Public Holidays 2027: The Day That Moves at the Border

A roster question arrives before the calendar does. A shift is scheduled for late April 2027, the roster names a Monday, and the answer depends on a fact that is not printed on it: which state or territory the workplace sits in, and what that jurisdiction has gazetted for Anzac Day. In 2027, 25 April falls on a Sunday. Six jurisdictions list that date as a public holiday. Two do not, and in those two the holiday is the Monday that follows.

The rest of the year has the same shape, though less sharply. There is no national public holiday rate. The State or Territory gazette decides whether the day exists, the Fair Work Act 2009 gives the employee the right to be absent and the base rate for ordinary hours, and the award or enterprise agreement decides what the hours actually worked are worth (ss 114 to 116). Those are three separate questions, and the calendar answers only the first.

The 2027 dates as gazetted

All eight jurisdictions share a common block: 1 January, 26 January, Good Friday on 26 March and Easter Monday on 29 March. The King’s Birthday falls on 14 June in six, with Queensland on 4 October and Western Australia on 27 September. Christmas and Boxing Day run across 25 to 28 December everywhere, though the labels differ and the section below takes that apart.

Two Easter days sit outside the common block. Easter Saturday, 27 March, is a public holiday in six jurisdictions and not in Western Australia or Tasmania. Queensland’s page calls it the day after Good Friday rather than Easter Saturday. Easter Sunday, 28 March, appears on all eight lists.

Everything else is where the calendars separate. The table below records the days each jurisdiction lists beyond the common block. It is built from the eight primary pages opened on 8 November 2026. A reader checking a specific date should use that jurisdiction’s page.

The table shows why a single national date list misleads. The common block is real, but the days that generate roster questions are the ones that change at the border.

One Sunday, three answers

Anzac Day in 2027 is the clearest test, because the same date produces three different rules. The eight jurisdictions do not disagree about when 25 April falls. They disagree about what to do with a Sunday.

The first group is Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. Each page records 25 April as the holiday and states that no substitute or additional day applies when it falls on a weekend. The Monday is an ordinary working day. The second group is New South Wales, Western Australia and the ACT, whose pages list both dates: 25 April and the Monday that follows. The third group is Queensland and the Northern Territory, whose pages list 26 April as the Anzac Day holiday and not the Sunday.

Section 115 adds the distinction that makes those labels matter. When a day is substituted for another, the substituted day is the public holiday. When a jurisdiction declares an additional day, the original day remains a public holiday and the additional day is a second one. A substitution moves the holiday. An additional day does not.

For an employee, the practical question is which date the award clause attaches to, not which label a payroll system uses. In New South Wales, Western Australia and the ACT, both dates can attract the clause because both are public holidays. In Queensland and the Northern Territory, the Monday is the date. In Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, the Sunday is the holiday and the Monday is not. A roster that treats the three groups the same will produce at least one wrong payslip.

Christmas is four days and the labels differ

In 2027, 25 December is a Saturday and 26 December is a Sunday. Every jurisdiction lists holidays across 25 to 28 December, but the labels are not uniform. Tasmania lists Christmas Day on 27 December and Boxing Day on 28 December. New South Wales and the ACT list 25 and 26 December and add 27 and 28 as additional days. South Australia treats 26 December as Proclamation Day and Boxing Day and lists 27 and 28 as additional days.

A roster that treats 27 December as just another Monday in a state that made it the holiday will get the week wrong. So will a payroll system that assumes Christmas is always 25 December. The gazette sets the public holiday dates. The award clause says what work on those dates is paid. The payslip should show which date was treated as the holiday, and a payslip that does not is hard to check.

What the Act gives you

Section 114 of the Fair Work Act gives every employee the right to be absent from work on a day or part-day that is a public holiday. The employer may request work on that day if the request is reasonable. The employee may refuse if the request is not reasonable, or if the refusal itself is reasonable. The Act lists factors that go to reasonableness: the workplace and its operational needs, the employee’s personal situation and family responsibilities, whether the request was foreseeable, whether overtime or penalty payments apply, the employee’s employment type, and the notice each side gave.

The Act sets the test. It does not apply the test to a particular roster. That is why a refusal is not automatically protected, and why a request is not automatically unreasonable. The same structure sits behind the right to disconnect: a right, a request, and a question of reasonableness that depends on the circumstances rather than on the label one side puts on it.

Section 116 deals with payment when the employee is absent. The employer must pay the employee’s base rate of pay for the employee’s ordinary hours of work on the holiday. The section also produces the result that surprises casuals and part-timers: if the employee has no ordinary hours of work on that day, there is nothing to pay. A casual who is not rostered on the public holiday has no ordinary hours that day. A part-timer whose ordinary pattern never includes a Monday has no ordinary hours on a Monday holiday. The Act does not create a payment for a day the employee was never going to work.

What the Act does not contain is a loading. There is no section that says work on a public holiday must be paid at a particular multiple. The base rate is the Act’s figure. The extra, where it exists, comes from somewhere else.

Where the rate comes from

The award or enterprise agreement that covers the employee is where the rate lives. The public holiday clause sits in the award, and the rate attached to it sits in the pay schedule for the employee’s classification. That is the document that decides what a public holiday shift is worth, not the Act and not the calendar.

Published pay guides most often quote 250 per cent, and casual figures usually include the 25 per cent casual loading rather than stacking it on top of the public holiday rate. The figure is also commonly the total for the hours worked, not a payment of 250 per cent on top of the day’s ordinary pay. Those two readings produce very different payslips, and the second one is where a lot of the confusion starts.

No article can give one number, because the rate sits in the award’s pay schedule at the reader’s classification, and classifications differ within the same award. A figure quoted for one classification can be wrong for another. The useful request is narrower: the name of the award, the classification, the public holiday clause and the rate in the pay schedule that applies to that classification. With those four things, the calculation can be checked. Without them, a percentage has no audit trail.

The base rate is also the figure other entitlements attach to, which is the point the guide to leave loading makes for a different payment: the clause says whether the extra exists, and the base determines what the percentage is worth. Public holiday pay and leave loading are separate entitlements, and neither one can be read off the other.

The 2025 change

The Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates) Act 2025 added section 135A to the Fair Work Act. It commenced on 30 August 2025. The section requires the Fair Work Commission, when it makes, varies or revokes a modern award, to ensure that the rate of a penalty rate or overtime rate is not reduced, and that the award does not contain a term that substitutes another entitlement in a way that reduces the additional remuneration.

The practical effect is that an award rate is harder to remove than it was two years ago. The section constrains the Commission’s award-making power. It does not create a loading where an award has none, and it does not convert a percentage in a pay guide into an entitlement. It protects the rates that exist in awards. For an employee, the direction is useful: the rate in the current award is the starting point, and a change to it now has a statutory hurdle.

The five questions

The widget above turns the article into five checks. Taken in order, they are also the order in which a pay dispute is best examined.

The first question is which day the state or territory has gazetted for the holiday, and whether that is the day the roster names. The answer comes from the jurisdiction’s page and the roster, not a national list. The second is which of the possible dates the roster actually falls on when a holiday has been moved or an extra day added. In 2027 the Anzac split makes that question concrete: a Monday shift in Queensland is a holiday shift, and the same Monday in Victoria is not.

The third question is which award or agreement covers the employee and what its public holiday clause says at that classification. That is where the rate lives. The fourth is whether the pay slip shows the public holiday rate as a separate line or folds it into a loaded rate. A single loaded rate can be correct, but it is harder to check, because the public holiday component is no longer visible. Reading the payslip line by line is the same discipline set out in the guide to payday super and your fund, where the payment has to match the fund and the date rather than merely appear on the slip.

The fifth question is whether a refusal to work is one the Act’s reasonableness test covers, and whether it was put in writing in good time. The Act lists the factors. It does not decide the outcome. A written refusal that gives the reason and the notice is easier to assess than a verbal one, and easier to rely on later if the roster changes.

What the gazette does not settle

The gazette settles the day. It does not settle the dollars. In 2027 the calendar’s sharpest edge is 25 April: six jurisdictions list the Sunday, two observe the Monday instead, and three of the six also list the Monday as a public holiday. A national date list cannot carry that distinction, and a payslip that ignores it can be wrong even when the rate itself is right.

The order that works is short. Check the gazetted day first. Check the award clause at the classification second. Check the payslip line third. The Act gives the right to be absent and the base rate for ordinary hours. The award or agreement gives the loading, where it exists. The Fair Work Commission’s power to cut that loading is now constrained by section 135A. None of those three layers can answer for the other two.

This is general information, not legal or financial advice. The state or territory page, the award at the reader’s classification and the contract of employment are the documents that decide an individual case.

Sources: NSW public holidays (https://www.nsw.gov.au/about-nsw/public-holidays); Public holidays in Victoria for 2027, Business Victoria (https://business.vic.gov.au/business-information/public-holidays/victorian-public-holidays-2027); Queensland public holidays (https://www.qld.gov.au/recreation/travel/holidays/public); Public holidays in Western Australia (https://www.wa.gov.au/service/employment/workplace-arrangements/public-holidays-western-australia); South Australian public holidays, SafeWork SA (https://www.safework.sa.gov.au/resources/public-holidays); Public holidays, WorkSafe Tasmania (https://worksafe.tas.gov.au/topics/laws-and-compliance/public-holidays); Public holidays, ACT Government (https://www.act.gov.au/living-in-the-act/public-holidays-school-terms-and-daylight-saving); NT public and regional holidays (https://nt.gov.au/nt-public-holidays); Fair Work Act 2009, Federal Register of Legislation (https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2009A00028/latest/text); Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates) Act 2025 (https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2025A00037/asmade/2025-08-29/text/1)