Newcastle Show 2024: council applies for public holiday

A whopping 84 per cent of the 144 people who made a submission on the proposal supported a public holiday, with a further 67 per cent standing behind a local event day.

City of Newcastle lord mayor Nuatali Nelmes said that after years of campaigning for it, she was happy the council's decision was in line with community expectations.

"There is no secret that we are in a cost-of-living crisis, but Australians are working longer and harder and getting paid less to do so," she said.

"One benefit that many workers can look forward to is public holidays, and a public holiday that is purely about celebrating your local area like Newcastle was always a really important day on our calendar and embedded into a lot of enterprise and workplace agreements."

For a Show Day to be proclaimed a local event day or local public holiday, an annual application has to be made to the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet.

If it's granted, the proclamation will be published on the NSW legislation website early next year.

However, not everyone was on board with the idea, with both Liberal councillors Callum Pull and Katrina Wark voting against a public holiday at last week's meeting.

Cr Pull said that since last year, conditions for business owners have "only gotten worse" thanks to high inflation, high interest rates, rising lease costs and staff shortages.

"It's not the time for them to be hit with a public holiday, which will make it unviable [sic] for some businesses to be open on show day, and if they are, no doubt they'll be forced to pass on those increased costs to consumers if it is made a public holiday," he said.

He argued it would be better as a local event day, giving business owners and employees the opportunity to make the decision about time off and rates themselves.

Business Hunter chief executive Bob Hawes also argued a blanket public holiday would be too heavy an impost on businesses doing it tough.

"We want businesses to have the discretion, we don't want a public holiday imposed on them along with those costs, particularly for people who might then not be in a position to trade," he said.

Mr Hawes said the organisation would support a local event day, leaving the decision in the employer's hands.

A local event day doesn't stop banks or shops in the area from opening or trading and it doesn't automatically mean employers have to treat the day as a public holiday.

Entitlements to paid leave or penalty rates on a local event day only arise when they're agreed to at a workplace level, either in an enterprise agreement or by contract.

Cr Nelmes said many organisations already give staff the day off, and said attracting events to the city around a public holiday bring with it a welcome economic boost.

"I think it could be a definite win-win for both workers as well as local businesses, if it's handled correctly and done with the support of other local government areas around us, as it has been done in the past," she said.

The Shop, Distributive and Allied (SDA) Employees' Association, Newcastle and Northern Branch supported a public holiday in its submission.

CN will apply to have the event proclaimed as a public holiday, but if that isn't approved it has requested a local event day.

Up to and including 2011, the council traditionally supported making an application for the show to be declared as a full-day local public holiday.

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