Western Australia’s public holiday calendar is being reviewed by the state government, which is to better align it with the east coast and add an additional day. While some workers have welcomed the idea, WA's business lobby says an additional public holiday would be a headache for small businesses.
00:00In Western Australia and Queensland it was business as usual, but elsewhere around the country it was a public holiday to mark the official birthday of the King.
00:12I think there's definitely a case for a realignment of public holidays to make sure that they're better synced with East Coast public holidays and that's some work my office is doing at the moment.
00:24In Western Australia, the King's birthday holiday falls in September when the rest of the country is operating as usual.
00:31The misalignment of public holidays has long been a source of frustration for business.
00:37Half of our team is based over in Melbourne and Sydney across there, so we're trying to get stuff done, but can't get any work done with them because they're actually on annual leave today.
00:43I need input from people over there, I'll contribute to online meetings, they're not available, they're in different calibre to us.
00:51For others, the mismatch is a non-issue.
00:53It works now, it's not broken, so why change it? I'm not sure why we would.
00:57I work for a global organisation where we have a misalignment on public holidays and it's never a huge issue.
01:03The Premier says he's currently reviewing all of WA's public holidays and suggested changes could be made next year or the year after.
01:12An additional public holiday is also under consideration.
01:16As punters are often to remind me, we have fewer public holidays than they do on the East Coast and I take that on board.
01:22WA's peak business lobby welcoming the realignment aspiration but raising concerns about an additional day off.
01:30Someone might see a public holiday as a benefit, but for a small business, they just see another day when they've got to pay $65 an hour for someone to wash dishes.
01:40It's really difficult for small business.
01:43The Government undecided as to what or who WA's additional public holiday could honour.
01:49Have you thought about a Mark McGowan Day? Is that on the agenda?
01:53Well, something's been put to me very enthusiastically and vigorously by Mark McGowan.
