A holiday for a sports match?

The Prime Minister of Downunder has been saying we should have a holiday if the soccer team wins the final game. Really?

I remember a previous Prime Minister of the same shade of politics suggesting that we should have a holiday when Downunder won a sailing race. It didn't happen.

And why should it? We didn't actually win that sailing race at all. A team of people using their skills won the race. Perhaps they deserved a day off? It had nothing at all to do with anyone who was not involved. Cheering them on didn't count. It certainly didn't mean we needed a holiday. 

As I said, it didn't happen. It would have been a mistake if it had happened. I don't think anyone really took the PM of the day too seriously. 

This time around I am less certain. There are people who believe the present PM would do this for the populist vote. He seems to head off to the sport and expect to get his photo in the paper for being there. If he wants to go to a sporting event of some sort or another and he has the time fair enough but do we need to know about it? No, we don't.

I know people who think that having a holiday if the soccer team won the cup would be a "lovely" idea. Yes it might be - for them. What about the people who have to pay for them to have this holiday? What about the people who do the sort of jobs where you can't "just take a day off"? 

For years I worked some hours on Christmas Day. I always did the early shift because I knew other people wanted to be with excited children who were opening parcels. I was fortunate that it was just a few hours doing nothing more than monitoring a website and being prepared to spring into action if there was an emergency. It was actually quite restful, a sort of calm before the storm of the rest of the day. I know some of the team used other parts of the day to escape from the noise. We all knew it had to be done. 

But I wonder whether our PM really understands that sort of thing, whether most people understand it in fact. He obviously has no idea how much would be involved in declaring an unexpected public holiday. He should have more idea because I am sure he knows when the referendum will be held. The fact he has not announced it yet and that it can cause major disruptions to other people is something that doesn't seem to be of great concern. His major concern is that it isn't held on the day or weekend of a major sporting event like a big footy match. If you care about which way a vote goes then this sort of thing might be important. Sport is big business in more ways than one.

But - we don't need a holiday because someone else has done the hard work.