Book 8 - Parliament of Victoria

PUBLIC HOLIDAYS AMENDMENT BILL 2011
Thursday, 2 June 2011 COUNCIL 1687
of Victoria. Melbourne Cup Day will be the default
where no substitute has been requested. Where
alternative holidays are declared in only part of a
municipality the remaining part of the municipality will
be subject to the default Melbourne Cup Day.
I have mentioned, and I will not recount it, the
difficulty of the lack of flexibility in the present
arrangements, which has had adverse impacts on a lot
of rural communities. Significant community events
have not been recognised in the allocation of important
days. It is fair to say that Melbourne Cup Day
becoming the default public holiday has not provided
significant benefits to local communities. There are
some exceptions to that, but on the whole that is rare.
We should note in terms of the comments made earlier
about the relative number of public holidays that
Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and the
Northern Territory have 11 public holidays in total. In
Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia there are
only 10 public holidays.
Ms Pennicuik interjected.
Mr P. DAVIS — The interjection from the learned
Ms Pennicuik is that they need more. They want more!
Ms Pulford mentioned the issue of consistency across
the jurisdictions. Why should we default to some model
that is handed down from a tablet on high? Is it not a
good thing that there is diversity between the states,
between municipalities and between people? We
celebrate cultural and ethnic diversity in this nation.
Why do we want conformity here, in that everybody
has to stop work on a day because they are being told,
by the left in this place, that they should stop work?
Prior to 2008 the Melbourne Cup Day holiday only
applied to metropolitan Melbourne. Rural councils
could declare a holiday if they chose to gazette
Melbourne Cup Day or an equivalent day or two
half-days, and that is in effect the position we are
reinstating. We are reinstating a pass for local councils
to make a determination that they will adopt a position,
which was relatively within their capacity to do before
2008 — that is, before the act was changed, with the
Greens supporting the changes and the coalition
opposing them. At the time we committed to repeal
these provisions and fix them, which we are now doing.
I note that the opposition, at least, has urged that the
government be held to account for committing to all its
election promises, so I am looking forward to the
opposition voting for the bill at the second-reading and
third-reading stages, because the bill implements our
election commitment to the Melbourne Cup holiday
arrangements. I do not know how the Greens will vote;
I am still wondering, because I could not discern that
from the speech of the lead speaker for the Greens.
The timing of the bill allows for this year’s show and
racing calendars to be coordinated, or at least holidays
applied for in relation to municipalities where those are
important events. I close on the point Ms Pennicuik
made that she would advocate a significantly increased
number of public holidays. I suggest the bill provides
the flexibility for local councils to declare additional
days other than Melbourne Cup Day to meet the
requirements of their local communities. I strongly urge
the house to support the bill.
Mr SOMYUREK (South Eastern Metropolitan) —
I preface my comments by responding to Mr Philip
Davis. Section 7 gives all the flexibility and
self-determination in the world to local councils, and I
will discuss that in more detail in my contribution.
At the outset I inform the house that I will move
amendments during the committee stage of the bill, and
I request that they be circulated. The amendments are
contingent upon the committee agreeing to broaden the
scope of the bill.
Opposition amendments circulated by
Mr SOMYUREK (South Eastern Metropolitan)
pursuant to standing orders.
Mr SOMYUREK — I will commence my
contribution with some background information which
I think has been lost in this debate. The bill does not
operate in a vacuum; there is a background to it. In
2008 the Labor government ensured that all Victorians
would be given a public holiday on Melbourne Cup
Day or a day in lieu of Melbourne Cup Day, whereas
prior to the introduction of the 2008 bill many
Victorians in rural and regional areas missed out on a
public holiday. Many Victorians not residing in
Melbourne have missed out on a holiday on Melbourne
Cup Day since it became a holiday for metropolitan
Melbourne in the 1870s.
Melbourne Cup Day is a big national event, and
Melburnians, as Mr Philip Davis explained, enjoy the
occasion on the first Tuesday of November every year.
We Melburnians tend to think it is a national day, or at
the very least a mandatory holiday for all of Victoria.
However, until 2008 it was not a mandatory holiday for
all of Victoria. In fact Melbourne Cup Day was only a
mandatory holiday for metropolitan Melbourne, and
clearly that was a big problem. Why should Victorians
in rural and regional areas miss out on a holiday? Sure,
local councils in non-metropolitan Victoria had the