I always have to take care when I type the word public.
Someone on the www mentioned the number of public holidays Australia has, and he was wrong. I won't publicly shame him by naming him, especially as he is rarely wrong. I thought to check myself as I knew it was more than he suggested. The first site that came up when I searched was australia.com It too is wrong. It's not a government website. If it was, the url would end in .gov.au or .vic.gov.au
In the list there there seemed to be one extra holiday I didn't know about and one left out. I am also not sure if it is true for Northern Territory that it has the national King's Birthday holiday and a local Queen's Birthday holiday on a different date. Perhaps this is Camilla's day in the sunshine.
Yes, what I saw does give weight to the phrase, I read it on the internet, so it must be true. I went to a government website, and here is a list.
National:
New Year's Day, January 1st
Australia Day, January 26th (Invasion Day for some)
Labour Day (variable state to state), March in Victoria
Good Friday, March or April
The Saturday before Easter Sunday
Easter Sunday
Easter Monday
Anzac Day (war commemorative), April 25th. That day will be long remembered by me.
King's Birthday (variable state to state), June in Victoria
Christmas Day
Boxing Day (the day after Christmas Day)
In addition there are Victorian state holidays and other states and territories have their own:
The Australian Football League grand final match eve, September. What a joke, but which worker will knock back a public holiday or the extra pay for working?
Melbourne Cup Day. Yes a public holiday for a horse race. This varies across the state, dependant on local event horse racing Cup Days.
So in my State of Victoria, there are thirteen public holidays each year and most states are similar, give or take one. Eleven national public holidays, and two state public holidays.
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There are a lot. Since my retirement some of them sneak up on me, but I did always look forward to them while I was working. And yes, Anzac Day is one you will never forget.
ReplyDeleteEC, interesting that some multi race and multi faith country like Malaysia get quite a few more public holidays for various religious reasons.
DeleteQuite a lot of holidays. Make the most of them:-)
ReplyDeleteJB, meaningless to me, except some shops are shut.
DeleteYou do have a healthy amount of holidays. Woot. Woot.
ReplyDeleteSandra sandracox.blogspot.com
Compared to some countries Sandra, we do indeed.
DeleteWhat gets me are the 'national day of' whatever here in the United States. It gets ridiculous and I don't get the point. Be well!
ReplyDeleteDarla, do you mean like world......reading day, and others like that?
DeleteThe one you mention sounds quite nice, but national ice cream day and the like are goofy. lol
DeleteWhich idiot got the number of Australian public holidays wrong? Honestly, why don't these people check their facts before publishing falsehoods?
ReplyDeleteYP, you whistle, I'll point.
DeleteOh, Andrew, that is just a bit unsporting of you. Still, @YP, LOL.
DeleteMC, we do amuse ourselves in our own twisted way.
DeleteBoxing Day is not a holiday here in the U.S. Wish it was. Unless Christmas falls on a Friday or Saturday, knowing I can't sleep in the next morning kind puts a damper on the holiday.
ReplyDeleteI can imagine Kirk. But it is not without its issues. It can often mean two Christmas dinners with different relatives.
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ReplyDeletethecontemplativecat here We lived in Ireland when our kids were in Irish schools. They learned so much, incl. Gaelic. What amazed us was how many saints' days were important. and, Bank holidays were every month. So I didn't count the days, not sure how many there were. I guess that depended on how many saints were being honored.
CC, I wonder if that is still the case in the much less now, religious Ireland.
DeleteI counted Australian public holidays and failed miserably because I only counted Good Friday and Easter Monday for the Easter holidays.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see Australia Day changed
Kylie, I would for two reasons. One of course is the original inhabitants think of it as invasion day, the other is that it has become so divisive among those who want to keep and those who don't. Just do it!
DeleteI loved public holidays when I worked full time.. and really needed the breaks
ReplyDeleteBut they had to fall on Monday or Friday to get real benefit from the holiday.
I agree Hels, and I remember one evil Premier in the 90s changing one from being aligned with a weekend to the actual day as a sop to big business. However, that failed as now if the day is a Tuesday or Thursday, it become a four days off work if you included the weekend.
DeleteOnly people in government jobs get the benefit of those National Holidays. When I worked, the holidays were New Year's Day, Memorial Day, July Fourth, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Day. That was it, unless my mind has retired too.
ReplyDeleteDebby, so that is six. Given the limited annual leave workers there receive, that seems rather ungenerous.
DeleteIt felt rather ungenerous too. Even worse, your vacation could only be taken if it were convenient for them. Forget combining it with holidays. It wasn't convenient. It was a frustrating place to work, but there were not a lot of choices here.
DeleteWe don't have the Melbourne Cup day off, but everyone stops working and either listens or watches the race. So there's a loss of productivity, but the bosses don't seem to mind.
ReplyDeleteRiver, the bosses could hardly complain while they swan around Flemington Racecourse in their expensive clothes.
DeleteI don't remember when the public holidays are down here expect for Christmas and Easter, it could be a holiday this coming Monday and I wouldn't know. When I worked I knew of course, staff always got paid more.
ReplyDeleteMargaret, and so people should be paid more for working on public holidays, especially say Christmas Day.
DeleteWe didn't get paid more. They offered a day off in recompense, to be taken at their convenience.
DeleteI seem to have missed this blog post. It didn't show up in my feed somehow. Sorry Andrew. I was not ignoring you.
ReplyDeleteJayCee, is this the cop out when you can't think of something to say? :-P
DeleteAs much as your comments are appreciated, please don't feel you have to comment on every post. No probs.
Bank holidays are meaningless to me since retirement. Every time there's some sort of New Event - e.g. The King's cats birthday ( sorry fictional exaggerated example there ) there's a public demand for a new BH........
ReplyDeleteAlison in Wales x
Improving the lot of the workers, Alison. The more paid holidays, the better.
DeleteReading this, I am reminded that private employers are not obligated to honor or pay employees for holidays. My office worked Veterans day.
ReplyDeleteTP, but I guess generally employers do?
DeleteInteresting. Andrew, I recently learned about wattle day! Carry on sir. A fond Aloha
ReplyDeleteCloudia, yes there are wattles blooming everywhere now.
DeleteWe have about the same nr of holidays as you. Some countries have more and some less.
ReplyDeleteIt would be similar right through Europe I would think Gattina.
DeleteInteresting! Fewer than the UK, I believe. I feel like Easter weekend doesn't really count since Saturday and Sunday are holidays for most people anyway.
ReplyDeleteThose two extra Easter holidays were slipped in very quietly Steve. I did not even know about them until a year or so ago.
DeleteYes, typing that word public gets a lot of people in trouble! I always thought for some reason that other countries get more holidays off than us. There are a lot of "obscure holidays" that I worked back when I worked. That was my term for the ones that were a day off only if you worked for the government or a bank.
ReplyDeleteDeb, I wonder why those government and bank holidays never extended on office workers, at least.
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