98   Access to forfeited sick leave—transitional arrangements

(1988 Act, cl 7 Sch 5A)

(1)  If an employee is eligible for sick leave for any absence from duty but has exhausted his or her sick leave entitlement, the employee’s employer may grant to the employee any of the employee’s forfeited sick leave as sick leave for the absence.

(2)  An employee’s forfeited sick leave is the total amount of sick leave that the employee ceased to be entitled to up to 13 October 1995 (the date of commencement of Schedule 5A to the Public Sector Management Act 1988), being sick leave that he or she would presently be entitled to had section 96 been in force from when the employee was first employed in a public sector service.

(3)  Once any period of an employee’s forfeited sick leave has been granted as sick leave under this section, it is no longer regarded as forfeited sick leave for the purposes of any further grant of sick leave to the employee under this section (whether by the same or a different employer).

(4)  For the purposes of this section, the employer of an employee is the person who exercises the functions of chief executive officer in relation to the public sector service in which the employee is employed (being the appropriate Division Head in the case of a member of the Government Service for example).

(5)  In determining whether or not an employee is entitled to sick leave, all the employee’s entitlements to sick leave are to be taken into account, including special sick leave and sick leave to which the employee is entitled by operation of section 96.

(6)  The Commissioner may issue guidelines to employers of employees as to the circumstances in which, and the matters to be taken into account in determining whether, forfeited sick leave should or should not be granted as sick leave under this section.