Source : Perth Now news
Work has started on a shake-up of WA’s public holiday calendar, Premier Roger Cook has revealed, as he indicated a willingness to give West Aussies another day off in the year.
Speaking on Monday as the east coast marked the King’s Birthday public holiday, Mr Cook said it was “ridiculous” that WA’s days off were so out of sync with the national calendar.
With a review underway, Mr Cook said West Aussies could expect to see changes as early as next year or by 2027 at least.
It follows comments from Mr Cook last year at the WA Day Festival, which was moved to November after storms rained out the event in June
“At the moment, we celebrate WA day in the middle of winter, but we celebrate it in the spring when we know the weather will be better, for instance,” Mr Cook said.
“That gives us some pointers as to maybe some of the ways that we could align things.
“It’s ridiculous we have a situation where Western Australia closes its doors when the east coast is open for business.
“And today, of course, you’ll have frustrated members of the Western Australian business community, in particular, that can’t access their colleagues on the east coast.
“There’s definitely a case for a realignment of public holidays to make sure that they’re better better synced with east coast public holidays.”
Asked if another public holiday was part of the review, Mr Cook said it was a constant request from West Australians.
WA currently has 11 public holidays, following the Government’s decision to recognise Easter Sunday as a day off — putting the State behind Victoria and the ACT, with 13 each.
“As punters are often to remind me, we have fewer public holidays than they do on the east coast,” Mr Cook said.
“I take that onboard but I do want to see better alignment between our public holiday system and those that exists in the other States.
“We are part of a national economy and we should be working together much better to ensure better alignment around these days.”
Pushed on the economic impacts of another day off, including increased wages and prices for consumers, Mr Cook said an added day was not a decision he would “take lightly”.
“What I’ve often heard from the business community is that they want to see better alignment between WA public holidays and the east coast public holidays, and that’s the primary focus for this review,” he said.
