A roster question arrives before the calendar does. A shift is scheduled for late April 2027, the roster names a Monday, and the answer depends on a fact that is not printed on it: which state or territory the workplace sits in, and what that jurisdiction has gazetted for Anzac Day. In 2027, 25 April falls on a Sunday. Six jurisdictions list that date as a public holiday. Two do not, and in those two the holiday is the Monday that follows.

The rest of the year has the same shape, though less sharply. There is no national public holiday rate. The State or Territory gazette decides whether the day exists, the Fair Work Act 2009 gives the employee the right to be absent and the base rate for ordinary hours, and the award or enterprise agreement decides what the hours actually worked are worth (ss 114 to 116). Those are three separate questions, and the calendar answers only the first.

The 2027 dates as gazetted

All eight jurisdictions share a common block: 1 January, 26 January, Good Friday on 26 March and Easter Monday on 29 March. The King’s Birthday falls on 14 June in six, with Queensland on 4 October and Western Australia on 27 September. Christmas and Boxing Day run across 25 to 28 December everywhere, though the labels differ and the section below takes that apart.

Two Easter days sit outside the common block. Easter Saturday, 27 March, is a public holiday in six jurisdictions and not in Western Australia or Tasmania. Queensland’s page calls it the day after Good Friday rather than Easter Saturday. Easter Sunday, 28 March, appears on all eight lists.

Everything else is where the calendars separate. The table below records the days each jurisdiction lists beyond the common block. It is built from the eight primary pages opened on 8 November 2026. A reader checking a specific date should use that jurisdiction’s page.

The table shows why a single national date list misleads. The common block is real, but the days that generate roster questions are the ones that change at the border.

One Sunday, three answers

Anzac Day in 2027 is the clearest test, because the same date produces three different rules. The eight jurisdictions do not disagree about when 25 April falls. They disagree about what to do with a Sunday.

The first group is Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. Each page records 25 April as the holiday and states that no substitute or additional day applies when it falls on a weekend. The Monday is an ordinary working day. The second group is New South Wales, Western Australia and the ACT, whose pages list both dates: 25 April and the Monday that follows. The third group is Queensland and the Northern Territory, whose pages list 26 April as the Anzac Day holiday and not the Sunday.

Section 115 adds the distinction that makes those labels matter. When a day is substituted for another, the substituted day is the public holiday. When a jurisdiction declares an additional day, the original day remains a public holiday and the additional day is a second one. A substitution moves the holiday. An additional day does not.

For an employee, the practical question is which date the award clause attaches to, not which label a payroll system uses. In New South Wales, Western Australia and the ACT, both dates can attract the clause because both are public holidays. In Queensland and the Northern Territory, the Monday is the date. In Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, the Sunday is the holiday and the Monday is not. A roster that treats the three groups the same will produce at least one wrong payslip.

Christmas is four days and the labels differ

In 2027, 25 December is a Saturday and 26 December is a Sunday. Every jurisdiction lists holidays across 25 to 28 December, but the labels are not uniform. Tasmania lists Christmas Day on 27 December and Boxing Day on 28 December. New South Wales and the ACT list 25 and 26 December and add 27 and 28 as additional days. South Australia treats 26 December as Proclamation Day and Boxing Day and lists 27 and 28 as additional days.

A roster that treats 27 December as just another Monday in a state that made it the holiday will get the week wrong. So will a payroll system that assumes Christmas is always 25 December. The gazette sets the public holiday dates. The award clause says what work on those dates is paid. The payslip should show which date was treated as the holiday, and a payslip that does not is hard to check.

What the Act gives you

Section 114 of the Fair Work Act gives every employee the right to be absent from work on a day or part-day that is a public holiday. The employer may request work on that day if the request is reasonable. The employee may refuse if the request is not reasonable, or if the refusal itself is reasonable. The Act lists factors that go to reasonableness: the workplace and its operational needs, the employee’s personal situation and family responsibilities, whether the request was foreseeable, whether overtime or penalty payments apply, the employee’s employment type, and the notice each side gave.

The Act sets the test. It does not apply the test to a particular roster. That is why a refusal is not automatically protected, and why a request is not automatically unreasonable. The same structure sits behind the right to disconnect: a right, a request, and a question of reasonableness that depends on the circumstances rather than on the label one side puts on it.

Section 116 deals with payment when the employee is absent. The employer must pay the employee’s base rate of pay for the employee’s ordinary hours of work on the holiday. The section also produces the result that surprises casuals and part-timers: if the employee has no ordinary hours of work on that day, there is nothing to pay. A casual who is not rostered on the public holiday has no ordinary hours that day. A part-timer whose ordinary pattern never includes a Monday has no ordinary hours on a Monday holiday. The Act does not create a payment for a day the employee was never going to work.

What the Act does not contain is a loading. There is no section that says work on a public holiday must be paid at a particular multiple. The base rate is the Act’s figure. The extra, where it exists, comes from somewhere else.

Where the rate comes from

The award or enterprise agreement that covers the employee is where the rate lives. The public holiday clause sits in the award, and the rate attached to it sits in the pay schedule for the employee’s classification. That is the document that decides what a public holiday shift is worth, not the Act and not the calendar.

Published pay guides most often quote 250 per cent, and casual figures usually include the 25 per cent casual loading rather than stacking it on top of the public holiday rate. The figure is also commonly the total for the hours worked, not a payment of 250 per cent on top of the day’s ordinary pay. Those two readings produce very different payslips, and the second one is where a lot of the confusion starts.

No article can give one number, because the rate sits in the award’s pay schedule at the reader’s classification, and classifications differ within the same award. A figure quoted for one classification can be wrong for another. The useful request is narrower: the name of the award, the classification, the public holiday clause and the rate in the pay schedule that applies to that classification. With those four things, the calculation can be checked. Without them, a percentage has no audit trail.

The base rate is also the figure other entitlements attach to, which is the point the guide to leave loading makes for a different payment: the clause says whether the extra exists, and the base determines what the percentage is worth. Public holiday pay and leave loading are separate entitlements, and neither one can be read off the other.

The 2025 change

The Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates) Act 2025 added section 135A to the Fair Work Act. It commenced on 30 August 2025. The section requires the Fair Work Commission, when it makes, varies or revokes a modern award, to ensure that the rate of a penalty rate or overtime rate is not reduced, and that the award does not contain a term that substitutes another entitlement in a way that reduces the additional remuneration.

The practical effect is that an award rate is harder to remove than it was two years ago. The section constrains the Commission’s award-making power. It does not create a loading where an award has none, and it does not convert a percentage in a pay guide into an entitlement. It protects the rates that exist in awards. For an employee, the direction is useful: the rate in the current award is the starting point, and a change to it now has a statutory hurdle.

The five questions

The widget above turns the article into five checks. Taken in order, they are also the order in which a pay dispute is best examined.

The first question is which day the state or territory has gazetted for the holiday, and whether that is the day the roster names. The answer comes from the jurisdiction’s page and the roster, not a national list. The second is which of the possible dates the roster actually falls on when a holiday has been moved or an extra day added. In 2027 the Anzac split makes that question concrete: a Monday shift in Queensland is a holiday shift, and the same Monday in Victoria is not.

The third question is which award or agreement covers the employee and what its public holiday clause says at that classification. That is where the rate lives. The fourth is whether the pay slip shows the public holiday rate as a separate line or folds it into a loaded rate. A single loaded rate can be correct, but it is harder to check, because the public holiday component is no longer visible. Reading the payslip line by line is the same discipline set out in the guide to payday super and your fund, where the payment has to match the fund and the date rather than merely appear on the slip.

The fifth question is whether a refusal to work is one the Act’s reasonableness test covers, and whether it was put in writing in good time. The Act lists the factors. It does not decide the outcome. A written refusal that gives the reason and the notice is easier to assess than a verbal one, and easier to rely on later if the roster changes.

What the gazette does not settle

The gazette settles the day. It does not settle the dollars. In 2027 the calendar’s sharpest edge is 25 April: six jurisdictions list the Sunday, two observe the Monday instead, and three of the six also list the Monday as a public holiday. A national date list cannot carry that distinction, and a payslip that ignores it can be wrong even when the rate itself is right.

The order that works is short. Check the gazetted day first. Check the award clause at the classification second. Check the payslip line third. The Act gives the right to be absent and the base rate for ordinary hours. The award or agreement gives the loading, where it exists. The Fair Work Commission’s power to cut that loading is now constrained by section 135A. None of those three layers can answer for the other two.

This is general information, not legal or financial advice. The state or territory page, the award at the reader’s classification and the contract of employment are the documents that decide an individual case.

Sources: NSW public holidays (https://www.nsw.gov.au/about-nsw/public-holidays); Public holidays in Victoria for 2027, Business Victoria (https://business.vic.gov.au/business-information/public-holidays/victorian-public-holidays-2027); Queensland public holidays (https://www.qld.gov.au/recreation/travel/holidays/public); Public holidays in Western Australia (https://www.wa.gov.au/service/employment/workplace-arrangements/public-holidays-western-australia); South Australian public holidays, SafeWork SA (https://www.safework.sa.gov.au/resources/public-holidays); Public holidays, WorkSafe Tasmania (https://worksafe.tas.gov.au/topics/laws-and-compliance/public-holidays); Public holidays, ACT Government (https://www.act.gov.au/living-in-the-act/public-holidays-school-terms-and-daylight-saving); NT public and regional holidays (https://nt.gov.au/nt-public-holidays); Fair Work Act 2009, Federal Register of Legislation (https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2009A00028/latest/text); Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates) Act 2025 (https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2025A00037/asmade/2025-08-29/text/1)

Stop waiting for the annual statement to find out whether your super was paid. Since 1 July 2026 it has to reach your fund within days of every payday, so every payday is when you check.

That’s my position, and the rest is detail: which day to look, what to match, what looks late but isn’t, and what to do when the money really is missing.

One thing first. This is general information, not financial advice. Your award, your fund and your circumstances can change the detail, so talk to your fund or the ATO about your own situation.

The annual statement is the wrong place to look now

For years the sensible habit was simple. Open the fund’s yearly statement, glance at the balance, file it. Under the old quarterly system that was roughly good enough, because super only had to arrive a few times a year, and a missing payment could sit unnoticed for months without anyone thinking it strange.

That world is gone. Payday Super shrinks the gap between your wages and your super to a week and a bit. A problem you could only have found next winter can now be found in a fortnight, while it’s one pay and not six and the people who can fix it still remember what happened.

Most of what you’ll find online about Payday Super is written for employers and payroll teams. That’s useful if you run the pays. It’s less useful if you’re the one being paid and you want one answer: when should my super be there?

Business day 10, and the sum behind it is short.

What changed on 1 July 2026

The ATO’s own wording is the clearest version of the new rule: “Super guarantee contributions must be received by your employees’ super funds within 7 business days after paying your employees.”

The word that matters is received. An employer who pressed send on day 6 and whose payment lands on day 9 has missed it.

A few other things changed at the same time, and each one matters to you.

Super is now paid for each payday. The employer works out super guarantee for every pay run instead of once a quarter. The rate is 12% of what the ATO now calls qualifying earnings, which takes in your ordinary time earnings plus all commissions and salary sacrificed amounts.

Payday is day 0. The ATO says it plainly: “The day you pay qualifying earnings is day 0.” The seven business days start the next business day.

Funds have to move faster too. Once your fund receives a contribution, it has 3 business days to allocate it to your account or send it back. That used to be 20. The count does not include the day the money arrives.

The government’s free clearing house has closed. The Small Business Superannuation Clearing House stopped taking new users on 1 October 2025 and closed to existing users after 30 June 2026. The ATO now describes it as no longer accessible.

A ruling on the advice you’ll still find

Plenty of guides still say super is due quarterly. They aren’t lying. They’re describing the old system, and the ATO confirms exactly where the line sits: “For employee earnings paid up to 30 June 2026, the quarterly super guarantee rules apply.”

So a guide that talks about quarters is describing pays from before July. For anything you’ve been paid since, quarterly is the wrong rule. Even the ATO’s own page for employees chasing unpaid super still points to an “Estimate my quarterly super calculator” at the time of writing. That’s a page catching up, not a sign the old rule survives. Go by payday.

The day-10 check

This is the bit the employer guides leave out, because it isn’t their problem. It’s a simple sum.

The employer has 7 business days to get the money into your fund. The fund then has 3 business days to put it in your account. Seven plus three is ten. By the end of business day 10 after payday, the contribution should be sitting in your account.

Day 10 is the outer edge, not the target. A lot of employers will pay sooner, and the money may show up on day 2 or day 4. If it’s there early, good. If it isn’t there by day 10, that’s the point where it’s fair to start asking.

A worked example (hypothetical)

Take a hypothetical worker on fortnightly pay, paid on Thursday 12 November 2026.

Count it yourself and it works. Friday the 13th is day 1, the weekend doesn’t count, and Monday the 23rd is day 7. Then three more business days takes you to Thursday the 26th.

What a business day means here

Under the ATO’s definition, a business day is any day that isn’t a Saturday, a Sunday, or a public holiday for the whole of any state or territory.

Read that last part twice. It’s any state or territory, not just yours. A state-wide public holiday anywhere in Australia pushes the count back a day, even if you’re working normally in a different state. That’s why paydays around Christmas and New Year run later than you’d expect. Count carefully over the holidays, or simply allow a few extra days.

What to match

You’re checking two things against each other. On one side is the super line on your payslip for that pay. On the other side is the transaction in your fund.

Pull up the payslip. It’s the same document you’d read to check your leave loading, and the super figure should be on it. Then open your fund’s app or online account and find the matching contribution.

Match three things:

1. The amount. Does the fund show the same figure as the payslip?
2. The date. Did it arrive inside the day-10 window?
3. The employer name. Is it your employer, and not a stray contribution from somewhere else?

For a rough sense check, multiply the qualifying earnings on that pay by 12%. Say a hypothetical pay has $2,000 of qualifying earnings. Twelve per cent of that is $240, so you’d expect a super line in that neighbourhood. If the payslip says $240 and the fund shows $240 from your employer by day 10, you’re done until next payday.

Treat that as a check, not the legal calculation. Your award, your hours and what counts toward qualifying earnings can all move the number. If you salary sacrifice, that amount sits inside qualifying earnings, so don’t be thrown when the 12% is worked out on a figure that includes it. What you’re looking for is a figure that’s in the right neighbourhood and turns up on time, not a match to the cent.

Late that isn’t late

The employer guides rarely spell this out for the person being paid. Some contributions are allowed to take longer, and if yours is one of them, chasing on day 11 just costs everyone a phone call.

Four of the situations in the ATO’s examples matter most to employees:

1. You’re a new employee. The first contribution for a new starter has 20 business days, not 7.
2. You’ve switched funds. The first contribution to a new fund after you change also gets 20 business days.
3. The money was paid out of cycle. A bonus, commission or back pay paid outside the normal pay run isn’t due 7 days later. It’s due with the deadline for the next regular payday.
4. The ATO has declared exceptional circumstances. Natural disasters and widespread IT outages are the examples. Where the ATO makes a determination, the deadline extends to at least 20 business days after payday.

If one of those fits, wait before you chase. If none does and day 10 has gone, keep going.

When the money is missing

The steps below follow the ATO’s page about unpaid super from your employer. Work through them in order. Each step is quicker than the one after it, and a problem can often be cleared at the second or third.

1. Confirm you’re entitled. Most employees are, but check the ATO’s rules if you’re unsure about your work arrangement.
2. Check your fund properly. Look at statements, call them or use the app. Also check your super through ATO online services in myGov, the same login you’d use to track a tax refund. Sometimes the money is there and labelled oddly.
3. Ask your employer. Three questions: when did you pay it, to which fund, and how much? Keep it factual. A missed payment is often an admin slip, and a direct question usually clears it.
4. Check your choice form. Make sure the fund your employer has on file is the one you actually use. A contribution sent to an old fund isn’t missing. It’s just somewhere else.
5. Report it. If none of that resolves it, use the ATO’s report unpaid super tool.

Go into step 5 with your eyes open. The ATO says “not every referral results in the collection of unpaid super”. That’s a fair warning, not a reason to skip it. Reporting puts the problem on the record with the body that has the power to act.

One more fork. If your award says you’re owed super above the guarantee, that extra part goes to the Fair Work Ombudsman, not the ATO.

What other workers say

Online, employees split roughly three ways on this. The most common advice is to report to the ATO straight away. A second group says the ATO is slow, and that you can’t get blood out of a stone if a business has no money. A third says unpaid super is a sign of trouble and the answer is to leave.

Each has a point. Our view sits in the middle. Check each payday, ask payroll, then report. A one-off delay that’s fixed quickly isn’t a crisis. Repeated misses are.

Why one late payment isn’t a fire

The ATO has said how it will treat employers in the first year, under a practical compliance guideline, PCG 2026/1, which runs from 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027. Employers who are trying to pay each payday and fix errors quickly are treated as low risk. Its focus is on employers who aren’t making the adjustment, or aren’t paying super at all.

That’s a useful frame for you too. A business that’s new to paying super every fortnight may trip once. If they fix it quickly when you raise it, the system is working.

You might hear one line in particular: “the ATO has it.” Before July that sometimes meant the money was sitting in the government clearing house. That clearing house has closed. So if you hear it now, don’t argue. Just ask the same three questions: which fund, what date, how much. A real answer will check out against your account.

Repeated misses are different. If super is late pay after pay, report it, and keep your own records: payslips, screenshots of the fund showing nothing, the dates you asked and what you were told. The ATO itself says recovery is not guaranteed, which is the fair point the “leave now” crowd is making. A run of missed payments is a good reason to start looking at your options while you’re still employed and still being paid.

Super is one workplace right worth knowing well. The right to disconnect is another.

Day ten, not June

The old habit was to look once a year. The new rule gives your employer seven business days and your fund three, so the right time to look is day 10 after every payday.

Set a reminder in your phone for day 10 after each payday. Open the fund, find the contribution, match it to the payslip. It takes two minutes. On most paydays it’ll be there and you’ll close the app. On the payday it isn’t, you’ll know within a fortnight, not next June, and a fortnight-old problem is a much easier one to fix.

Sources: About Payday Super, Australian Taxation Office (https://www.ato.gov.au/businesses-and-organisations/super-for-employers/about-payday-super); Payment deadlines for Payday Super, Australian Taxation Office (https://www.ato.gov.au/businesses-and-organisations/super-for-employers/paying-super-on-payday/payment-deadlines-for-payday-super); Unpaid super from your employer, Australian Taxation Office (https://www.ato.gov.au/individuals-and-families/super-for-individuals-and-families/super/growing-and-keeping-track-of-your-super/unpaid-super-from-your-employer); Getting it right: compliance in the first year of Payday Super, Australian Taxation Office (https://www.ato.gov.au/businesses-and-organisations/super-for-employers/missed-or-late-payday-super-payments/getting-it-right-compliance-in-the-first-year-of-payday-super)

Leave loading is not a universal right. Annual leave is.

Mix those two up and you’ll either chase money you were never owed or miss money you were. The 17.5 per cent extra that most people picture when they hear “leave loading” doesn’t come from national law. It comes from a clause in your award or your enterprise agreement, and if that clause isn’t there, neither is the loading.

There’s a popular short video that puts it simply: leave loading is when you get paid 17.5 per cent more when you take annual leave. Thousands watched it. Plenty of them now think everyone gets it. They don’t. And a lot of people who do get it are paid correctly without ever seeing a line on the payslip called “loading”.

So pick your side of the line first. Owed, or never owed. Everything below is about working out which one you’re on.

Annual leave is the right. Loading is a clause

Start with what you’re guaranteed, because it’s the floor everything else sits on.

The National Employment Standards (NES) give paid annual leave to every employee except casuals. The Fair Work Ombudsman is clear on the numbers. Full-time and part-time employees get 4 weeks of paid annual leave a year, based on their ordinary hours of work. Some shiftworkers get more. Leave builds up from your first day, and whatever you don’t use rolls over from year to year.

That part is national. It applies whatever your job, your award or the size of your employer.

Leave loading isn’t in that list.

Where loading comes from

The Fair Work Ombudsman describes leave loading as an additional amount paid to some employees when they take annual leave. Note the word “some”. The Ombudsman says it doesn’t apply to all employees and depends on what their award or enterprise agreement says.

So the question “do I get leave loading?” has no general answer. It has your answer, and it’s written in one document.

Find your award or agreement. Find the annual leave clause. Read what it says about loading. That clause decides whether you get an extra amount, what rate it’s paid at and how it’s worked out. Fair Work’s own guidance on calculating annual leave loading says it plainly: loading clauses vary from award to award.

Most people never read their award. Fair enough, it’s not a gripping document. But it’s where your conditions live, alongside the NES protections that sit underneath every award. If you’ve already read up on your right to disconnect after hours, you’ve seen how that works: the national rule sets a floor, and your award or agreement fills in the detail. Leave loading is pure detail. It lives entirely in the second layer.

When a clause does provide loading, 17.5 per cent is the rate you’ll see most commonly. Commonly, not always. That’s why this article won’t tell you “you get 17.5 per cent”. It will tell you to check.

The higher-of rule

This is where most of the “have I been paid wrong?” posts come from. Someone looks at a holiday payslip, can’t find the 17.5 per cent and assumes payroll has stuffed up.

Often it hasn’t.

Many awards don’t simply add loading on top. They make it a comparison. You get whichever is higher: the leave loading, or the penalty rates you would normally have earned if you’d been at work.

The Fair Work Ombudsman’s example from the Food and Beverage Manufacturing Award shows exactly how this plays out. Under that award, dayworkers get the higher of 17.5 per cent loading on their annual leave pay, or the weekend penalty rates they would normally get.

The Ombudsman’s worked case is James. James works part-time, Fridays and Saturdays. His Saturday shifts attract a penalty rate of 150 per cent. When he takes annual leave, he isn’t paid his base rate plus 17.5 per cent for the Saturday. He’s paid the Saturday rate, because it’s higher than the loading would be.

James is paid correctly. His payslip may not show anything called “loading”. He’s still ahead.

Shiftworkers under that award get the same kind of comparison: the higher of 17.5 per cent, or their normal shift rates including weekend penalties.

That’s one award. Others are worded differently, and some don’t use a higher-of comparison at all. The principle is what you take away. If you normally earn penalty rates, your leave pay may already be higher than base plus loading, and the loading drops out because the bigger number wins.

Think about who this catches. The hospitality worker on weekends. The retail casual who went permanent part-time and kept the Saturday shifts. The warehouse hand on a rotating roster. These are exactly the people most likely to earn penalty rates, and so exactly the people most likely to open a holiday payslip, see no loading and decide they’ve been robbed. Under a higher-of clause, the penalty rate is doing the job the loading would otherwise do. You get one or the other, whichever is worth more, not both stacked together.

So before you raise a complaint, ask the right question. Not “where’s my 17.5 per cent?” Ask “was I paid the higher of the two amounts my clause compares?”

Above-award pay changes the maths

Plenty of people are paid more than the award minimum. That raises an obvious question. Is loading worked out on what you’re actually paid, or on the award rate?

The answer is the same as for everything else here. It depends on the clause.

Fair Work’s guidance on calculating annual leave loading says whether loading is calculated on your above-award rate or on the award minimum depends on how the clause is worded. Some clauses tie the loading to the minimum rate for your classification. Others tie it to your actual rate of pay.

If you’re on a generous above-award rate, this can matter a lot. Same 17.5 per cent, two very different bases, and the gap grows with every dollar you’re paid above the minimum. Read the wording. If your contract says your above-award pay “absorbs” or “offsets” award entitlements, read that too, and ask payroll which base they use. Don’t guess from the payslip alone.

Casuals: no leave, no leave loading

Casuals are the easy case, and they’re the group most often confused by the video version of the rule.

Casual employees don’t get paid annual leave under the NES. No paid annual leave means no annual leave loading. There’s nothing for the loading to attach to.

What casuals get instead is a casual loading. It’s a separate payment for a different reason: it compensates for the entitlements casuals don’t get, paid annual leave among them. The two loadings share a word and nothing else. If you’re casual and someone tells you you’re missing out on your 17.5 per cent, you’re not. The casual loading is the payment meant to cover that gap.

Your award sets out how the casual loading works for your job. Check it there.

When the money looks missing

Say you’ve checked, and you still think something’s wrong. Do it in this order.

Read the payslip for the leave period. Not last month’s. The one that covers the days you were on leave. Look at the rate you were paid for those days, and any separate line for loading.

Find the clause. Your award or enterprise agreement. The annual leave section. Work out whether it provides loading at all, what rate, whether it’s a higher-of comparison and what base the loading is calculated on.

Run the comparison. If your clause compares loading with penalty rates, work out what you’d have earned in penalties over those days if you’d worked. Then check you got the higher of the two.

Raise it with payroll. Assume a mistake before you assume a scheme. Show them the clause and the payslip, and ask them to walk you through the calculation. A written answer is better than a hallway one.

Then go to the Fair Work Ombudsman. If payroll can’t explain it, the Ombudsman’s Fair Work Infoline is the next step.

Keep copies of everything while you do this. Payslips, rosters, the clause, the emails with payroll. If you’re sorting out your pay records anyway, it’s worth getting your tax paperwork into the same shape, and the guide to why your tax refund might be taking longer is a good place to start on that side.

One more thing. If you’re leaving a job, unused annual leave is dealt with in your final pay, and final pay has its own rules. Don’t assume they match what you got on holiday. Check the Fair Work Ombudsman’s page on final pay for your situation before you sign off on the last payslip.

This is general information, not legal advice. Your award, agreement and circumstances decide the answer.

Find the clause, then check the payslip

Annual leave is a national right for everyone except casuals. Leave loading is an extra that only exists if your award or agreement says so. And when it does exist, it’s often a comparison with your penalty rates, so a payslip without a “loading” line can still be right.

Stop asking whether you’re owed 17.5 per cent. Find your clause, read what it actually promises, and hold the payslip up against that, because the clause is the only document that can tell you what you were owed in the first place.

Sources: Payment for annual leave, Fair Work Ombudsman (https://www.fairwork.gov.au/leave/annual-leave/payment-for-annual-leave); Annual leave loading in awards and agreements [K600323], Fair Work Ombudsman (https://www.fairwork.gov.au/tools-and-resources/library/K600323_Calculating-annual-leave-loading); Annual leave pay in the Food and Beverage Manufacturing Award [K600258], Fair Work Ombudsman (https://www.fairwork.gov.au/tools-and-resources/library/K600258_Annual-leave-pay-in-the-Food-Beverage-Manufacturing-Award)