From the desk of Roland Rocchiccioli – 27 August

I wonder if Mr Albanese has ever been an employer and responsible for the payment of staff wages and salaries, including holidays?

 

HIS suggestion of a public holiday for the Matildas – success or failure, would suggest not!

Public holidays for sporting events should be optional. Take the day-off if you will, but you do not get paid. The hubris! Why would you expect an employer to pay you to have a holiday to watch a football parade, or a horse race? Whatever happened to a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work?

Victoria has 13 gazetted public holidays – the equivalent of two-and-a-half weeks annual leave. Add to that the statutory four weeks and it totals a tidy sum! The revenue required to meet holiday obligations has to be raised by the employer. Prime Minister Anthoney Albanese’s suggestion of a public holiday is populist grandstanding – designed to curry favour with the electorate. It shows scant regard for those forced to foot bill.

Long service entitlement, which varies between states, is unique to Australia and New Zealand. It is a puzzlement; an anachronism from the 1860s when English, senior public servants, and other employees in Victoria and South Australia, were, after 10 years of continued service, granted three months leave to sail to their home countries. It constituted two months for the sea journey to-and-from, and a month of recreation.

Over time it has transmogrified into a compulsory, onerous, cumbersome, national benefit inflicted on the employer, regardless. Why would any employee be gifted extra leave for having done the job for which they have been paid, regardless of tenure? It is a nonsense, and an abuse of the employer.

US workers are not legally entitled to paid public or annual holidays. It is an arrangement between employer and employee.

The United Kingdom has eight annual public holidays; however, they do not have to be given as paid leave.

Ludicrously, Federal Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, described opposition to a Matilda’s public holiday as “spoilsport”. Supporting politicians have been proffering dubious communal fiscal benefits. Data is easily manipulate. If employers’ losses were to be measured against the claimed benefits, it would likely reveal an aggregate loss decidedly in favour of the employer!

We do not need another public holiday – for whatever reason.

Hold the presses! Generation Z is so hard done-by they need a second job to survive!

I have news for you lot! There was a time – back in the 60s and 70s, when most young men and women – from all careers, had a second Friday and Saturday night job. It allowed them to save and

travel the world, or buy their first car. Lots of young married couples had second jobs. It provided the deposit on their first property. The two nights gave you enough cash to live-on, enabling you to bank your regular salary. We were awash with money.

Saturday morning newspapers carried pages of employment opportunities, including the ‘permanent casual’ section. They listed hundreds of jobs for waiters, bar staff, kitchen hands, theatre ushers et al.

A Sunday job at the posh Palace Hotel in Perth paid triple-time-and-a-half – the equivalent to four days’ pay, plus a Sunday midday dinner roast, with the best ever plum pudding you tasted! The visiting 10th Duke of Rutland, together with his Duchess, were very generous tippers.

Thousands of young Australians worked a second job, saved their money, then jumped on passenger liner bound for England. Sailing via the Suez Canal, they enjoyed four weeks of sun and sex!

Roland can be heard with Brett MacDonald on 3BA on Mondays at 10.45am and can be contacted via [email protected].