Book 8 - Parliament of Victoria

PUBLIC HOLIDAYS AMENDMENT BILL 2011
1716 COUNCIL Thursday, 2 June 2011
would be impossible to single out one agreement as a
general example of all agreements. It is therefore also
important to note that the relationship between such
agreements and the Public Holidays Act 1993 is a
matter to be addressed by the parties to each agreement
within the framework of the commonwealth laws.
Accordingly, employers and employees should always
refer to the relevant instrument, whether a modern
award, enterprise agreement or contract of employment,
that applies to them to ensure that employee
entitlements are met. There are mechanisms available
to the parties under the commonwealth’s laws that
might be utilised if there were an issue with the
interaction between holidays declared under the
Victorian act and employees’ entitlements under a
particular award or agreement — for instance, it might
be possible for a party covered by an award or
agreement to seek to vary an ambiguous or uncertain
term. The issue of interacting statute instruments has
not been raised by the regional correspondents in the
many letters and emails generated by this matter since
2008.
Ms PULFORD (Western Victoria) — I have just
two questions on clause 3. The first might call for a
simple yes or no answer — I hope! I trust the minister
still has reasonably handy the Government Gazette to
which he referred earlier, with the arrangements that
were gazetted for 2010. He read a number of these,
including one for the Golden Plains shire, which was
the one that described a number of roads and
intersections where one side of the road had one set of
arrangements and the other side had another. Could the
minister confirm that if a continuation of that
arrangement is the wish of the council, it would be
appropriate and suitable for it to continue under this
legislation?
Hon. R. A. DALLA-RIVA (Minister for
Employment and Industrial Relations) — Yes.
Ms PULFORD (Western Victoria) — I thank the
minister for his answer and clarification on that point. I
think we can take it from his answer that similar
arrangements, like some of the others he referred to —
for example, in the Macedon Ranges — would also
continue to apply if that were the wish of the council. I
appreciate that.
My one remaining question on this relates to the way in
which the half-day arrangements and the locality
arrangements might intersect. For example, last year the
Yarriambiack Shire Council chose to enter into
arrangements whereby there were four holidays for four
different localities and for everybody else there was
Melbourne Cup Day. Would this legislation enable a
half-day arrangement and a locality arrangement to
coexist?
I will be a little hypothetical, but I ask the minister to
bear with me. For example, let us say the western half
of a shire had two communities that each wanted a
half-day holiday and then their other half-day
holiday — because this is not a debate about the total
number of public holiday hours people are entitled to in
a year — and then everybody gets the third day,
Melbourne Cup Day, and in the eastern half of the shire
a similar thing occurred. Combinations of the half-day
arrangement and the geographical imperative might
coexist in a way that meant a shire like Yarriambiack or
Hindmarsh — which had three sets of arrangements
last time — would have a number of different
combinations of holidays. If that were the express wish
of that community as articulated by its local
government representatives, would that be okay under
this legislation?
Hon. R. A. DALLA-RIVA (Minister for
Employment and Industrial Relations) — The answer is
yes.
Ms PENNICUIK (Southern Metropolitan) — Many
industrial awards and agreements cover a classification
for the whole state, for example. Has the minister
looked at Ms Pulford’s example of a township
declaring that it will have a half-day public holiday on
one particular day and another half-day on another day
to make up its full entitlement? How will that be
implemented through the industrial agreements so that
workers get the time off if a public holiday is declared
or get paid at public holiday rates if they have to work?
Hon. R. A. DALLA-RIVA (Minister for
Employment and Industrial Relations) — As I said, the
issue of interacting statute instruments, which I raised
earlier, has not been raised in any regional
correspondence among the many letters and emails
generated by this matter — that is the advice I have. As
I indicated earlier in response to Mr Somyurek on the
public holiday legislation and the workplace
arrangements, there will be a blend of commonwealth
laws in terms of the interaction between the holidays
declared by the Victorian act and employee
entitlements under a particular award or agreement.
It is up to employers and employees to refer to their
relevant instruments — whether they be modern
awards, enterprise agreements or contracts of
employment — and ensure that the employees’
entitlements are met. As I also said earlier, there may be
literally thousands of employment agreements