Parental/ Maternity leave payments and accrual

Hi All

As rules keep changing im finding a little confusing to know exactly how maternity leave should be set up from an employers side.

We have been told that an employee must stay employed to receive maternity leave payments from centrelink and also that the payments must be paid from centrelink to the employer and the employer pay the employee.

So the employee, on paper needs to stay employed even if they have no intension of coming back until all the payments have been paid to them.

In the past, if an employee was not returning to their current workplace, centrelink would pay them directly and not involve the employer, this changed 1/7/23 apparently. Therefore there was no exta super paid or entitlements accrued during that period.

I have already set up the accounts to receive the payments and the payroll category to pay the maternity leave.

I want to clarify if when paying the materity leave if this should accrue sick leave and annual leave and also if we should be paying super on the maternity leave funds. 

Hoping someone has done this recently and can confirm. I couldnt find the specific info on the ATO website.

In Victoria