PUBLIC holidays: sleep-ins, long lunches and catch-ups with friends. Everyone loves them, right?
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It’s almost un-Australian not to.
But, for every person who believes a day off is a fundamental right for the Australian employee, there’s another who says there are too many and our economy can’t afford them.
The argument against them has been particularly loud in Victoria of late, where a public holiday has been declared tomorrow, the eve of the AFL grand final.
According to business groups, every public holiday costs the nation between $3 and $4 billion, and it’s been suggested it will cost Victoria more than $500 million “to pay ... almost 2 million full-time employees not to come to work”.
Small businesses are particularly impacted. If they don’t open they lose money, and if they do open their doors exorbitant penalty rates mean they could lose money that way, too.
Many of these business owners may choose to open, but they’ll work the day themselves because it’s cheaper than having staff on.
It doesn’t help business either when public holidays, such as Anzac Day, fall on a Saturday or Sunday, but governments then insist on making the following Monday a public holiday.
This year there was a huge outcry when the then NSW government refused to make the Monday after Saturday’s Anzac Day a holiday, but this is how it should be.
It’s a significant commemoration for our nation, and to have a day off just for the sake of it cheapens its significance.
The issue of public holidays has been raised locally just this week, too, with Armidale Dumaresq Council refusing to bow to pressure to grant a gazetted half-day public holiday for next year’s Armidale Cup meeting.
Councillors decided it was too disruptive and too much of a burden for business and for schools.
Indeed, numerous communities around the region have dispensed with the traditional half-day race day public holiday, realising many residents didn’t use it for the purpose for which it was intended. Instead of supporting the local race day, they went and did something else.
There’s no doubt public holidays have their place on our annual calendar, but we must accept they come at a cost to all of us, and governments must think long and hard before granting additional ones.