Queen's Birthday last holiday before rate drop

The Fair Work Commission last week revealed a four-year timeline to phase-in cuts to Sunday and public holiday penalty rates for fast food, hospitality, retail and pharmacy workers. 

Sunday rates will be reduced gradually, with full cuts coming into effect in 2020 however public holiday rates will drop in full – from 250 per cent to 225 per cent – in just three weeks. 

Changes to penalty rates for evening and after midnight hours workers will also come into full effect on July 1. 

Ballarat Trades Hall secretary Brett Edgington said the rate change would make workers think twice before sacrificing time with family and friends.

“To our lowest paid workers those additional rates are important. The extra few dollars is the difference between paying the bill or not paying the bill, or making the decision to go out to lunch or not go out to lunch.”

The state’s next public holiday – AFL Grand Final Day – is on September 29. 

Commerce Ballarat chair David Wright said the newly minted public holiday was a “disaster” for Ballarat businesses. 

“I hope that businesses between now and then have had the opportunity to stabilise their expenses and that it's not creating too great of an impost on their business,” Mr Wright said.

“The next holiday for Ballarat is a really unfortunate turn of events so it continues to be a great concern of the business community that we're faced with another public holiday.”

Mr Wright has previously criticised the four-year timeline for negating the commission’s penalty rates decision, which came down in February this year. 

Business peak bodies had previously hoped to see the full cuts in place within two years.