Long service leave (LSL) is not set by a single national rule, and the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) does not itself prescribe how much leave an employee accrues or after how many years.

**Which level of law actually governs it**

For the great majority of national system employees, long service leave is governed by **State and Territory legislation** (or, for a shrinking number of employees, a pre-existing award/agreement-derived entitlement), not by the Fair Work Act directly. The Fair Work Act's National Employment Standards (NES) include long service leave as one of the 11 minimum entitlements (s 61), but s 113 of the NES does not create a Commonwealth LSL scheme - it simply preserves whatever LSL entitlement an employee already has under:

- an applicable State or Territory law,
- a pre-modernised award that included LSL terms continued in effect, or
- the terms of an enterprise agreement or other instrument that itself incorporates a State/Territory-style entitlement.

So the practical source of the entitlement is the law of the State or Territory in which the employee is based (or, for some industries, an industry-specific portable LSL scheme), even though the employer is a national system employer covered by the Fair Work Act.

**Why there is no single uniform figure**

Each State and Territory has its own LSL Act with its own qualifying period, accrual rate, and pro-rata rules, and they genuinely differ - for example, the standard qualifying period for a full entitlement is commonly quoted as 10 years' continuous service in most jurisdictions, but the pro-rata trigger after a shorter period (commonly 5 or 7 years, depending on the jurisdiction and the reason for leaving), the amount of leave accrued per year of service, and how "continuous service" and "ordinary pay" are calculated are not identical across jurisdictions. Some jurisdictions also run separate portable LSL schemes for specific industries (e.g. building and construction, contract cleaning, community services) that operate on top of, or instead of, the general state Act.

**The correct answer to the employer**

There is no single Commonwealth long service leave figure that applies uniformly to all employees across Australia. The entitlement an individual employee has - the qualifying period, the accrual rate, and how it is calculated and paid out - depends on which State or Territory LSL law (or applicable industry portable LSL scheme, or preserved award/agreement term) covers that employee's employment, which in turn generally turns on where the employee is based. To work out a specific employee's entitlement, the employer needs to identify the employee's State or Territory of employment and apply that jurisdiction's LSL Act (or the relevant portable scheme) to that employee's continuous service, not assume a single national rate.