20 April 2009

Anzac day trading

| johnboy
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The ABC is having a poke at the subject of businesses trading on Anzac Day.

It appears there isn’t much of a problem here in Canberra, although across the border some big chains are applying for exemptions to NSW’s weirdly archaic trading hour laws to let them do business on the morning.

I know many dawn service observers are quite pleased to be able to find a cafe open after proceedings have concluded.

Your thoughts?

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Holden Caulfield10:41 am 22 Apr 09

I thought the soldiers were fighting to defend our freedom. 😛

wonsworld – whats your opinion of monday being a public holiday ?

I personally have no problem with shops being open on Saturday morning, it will in no way change how I commemerate ANZAC day.

I think if people want to open shops, its on their own volition, ESP on a saturday, ANZAC day means a lot to me, and the majority of Australians, but thats not to say that all and sundry are like me, and will want to get onto that project they have in their back yard… Somewhere being shut for 4 hours on a Saturday really would put me out any other day, but as I will be otherwise engaged, it will not effect me, perhaps other conciencious objecter, but not me.

The public holiday though (This year at least) I reckon is a load of dogs bollocks. The public holiday was (in this case) provided in order to attend ANZAC day commemerations, how will a day off 2 days later help ?

I’m old enough that I can remember a time when all shops where closed all day on Good Friday, Christmas Day and Anzac Day mornings.

Well now the other two have gone as “real” celebration days. Due possibly to a requirement for ever increasing profits and also for those who are not of a Christian faith wondering why they could not go shopping on a day that did not effect them. I sometimes wonder if our governments are a little too soft in caving in on some of these changes and think what would happen if we were to go other places in the world and say … suggest that we need food outlets open during Ramadan or ask for a beef hamburger in downtown Mumbai? Anyway….

Maybe I’m just getting old but I thought the whole deal about Anzac Day was about respect and unlike Easter or Christmas it DOES effect us all. It is not about your faith. It is about our heritage and our culture as Australians. It is not about a need for profit or who is (or is not) running the RSL now (nor is it about binge drinking).

There was a time, not that long ago, when it was all about the poor old buggers who, when they were our age, instead of moaning about not being able to get to Bunnings, did what they could and what they believed in so that we could enjoy those freedoms that we have now. Yes most of the old ones may have passed on (and even the WW2 vets are thinning in number… very fast too) but it’s not about who is there or not. It’s not even about kids marching in the shadows of where their grandfathers or fathers once stood. It IS about remembering for a very short time in our lives the deeds and actions that other generations gave so that we can live like we do today. But no, we cant do even that, instead, we repay that ideal by demanding to go shopping.

You don’t have to go to the dawn service but surely you could hold off on going shopping for four bloody hours.

I won’t be in town. but then I won’t be goignt o a service anyway. I used to when I was a kid and my grandfatehr marched, but since he got to old to march and has now died, I don’t really have the motivationto go.
*shrugs*

I’ll probably just sleep in, eat a breakfast of whatever’s on offer and wander outside once the streets have reopened.

And avoid the RSLs. Too many drunks.

Didn’t we have the debate about the Balloon Festival coinciding with Anzac Day last year? I would bet many more people will use the long weekend to clear our their garages; and do some gardening while the weather is still warm. Is the RSL going to ask for the tip to be closed?

Seriously though…To me, the whole Anzac Day hype feels more like the circus coming to town. The Dawn Service is poignant, but after that the day has less meaning. The Rememberance Day ceremonies in November to me is more meaningful than standing next to a bunch of guys wearing Southern Cross tatts who are waiting for the beer and two-up festival to start when the march is over.

I recall going to work straight from a big night out.

Yep, many, many times 😉

Me too. Sometimes with the same work-mates. That was bad.

Ikea is closed Saturday morning!

which unfortunatly means it will be hammered come 1pm, as people will be desperate to make up for lost time.

BerraBoy68 said :

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy said :

Things have changed. When I was working crappy part time teen jobs everyone (including me) lined up to get the overtime shifts. If it meant not partying or getting up at sparrow fart, well so be it.

Youngsters these days are soft.

(Bugger me, I’ve turned into a cranky old man!)

That’s Gen Y for you, VY. Picky an demanding little buggers! I recall going to work straight from a big night out. Mind you I threw up a lot which made my Chief Petty Officer pretty angry about my throwing up all over his ‘nice clean parade ground’.

I’m happily a Gen-Y, when I started my first job 10 odd years ago I worked every weekend and everyone my age was lining up to work weekends and after school (retail). It changed about 6 or 7 or so years ago, when the kids coming through now think “casual” means “I show up if and when I want to”. Hell mummy and daddy even rang up for the little shts and made the poor excuses. Retail outlets would have better luck at training monkeys to work the weekends than getting the kids outta bed on the weekend.

It’s going to be a shock when they need to get a real job and have to show up on time at 8.30 every morning.

Anyway, supportive of cafes and restaurants opening on anzac day, retail outlets don’t really need to be open. There will be the queue of people outside woolies at 12.45 waiting for it to open at 1pm, because they have almost died without their shopping experience for half a day.

I’m breaking the trend here.

1. My work considers saturday a public holiday. Double time and a half FTW!
2. I’m 17-25, and would rather jump at the chance to work said double time and a half.
3. I’m not sure about other places, but we volunteer to work said public holidays..so if so-and-so wishes to go off partying instead of working, they just dont put their hand up at the chance, instead of “i cant work tonight..i’m..sick..yeah, sick.”

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy4:37 pm 20 Apr 09

I recall going to work straight from a big night out.

Ha! See this is the sort of thing that people like you and I laugh about now (and yes, I did it too, once), which is character building. Very few teens now would make the effort, but will wonder why they don’t have these kind of stories later on in life.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy said :

Things have changed. When I was working crappy part time teen jobs everyone (including me) lined up to get the overtime shifts. If it meant not partying or getting up at sparrow fart, well so be it.

Youngsters these days are soft.

(Bugger me, I’ve turned into a cranky old man!)

That’s Gen Y for you, VY. Picky an demanding little buggers! I recall going to work straight from a big night out. Mind you I threw up a lot which made my Chief Petty Officer pretty angry about my throwing up all over his ‘nice clean parade ground’.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy3:19 pm 20 Apr 09

Things have changed. When I was working crappy part time teen jobs everyone (including me) lined up to get the overtime shifts. If it meant not partying or getting up at sparrow fart, well so be it.

Youngsters these days are soft.

(Bugger me, I’ve turned into a cranky old man!)

vg said :

buyhercandy said :

The part I have trouble getting my head around is that while Anzac Day falls on a Saturday this year, that day is not a public holiday in the ACT. Monday the 27th is the public holiday here, according to the government:

http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/holidays

So for those of us working on the Saturday, we don’t even get public holiday pay.

It is a public holiday in the ACT, the Monday is just an additional public holiday

Actually, no, if you read the .pdf in the link there, the Saturday is not a public holiday. Other public holidays that fall on the weekend are listed there, so it’s not as though they’ve left it off because it’s a weekend. The Monday is the only government-sanctioned public holiday for Anzac Day in the ACT.

Vg… do you have a link which shows Saturday is a PH? Everything I have seen suggests that only Monday is.

Woody Mann-Caruso2:22 pm 20 Apr 09

Last Anzac day the only local cafe open was the Turkish Pide house, irony much?

I always thought that Turkish restaurant in Woden was poorly named – “Gallipoli”. Bit like opening a Japanese restaurant called “Changi”.

johnboy said :

Yes, if you refuse to roster on anyone over 18, to try and keep payroll down, then it can get tricky.

Not a cheap business, that being in business thing.

I certainly agree with the latter comment JB. As for ages of staff, in most retail outlets you simply don’t get a choice, you just have to recruit from those that apply. My wife ran a bookshop for several years and hired the best out of those that applied for jobs. Most were Uni students – typically young girls but there were also couple of young guys and a few 30-50 year old mums. From memory, those that rang in sick on weekends, hol’s etc. were aged between 17-25. They were good enough to get the jobs but not good enough to keep them.

OT – I specifically recall when my wife was first ordered to open her shop on ANZAC Day, the first few hours was a nightmare as she was trying to cover for the staff that simply didn’t show-up. Even her current job we get calls at home as early as 7:30am on weekends and public holidays trying to get my wife to fill in for someone hat hasn’t gone to work that morning. They’re already trying to cater for it happening again this ANZAC Day.

Pommy bastard2:04 pm 20 Apr 09

Last Anzac day the only local cafe open was the Turkish Pide house, irony much?

Yes, if you refuse to roster on anyone over 18, to try and keep payroll down, then it can get tricky.

Not a cheap business, that being in business thing.

johnboy said :

I’m yet to see an outfit struggle to fill the roster when penalty rates are on offer.

Sorry JB, but I have. I’ve known Manager’s of several retail outlets (and even an outsourced recreational facility) and a common complaint is that they have to spend a significant amnount to time finding replacements for staff (typically the younger ones) that phone in sick or have ‘urgent’ family issues to attend to on weekends and public holidays. While many such outlets and facilites still open for business, the majority of customers won’t notice one or two staff are missing until they have a complaint that the queue to pay is too long.

I’m yet to see an outfit struggle to fill the roster when penalty rates are on offer.

Woody Mann-Caruso1:31 pm 20 Apr 09

I thought the point of closing businesses in the morning was so employees and employers could pay their respects, not because the RSL is worried that Bevan Sixpack ordering a soy hazelnut latte at 9:15 will desecrate dead diggers.

solomon-trujillo1:01 pm 20 Apr 09

buyhercandy said :

So for those of us working on the Saturday, we don’t even get public holiday pay.

…that would be for those of us that don’t work on Saturday anyway to get an extra day off on Monday!

Sorry mate

buyhercandy said :

The part I have trouble getting my head around is that while Anzac Day falls on a Saturday this year, that day is not a public holiday in the ACT. Monday the 27th is the public holiday here, according to the government:

http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/holidays

So for those of us working on the Saturday, we don’t even get public holiday pay.

It is a public holiday in the ACT, the Monday is just an additional public holiday

From today’s Daily Tele. Apparently the opening does not include takeaways, well, at least not in NSW.

Mr Rowe (NSW RSL President) also welcomed news that most of the retail outlets’ applications to trade on Anzac Day morning had been rejected.

A spokesman for the Office of Industrial Relations yesterday confirmed that of the 22 outlets that wanted to open on Anzac Day morning, 14 had been refused and five had withdrawn their applications.

Decisions for three others – IGA Supermarket at Rosebery, Manly Mainstreet Centre and the Adairs Group – were pending.

A statement released by NSW Industrial Relations Minister John Hatzistergos yesterday warned that sellers were not allowed to open until 1pm on Anzac Day.

Anyone found in breach of the restrictions could face a fine of up to $11,000.

“These trading hours allow citizens to participate in the many remembrance ceremonies,” it said.

The rules do not affect small stores such as chemists, newsagencies and take-away shops.

But Mr Rowe said it was outrageous that department stores, supermarkets and clothing stores had sought to open at all.

But the same guy probably has no issue with binge drinking to the extreme on the same day

The part I have trouble getting my head around is that while Anzac Day falls on a Saturday this year, that day is not a public holiday in the ACT. Monday the 27th is the public holiday here, according to the government:

http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/holidays

So for those of us working on the Saturday, we don’t even get public holiday pay.

World wars, in fact any war is about idealism, whether one is mightier than the other or my ideal is better than yours. Here we live in a non-repressive society, for the most part that is, and part of that is self determination of how we operate our country and state and society. And as part of that we determine when we do trading hours, although from a point of view, why is everywhere closed on one of the busiest days of the Australian calendar? What sense is there in that? Yes, I know shops are a commercial business but they are always a Service provider to the community at-large, for the good of everybody by being able to trade and provide goods.
It might have been applicable to have short trading hours years ago, when John Howard tried to turn back the clock to his beloved Menzies era LOL but times have changed, and so has the world. Time to get with the plot everybody, it here to stay.
If you really want a decent ANZAC Day remembrance for all, make it so that you can buy food and drinkies at decent prices and not be forced to pay thru the nose for often a poor substitute food and service. PLUS ANZAC Day needs to be more than just a few diggers, frail and not so simply filing past the memorial, but a day of when we get to see and touch that which is the National Defense Forces, past, present and future to get a perception of what it it for, its meaning etc.

They lost me when the ACT Branch had a president who had never been in the military, just a returning peacekeeper

Perhaps the RSL is getting too old and tired to keep it up?

While I can see merit on both side of this argument FJ, for mine Freedom is relative. Why you may be free to spend ANZAC Day at your leisure, the staff that work in these shops aren’t and they won’t get a choice in it either.

Personally, I will be working this ANZAC Day (not in retail, thank god) and will miss my 6 yr old son marching for the first time with his grandfather.

On a seperate but related topic, I haven’t seen the RSL trotting out the tired old argument that they don’t want kids marching this year. Have they finally got the message?

I couldn’t care less although I am a little bemused at why shops seem to think they need to be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a week.

To make a living?

bubzie said :

..is this really how we spend anzac day? instead of remembering the war, or heck even at the rsl, we’re ..shopping.

I have a feeling that ANZAC Day is for remembering all our fallen soliders (not just one war) and what they died for. Apparently this is best done by imposing some strange limits on the ability of the citizenry to go about their daily business.

I’m more likely to reflect on the wars that our country has fought and the bravery and sacrifice of our soldiers while reading ANZAC Day articles in the newspaper as I’m sitting in my favourite corner of my local cafe than I am when I’m standing in front of a locked door with a sign saying ‘Closed for ANZAC Day’.

bubzie said :

is this really how we spend anzac day? instead of remembering the war, or heck even at the rsl, we’re ..shopping.

*sigh*

+1. While I believe cafe’s, restaurants, clubs and other places where people gather to reminisce should be open on ANZAC Day, I don’t think we really need to have DJ’s Myers, Kmart etc. also open. Surely shops aren’t doing it that tough that they need to be open every day of the year? Also, from experince I know many retail staff appreciate having a special day to spend with their grandparents, uncles etc. following the March.

captainwhorebags10:16 am 20 Apr 09

If the stores want to open, so be it.

If you see it as a body blow to the spirit of the ANZACs and all that they fought for (seriously, I don’t think they’d give a toss) then don’t patronise the stores. Traders would soon see it as a very expensive exercise to stay open if nobody’s buying.

Last year I remember it being very difficult to get a spot at a cafe after the dawn service, so I’d welcome some extra stores being open.

Is it just me, or are people getting sick and tired of the RSL and similiar orgs trying to dictate to people how, when and where they will commemorate servicemen and women?

FFS, shops are open every other day of the year (more or less). Why is this day an exception? And before anyone says anything about ‘what would you know’ I am an ex-serviceman.

No dramas about people smashing the piss and associated binge drinking issues apparently, but don’t dare open a shop. I have always found working Anzac day evening quite a testing day in my profession as well, something the RSL people won’t acknowledge but tacitly encourage through their alcohol fuelled commemorations.

My grandfather served in a couple of actual world wars. He couldn’t give a rats if the shops are open that day or not. He commemorates it in his own way, maybe the RSL should let people do it their own way

*shudder*

I work in retail, and the amount of people that go into a panic that we’re closed FOR FOUR AND A HALF HOURS!!!1!!! is just pathetic. (Or old retail job, we were closed for ..6 hours. oh no!)

And the crowds when we open..is this really how we spend anzac day? instead of remembering the war, or heck even at the rsl, we’re ..shopping.

*sigh*

(Am not looking forward to work on saturday, cant you tell??)

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