How quaint that we are still tied to Mother England's apron strings to the extent we take a day off to honour the Queen's birthday.
Yet we don't always have a public holiday for Waitangi Day. Or Anzac Day.
We celebrate Elizabeth Alexandra Mary's birthday with a public holiday in the first
week of June each year. Her actual birthday is April 21. Born in 1926, she is now 85.
Each Waitangi Day and Anzac Day, we dogmatically stick to treating February 6 or April 25 as the day we have off. So if either day falls on a weekend we don't get a public holiday. But we do get the percentage surcharges associated with public holidays, passed on mainly by hospitality employers looking to recoup the extra money they have to pay staff on public holidays.
Imagine how confusing this must be for tourists. They buy a coffee on a Sunday, and a week later are charged 10 or 15 per cent extra for the coffee because it is a "public holiday" on a Sunday. A day we have off anyway.
When Waitangi Day fell on a Saturday last year, most of downtown Whangarei was shut. There were shoppers wandering around the Whangarei mall looking like extras in an episode of the Twilight Zone.
Sorry, but if you work in the retail or hospitality industry, weekend work is a natural part of your job. The Holidays Act changed a few years back, with good intentions.
But it went too far by offering public holiday penal rates to workers when those days fall on a Saturday or Sunday.
There should be ex]
It is bizarre that we take an annual day off in honour of a matriarch we are bowing to less and less. But we don't always for two days of huge importance that we are increasingly according mana to. Which means more to you as a New Zealander? Waitangi Day or Anzac Day, or the birthday of the Queen?
If the Queen's birthday is celebrated in the first week of June in New Zealand, let's celebrate Waitangi Day and Anzac Days with an annual holiday also.
Isn't it a no-brainer?
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