts as "work" for the parental leave eligibility test — even if you weren't actually working.

## Why it matters
During lockdowns and economic shutdowns, many parents lost work or had hours cut, which could have disqualified them from paid parental leave. This change ensures COVID-affected workers don't lose parental leave benefits simply because the pandemic disrupted their employment.

## Key details
- **What counts as work:** Days when you received a COVID-19 government payment are now treated as qualifying work days for the work test
- **Who benefits:** Parents who were on JobKeeper or other COVID-19 payments when they had a baby
- **When it started:** The day after the law received Royal Assent (late 2021)

Official Description

Amends the Paid Parental Leave Act 2010 to provide that a person in receipt of a COVID-19 Australian Government payment or the COVID-19 disaster payment will be considered to be performing qualifying work for the purpose of the paid parental leave work test.

Full bill PDF →APH page →

Audit History

Introduced

25 Aug 2021

Last updated on APH

10 Apr 2026

Outcome date

3 Sept 2021

Last checked by Crossbench

2 days ago

Full text indexed

2 days ago

🗳️

No formal division recorded

This bill passed by voice vote — parliament agreed without calling a formal count. A division is only recorded when a member explicitly requests one.

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