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The Forum > Article Comments > Public holidays - to have or not to have > Comments

Public holidays - to have or not to have : Comments

By Dino Cesta, published 18/12/2014

Should we re-evaluate our existing public holidays, to consider abolishing some and introducing other more worthy public holidays for significant events.

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It's all part of collectivising social-engineering, attempting to create the illusion of a "nation", as if all the people in this continent have something in common - which is of course nonsense.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Thursday, 18 December 2014 7:30:21 AM
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The article misses many key points.

Business, especially small business, bears a high cost in the form of extra wages from public holidays, and consequently opposes their proliferation. Employers are forced to either bankroll a paid day off work or pay overtime, often at a rate of double time and a half. Many small businesses find it unprofitable to trade on public holidays or can only afford to trade if they use family labour only.

The author sings the praises of the ACT's Family and Community Day. I suggest that this reflects little knowledge of its history in the ACT.

The Family and Community public holiday in the ACT is supposed to provide an opportunity to spend time with family and friends. (Is this not what happens in most leisure hours?) In reality it was created partly to give ACT residents the same number of holidays as some other states, and partly in de-facto recognition that ACT residents generally only worked a part-day on Melbourne Cup race day.

The first Family and Community Day was in 2007. For that year, and in 2008 and 2009, the public holiday was held on Melbourne Cup Day in November. There were problems as the holiday occurred on a Tuesday and many people took a four-day-weekend. People missed being able to do the office sweepstakes for the Melbourne Cup and many catering businesses lost income. The holiday came to be regarded as a social and business disaster. Consequently, from 2010 the holiday was moved to the first Monday of the September/October school holidays.
Posted by Bren, Thursday, 18 December 2014 8:25:59 AM
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What public holidays?

The people most concerned with public holidays seem to be the ones, (academics) who always have all theirs!?

We used to manage quite well with the big shopping centres closed at weekends and public holidays!
And rare time for families to engage in family activities and bonding!

People still had the option of the family run corner convenience store/24 hour pharmacists etc, if they forgot something essential?

And families used to need just one breadwinner; given real wages were higher when compared with average (shopping basket/rent/vehicle costs back then!

We've been going backwards for the last 30-40 years, and now we need two wages just to support a single household.

Housing becomes more and more unaffordable; and profit curves have to always go up!
Hence retailers wanting to trade around the clock and ask wage earners to effectively pay for their extended operations; by forgoing family time, weekend leisure time and public holidays; and compelling that option by casualizing their staff!

We got a civilized forty hour week over half a century ago, and most of us now work around fifty+, and for far less in real terms, than comparative incomes fifty odd years ago!

I say, don't mess with public holidays and the very short term relief they afford some families, or indeed, the extra income they enable others (university students etc) to earn.

Employers already get enough breaks, which include hiring youngsters and sacking them automatically, as soon as they're entitled to adult wages!
If it ain't broke, don't fix (Americanize) it!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Thursday, 18 December 2014 9:21:07 AM
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Rather than celebrate the birth of a semi-mythical entity on Dec. 25 I would prefer to celebrate Newton:

Reason's Greetings

25 December 1643 – 20 March 1727, Isaac Newton, English scientist, possibly the most influential scientist ever, laws of motion, corpuscular theory of light, the calculus (shared with Leibniz), theory of gravity. Before Newton science was a hodgepodge of isolated facts. After Newton it had a powerful theoretical base which could be applied to many phenomena.

Nature, and nature’s laws lay hid in Night
God said “Let Newton be!” and all was light.’ Alexander Pope

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” Newton
Posted by david f, Thursday, 18 December 2014 10:58:29 AM
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People seem to be forgetting that workers need to time for families. Australians are working longer hours and with greater stress, conditions which are not good for individuals let alone families. If you want a society that works people need time for themselves.

Corporations seem to think that only working matters.
Posted by Dashton, Thursday, 18 December 2014 11:46:07 AM
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a couple of quotes by Newton for you David f

‘This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being. … This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called “Lord God”

Principia, Book III; cited in; Newton’s Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953.

‘Opposition to godliness is atheism in profession and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors.’

A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in Newton’s Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 65, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953.
Posted by runner, Thursday, 18 December 2014 12:13:13 PM
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Dear runner,

Thank you for that. Newton subscribed to the superstition of his time. Some people still believe that natural laws are an expression of God. Darwin once studied to be an Anglican parson but later abandoned religious belief.

Religious people are both good and bad. Non-religious people are both good and bad.

Newton was religious and a great scientist.

Darwin was non-religious and a great scientist.

In Newton's time one could not freely question religious belief. Maybe his remarks about God and atheism were an honest expression of his thought. Maybe not. However, in his time, he could not say otherwise and retain his position.
Posted by david f, Thursday, 18 December 2014 12:28:54 PM
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david f,

if you dug a little deeper you will find that Darwin did not reject God on scientific grounds but he became bitter after the death of a close family member. He also rejected that God could send people to hell. I suggest to you that people beleiving in the something from nothing and chaos to order fantasies are not only totally illogical but far more superstitous than Newton's generation. Look at the totally failed gw prophets of doom and the masses of followers (usually finacial beneficaries).

The warmist already celebrate earth hour. They need a religion bereft of any decency and morals as they see themselves as the makers of law.
Posted by runner, Thursday, 18 December 2014 12:45:56 PM
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Yep Rhrosty, I never could understand how we could be so stupid as to develop extended shopping hours. There was plenty of shopping, with a good mix of leisure time before the frenzy of 7 day shopping. Five days with Saturday morning & Thursday night was enough for any organised person.

I wonder if people realise how much more they have to pay for the privilege of having weekend supermarkets. It can't have increased supermarket turnover very much. The wiping out of small corner stores would not have added much, but the extra trading hours would have added greatly to their wage bill.

For their employees it has hastened the rush to casualization, & loss of permanent jobs. To manage the hours with different levels of staff required has required many casuals, & many of the full time jobs went, to make it easier to run a casual roster.

As for public holidays, I always found, as an employer, funding them was difficult, but they are a tradition, & I enjoyed them myself.

We must resist most strenuously any change to them by these Johnny come lately's, who want our advantages, but want to change our country to their liking. Leave if you don't like it must be the situation.

In that vein, a show day holiday is also a tradition throughout much of Oz, precipitating much trading before & after in the towns. In country towns, & probably in cities, a huge number of ladies buy a new outfit for the show, it was often the major outing of the year. Anyone who can't see that is simply a dill.
Posted by Hasbeen, Thursday, 18 December 2014 2:15:47 PM
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The only change I would want is to make Labour Day a national holiday on the same day, instead of scattering it through the year with different dates in different states. This scattering lessens its impact and importance as arguably the most important holiday of the year.

A national Labour Day holiday would give us more opportunity to create a sense of national labour identity, to have a national parade, and to reflect on and celebrate the considerable achievements of past labour movements. At a time when these achievements are under very serious threat, we need such a national holiday now more than ever.

I certainly hope the author's question 'Is it still necessary to celebrate the achievements of Australia's labour movement with a public holiday?' was merely rhetorical. Would anyone dare to ask such an offensive question about Anzac Day?
Posted by Killarney, Thursday, 18 December 2014 9:23:49 PM
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Dear Killarney,

<<Would anyone dare to ask such an offensive question about Anzac Day?>>

Yes, I do.

I oppose the very idea of public holidays because their purpose is sinister: to promote a national identity.

People, or voluntary groups of people, should be able to choose their own holidays according to their own values.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Thursday, 18 December 2014 9:32:43 PM
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Yuyutsu

I was being ironic. I can't stand Anzac Day and everything it symbolises.

However, national holidays do enforce a sense of what a culture values and what it doesn't. The fact that Labour Day has been deemed a 'lesser' holiday, and left to the states to decide when to commemorate it, speaks volumes. While our military history of participating in almost unanimously dubious overseas imperial ventures is deemed sacred and of national importance, our labour history, with its almost invisible media coverage from state to state, is treated with barely disguised contempt.
Posted by Killarney, Thursday, 18 December 2014 11:34:01 PM
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Dear Killarney,

<<However, national holidays do enforce a sense of what a culture values and what it doesn't.>>

And that's what's horrible about it.

'Enforce' means using force or violence. Who are those values enforced upon? Certainly not over those who already share those values - so the idea is to use violence in order to push certain cultural values by hook or by crook down the throat of those who either oppose them or simply have other priorities.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Friday, 19 December 2014 10:14:46 AM
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Do stop being so damn stupid Yuyutsu, it takes no force at all to get Ozzie workers to take a day off.

They don't even have to know, & mostly don't care, what it is to commemorate to enjoy it.

Our Muslim blowins on the other hand, have no need of public holidays. When you are on welfare, doing nothing at all useful, public holidays are just a nuisance.
Posted by Hasbeen, Friday, 19 December 2014 3:47:10 PM
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Dear Hasbeen,

Of course almost every worker would be glad to have as many holidays as they can, but when the number of holidays is limited and those holidays occur on dates which have no special meaning to the worker at the expense of the dates that are really important for them, then one feels the pain.

Take for example Jewish people - there are so many days on the Jewish calendar in which one is prohibited to work: Jews would use all their annual leave on those, then take unpaid leave and even lose their jobs rather than work on those days against the edicts of their religion. Now say both an employer and their employee are Jewish - why then are they forced to take a holiday on Christmas instead, which for them is like any other day?
Posted by Yuyutsu, Friday, 19 December 2014 6:02:11 PM
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I don't thin kthe issue here is really religion is it? Removing public holidays as a whole is not really about why the holidays are being celebrated and neither is it a matter of how easily a people will be glad to have or not to have them. To me, the whole issue of having public holidays is as simple as ensuring that people get sufficient rest after working for their income and that they deservedly should have a day of rest. At the end of the day, whether there's a reason behind the date itself or not is up for question, but the issue at hand here is whether public holidays are good or not - not for the reasons behind them right?
Posted by MarcioWilges, Monday, 22 December 2014 1:21:40 PM
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On December 3 1854 Australians of many national origins stood up at Eureka near Ballarat to the British state and set in train the events which have led to a democratic Australia. The grovelling element have shunned this anniversary and its symbols to this day, but if ever there was one day in the year which should be a holiday throughout Australia to commemorate those brave people it's December 3.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Monday, 22 December 2014 1:23:00 PM
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Dear Marcio,

<<To me, the whole issue of having public holidays is as simple as ensuring that people get sufficient rest after working for their income and that they deservedly should have a day of rest.>>

To begin with, this is not possible: how can you ensure that someone doesn't do another side-job on their day off? Or perhaps they just fix their roof or run in circles that whole day instead of resting... would you forcibly confine them to bed?

But suppose for a moment that it is desirable and possible to make people rest: why not allow them to choose their own dates? Employees could even submit in advance their list of significant dates to their employer, which would then be treated treated in the same way as public-holidays are currently treated (as opposed to annual leave or sick-leave).
Posted by Yuyutsu, Monday, 22 December 2014 2:06:42 PM
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