From the Act ....
Quote:
immediate family of a national system employee means:
(a) a spouse, de facto partner, child, parent, grandparent,
grandchild or sibling of the employee; or
(b) a child, parent, grandparent, grandchild or sibling of a spouse
or de facto partner of the employee.
An employee may take paid personal/carer’s leave if the leave is
taken:
to provide care or support to a member of the employee’s
immediate family, or a member of the employee’s household,
who requires care or support because of:
(i) a personal illness, or personal injury, affecting the
member; or
(ii) an unexpected emergency affecting the member.
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"a member of the employee's household" suggests to me a person, not a pet. I'd be amazed if the legislation was intended to extend to pets.
There are in fact some existing Enterprise Agreements that allow staff to use their 10 days paid personal leave to look after a sick pet (Google confirms this to be the case), but it's definitely not a legislated right. Of course if somebody wants to take annual leave or unpaid leave to do so, there's no problem with them doing that.
