By Louise Missen | Head of Member Services, Australian Payroll Association
An employee spends a decade with your organisation, six years in Mumbai, four in Melbourne. They relocate to Brisbane for a short term handover assignment. Eighteen days later, they resigned. Suddenly, your business may owe long service leave (LSL) calculated on the basis of the employee’s entire ten years of service.
That is now the practical effect of Queensland’s latest long service leave decision.
The Queensland Court of Appeal ruled that Narendra Gade, an employee of Infosys, was entitled to Queensland long service leave after working in Brisbane for less than three weeks. His previous service, largely performed in India and Victoria, was treated as part of his qualifying continuous service for Queensland LSL purposes.
Importantly, Infosys had already paid Mr Gade a gratuity entitlement under Indian law for the same period of service. The Court held that this did not prevent a separate Queensland LSL entitlement from arising.
For employers, the decision significantly expands potential LSL exposure for employees who transfer into Queensland from interstate or overseas operations.
The ruling creates challenges that many payroll and HR systems were never designed to address. Employers now need visibility over service histories that extend well beyond Queensland or even Australia.
Key questions now include:
Traditionally, LSL liabilities have been accrued gradually over years of local service. Under this interpretation, however, an employee may arrive in Queensland with most of the qualifying service period already completed. The liability can arise almost immediately upon commencement of Queensland based work.
Short term project deployments
A Melbourne based consultant with 12 years’ service spends three weeks working from your Brisbane office. Those weeks in Queensland may trigger an LSL entitlement based on the employee’s entire 12 year tenure.
International transfers
An employee works for your Singapore entity for eight years before transferring to Brisbane. Two years later, they may qualify for Queensland LSL calculated across the full ten years of service.
Courts in Victoria and New South Wales have generally applied a “substantial connection” approach when assessing LSL coverage. Queensland’s legislation, however, refers to service performed “partly in and partly outside the State,” and the Court adopted a broad interpretation of that wording.
The consequence is significant: even relatively brief periods of Queensland service may be sufficient to connect an employee’s entire service history to Queensland’s LSL regime.
The decision also highlights a genuine double payment risk. Although Mr Gade had already received a gratuity payment under Indian law, the Court found that Infosys could not offset that payment against the Queensland LSL entitlement. Employers may therefore face overlapping obligations across multiple jurisdictions for the same service period.
Before any Queensland transfer or deployment
Employers should:
Payroll, HRIS and mobility systems may require updates to:
The Court confirmed that 18 days of Queensland work was sufficient to establish entitlement but it did not identify a minimum threshold.
Could one week be enough? Several days? A single assignment?
Until further judicial guidance emerges, prudent employers should assume that any meaningful work performed in Queensland may potentially trigger entitlement considerations.
For multi state and multinational employers, Queensland now represents the broadest and potentially most complex LSL jurisdiction in Australia.
Interstate transfers, international secondments and temporary Brisbane deployments can all create unexpected LSL liabilities tied to years of prior service performed elsewhere.
Organisations with mobile workforces should review their payroll systems, mobility policies and provisioning assumptions now. Because under Queensland’s approach, long service leave exposure may begin long before an employee actually starts accumulating service in the state.
Australian Payroll Association members will be kept informed of ongoing developments and emerging compliance considerations including recent Queensland Long Service Leave developments.
In a rapidly changing payroll environment, APA membership provides employers and payroll professionals with timely updates and practical compliance support to help them stay informed and prepared