Hon Casey Hiscutt MLC - Fair Play to Restore a Lost Tasmanian Show Day

Every private-sector employee in Tasmania receives eleven legal public holidays each year. In Central Coast, they receive just ten.And the strange thing is: nobody actually decided to take that day away.When the federal Fair Work Act replaced Tasmania’s state awards in 2009, the Show Day entitlement that had existed in those awards for generations quietly disappeared. The Statutory Holidays Act 2000 had never listed Central Coast because the awards already provided for the day.The result was a circular gap in the law — and a public holiday that simply disappeared by accident.Seventeen years later, Hon Casey Hiscutt MLC, Independent Member for Montgomery, is trying to put it right.In this episode, Casey takes us through the full history, from the 1919 Bank Holidays Act, to the 2000 Hansard debate where legislators explicitly said existing entitlements would not change, and ultimately to how that promise unravelled.He discusses polling of 500 Central Coast residents, explains why his proposed amendment would restore a flexible, locally agreed day rather than impose a fixed date, and openly addresses the one legitimate argument against restoring the holiday.But there’s more to the story than legislation.Casey talks about growing up in a family that has served the Central Coast community for nearly a century, winning his first council election by just 1.84 votes, and what those experiences taught him about politics, numbers and the power of storytelling.Because sometimes changing the odds starts with telling the story.The amendment is due to be debated in the Tasmanian Legislative Council in early September 2026.