Book 8 - Parliament of Victoria

PUBLIC HOLIDAYS AMENDMENT BILL 2011
1712 COUNCIL Thursday, 2 June 2011
candidates who had set up tents and stalls and had
balloons they could not give away were packing up by
about 3.00 or 3.30 in the afternoon. It was a bust. This
is a micro example of a much bigger picture. I suggest
it would be difficult for a detailed analysis to be done to
understand the local significance of this legislation to
each of these many events.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT — Order! I thank
Mr Davis and ask him how his cattle went. Did
Mr Davis get any ribbons?
Mr P. DAVIS — Yes, absolutely.
Mr SOMYUREK (South Eastern Metropolitan) —
I would like to thank Mr Davis for his answer. It was
enlightening. I thank him very much for that. The other
part of the question obviously relates to awards and
entitlements. Does the minister know what the impact
of this bill will be on awards and entitlements?
Hon. R. A. DALLA-RIVA (Minister for
Employment and Industrial Relations) — The issue
here is about ensuring that there are 11 public holidays
in the state. In terms of aspects of employment
entitlements, they will all be determined under the
federal legislation, for example, under the enterprise
bargaining agreements and the workplace agreements
that are in place. Fundamentally the public holidays
remain as they are, and that will be the situation in the
future. My understanding of Mr Somyurek’s
amendment which was defeated was that it would have
made Sunday a public holiday, which the principal act
does not allow for. However, it would have reduced the
number of public holidays from 11 to 10, and I am sure
your union mates would not have liked that.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT — Order! I assume
the minister was making those references to
Mr Somyurek, not to me.
Hon. R. A. DALLA-RIVA — I was looking at him,
Chair.
Ms PENNICUIK (Southern Metropolitan) — It is
interesting to note that there has been a lot of
consultation with the 48 municipal areas outside
metropolitan Melbourne but there does not seem to
have been much consultation with the unions that
represent workers or any examination of the current
agreements that are in place regarding public holidays
and what the effect on them might be of this legislation.
I would have thought that would have been a fairly
basic thing to do.
Mr Koch interjected.
Ms PENNICUIK — Mr Koch interjects, but this
will affect ordinary people in their ordinary lives and
how they organise their lives, and whether a half-day
public holiday or a full day is declared will affect them.
That should be looked at, and that is by way of a
comment. Certainly one union has written to everybody
outlining the possible problems. How these changes
will affect people and how those effects can be
ameliorated needs to be pursued.
Anyway, my question is not about that in particular,
and I might return to it in the discussion under clause 3.
I have been listening to what has been said by the
parties in the last half hour, and what I have learnt and
jotted down is that prior to 2008, when the act was
amended, 23 of the 48 municipalities had a gazetted
cup day or another day. Only half had a gazetted cup
day or another day, which means that the other 25 had
no holiday. If, for example, East Gippsland shire did
not gazette a public holiday as Melbourne Cup Day or
another day, there was no public holiday. That was the
situation: people living outside Melbourne had
10 public holidays and people in Melbourne had 11
because they all got Melbourne Cup Day.
Mr Dalla-Riva decided that that was not relevant.
However, it is relevant because the minister in her
second-reading speech said that this bill repeals ‘the
unnecessarily restrictive and inflexible provisions
enacted by the former government in 2008’. It takes us
back to the arrangements that were in place prior to
2008. That is the whole idea.
Eight shires prior to 2008 had gazetted 11 half-day
public holidays; some had no public holiday; and
11 places within shires — they sound like small places,
but I do not have the detail — had half-day public
holidays. That is not a demonstration of an
overwhelming desire for half-day public holidays.
What I am trying to get to as a representative of the
Greens is: what is the need that is being addressed here?
I do not see that prior to 2008 there was a great need for
anything to be fixed, save that half of the people living
outside Melbourne did not have a public holiday at all,
whether it be a half-day, a full day, Melbourne Cup
Day or an alternative day. The 2008 bill fixed that. It
forced councils to either nominate a different day in a
different place — as Ms Pulford has said, that could be
different places within the same shire, and that has
happened — or accept the default of Melbourne Cup
Day.
We now have the situation where there has to be a full
day declared or there is Melbourne Cup Day. At least
every working person in Victoria is entitled to a public