A mother whose son was diagnosed with leukemia has called for Australia to emulate a French law that allows generous employees to donate leave to colleagues with a seriously ill child.

France's parliament passed a bill last month, tabled by Loire MP Paul Salen in 2011, which was inspired by a real life story of goodwill where weeks of paid annual leave were gifted to a father so he could spend as long as possible with his terminally ill son.

On the other side of the world, New South Wales mother Sonja Malcolm has struggled to balance the needs of her son, who was fighting acute myeloid leukemia, with the family's financial obligations.

Four weeks after being dealt the "horrific" news that her son Liam had the life-threatening condition, she returned to work.

"I worked for TAFE, full-time hours but I was casual," she said.

"You don't accumulate holidays, just sick leave. If I didn't work, I didn't get paid."

The family was eligible for a carer's allowance, but at $114 per fortnight, it was not enough to cover the cost of hospital parking for the same period.

Ms Malcolm said she received generous, but ultimately, unusable offers of help from those around her, who she says would welcome changes to the law similar to those in France.

"I had a number of colleagues who were long-term full-time employees ... they would say to me 'I've got months and months of accumulated leave. If I could give it to you, I would'," she said.

"It's such a simple solution. It's so logical and it's a way that people in the workplace can gather together to do something to help.

"For an organisation to be able to do that, it's of no cost to them aside from some administration."

Liam is now in remission but Ms Malcolm, who volunteers with the Cure our Kids charity, is only too aware of the many cancer families out there still doing it tough.

She believes any move to introduce a similar scheme in Australia would be met with "overwhelming support".

"I think one of the things you learn when you go through something like this is the capacity of people to step up and do things ... people want to help," she said.

Colleagues of French father donated 170 days of memories

When French man Christophe Germain's nine-year-old son Mathys was diagnosed with liver cancer, co-workers at mineral water company Badoit ran a collection to help.

But it was memories, not just money their kind gesture gifted the family.

With the approval of company bosses, workers dipped into their leave balances and gave what they could.

Collectively, staff credited 170 days of paid leave to Mr Germain, who "enjoyed every second" with his terminally ill son.

Mathys lost his fight with the disease, but his parents went on to create D'un papillon a une etoile, a foundation in their son's honour.

With the support of Mr Salen, the foundation campaigned for changes to the law, which would allow workers across the country to credit leave to other parents of seriously ill children.

"This action is intended to allow parents whose child is sick and dying, to take advantage of great generosity, in [a] painful moment of life," a message posted on the foundation's website says.

Mathys loi (law) was passed by the French Senate on April 31, two years after the bill was passed by the National Assembly.

Mathys' parents have welcomed the decision after what they describe as three and a half years full of doubt and hope.

Would gifting leave work in Australia?

Under current Australian laws, employees are unable to donate leave in order to ensure statutory entitlements are met.

But a spokesperson for the Department of Employment says enterprise agreements could allow for the donation of leave in cases where an employee is entitled to days off, additional to their statutory entitlements.

"Donating leave entitlements to colleagues is not generally permitted because employers are required to provide their employees with a minimum amount of leave under the Fair Work Act 2009," the spokesperson said.

"Where an employee is entitled to extra leave, in addition to the minimum statutory entitlements provided under the NES (National Employment Standards), donating part of that additional leave may be permissible, depending on the employees' particular terms of employment."

John Dugas, a human resource management lecturer at the University of Newcastle in New South Wales says legislating the donation of leave is "extremely progressive".

"They've had some interesting developments in France ... to try and get the work-life balance better," he said.

"This seems to be in the same vein.

"In Australia, we are allowed to trade our days for money, this falls somewhat in the same category. People say 'I'm prepared to forego leave, to pass it over to a colleague'."

Mr Dugas says that while such a scheme would be generous, it would need to be carefully implemented.

"Notionally, it's wonderful and very charitable in terms of social behaviour," he said.

"But the devil is in the detail. Who defines what seriously ill is? Is it open for rorts?"

If it can be successfully implemented, Mr Dugas says there are benefits that extend from workers to the workplace.

"The company may indeed find it does very positive things to its reputation at perhaps not very much cost," he said.