Q: I have a query regarding payment for public holidays I was hoping you could assist with.

One of our part-time employees works on a varying schedule, so they do not have set working days and hours. Therefore, to determine an otherwise working day when a public holiday comes up we manually check their working pattern over a period of time.

This part-time employee was rostered to work the previous Sunday, which was Anzac Day. Sunday has been determined as an otherwise working day for the employee, and as they did not work the Mondayised public holiday they would receive the benefits of a public holiday on the 26th April instead. However, they worked only 15 minutes before they finished up and took the rest of the day sick. The employee has no available sick leave so this leave is unpaid.

My question is if we should still provide an alternative holiday plus the 15 minutes of the shift that was worked? Alternatively, would we simply pay the team member their average daily pay?

A: Technically if they work any part of the PH they must be paid 1.5 for actual hours worked, so for the 15 minutes.  As you cannot be sick on a PH then the rest of the day they went sick would be paid as PH taken.  The 15 mins if you have stated is based on an otherwise working day they would also get the Alt day.

So:

• 15mins x 1.5
• Rest of day paid at PH taken RDP
• 1 x Alt day