Page 5073 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 17 November 2009
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prizes for the children’s sport and competition. This support from the employers continued into the late 1960s.
In March 1963, the 50th anniversary of the commencement of the building of Canberra on 12 March 1913 was marked by the declaration of this day as a public holiday. This new holiday was created by proclamation by the minister, not by amending the Holidays Act 1958. This means that Canberra Day is not a holiday by statute law; rather, it is a holiday by the choice of government and proclaimed in the Government Gazette. The new holiday meant that the ACT now had two public holidays on a Monday during the month of March. Employers generally appeared to have accepted this new arrangement.
However, 14 years later, in 1977, various employer groups applied to the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to remove union picnic day from their awards. The application was heard by Commissioner Jack Stanton, and TLC secretary Charles McDonald represented all affiliated unions. To blunt the employers’ attack on the paid holiday, the TLC successfully argued that awards should be altered to state that payment for union picnic day need not be made unless the employee produced proof of purchase of a ticket to attend the picnic. This strategy retained the paid holiday and significantly increased the attendance rate at the picnic.
Since 1996, union picnic day had again been under threat from the then ACT Chamber of Commerce, which waged an attack on the event based on a misreading of the Industrial Relations Commission full bench test case guidelines. To counter this attack, a majority of the Legislative Assembly in 1997 agreed to Wayne Berry’s amendment to the Holidays Act 1958 to include union picnic day for workers covered by specified awards.
The commission’s guidelines on public holidays are clear and unambiguous and they state that an award may contain 10 standard public holidays, plus an additional day determined by the state or territory legislature. The Federal Court has now twice ruled that award provisions for union picnic day, when read in conjunction with the ACT public holidays act which specifically refers to union picnic day, grant both picnic day and Canberra Day to persons covered by awards in the ACT.
On 17 February 2000, a full bench of the commission found that the ACT awards did not conflict with the commission’s guidelines on public holidays and that union picnic day is a legitimate entitlement under those awards. This was a fair decision as it recognised the historic place of union picnic day and maintained the status quo with the public service and the finance sector that have additional holidays under their awards. More recently, the union picnic day was almost lost due to the ideological incursion of the Howard Work Choices legislation, which was introduced in 2005. When the Work Choices legislation was introduced, it removed workers’ rights to access the previously labelled “union picnic day”.
The timing of the Family and Community Day public holiday gazetted as Melbourne Cup Day has now led to complaints by ACT businesses who believe that a public holiday on Melbourne Cup Day results in a significant revenue loss, although this day was supported, as Mr Barr said, by the community in the former round of consultation.
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