Methodology
How these dates are checked
Every date on this site traces to a jurisdiction's own Act or to the department that administers it. This page says how, and — further down, generated from the data itself — what has not been checked yet.
The source order, and why it is two deep
The Act first, the administering agency second, aggregates never
Dates are computed from the instrument — the Act, its Schedule, the rule it states — and then matched against the published schedule of the department that administers it. Where the two disagree, the disagreement is the story and it goes on the page.
Both are necessary, and this site has been wrong in each direction. Reading the New South Wales Act showed that its extra Anzac Day Monday is an additional day rather than a substitution, which most summaries get backwards — so the Act caught something the agency's table alone would have hidden. Then the ACT went the other way: section 3(1)(a)(viii), read on its own, says the holiday moves to the Monday, and the ACT Government observes both days. The Act alone would have published a wrong answer.
A federal aggregate is a cross-check and never a source. It cannot carry the council-level variation that is the whole point of the regional sections.
What every page is built from
What the build refuses to publish
These are checks, not intentions. Each one fails the build rather than producing a warning somebody scrolls past.
- A date with no source. Every calendar file must name the instrument, its publisher, its URL and the date it was read, or the site does not build.
- A year that has rolled over. Public holidays are gazetted annually and school terms are set per year. The build warns the moment a calendar year turns without next year's dates being verified, and fails sixty days later.
- A verification date in the future. Caught exactly once so far, on the day it was introduced.
- A colour that cannot carry the text put on it. Every colour pair is measured against the WCAG contrast minimums in the build.
- A page nobody can reach. The build walks the site from the homepage through body copy only — a link in the footer does not count — and fails on any page that cannot be reached that way.
- An FAQ that restates its own page. An answer may share at most a quarter of its phrasing with the page above it.
What is not verified yet
This list is generated from the data files at every build, so it shrinks as the work is done and it cannot quietly stop being true. If something you need is on it, treat this site as a starting point for that question and not an answer.
Dates the law appoints but nobody can state yet
VIC, 2027 — Friday before the AFL Grand Final. Typically the last Friday in September — which would be 24 September 2027 — but the AFL fixture decides it and the fixture is not out.
The Victorian Government's own 2027 list prints 'Subject to AFL schedule' in place of a date and says it will be updated when the 2027 AFL schedule is released. The day is appointed by the Act; only its date is unknown. We publish that rather than a guess, because a wrong date here is a day someone books leave around.
| Where | Still to do |
|---|---|
| NSW | Local public holidays and local event days under ss 5 and 8 are not yet listed here. They are phase 2 (the council-level moat) and the page says so rather than implying the state list is complete. |
| VIC | Melbourne Cup substitutions under s8A are made council by council, at least 90 days before the Cup, and Business Victoria publishes a separate non-metropolitan list each year. Those dates are phase 2 (the council-level moat) and the page says the statewide list is not the whole story rather than implying it is. |
| VIC | The 2027 AFL Grand Final Friday must be filled in as soon as the AFL releases the fixture — check-dates.mjs prints the pending entry at every build so it cannot be forgotten. |
| QLD | The four CLOSED DAYS are set by the Act and no Commission order can change them. What the trading area orders decide is the HOURS a non-exempt shop may keep on an ordinary public holiday, by putting it in a type 1, 2 or 3 trading area. Those current orders have not been read, so for a particular shop on a particular ordinary public holiday the honest answer is still 'check the order that covers your area'. |
| QLD | Show holidays beyond Brisbane are appointed district by district under s4 on each local government's request. That list is phase 2 (the council-level moat) and is the single highest-value thing to add for Queensland: `does Logan get the Ekka public holiday` is a real, badly-served question, and the answer is no — Logan is a separate local government area with its own show day. |
| WA | The current s12E orders have not been read. They are what decides whether a general retail shop may open on a given public holiday outside the three absolute days, so the honest answer for any particular holiday is 'check the current order'. |
| WA | The 2027 regional King's Birthday dates are not published yet — the WA Government lists 2026 only. Add them when they appear, and remember they REPLACE the statewide date in those districts rather than adding to it. |
| WA | Other districts may proclaim alternative dates under s7; only Karratha and Port Hedland are listed for 2026. |
| SA | The Act's structure is now read: greater Adelaide is a shopping district by definition, and elsewhere only a council-initiated proclamation under ss 11-12 brings an area inside the Act. The LIST of currently Proclaimed Shopping Districts is not published here — those proclamations sit in the Gazette. Add them with the council-level work. |
| SA | Section 5 exemptions and s5A closure notices are made by Gazette notice and are not tracked here. |
| SA | Section 5 proclamations for a district or locality are not listed here — that is the council-level work, phase 2. |
| TAS | The Shop Trading Hours Act 1984 itself has not been read — the two restricted days come from WorkSafe Tasmania, the administering agency. Read the Act and record the large-retailer threshold before this section claims more than it does. |
| TAS | Schedule 2's part-day government holidays (the 11am Launceston Cup start in the city centre) are described in the rules but not listed as separate dated rows. |
| ACT | Section 3(1)(b) declarations for part of the Territory are not listed here. |
| NT | Regional show days are gazetted under s6 and are not listed here — that is the phase-2 council-level work, and for the Territory it is the single most useful thing to add. |
| NT | The Northern Territory Government's published table has not been used as a cross-check; every date comes from Schedule 2 itself. |
When we get it wrong
A wrong date matters on the day, so corrections are logged rather than quietly edited. The corrections log says what the site said before, what it says now, and how the error surfaced. It was not empty on the day this site launched.
This page last reviewed .