Austria is probably the country with the most public holidays in the world, but there are also a lot of them in Australia.

Of all the public holidays observed throughout Australia, only some are observed on the same date nation wide. These include Good Friday, Easter Monday, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Australia Day and ANZAC Day.

Funnily enough, the Queen’s birthday is celebrated in Western Australia in September, while other states and territories celebrate it in June.

A common clause in most Australian industry awards states that public holidays that fall on a weekend are to be observed on the next working day. So for example, as Christmas Day in 2004 fell on a Saturday and Boxing Day fell on a Sunday, we didn’t have to work on the following Monday or Tuesday. Many retailers remain open on such days though, even if only from noon to 5 pm. Restaurants that are open on public holidays will often charge 10 to 15% higher prices for the day!

The public holidays on which the fewest people seem to have to work are Australia Day and ANZAC Day. Police and Public Transport workers are quite busy on these days though.

List of public holidays in Western Australia in 2005:
New Year: Saturday, 1 January
New Year substitution holiday: Monday, 3 January
Australia Day: Wednesday, 26 January
Labour Day: Monday, 7 March
Easter Friday: Friday, 25 March
Easter Saturday: Saturday, 26 March
Easter Monday: Monday, 28 March
ANZAC Day: Monday, 13 June
Foundation Day: Monday, 6 June
Queen’s birthday: Monday, 26 September
Christmas Day: Sunday, 25 December
Christmas substitution holiday: Monday, 26 December
Boxing Day: Monday, 26 December
Boxing Day substitution holiday: Tuesday, 27 December

As you can see Australians don’t celebrate any religious public holidays other than Christmas and Easter. Whit Sunday and Whit Monday are completely unknown to Australians. At best they may have heard of the Whitsunday Island, but this is not always the case. Note that Whitsunday Island belongs to Australia and is located near the Great Barrier Reef!

The most and largest celebration of a public holiday is on Australia Day and on ANZAC Day. Our colleagues are not sure what they celebrate on these two days, so we assume that the foundation of Australia is celebrated on Australia Day and some war event is celebrated on ANZAC Day.

It seems that none of our colleagues have paid too much attention to these subjects in school. Anyway, the most important thing is that we don’t need to work on these days!