Book 8 - Parliament of Victoria

PUBLIC HOLIDAYS AMENDMENT BILL 2011
Thursday, 2 June 2011 COUNCIL 1691
Mr ONDARCHIE — I have got enough meat. I do
not need any more. I have got quite enough.
Ms Darveniza interjected.
Mr ONDARCHIE — What a shot from
Ms Darveniza. She has knocked me over with that one!
No more effort is required from this side because it is
obvious that this bill is good for regional and rural
Victoria. I am expecting all members to support this
bill, and I commend it to the house.
Ms DARVENIZA (Northern Victoria) — I am
pleased to rise to make some comments on the Public
Holidays Amendment Bill 2011. We Australians, and
indeed we Victorians, hold our public holidays very
near and dear. We organise very important family
occasions and activities around those public holidays.
Working families take a great interest in any changes
the government makes to public holidays and believe
them to be very important.
Prior to 2008 Melbourne Cup Day existed as a public
holiday in metropolitan Melbourne only. In 2009 an
amendment was made to make Melbourne Cup Day a
statewide public holiday. I remember that all the time I
was growing up in Shepparton in regional Victoria
whilst we always listened to the Melbourne Cup — it
was played over the loudspeakers at our schools — it
was never a public holiday for us. However, it was
always something we took an interest in. It was a public
holiday only in metropolitan Melbourne.
From 2009 onwards an adjustment could be requested
by local governments for an alternative full-day public
holiday across their shires. The flexibility that members
of the government believe this bill will provide already
exists. Councils have the opportunity to have a
substitute day in place of Melbourne Cup Day if they
desire — that is, they can have an alternative public
holiday. Mr Somyurek pointed out that section 7 of the
act allows for this.
Under the heads of power that were provided to the
former Minister for Small Business, Joe Helper, in the
2009 amendments, adjustments were gazetted and in
April 2010 there were 14 full-day alternative holidays
across nine shires. That flexibility that has been talked
about by government members has existed for a
number of years now. Local shires are currently able to
have an alternative full-day public holiday for an event
in their community. The major change to this bill is
about provisions that allow for part-shire arrangements
and part-day holidays. It will allow local councils to
free up half a day for a local agricultural show or a race
meeting, while still allowing a half-day to coincide with
the Melbourne Cup.
There has been a lot of banter across the chamber
during this debate about whether two half-days make a
full day. I have real concerns about this because I do
not believe that two half-day holidays are equivalent to
a full-day holiday at all. Under the proposal employees
would still be required to turn up to work on that
half-day holiday for a period. What that means is that
all the associated arrangements and costs that go with
the working day will still be experienced by a family. In
the majority of cases the organisation involved in
getting family members to work or school falls mainly
with the woman of the household — the mother. All of
the work, arrangements and costs associated with travel
will still exist on those two days that are going to
become two half-day working days to allow for the two
half-day holidays.
We know that people do make a full day out of a public
holiday. People do not want to have to do all the
organisation and make all the arrangements that go into
getting family members off to work or school and then
come home and get the family reorganised for family
day activities. That involves a lot of work and
organisation, and it is not the way we generally
celebrate our public holidays. That is not the sort of
organisation and arrangement that would lead into the
wound-down, relaxed mode that we Australians
associate with our public holidays.
The reality is that some of the family activities in which
we participate on those public holidays require a whole
raft of other arrangements and organisation within the
family. Again the majority of that falls to the mum and
the other women in the family. I know that many
people make a full-day celebration out of the events
held on a public holiday — not just an afternoon, not
just a morning. The government’s action would shut
down such enjoyment for workers in regional Victoria.
My main concern is that the bill is quite mean-spirited.
It is a mean-spirited approach by the state government
to strip employees in regional Victoria of their current
entitlements to a full day’s public holiday. I have other
concerns as well. It is not just the mean-spiritedness of
taking away a full day’s public holiday for people in
regional Victoria, I am also concerned that the
amendments we have before us in this bill will create
confusion and uncertainty amongst employers and
employees.
Many enterprise agreements anticipate that outside
metropolitan Melbourne another day may be taken as a
public holiday in lieu of Melbourne Cup Day.