Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, October 30, 2002


PUBLIC HOLIDAYS WITH INTEREST


AUSTRALIA is said to be the only country where public holidays are declared for horse races - the Adelaide Cup in May and the Melbourne Cup next week. Actually, the Melbourne Cup has become a sort of unofficial half-holiday here, too, the race that stops the nation and all that. With one thing and another - Cup lunches, office sweeps and sorrows to be drowned - by the time the race is run at 2.40pm, the troops are as tired and emotional as a Governor-General on Cup day, and there is little point in going back at work. Not that I am opposed to public holidays but I have always thought a horse race was a fairly flimsy ground for having one. Even in South Australia, where racing is supposed to be the first or second biggest industry in the State if TAB turnover is included, only a miniscule percentage of the population would bother going to Morphettville for the Adelaide Cup. Mind, other countries have their odd little public holidays, too. Taiwan has a Tomb Sweeping Day; Japan, an Adults Day; South Korea, a Children's Day - held on a Sunday, which rather defeats the point of having a day off; and Taiwan again, a Teachers Day on a Saturday, so no day off there either. By comparison, a horse race is positively rock solid as an excuse for a day off. The one that always gets me, though, is a Bank Holiday, still observed in both the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales. Why? Are the banks' efforts in making hundreds of millions of dollars profit so very arduous and stressful? What is so special about banking that it requires a particular holiday of its own? Why not a Taxi Day or a Hardware Day? True, in certain parts of the Mediterranean, the banks close at lunchtime and then re-open only if they can be bothered, which is not very often. But it is not the same thing as a having a declared holiday. For some reason or another, Bank Holidays are common in Britain and Ireland. The UK had three this year. From what I have determined, they were first introduced in the UK by the Bank Holidays Act 1871 and confirmed in the Banking and Financial Dealings Act (1971), which gives them statutory backing. Again, why? Oddly, the same law does not automatically entitle bank and financial sector employees to a day off although if the shop is shut, there seems little point in having them around. The UK law also makes provision for payments to be deferred until the next business day, which must be rendered almost meaningless now with electronic and internet banking. It all rather sounds as if a Bank Holiday has become a shorthand way of people saying, look, we want a long weekend off but we cannot think of a good reason for having it. A horse race is as good an excuse as any. I only wish I could offer you a Cup tip worth banking on.