FAQs

When Christmas Day falls on a Saturday the Holidays Act 1910 (SA) substitutes the Christmas Day public holiday to the following Monday. This last occurred in 2021 and many South Australian workers who were asked to work on Christmas Day were denied the normal protections and entitlements attached to public holidays i.e. the right to reasonably refuse to work or public holiday penalty rates. South Australia remains the only state that does not prescribe a public holiday for both the Saturday and the Monday when this occurs. We don’t want this to happen again, so it is time to align our Christmas Day public holiday laws with the rest of the country.

This is where we are handing it over to you to have ‘your say’ about South Australia’s public holiday laws. The Holidays Act has not been amended since the introduction of part-day public holidays for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve in 2012. We value your feedback on any other changes that could be considered. Whether that be the number of public holidays, the timing of when they are observed, how we name them, or anything else you want to raise.