Christmas Day – Victoria – 25^th December 2016

In previous years, when Christmas and/or Boxing Day have fallen on a weekend, there has been an additional public holiday awarded on the following business day.

This year is different.

In Victoria, the public holiday for Christmas Day will be a “Substitute Day” and falls on Tuesday 27^th December, following Boxing Day – Monday 26^th December.

Christmas Day (25^th December) will be considered a “Restricted trading day” in Victoria, which means only exempt shops are authorised to open.

What are exempt shops?

Exempt shops are businesses that meet the following criteria:

• they have 20 or fewer persons employed in the shop at any time during a restricted trading day
• the number of persons employed by the business and its related entities is no more than 100 at any time during the seven days immediately before the restricted trading day

Exemptions to restricted trading days

Certain types of business are exempt from any restricted trading days. They can open whenever they wish throughout the year. The types of business that are exempt are:

• chemists
• petrol shops
• restaurants
• cafes
• takeaway outlets
• service providers
• hire outlets (including video stores).

In summary, as Christmas Day is NOT a public holiday and if you are not exempt from being able to open on this day, you have ample time to roster staff accordingly.

All other states and territories recognise Christmas Day 25th December as a public holiday.

A full list of 2016 public holidays are contained in the link below:

https://www.fairwork.gov.au/leave/public-holidays/list-of-public-holidays

If the Victorian Government gazettes Christmas Day as a public holiday in Victoria prior to Christmas Day, we will update our clients accordingly.