Book 8 - Parliament of Victoria

PUBLIC HOLIDAYS AMENDMENT BILL 2011
Thursday, 2 June 2011 COUNCIL 1689
the community’. Yet the government now argues that
the restrictive requirement for whole day shire public
holidays in lieu of Melbourne Cup Day ignores the fact
that some country municipalities have two or more
communities within their municipality and that the
communities have different local show day and cup day
arrangements. It is totally inconsistent. What hypocrisy!
What nonsense!
Members opposite ought to be concerned about this
bill. Mr Philip Davis conceded that it is a very thin bill,
and it is. It is superfluous; we do not need this bill. I
hope members opposite rectify this by supporting my
amendment. Let us get something out of the bill; let us
all support my amendment. The bill is thin, but let us
add some meat to it by taking the opportunity to make
Easter Sunday a public holiday.
In the debate on this bill in the other place the lead
speaker from the opposition and other members of the
opposition raised concerns about families possibly
losing the opportunity to spend time together as a
family unit on a public holiday. The member for
Essendon, Justin Madden, spoke about the family unit
being divided, with some family members potentially
going off to work in another municipality or in a
different region within the same municipality and
therefore not being able to enjoy Easter Sunday as a
public holiday. This is a legitimate concern; however, it
is of greater concern that despite the posturing of
coalition members the bill effectively diminishes the
number of public holidays available to rural and
regional communities.
I will explain why I say this. Most reasonable people
understand that going to work for half a day kills the
entire day. A person has to get up — and I am
assuming that they are working the half-day in the
morning — have a shower, get ready for work, eat
breakfast and drive to work. I admit I have lived in
metropolitan Melbourne all my life, so I do not pretend
to know regional and rural Victoria as well as
Mr Davis, Mrs Coote, Ms Darveniza or Ms Pulford. I
do not pretend to know regional and rural Victoria that
well, but having driven past some of these places and
visited some of these places on holidays, for example, I
assume that the drive to work is pretty long. I am
informed that it may take people an hour to get to
work — that is how long distances are between
counties — —
Mr Koch interjected.
Mr SOMYUREK — It can take 5 minutes,
Mr Koch — you are right — but let us go with the
worst-case scenario. A person gets up, has a shower,
has breakfast, drives to work for an hour, spends 4 or
5 hours at work and then drives back for an hour. I
understand that this is the worst-case scenario, but let us
deal with it. That is 6 or 7 hours out of his day, and that
is a long time. This person might be doing hard yakka,
but he might not be doing hard manual work; he might
be a retail worker.
If you are working hard, it is difficult to unwind. You
cannot just come home, have a shower and go off with
the family. It is hard. Even doing what we do, we go
home, unwind and put our feet up. We have to recharge
our batteries. There is such a thing as the quality of the
time you have off. It is unreasonable to say that two
half-days off equal a day off. They do not.
There are also costs involved. If you drive an hour,
there are petrol costs. Can Mr Finn imagine catching a
taxi for an hour? That would cost a lot of money. I do
not think two half-days off make a day off. These are
not just my suppositions. The Shop, Distributive and
Allied Employees Association carried out a survey of
its members in rural and regional Victoria, and the
results emphatically support my suppositions. The
survey gave members the option of ticking one of two
boxes labelled with these statements: ‘I want to keep a
full day public holiday (Melbourne Cup Day or a local
holiday)’ and ‘I am happy with two half-days’.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Finn) — Order!
The member’s time has expired.
Mr ONDARCHIE (Northern Metropolitan) — I
rise to speak on the Public Holidays Amendment Bill
2011. I commend the bill to the house; it is an absolute
no-brainer. I have to say that listening to
Mr Somyurek’s submission to the house today left me a
bit frightened. I felt like I was in an economics 101
tutorial and Mr Somyurek was my tutor — now that is
a worst-case scenario! Mr Somyurek used the example
of a worker in regional and rural Victoria, and he used
the word ‘he’ — ‘he needs to get up’, ‘he needs to have
a shower’, ‘he needs to have some breakfast’ and ‘he
needs to drive to work’. Whether Mr Somyurek
believes it or not, there are women in the workforce as
well — women that this coalition supports. It is not just
blokes in the workforce; it is women as well.
Mr Somyurek had best remember that on the other side
of the house.
Mr Somyurek said this is a sinister bill — what
hypocrisy! Let us talk about sinister — let us talk about
a government that leaves the Victorian community with
a desalination plant, myki, a fast rail project — —
Mr Koch — Smart meters.