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Committee's report

The committee tabled its report on 4 November 2019.  The report can be found here.

About the Bill

On 19 September 2019 the Minister for Education and Minister for Industrial Relations, the Hon Grace Grace MP introduced the Holidays and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019 into the Queensland Parliament.  The Bill was referred to the Education, Employment and Small Business Committee for detailed consideration.  The committee tabled its report on 4 November 2019.

The Bill proposes to amend the Holidays Act 1983.

The Explanatory Notes state the objective of the Bill is to provide for Christmas Eve (24 December) to be observed as a part-day public holiday from 6pm to 12 midnight.

The Bill proposes to amend the Holidays Act 1983 and make other consequential legislative amendments to provide for Christmas Eve to be a part-day public holiday.

The explanatory notes state that workers would be entitled to refuse to work in reasonable circumstances, or to the payment of public holiday penalty rates where work is performed on Christmas Eve after 6pm. It is not intended that the amendment displace or otherwise impact on Christmas Eve being a ‘business day’ for any other purpose.

The effect of a declaration of a part-day public holiday on Christmas Eve will activate the public holiday provisions of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cwlth), the Industrial Relations Act 2016 (Qld) and industrial instruments for all employees in the national workplace relations system and the Queensland industrial relations system.

Call for submissions

The committee invites submissions addressing any aspect of the Bill, from all interested parties. Guidelines for making a submission to a parliamentary committee are available here:  Guide to making a submission. Please ensure your submission meets these requirements.

The committee has extended the closing date for written submissions to midday, Wednesday 16 October 2019

Public briefing and hearing

Committee hearings and briefings are generally open to the public and will be broadcast live on Parliament TV.  Footage will be available to view for 12 months after its live broadcast.  Transcripts of the proceedings will be published in due course. Visitors are advised that they may be filmed by broadcast media and/or be included in photos taken by Parliamentary Service staff for purposes including posting on the Parliament’s website or social media sites.  The Queensland Parliamentary Service is committed to protecting the images collected for this purpose in accordance with the Information Privacy Act 2009.

Timeline

Related information

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