6. Eligible employees6. Eligible employees

6. Eligible employees

(1) For the purposes of applying subsection 9A(1) of the Rules, an alternative reference period under this section applies to an individual who is an eligible employee of an entity if:
(a) the employee’s total hours of work, paid leave and paid absence on public holidays in the individual’s employment with that entity in the reference period:
(i) was less than 80 hours; and
(ii) when compared to earlier 28-day periods ending at the end of a pay cycle for the employee, was not representative of the employee’s total number of those hours in a typical such 28\-day period;
(b) the employee was not employed by that entity during all or part of the reference period;
(c) the start of the employee’s employment with that entity was on or before the reference time but their first pay cycle ended on or after the reference time; or
(d) the employee, by operation of subsection 9(6) of the Rules, is treated as having also been employed by that entity at an earlier time but (disregarding subsection 9(6)) the employee was not employed by the entity for all or part of the reference period.
Note: Paragraph (a) would cover, but is not limited to, scenarios such as:
(a) an eligible employee taking various types of unpaid leave during the reference period, for example, sick leave, parental leave and leave to be on emergency services leave duty during bushfires; or
(b) a scenario where the eligible employee’s total number of hours of work, of paid leave and of paid absence on public holidays, in the reference period was affected due to the employee’s employer entity conducting business or some business in a declared drought zone or declared natural disaster zone.

(2) For the purposes of applying subsection 9A(1) of the Rules, the alternative reference period under this section that applies to an individual who is an eligible employee of an entity is:
(a) where paragraph (1)(a) applies, the 28-day period ending at the end of the most recent pay cycle for the employee for that employer before the reference time in which the employee’s total number of hours of work, of paid leave and of paid absence on public holidays was representative of a typical such 28\-day period; or
(b) where paragraphs (1)(b), (1)(c) or (1)(d) apply, the first 28-day period ending on or after the reference time that wholly occurs during consecutive pay cycles, or a pay cycle, of the employee for that employer (if such an employee was stood down in the first 28-day period, then use the first 28-day period starting on the first day of a pay cycle on or after the reference time in which they were not stood down).

(3) In subsection (1), the reference period means each of the 28-day periods specified in Item 1 of the table in subsection 4A(1) of the Rules.