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Committee's Report

The committee tabled its report on 28 November 2011.

View:   Report No. 6, 53rd Parliament - Holidays and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2011
View:   Government Response
View:   Holidays and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2011
View:   Explanatory Notes

Referral

The Industry, Education, Training and Industrial Relations Committee received a referral of the Holidays and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 from the Legislative Assembly on 16 November, 2011. The Legislative Assembly set a reporting date of 28 November for the Committee’s report on this Bill, to ensure that the Bill can be passed in time to apply for the forthcoming Christmas and New Year holiday period in December and January 2011 – 2012.

The Bill

The Bill seeks to:

• move the observation of the Queen’s Birthday public holiday from June to October each year; providing for a special June holiday in 2012 to observe the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and to create a transition period between now and June 2013 for events traditionally held on the June long weekend; and
• declare a public holiday on the actual date of the holiday in respect of Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. Under current legislation, when these dates fall on a Saturday or a Sunday, as two of them will in 2011 – 2012, the public holiday and associated penalty rates of pay are observed on a day in the following week. The Bill would provide that both the actual day and the substitute day in the following week, are public holidays – as occurs in other states, and as occurred in Queensland last Christmas and New Year.

The Bill also contains measures that are unrelated to the public holiday issue. These would:

• enable RSL club members and Australia Defence Force members to enter any RSL or services club in Queensland without signing in; and
• enable clubs to set their own rules about requiring members of clubs to sign in as visitors when they visit clubs with reciprocal membership.

A third component of the Bill relates to the ability of private land developers to enter into pre-sales contracts – to ‘sell off the plan’ – when the land in question is part of a designated Urban Development Area. Their ability to do so is currently restricted, but the Bill would remove that restriction, supporting the Urban Land Development Authority in achieving its objective of bringing land to the market quickly; and to enable the government to provide housing in areas experiencing housing affordability pressures.

Stakeholder engagement

The timeframe for reporting does not allow for additional stakeholder input to the process.  The Committee will review the input to the Government’s consultation processes (and in particular the extensive consultation on the public holidays components of the Bill) to inform itself of stakeholder views.