How tax records showing a single shift in a year decided the start date
An eight-month gap with no shifts has decided when a Svitzer worker's long service leave clock started - and it was not 1997.
The Fair Work Commission has ended a long-running dispute over the start date for a Svitzer Australia worker's long service leave. In a decision handed down on July 1, 2026, the outcome turned on a stretch in 2005 and 2006 when he did no work for the company.
The worker wanted his service counted from November 1, 1997, when he first worked for a Svitzer predecessor, Baystar, later acquired by Adsteam and then Svitzer. He had held a mix of roles over the years. Svitzer accepted he may have first started in 1997 but said the continuous service that drives long service leave began on August 14, 2006, after what it described as a break of about nine and a half months.
The worker, represented by the Australian Maritime Officers' Union, said there was no real break. He submitted that Svitzer had "repeatedly changed their position, conveniently creating new issues with dates all the while providing little to no supporting evidence as to why," and argued the company's record-keeping amounted to a "systemic failure." Svitzer said that since at least January 24, 2011 it had consistently identified the August 2006 date, and pointed to a 2010 letter of offer stating the worker's "commencement date with SVITZER of 14 August 2006 remains unchanged."
The Commission first had to decide whether it could apply the NSW Long Service Leave Act at all. Clause 48.1 of the enterprise agreement said long service leave would accrue "in accordance with the relevant State Long Service Leave legislation." Relying on a Full Bench ruling that a general description can be enough to bring an outside document into an agreement, the Commission found that wording incorporated the state Act, and gave it jurisdiction.
On the substance, the tax records were central. The worker earned about $102,000 from Sydney Ferries in each of the financial years ending June 2005 and June 2006, against $224 and $1,437 from Svitzer in the same years. The Commission read that as one shift, then possibly five or six. It found he had a full-time job with Sydney Ferries between 2002 and 2006, that he took himself "off the books" for an eight-month period, and that this broke his continuous service. It also held that irregular casual work caused by a full-time job with a different employer does not preserve continuity.
For HR and payroll leaders, the practical signals are clear. Casual service can count toward long service leave, but only while continuity holds. A genuine gap with no engagements can reset the clock, even where a worker stays loosely "on the books" and keeps in touch. Full-time work for another employer will not bridge it. The decision is also a reminder that a passing reference in an enterprise agreement can pull an entire state Act into a dispute, and that gaps in old records can leave dates contested years later.
The Commission determined that the worker's continuous service commenced on August 14, 2006.
