Purpose:

An Act to rationalise public and bank holidays and for purposes incidental thereto.

Objectives:

• To rationalise the designation of public and bank holidays.
• To establish the relationship between this Act and awards, orders, or agreements made under the Industrial Relations Act 1979.
• To define specific days as public and bank holidays throughout the State.
• To grant the Governor powers to appoint special public or bank holidays, or to alter appointed public or bank holidays.
• To mandate the closure of banks on bank holidays, with specific exceptions.

Key Provisions:

• Short Title and Commencement: The Act is cited as the Public and Bank Holidays Act 1972 and comes into operation on a date fixed by proclamation.
• Supremacy of Industrial Instruments: Provisions of an industrial instrument (award, order, or industrial agreement under the Industrial Relations Act 1979, or employer-employee agreement) prevail over this Act to the extent of any inconsistency, unless expressly provided otherwise in this Act.
• Easter Sunday Recognition: A provision of an industrial instrument relating to public holidays applies to Easter Sunday regardless of whether the instrument makes reference to it. However, a provision of an industrial instrument is of no effect if it substitutes another day for the Easter Sunday public holiday solely because Easter Sunday falls on a weekend.
• Fixed Public and Bank Holidays: Days specified or appointed under power in the Second Schedule are public and bank holidays throughout the State.
• Saturdays as Bank Holidays: Saturday is designated as a bank holiday throughout the State.
• Special Holidays and Half-Holidays: The Governor may, by proclamation, appoint special days or parts of days as public holidays, bank holidays, or public half-holidays within the State or a specific district/locality. Such proclamations can be varied or cancelled by subsequent proclamation published in the Government Gazette at least 3 weeks before the special day.
• Alteration of Appointed Holidays: The Governor may, by proclamation, declare another day to be a public or bank holiday instead of a day referred to in section 5, either throughout the State or within a specified district/locality. Such proclamations must be published in the Government Gazette at least 3 weeks before the first day to be affected. These proclamations can also be varied or cancelled with similar notice.
• Prevalence of Proclamations: Any provision of a proclamation made under sections 7 or 8 prevails over any inconsistent provision of an award, order, or industrial agreement made under the Industrial Relations Act 1979.
• Bank Closure Requirements: All banks in the State must close their premises to the public on bank holidays, with an exception for Saturdays that are bank holidays solely by virtue of section 6 and not under any other section.
• Enumerated Public and Bank Holidays (Second Schedule): Specific holidays listed include New Year’s Day, Australia Day, Labour Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Easter Monday, Anzac Day, Western Australia Day, Celebration Day for the Anniversary of the Birthday of the Reigning Sovereign (by proclamation), Christmas Day, and Boxing Day, with rules for when holidays fall on weekends.

Evidence of Compliance Requirements For Agricultural Organisations:

• Agricultural organisations operating under industrial instruments (awards, orders, or agreements made under the Industrial Relations Act 1979, or employer-employee agreements under Part VID of that Act) must ensure that the provisions within these instruments align with the Public and Bank Holidays Act 1972. This includes ensuring that their industrial instruments recognise Easter Sunday as a public holiday.
• Agricultural organisations must ensure that their industrial instruments do not include provisions that attempt to substitute another day for the Easter Sunday public holiday solely because Easter Sunday falls on a weekend, as any such provision in an industrial instrument is legally of no effect. Compliance is demonstrated by the content of the industrial instruments themselves.
• No specific documentation (beyond the industrial instruments themselves), time frames for compliance actions, measurement standards, reporting requirements, record-keeping requirements, or explicit inspection or audit requirements for agricultural organisations are specified in this document.

Metadata Keywords:

Public holidays, bank holidays, Western Australia, Industrial Relations Act, employment conditions, legislation, statutory holidays, industrial instruments, government proclamations

Publication Information:

Publication date: 12 Feb 2022 Version number: 02-g0-00

Agricultural Industry Alignment:

Beef & Veal, Chicken, Coarse Grains, Cotton, Dairy, Eggs, Fisheries, Forestry, Horticulture, Oilseeds, Pig, Sheep Meat, Sugar, Wheat, Wine, Wool.

Date Added to database:

This document was parsed and added to the database on 25-07-2025

URL:

https://www.legislation.wa.gov.au/legislation/statutes.nsf/RedirectURL?OpenAgent&query=mrdoc_44571.pdf →