Joe Spagnolo: Happy Harleyday or nod to underdogs? What West Aussies would get behind for new public holiday

No disrespect to Charles, but does anyone here in WA really give a fig about the King’s birthday when they’re out enjoying the public holiday?

It’s more likely he barely crosses our minds as we wake and think, “happy days — let’s head to Dunsborough or Margs and chase a wave or a glass of fine wine”.

I doubt many West Aussies actually even think about the reasons behind their lucky long weekend and I suspect that’s the case for Labour Day, too.

But, here we are, given the task — courtesy of Premier Roger Cook — to give feedback on whether the King’s Birthday and Labour Day public holidays should be moved to align with the Eastern States.

And we’ll also be asked if WA Day should be moved from winter to November, to coincide with festivities around the West Test.

Look, I don’t really have a problem with aligning those two public holidays with the Eastern States. From a business sense, it’s probably a good idea.

But what I’m struggling with is this idea that we need to create another two public holidays a year, to be in sync with those lazy bastards in the east.

Roger is proposing increasing the number of public holidays in WA from 11 to 13.

“What I’ve often heard from members of our broader community is that they’d like to see more public holidays, and a broader spread,” he said.

Hmmm.

He must be speaking to those aged 18 to 28 who travel to Bali yearly and now communicate pretty well solely by phone.

Having Easter Saturday designated as a public holiday would potentially give everyone a four-day break — starting with the Good Friday public holiday and ending with Easter Monday.

Happy days if you are an employee. Not so happy days if you are an employer who wants to stay open and will be faced with paying higher pay rates.

And not so good for anyone chasing a barista-made coffee on that Saturday, because you can be sure that a medium-sized take-away will cost you north of $7 on that public holiday.

In addition to an Easter Saturday public holiday, what’s also proposed is creating a new weekday public holiday.

What’s proposed is that we take the King’s Birthday public holiday currently held during Royal Show week in September and shift it to June in line with other States and Territories, bar Queensland.

A new weekday public holiday would then be created in September.

What will the new weekday public holiday celebrate?

Well, no one knows.

The WA Government wants you to come up with a reason why we should have one in September.

The questions put to Sandgropers, via an on-line survey are: “What would be the impact of a new weekday public holiday to you/your organisation. If a new weekday public holiday was introduced, what should it recognise or celebrate?

Unusual, isn’t it, that we must presumably decide to create a new public holiday, and then come up with a reason to have it?

The modern world, I suppose.

So, what will we call this new weekday public holiday if it goes ahead?

Look, I’m thinking Joe Day. A celebration of Joe. I reckon that would be a perfectly fine idea,

The Rocky Balboa public holiday? Most definitely. Or maybe we have a Harley Reid Day.

Eagles’ fans are praying this kid sticks around for a while longer, so why not create a public holiday in his honour, as an additional little carrot to stay?

Yes, I’m being silly. But you get the point. For mine, a more important debate is the appropriateness of the Australia Day public holiday — despite it being a national issue and one which will take great political courage to properly address.

And I’m not sure that courage exists.

Feedback on the public holiday debate is invited until August 8 at wa.gov.au/public-holiday-review.