Carrate Pty. Ltd.Phone: 03 5174 2348
ABN: 56 067 805 565Fax: 03 5174 6452
54 Grey
TRARALGON VIC 3844
Wednesday, 5 August 2015
Re: Regulatory Impact Statement on two Proposed new Public Holidays in Victoria.
We are a business operating in regional Victoria competing for trade commercial printing throughout Australia. We employ 25 workers, mostly full time, but some also casual.
We do not hold many contracts but tender for each job as it arises mainly through Print Management and Broking companies. For example we are an accredited supplier to Finsbury Green, the current holder of the Victorian Government print tender.
To maintain work flow, we are constantly quoting for work. Victorian Public Holidays that operate outside of the rest of the state create issues for this process as NSW businesses will close a Request for Quote inside a 12 hour period which can on many occasions exclude Victorian Tenderers. This also happens with other states. Melbourne Cup Day, Labour Day and Queens Birthday are three such examples with Melbourne Cup Day being the worst as it falls on a Tuesday. If Finsbury Green put a quote request out from its Sydney office at 4.00pm on Monday prior to Cup Day, it will be gone come Tuesday night with Melbourne businesses not back to work until the following day. Print is consumed regularly, thus one missed job gives an advantage to the incumbent which is hard to break.
By adding another public holiday that is only relevant for our state puts us at a further inconvenience with productivity. Whilst we are enjoying our Grand Final weekend, our interstate and international competitors are adding an extra days’ production to their bottom line. A three month business cycle incorporates 2 x 4 weeks and 1 x 5 weeks. The July to September quarter is the only one which does not have a public holiday and gives us a good run at setting up cash flow for the Christmas period. The November Cup day and the normal staff absences associated with it stall our run home when work is normally coming in at a faster rate.
We don’t have the figures to show you what this means nor the research to prove our point. We do know our business and we do know that we already pay out for far too many holidays. This does not encourage us to take on full or part time employees, but increase our casual pool. If we cannot earn an income for the day, neither can they. If this has a negative effect on who we hire, you can guarantee it will be the same throughout the business community. This means less people with regular income, which in turn means less people to spend their income on goods which require our services.
At a time where governments are opening up markets to global competitors, encouraging businesses to find new markets and pushing technology onto us at a rate that it cannot sustain, reducing our productivity is ridiculous. I too would like more time off, but also want to maintain a business that can sustain employment for many decades to come.