Western Australia will join the majority of Australian States in not overturning the status of Monday, December 28th as a Boxing Day public holiday.
Shops in Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and Queensland will remain closed on this day, whilst those in New South Wales and Tasmania will open.
Productivity and Labour Relations Minister Yvonne Henderson said today that the decision to allow a four-day break over Christmas for retailers and their employees was in line with the previous decisions when Boxing Day fell on a Saturday.
"I have had many submissions from retailers and from people in the retail industry expressing their preference for the current arrangement to continue so that they could enjoy a four-day break like the rest of the workforce," Mrs Henderson said.
She said she had commenced discussions with the Retail Traders' Association following criticism of the decision to allow trading on the Monday public holiday following Anzac Day.
"Most of this criticism centred on the requirement that employers pay penalty rates for employees who worked on the Monday holiday," she said.
"Many retailers claimed that this made trading unviable."
Mrs Henderson said that following this criticism, she had sought from the Association a clear and unequivocal position on whether they had wanted to trade on December 28.
"I sought their view on the viability of trading on December 28 with the current penalty rates in place," she said.
"Unfortunately the response I got was not clear - it was that they wanted December 28 as a trading day, but they did not want to pay penalty rates to their employees.
"Under these circumstances, I had no alternative but to retain the longstanding arrangement of a holiday on the Monday following Boxing Day."
