Modelled on SA’s construction industry portable long service leave scheme that has been in place since the 1970s, Maher’s draft bill aims to support those working in the community services sector that he said “often miss out on the chance to… take a meaningful break during their working lives”.

The draft, prepared in consultation with community services workers and the industry’s peak body, would give workers 13 weeks of leave after 10 years of service in the sector – no matter the employer over the working period.

Maher intends to introduce the proposed legislation, currently titled Portable Long Service Leave Bill 2024, to parliament early next year and make it become effective from 1 January 2025.

The Attorney-General said South Australian industrial relations laws needed to recognise that “the days of working for one employer for your entire career are gone”, particularly for those in the community services sector like mental health services providers, counsellors, homelessness services providers and LGBTQI+ support services workers.

“Workers in industries like the community services sector often miss out on the chance to access long service leave and take a meaningful break during their working lives,” Maher said.

“Community services workers provide an incredible service to some of the most vulnerable South Australians, and it is essential that their hard work is recognised and supported.

“Portable long service leave gives community services workers a real incentive to stay in the sector, boost their skills, extend their careers, all the while providing better rewards for their work.”

In addition to establishing the portable long service leave provision, the bill contemplates that a Community Sector Board run by industry experts would be created to run the scheme, as well as a fund paid into by employers through levies to support the leave entitlements.

The CEO of the construction industry scheme under the Construction Industry Long Service Leave Act 1987 will also have their role expanded to be responsible to the Community Sector Board for the administration and compliance of the leave scheme.

The draft Bill also excludes government workers, with public servants not allowed to claim the leave entitlement unless the minister specifically extends the provision to certain roles.

But Business SA opposes the move, with CEO Andrew Kay telling InDaily the Bill would “add further complexity and compliance burdens to a sector that has reported significant cost pressures in recent years”.

“Business SA provided feedback to the Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector in a submission in February 2023, firmly opposing the government’s proposal to expand portable long-service leave to other sectors beyond the construction industry,” Kay said.

“The care industry operates under a very different model to construction where workers change employers as a job is completed.

“This scheme will add further complexity and compliance burdens to a sector that has reported significant cost pressures in recent years.”

Kay said businesses would carry the cost immediately, as portable long service leave is payable from day one under the government’s proposed scheme.

“The care sector has seen significant erosion of operating surpluses in recent years and as this is where long service leave costs are funded, the introduction of portable long service leave presents another challenge,” he said.

“This expansion of portable long-service leave represents yet another increase to the growing cost of doing business, along with wage increases, rising energy prices, skyrocketing insurance premiums, interest rates and the growing list of industrial relations changes at both state and federal levels.”

For the Malinauskas Government, the draft legislation fulfils an election promise to secure portable long service leave for a sector which had been lobbying for “years” according to Australian Services Union SA branch secretary Abbie Spencer.

“Our members came together in around 2015 to discuss what practical things we could do to improve the sector and one of those was a portable long service leave scheme,” Spencer told InDaily.

“It’s been nearly a decade in the making for us. We wanted to address aspects that weren’t working for workers as well as well as employers and part of the problem which is what we’re trying to fix with the scheme is workers have to go where the funding goes.

“You end up with highly experienced and highly qualified staff that have worked for 20-30 years as social workers or disability support workers who have always had short-term funding wherever they’ve gone and moved between five to 10 different employers.”

A portable long service leave scheme for community service workers is already in place in Queensland, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory. Governments in New South Wales and the Northern Territory are also moving through a similar process that the South Australian government has kicked off today.

Spencer told InDaily that the SA government consulted the Australian Services Union on the drafting of the bill.

“It was our recommendation that they follow the Queensland model,” she said.

“We wanted to make it as easy as possible for everyone, including the employers, and the model that was suggested was using the existing construction scheme here and that’s what Queensland has done.

“We pointed the government to that and we’ve kept the conversation going since the election.”

Ross Womersley, CEO of the sector’s peak body SACOSS, said the organisation had also recommended the government legislate the portable long service leave scheme before the last election.

“There are so many people who may be working in multiple organisations across the sector, but who never stay in the one spot for long enough to accumulate their long service leave,” Womersley told InDaily.

“As we’re thinking about the things that attract people to be workers in the sector, we would see this is one of those potential mechanisms.”

The discussion paper released alongside the draft bill said the community services sector was a “priority area” for the government, and that it employed a high proportion of women.

According to the state government, 83 per cent of workers in the sector were female, which was backed up by Australian Services Union numbers; Spencer said ASU members were approximately 75 per cent women.

“This is a highly feminised workforce,” Spencer said.

“Enabling long service leave to build up and follow social and community workers through their careers will give them the break they deserve, and help create a more attractive, sustainable sector.

“These workers support our communities most vulnerable, and they deserve a real break.”

Womersley said support for the proposed Bill from businesses and organisations in the industry would “depend on how the legislation is structured” and that concerns raised by Business SA would have to be addressed.

“We want to ensure that employers working across the sector actually embrace this as a useful way of building some solidarity within their workforce and some security for workers in the sector,” he said.

“If it does become a big financial burden then that will be a challenge for organisations, so we would want to avoid that.”

SafeWork SA is currently seeking the views of stakeholders and the public about the draft bill before its introduction to parliament in 2024.

Submissions can be sent to [email protected].