It’s not a case of being offensive. They’re just putting into legislation that those dates are regarded as public holidays. They’re pretty much falling into line with what is done in other states.
Previously, if Anzac Day or Australia Day fell on a weekend, then the public holiday would be on the following Monday. Now, if the public holiday falls on a weekend it will be a public holiday on that date. If you work that day then you get penalty rates.
The King’s/Queen’s Birthday holiday is always on a Monday. So is Labour Day or whatever it’s called in different states.
ANZAC Day only gets a mention as an explanatory section title in the current act, not as actual law: “In addition to the days mentioned in Schedule 2, 25 April will be a public holiday and bank holiday but when that day falls on a Sunday, that day and the following Monday will be public holidays and bank holidays.”
So that part is kinda a storm in a tea cup. Legally the only non-Easter day mentioned by name in the current act [and not as a section name] is Christmas Day, and I wonder if some legal people thought that was ambiguous (those that celebrate it via the Orthodox calendar which aligns to Jan 7, etc.). Probably would rather it be watertight.
The whole thing needed modernising a bit in any case. It still had the old thing of every Sunday being a public holiday, and I think there was the thing where Saturdays lost their public holiday status if something that fell on that day was transferred to Monday (I think that was mentioned in the article).
It also had the old Adelaide Cup date in May, which would have had to be moved by governor’s proclamation each year to the new March date (aligning with Victoria’s Labour Day).
Whether it’s “un-Australian or not” really depends on how the public face of it (in this case SafeWork SA) chooses to call it - and they use the colloquial names now even when they’re not in the law already. Big deal.
Seems weird that we are still celebrating the monarch’s “birthday” in 2024 but not across the whole country.
Even though King Charles’s birthday is actually in November, we have hung on to this anachronistic custom of celebrating the Kings Birthday in June in certaint parts of Australia, but in others it’s in September (Western Australia) or October (Queensland) .
So we have a King’s Birthday Honours List but it’s not celebrated across the whole country.
Maybe its time to change this public holiday to a date that can be celebrated nationally.
I’m going be contentious and say maybe we should drop the King’s Birthday holiday completely. Is anyone actually celebrating the king’s birthday on this public holiday?
Instead let’s declare a new public holiday and call it Indigenous Day, where we can actually celebrate something culturally relevant to Australia. Maybe in conjunction with current NAIDOC Wekk celebrations. First Monay in July.
Because I am sure that replacing the celebration of the European invasion of Australia with a holiday at a very similar time of year celebrating the birthday of the monarch whose ancestors were responsible for it would cause exactly zero issues.
I don’t there’s a need to cut national public holidays. I think we have an average amount compared to most countries.
On the other hand, some of the regional public holidays could go. Especially the ones associated to sporting events like the Melbourne Cup and Football Grand Finals.
If we were looking at nifty ways to cut costs, then this public holiday should coincide with the school holidays in July. That way it’s one less day that parents have to find someone to babysit their kids.
Hmm, I’m not sure that I agree… There are other ways for workers to achieve a better work/life balance eg. RDOs, part time hours, flexi-time (if your employer allows). It will depend on what your priorities are eg… more $$$ or more spare time etc.
