The following dates are public holidays for the 2025/26 festive season and will incur public holiday penalties/provisions:
- Thursday 25 December 2025 (Christmas Day)
- Friday 26 December 2025 (Boxing Day)
- Thursday 1 January 2026 (New Year’s Day)
If a practitioner is absent from work on a day or part day that is a public holiday (and would have otherwise been rostered to work if not for the public holiday), the employer must pay the practitioner (excluding a casual) the base rate of pay for the practitioner’s ordinary hours of work they would have done (ordinary working day). The base rate of pay excludes incentive-based payments, bonuses, loadings, monetary allowances, overtime or penalty rates, or any other separately identifiable amounts.
A part-time practitioner is not entitled to payment if the public holiday occurs on a day which the practitioner is not normally rostered to work. For example, if Dr Smith is regularly rostered Monday to Wednesday each week, then Dr Smith will not be entitled to payment for public holidays that occur on a Friday.
WA Health System Medical Practitioners AMA Industrial Agreement
(WA Health Agreement)
In addition to the above, pursuant to Clause 35(4) of the WA Health Agreement, if a practitioner is full-time and the public holiday fell on a day they were not rostered to work, the practitioner should be paid public holiday observed or take a day in lieu if agreed with their employer.
For part-time or sessional practitioners, whether they are entitled to a public holiday observed (when not rostered to work) depends upon whether their roster is fixed or rotating, as well as the frequency of being rostered to work that day.
Pursuant to Clause 32(5), all ordinary hours worked between midnight at the commencement of a public holiday and 8am on the day after the public holiday must be paid with:
- an additional penalty of 150% (calculated on the applicable arrangement B salary for Senior Practitioners); or
- an additional penalty of 50%, plus a credit of one day in lieu as PH TOIL (by mutual agreement with the employer).
St John of God Health Care AMA WA Medical Practitioners Enterprise Agreement (SJOG EBA)
The current SJOG EBA does not have observed provisions like the WA Health Agreement.
Junior Medical Officers (JMO)
Pursuant to Clause 18(3), all ordinary hours worked between midnight at the commencement of a public holiday and 8am on the day after the public holiday (provided the shift commenced prior to 2400 on the public holiday) must be paid:
- with an additional penalty of 150%; or
- with an additional penalty of 50%, plus a credit of one day in lieu as PH TOIL (by mutual agreement with the employer).
Senior Medical Practitioners (SMP)
Pursuant to Clause 26(3), all ordinary hours worked on a public holiday must be paid:
- with an additional penalty of 100%; or
- alternatively (by mutual agreement with the employer), provided equivalent time in lieu/leave to be taken at a time convenient to the employer. The employer has the right to direct when this leave is taken and determine the date on which the leave commences.
Private Practice Employers
Federal/National System Employer
Health Professionals and Support Services Award 2020
Hours worked on a public holiday are paid at 250% of the ordinary minimum hourly rate.
Nurses Award 2020
Hours worked on a public holiday are paid at 200% of the ordinary minimum hourly rate.
State System Employer
Clerks (Commercial, Social and Professional Services) Award
Hours worked on a public holiday are paid at 250% of the ordinary minimum hourly rate.
Nurses (Doctors Surgeries) Award
Hours worked on a public holiday are paid at 150% of the ordinary minimum hourly rate for ordinary hours, and at 250% for hours in excess of ordinary hours.
