Why Albo’s public holiday call hits a bum note with workers | David Penberthy

Albo’s soccer public holiday suggestion feels like a sick joke to many Australians. Take our poll here.

When Australia won the America's Cup, Bob Hawke famously declared, “any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum”.

I am pretty sure Anthony Albanese had his tongue half-planted in his cheek when he first suggested a national public holiday in the event that the Matildas win the FIFA Women’s World Cup. The suggestion was made in jocular fashion on one of those soft FM radio interviews politicians always enjoy, with the PM trying to tap into his inner Bob Hawke, as per his idol’s 1983 quip that any boss who sacked a worker for not showing up after the America’s Cup win was “a bum”.

After Australia’s America’s Cup win, Bob Hawke famously claimed “any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum”.

But if many a true word can be said in jest, the reaction to Albo’s soccer holiday from many Australians has been decidedly unhumorous.

Rather than finding it funny, many people have denounced it as some kind of sick joke. All of those people work in business. And the intensity of their reaction shows how Australia – like many other western countries – is in this post-Covid world bitterly divided between those who make money working within and for government, and those making money in the private sector through their own risk-taking and enterprise.

The manner in which these two groups of people make their money could not be any more different.

The reaction to Albo’s soccer holiday from many Australians has been decidedly unhumorous Picture: Matt Roberts – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images

Making money in government is comfortable and reliable. Unlike the private sector, the absence of competition or profit motive means there is never any threat of mass downsizings in government. You don’t have to worry about making money, or losing money, or providing world’s best practice service to keep your competitors at bay.

Party politics protects you too, the electoral landscape littered with the remains of politicians who have advocated public sector reform. Political parties have learnt the hard way that the best way not to hold office is to promise to take an axe to the bureaucracy. As such they now act accordingly and let government remain as bloated as it’s ever been. In some states, principally Victoria and Queensland, the number of jobs and the size of the pay packets in the public sector has in recent years grown largely unchecked.

Life could not be any different in private enterprise. Even in the good and steady times, there’s the unpredictability of new competitors springing up and rendering your product or service second-rate or obsolete. And these are neither good nor steady times.

When you face a pandemic, supply chain issues, surging costs caused by a war and the transition of the energy market from fossil fuels to renewables, 12 successive interest rate hikes and spiralling rents, the situation for many people in business is close to untenable.

Add to that the frustrations of labour market shortages and demands for pay rises at the same time as many workers believe they now have a God-given right to keep working from home despite the obvious loss of productivity.

And into that mix, throw the following question, put by someone who has only ever worked in government: “So who’s up for a public holiday?”

The logic of advocating this public holiday is difficult to grasp, save for the feel-good value of looking like a fun, knockabout guy and getting the street cred of celebrating a genuine landmark moment in women’s sport.

Do not get me wrong, I couldn’t be more excited about this tournament. I have watched every Matildas game and many others, attended the South Korea-Morocco match, and dearly hope that by the time this article goes to print, the Aussies have beaten France and are still in the hunt. Update - they did. And face England.

But I fail to see why a public holiday is required for a match scheduled for the eminently civilised time of 7.30pm on a Sunday. You’re having a pretty massive celebration if you need the Monday off to recover from that.

That’s my muted criticism of the suggestion from the PM. But from people in business, the criticism has been marked by fury, along the lines of, for crying out loud, you government halfwit, who the hell do you think is going to pay for it? Do you even have the faintest idea how much a public holiday costs?

If the post-Covid workplace has a pin-up, it is the IAG “worker” who got caught and was rightly fired for doing four-fifths of bugger all while “working from home”. The insurance company monitored her key strokes and found her output had all but ceased. I have heard people suggest this was somehow unfair, or an invasion of her privacy, as if in this post-Covid world workers can simply work as much or as little as they like, their employer adjusting their expectations accordingly.

But beyond that example, there is a broader sense of rage in business that people in government just don’t get it.

I had the pleasure this week of visiting a factory in Adelaide which makes superbly engineered louvred roof systems for pergolas and patios.

It’s a classically lean family operation. The father and founder is now almost 70, working with his son, son-in-law and a small team to make a great product from whoa-to-go, doing all the welding, powder-coating and engineering themselves.

Just before Covid they expanded into Victoria, but found that at the whim of the state government and bureaucracy that they were prevented from doing any work on their project during lockdown, at the same time commercial building was still going ahead. The refrain from the Dan Andrews brigade – all of them still on full pay of course – was that these things are tough on everyone.

Things weren’t tough on everyone, of course. Not tough if you’re in government on full pay closing businesses. With the stroke of a pen, my louvre-making mate lost $250k, with not a cent in compo, but has kept a good business going here in South Australia despite the studied indifference he faced in Victoria. He’s done that not by working from home, or working a bit when he’s not on a flexiday, but by working his arse off his entire life.

My guess is that he doesn’t want a public holiday Monday week, especially given that, as always, he’d be paying for it.