Public Holidays Order 2011

The Order relies on and implements the taxonomy and mechanisms of the Public Holidays Act 2010 by declaring specific public holidays and local event days. The main statutory concepts in the Order are these:

• Public holiday declarations for parts of the State (cl 4). The Order repeatedly uses the formulation “For the purposes of section 5(1) of the Act, a day or part-day specified in Column 2 is declared to be a public holiday for the part of the State specified in Column 1.” That is the operative device that converts a calendar interval into a public holiday within a defined geographic area. The declared intervals are described in various ways: “Part-day” with explicit start and end times (for example, “Part-day from 1pm to 5pm on 22 April 2026” for police patrol districts in Clarence Valley); “Half-day from midday” (for example, “Half-day from midday on 20 March 2026” for the City of Albury); and full-day listings (for example, “Coonamble local government area | 27 May 2026”).

• Local event day declarations (cl 5). These apply for the purposes of s 8(1) of the Act and use the same table form, declaring particular days or part-days as local event days for named local government areas. Entries include single full days and part-days with specified times.

• Whole State public holidays (cl 6). The Order separately provides declarations that apply to the whole State: specifically 27 April 2026 and 26 April 2027, declared “to be a public holiday for the whole State” under the Act (cl 6).

• External identification by municipal materials. Several entries identify the precise affected area by reference to maps or publications located on local council websites (for example, “The locality of Kangaroo Valley within the City of Shoalhaven local government area, as highlighted on the map and published on the Shoalhaven City Council website”; multiple Clarence Valley and Parkes Shire map references in cl 4). The Order therefore makes legal effect of the declaration contingent on external municipal mapping material.

• Temporal and spatial granularity. The Order distinguishes between entire local government areas, named localities within councils, police patrol district subsets, and specific show boundaries (Parkes Shire “Trundle Show Boundaries”, “Peak Hill Show Boundaries”). It further distinguishes temporal coverage between full days, half-days, and part-days with specific hours.

• Commencement mechanism (cl 2). The Order’s legal effect begins on publication on the NSW legislation website. There is no staged commencement or delayed commencement clause beyond that publication trigger.

• Structural amendments and repeals. The marginal annotation records multiple substitutions, insertions and amendments across many years and notes that clauses 7-10 are repealed (cl 7-10 annotations).

The Order does not itself restate the substantive rights, obligations, rates of pay, or enforcement mechanisms that follow from declared public holidays or local event days; instead it references the Act (cl 3) as the enabling regime (use of “for the purposes of section 5(1) of the Act” and “for the purposes of section 8(1) of the Act”).

The Order affects persons and entities by producing time- and place-specific public-holiday and local-event-day status under the Public Holidays Act 2010. The text itself identifies the geographically affected populations and places; from those identifications the following categories of stakeholders are implicated:

• Workers and employers located in the named parts of the State. The Order declares public holidays or part-days for particular local government areas, localities and parts of local government areas (cl 4). Where a declared interval applies to a worker’s place of employment or their designated place for the purposes of the Act, the worker’s entitlements and the employer’s obligations under the Act and applicable industrial instruments will be engaged in respect of that declared interval. The Order does not itself specify entitlements, but it creates the temporal trigger that will activate the Act’s provisions (cl 4, cl 3).

• Businesses operating inside the named local areas. Businesses in localities listed in cl 4 must plan for the declared intervals (full day, half-day, part-day). The Order’s references to show boundaries and event-specific localities (Parkes Show Boundaries, Peak Hill, Trundle, Yeoval, Bogan Gate, etc.) mean businesses operating within those delineated areas will be inside the declared public holiday or part-day. Similarly, businesses in the City of Albury, Bogan LGA, Coonamble LGA, and other listed LGAs are affected for the specified dates.

• Local government authorities and councils. The Order expressly relies on maps and materials “published on the [council] website” for the legal identification of some declared areas (cl 4 entries referencing Shoalhaven City Council, Clarence Valley Council, Parkes Shire Council, etc.). Councils therefore are effectively providers of the boundary identification used by the Order. That creates an interdependence: the Order’s spatial precision relies on the persistence and clarity of those council-published maps.

• Police and emergency services operating in defined police patrol districts. The Order includes declarations for specified police patrol districts (Iluka, Maclean and Yamba within the Clarence Valley local government area) for a part-day (cl 4). Operational rostering and staffing for public authorities operating in those districts will be affected because the Order determines the legal public-holiday status in those districts for the stated times.

• Event organisers and local community groups running shows and events referenced by the Order. Several declarations tie to “Show Boundaries” and local shows (Parkes Show, Trundle Show, Peak Hill Show). Those organisers and local stakeholders will experience the consequences of a declared public holiday or event day (e.g. local attendance, traffic, and workforce availability) for the identified part-day or half-day.

• State-wide stakeholders for the two whole-of-State dates. The two whole-State public holidays listed in cl 6 apply uniformly: 27 April 2026 and 26 April 2027.

• Legal advisers, payroll and rostering administrators. Practitioners dealing with payroll, industrial relations compliance, rostering, and scheduling need to implement the dates and times listed in cl 4, cl 5 and cl 6. The Order’s fine-grained temporal distinctions (half-day vs part-day with times) create discrete payroll and rostering tasks.

The Order itself does not describe penalties, enforcement processes or dispute resolution; those matters are left to the Act (cl 3). The Order therefore functions as a declaratory instrument that triggers obligations and entitlements defined elsewhere. Because the Order sometimes references external maps and council websites to fix boundaries, affected persons may need to consult those external materials to determine whether a particular premises or address is inside the declared area.

The Order does not directly create detailed duties, rights, penalty regimes or entitlement amounts. Instead it performs a precise declaratory function by invoking specific provisions of the Public Holidays Act 2010 and specifying the dates, times and places to which that Act will apply. Key legal effects and the allocation of responsibilities under the Order are therefore indirect and must be read together with the Act.

What the Order does create, as legal facts for the purpose of the Act:

• A temporal and spatial trigger for the Act’s public-holiday regime. For “the purposes of section 5(1) of the Act, a day or part-day specified in Column 2 is declared to be a public holiday for the part of the State specified in Column 1” (cl 4). That declaration establishes the interval during which the legal status of “public holiday” holds in the specified area. The duties and rights that attach to that status (for example, obligations to pay penalties, to close premises, right to refuse to work, or rostering constraints) are set out in the Act and relevant industrial instruments, not in the Order. The Order’s role is to mark which date/interval will be treated as a public holiday under the Act.

• A temporal and spatial trigger for the Act’s local event day provisions. The Order declares local event days “for the purposes of section 8(1) of the Act” (cl 5). Again, the substantive legal outcomes tied to a local event day (treatment under employment instruments, possible substituted holidays, etc.) derive from the Act.

• Whole-of-State public holiday declarations. The Order identifies two whole-of-State public holidays (27 April 2026 and 26 April 2027) under cl 6. Where the Act differentiates between whole-of-State holidays and local holidays in allocating rights or entitling employees to leave or penalties, these declarations will operate as the legal basis for whole-of-State treatment for those dates.

Implied duties and operational responsibilities that follow from the Order’s structure:

• Employers, payroll administrators and rostering managers must observe the Order’s specified intervals when determining public-holiday coverage for staff and premises in the listed areas (cl 4, cl 5, cl 6). The Order’s precise time stamps for part-day declarations (for example “from 1pm to 5pm on 22 April 2026”) impose temporal granularity for calculation and scheduling tasks.

• Local councils are key to on-the-ground identification when the Order references council-published maps (cl 4). The Order depends on those external materials to identify localities; councils therefore shoulder an information-provision role relevant to parties attempting to determine whether an address falls within a declared area.

• For declarations expressed as “half-day from midday”, the Order sets the starting point for the half-day but does not specify the endpoint; that choice of terminology creates a dependency on the Act’s definitions or established administrative practice to determine the precise span of a half-day (see cl 4 entries such as City of Albury “Half-day from midday on 20 March 2026”).

What the Order does not do:

• It does not state payment rates, entitlements, or the detailed content of employer and employee obligations. It expressly anchors itself to the Act for “the purposes of” particular sections (cl 4, cl 5, cl 6), meaning the Order is a calendar instrument, not a substantive entitlement instrument.

• It contains no enforcement or penalty clauses. Any penalties for breaches of public-holiday obligations, or any processes for dispute resolution, are not contained in this Order.

In short, the Order creates the calendared legal facts , dates, times and geographic extents , that the Act will apply to; the substantive rights and duties flow from the Act and must be consulted there for precise employer or employee obligations.

The Order contains no provisions specifying penalties, enforcement processes, sanctions, or administrative remedies. The instrument’s text is exclusively declaratory: it declares days and part-days to be public holidays or local event days for specified territories and cites the relevant sections of the Public Holidays Act 2010 as the legal basis (cl 4, cl 5, cl 6; cl 3 defines “the Act”). There are no clauses within the Order outlining:

• monetary penalties;
• infringement notices;
• reporting or compliance obligations; or
• enforcement agencies or powers.

Because the Order operates “for the purposes” of specific sections of the Act (cl 4 invokes s 5(1); cl 5 invokes s 8(1)), any enforcement or penalty consequences for failing to comply with duties that arise from the declared public holidays or local event days will be found in the Act itself, and not in this Order. The Order therefore functions as a trigger mechanism: it creates the temporal/spatial legal status to which the Act’s enforcement regime attaches.

Practically, this means:

• Entities seeking to know what penalties might attach to conduct on a declared public holiday must consult the Public Holidays Act 2010 and any relevant industrial instruments or awards, because the Order does not set or reference enforcement procedures or penalties.
• Any dispute about whether a particular premises or shift fell inside a declared part-day will turn on the Order’s declarations (cl 4/cl 5) and the Act’s application, but the Order provides no procedure for contesting or enforcing those declarations itself.
• The Order’s references to external municipal maps as the determinant of some geographic boundaries (cl 4 entries referring to council websites) introduce a potential evidentiary or administrative step in enforcement: an enforcer, employer or employee may need to consult the council-published map to determine precisely whether a location was inside the declared area at the relevant time.

Finally, the Order records repeals and amendments in marginal notes (cl 4, cl 5, cl 6 annotations), but it does not itself explain whether previous declarations were subject to enforcement action or dispute. Any enforcement history or penalties arising from prior declarations are not contained in this Order.

The Order is explicitly designed to be read and applied in conjunction with the Public Holidays Act 2010. The Order defines “the Act” as the Public Holidays Act 2010 (cl 3) and repeatedly frames its declarations as being “for the purposes of” specific sections of the Act: section 5(1) for public holiday declarations in cl 4 and section 8(1) for local event day declarations in cl 5. Clause 6 likewise declares whole-of-State public holidays “for the Act, section 5(1)”. This shows the Order is an implementing instrument under the statutory framework of the Act and not a freestanding source of substantive rights or obligations.

Interaction points visible in the Order’s text:

• Enabling statute relation. The Order invokes the Act as the enabling legal framework. The declared status of a day or part-day is therefore legally meaningful only insofar as the Act sets out the consequences of being a public holiday or a local event day (cl 3, cl 4, cl 5, cl 6). Any obligations that follow will be imposed by the Act and possibly by awards, agreements, workplace determinations or other employment law instruments that the Act interacts with; the Order does not itself specify or modify those instruments.

• Reliance on external administrative materials. Several declarations depend on municipal maps or material “published on the [council] website” to identify the relevant area (cl 4: Shoalhaven City Council map for Kangaroo Valley; Clarence Valley Council “Police Patrol District Map” and “City of Grafton Map”; Parkes Shire Council show-boundaries maps; etc.). That creates an interaction between the Order and local government-produced materials. The Order’s legal delimitations therefore depend on those external sources remaining accessible and authoritative for boundary determination.

• Administrative boundaries and operational documents. The use of police patrol district delineations (Iluka, Maclean and Yamba) ties the Order to operational boundaries used by law enforcement agencies. Any interaction with policing or other public-service rostering is therefore mediated by the Order’s cross-reference to those operational maps and presumably to the agencies’ own boundary definitions, as published or otherwise recognised.

• Temporal sequencing and publication regime. The Order’s commencement is tied to publication on the NSW legislation website (cl 2). This interacts with any statutory or administrative timing rules in the Act or in other legislation that depend on when a public holiday is declared or notified to the public. For example, obligations that depend on advance notice or publication will be triggered by the Order’s publication date.

• Repeals and amendment history. The marginal notes record a significant number of substitutions, insertions and amendments across multiple years for various clauses (cl 3, cl 4, cl 5, cl 6). That indicates the Order has been edited and reissued periodically to add, remove or update entries. The Order is thus part of a changing legal landscape and interacts with past versions through repeal and substitution entries (cl 7-10 are noted as repealed).

What the Order does not resolve about interactions:

• The Order does not restate or clarify the Act’s provisions or how awards and agreements interact with those provisions. It does not, for example, specify which industrial instruments govern penalty rates or compensatory leave. Those interactions remain to be found in the Act and in industrial relations instruments.

• The Order does not specify what happens if the external council-published map is amended or removed. It simply references the map as the identifying instrument for specific localities (cl 4). Any legal question about the map’s status, updating or archival will require recourse to the councils’ policies and the Act’s interpretive rules.

In sum, the Order functions as a subordinate instrument that implements the Act’s mechanism for designating public holidays and local event days by fixing dates, times and geographic extents. It interacts with local government publications for boundary identification and with the broader employment and public-holiday regulatory framework set out by the Act and by industrial instruments.

The Order’s text contains margin and clause annotations that record a substantial amendment and substitution history. The source text reproduces the instrument as currently in force and includes the following amendment annotations tied to specific clauses. These annotations are recorded verbatim in the Order’s clauses and are part of the operative text provided.

• Clause 1 (Name of Order): simply states “This Order is the [Public Holidays Order 2011].” There are no amendment notes directly attached to cl 1 in the provided text.

• Clause 2 (Commencement): “This Order commences on the day on which it is published on the NSW legislation website” (cl 2). No amendment notes are attached to cl 2 in the excerpt.

• Clause 3 (Definition): The clause defines “the Act” as the Public Holidays Act 2010 and carries the following margin note listing multiple amendments and substitutions through the years: Subst 2013 (37), Sch 1. Am 2013 (135), Sch 1 [1]. Subst 2014 (6), Sch 1. Am 2014 (586), cl 3; 2014 (601), cl 3. Subst 2015 (39), cl 3; 2015 (82), Sch 1. These annotations indicate the clause was substituted and amended across 2013-2015 and carries further amendment citations in subsequent clauses.

• Clause 4 (Public holidays for a specified part of the State): The operative schedule lists multiple specific part-day and half-day declarations for various local government areas and localities for 2026 and 2027. The margin note attached to cl 4 is long and documents a sequence of insertions, substitutions and amendments from 2011 through to 2025: Ins 2011 (106), cl 3. Am 2011 (206), cl 3 (1). Subst 2012 (34), Sch 1; 2012 (59), Sch 1. Am 2012 (157), cl 3 (1) (2); 2012 (167), cl 3; 2012 (340), cl 3 (1) (2). Subst 2013 (37), Sch 1. Am 2013 (135), Sch 1 [2]; 2013 (418), cl 3. Subst 2014 (6), Sch 1. Am 2014 (64), cl 3; 2014 (589), cl 3; 2014 (590), cl 3. Subst 2015 (82), Sch 1. Am 2015 (105), cl 3; 2015 (204), cl 3; 2015 (237), cl 3; 2015 (273), cl 3. Subst 2016 (44), Sch 1. Am 2016 (128), Sch 1 [1]; 2016 (155), Sch 1 [1]; 2016 (447), cl 3; 2016 (596), cl 3 (1) (2); 2016 (618), cl 3; 2016 (700), cl 3; 2017 (41), Sch 1 [1]; 2017 (181), cl 3; 2017 (429), cl 3 (1). Subst 2018 (2), Sch 1 [1]. Am 2018 (219), cl 3; 2018 (263), cl 3; 2018 (786), Sch 1 [1]; 2019 (632), Sch 1[1]; 2020 (106), cl 3; 2020 (187), cl 3; 2020 (338), cl 3; 2020 (503), cl 3; 2020 (533), cl 3(1) (2); 2021 (58), Sch 1[1]; 2021 (440), cl 3; 2021 (503), cl 3; 2021 (536), sec 3; 2021 (626), sec 3; 2021 (768), Sch 1[1]; 2022 (26), sec 3; 2022 (171), sec 3; 2022 (836), Sch 1[1]; 2023 (705), Sch 1[1]; 2025 (10), Sch 1[1]; 2025 (242), Sch 1; 2025 (515), Sch 1; 2025 (709), Sch 1[1]. These entries record a long history of calendar updates, insertions and substitutions, reflecting that the schedule of declared days has been frequently amended.

• Clause 5 (Local event days): The table list for cl 5 covers several local event day declarations for 2026 and 2027 and includes a long amendment history note: Ins 2011 (206), cl 3 (2). Rep 2013 (37), Sch 1. Ins 2015 (82), Sch 1. Am 2015 (106), cl 3; 2015 (544), cl 3. Subst 2016 (44), Sch 1. Am 2016 (111), cl 3; 2016 (128), Sch 1 [2]; 2016 (155), Sch 1 [2]. Subst 2017 (41), Sch 1 [2]. Am 2017 (158), cl 3; 2017 (429), cl 3 (2) (3). Subst 2018 (2), Sch 1 [2]. Am 2018 (34), cl 3; 2018 (786), Sch 1 [2]; 2019 (440), cl 3; 2019 (632), Sch 1[2]; 2021 (58), Sch 1[2]; 2021 (170), cl 3; 2021 (768), Sch 1[2]; 2022 (836), Sch 1[3]; 2023 (392), sec 3; 2023 (644), Sch 1; 2023 (705), Sch 1[2]; 2024 (16), Sch 1; 2024 (127), Sch 1; 2025 (10), Sch 1[2]; 2025 (709), Sch 1[2].

• Clause 6 (Public holidays for whole State): The marginal annotation for this clause records: Ins 2012 (60), cl 3. Rep 2013 (37), Sch 1. Ins 2022 (550), sec 3. Rep 2022 (836), Sch 1[3]. Ins 2026 (48), Sch 1. These notes show the whole-of-State declaration clause has itself been inserted and amended at different times.

• Clauses 7-10: The text shows these clauses are repealed. The annotation states simply “7-10 (Repealed)” and lists the insertion and repeal citations: Ins 2012 (61), cl 3. Rep 2013 (37), Sch 1; Ins 2012 (62), cl 3. Rep 2013 (37), Sch 1; Ins 2012 (89), cl 3. Rep 2013 (37), Sch 1; Ins 2012 (512), cl 3. Rep 2013 (37), Sch 1.

These margin annotations are the only amendment-history evidence contained in the Order. They record dates and instrument references for substitutions, insertions, repeals and amendments over multiple years. The Order’s content therefore reflects an instrument that has been updated frequently to add or modify specific calendar entries and to reflect changing local events and holidays.

The Order does not, within its text, provide a narrative explanation of the reasons for each amendment, nor does it reproduce the content of the amending instruments. To understand the substance and policy reasons for any particular change noted in the marginal citations, a reader will need to consult the amending instruments themselves and the Public Holidays Act 2010.

The Order’s text supplied contains no references to litigation, judicial decisions, or case law. There are no footnotes, marginal citations or internal references to any court proceedings in the Order itself. The clauses and amendment notes record legislative changes and substitutions but do not record any litigation outcome or judicial challenge tied to the Order.

Consequently, within the source text the following points are factual:

• The Order does not include any court judgments, proceedings, or case citations.
• The Order’s amendment and repeal notes do not indicate whether any changes were made in response to litigation; they simply record amendment instruments and dates.

Practical implications for legal research:

• If questions arise about interpretation of particular entries (for example, the scope of a locality defined by a council map, or the legal meaning of “half-day from midday”), a search for relevant case law would need to be conducted in external jurisprudential databases. The Order itself offers no guidance on litigated interpretations.
• Challenges about whether a given workplace or address fell within a declared area on a given date would be matters for evidence and potentially litigation under the Act, but the Order contains no litigation record to indicate how courts have treated similar declarations.

In short, the Order as supplied is a technical, declaratory statutory instrument without embedded litigation history. Any judicial interpretation or enforcement arising from its declarations would appear in external case law and is not recorded in this instrument.

The Order’s economy of drafting and use of external references create several practical and interpretive risks that parties should be alert to. These are strictly drawn from the text itself.

1. Reliance on external council-published maps for geographic identification (cl 4). Several entries declare an area to be a public holiday “as highlighted on the map and published on the [council] website” (Shoalhaven City Council, Clarence Valley Council, Parkes Shire Council). The Order does not embed map images or coordinates. It therefore requires users to locate and rely on the council-published map. Practical consequences:

   • The legal determination whether an address is inside the declared area depends on the contemporaneous council map in force on the operative date.
   • If the council website removes, updates, or reconfigures the map, or if there are multiple archived versions, there may be evidentiary or interpretive disputes about which version the Order contemplated.

2. Mixed temporal descriptors: “half-day” vs “part-day” (cl 4). The Order uses different temporal phrases:

   • “Half-day from midday on 20 March 2026” (City of Albury).
   • “Part-day from 1pm to 5pm on 22 April 2026” (police patrol districts in Clarence Valley).
   • “Coonamble local government area | 27 May 2026” (full day). The “half-day from midday” entries specify only the start time, not the end time. That omission raises interpretive questions about the intended duration of a “half-day” where the Act or administrative practice does not define the end-point within this Order. Users should consult the Act and any Ministerial guidance to understand what is intended by “half-day”.

3. Temporal fragmentation creates administrative overhead (cl 4, cl 5). Numerous part-days with specific start and end times (for example “Part-day from 9am to 5pm on 13 February 2026” for Kangaroo Valley) impose hour-by-hour compliance requirements for payroll and rostering systems. Employers and payroll systems accustomed to full-day public holidays need to adjust to part-day calculations.

4. Repeated and multi-year entries increase monitoring complexity (cl 4). Several localities are listed for multiple years with slightly different dates (e.g., Walcha listed for part-day midday-6pm on 6 February 2026 and 5 February 2027). Employers and administrators cannot assume the same calendar each year; they must consult the current Order for year-by-year specifics, because the Order’s marginal notes show frequent amendment history.

5. Cross-reference to police patrol districts and operational boundaries (cl 4). The Order declares public holidays for police patrol districts (Iluka, Maclean and Yamba). That ties holiday status to operational boundaries that may not match LGA boundaries or street-address ranges used by businesses, creating potential confusion about whether a business or employee is within the declared district.

6. No penalties or enforcement text (cl 4, cl 5, cl 6). The Order does not specify enforcement routes or penalties. Parties seeking to understand remedies or sanctions must consult the Act. That can create a perception gap for lay readers who may think the Order itself contains enforcement provisions.

7. Publication-tied commencement (cl 2). The Order “commences on the day on which it is published on the NSW legislation website”. For any time-sensitive activities (advertising, staff rostering), the operative start could be the same day as publication; late publication could shorten the effective notice period for employers and the public.

8. Repealed clauses and historical entries (cl 7-10). The presence of repealed clauses indicates structural edits in the instrument’s history. Users relying on older copies or printed guides need to ensure they reference the current version.

Each “gotcha” is grounded in the Order’s text: reliance on council maps, mixed temporal language, and the absence of penalty or definitional content. The practical upshot is that those implementing the Order must consult three sources contemporaneously: the Order itself for declared dates and areas, the cited council maps for precise boundary identification, and the Public Holidays Act 2010 for legal consequences.

The Order’s operative content is the declaration of dates, times and geographic extents. Compliance therefore requires implementation steps to identify whether a premises, employee or activity falls within the declared area and, if so, to apply the relevant provisions of the Public Holidays Act 2010 and any applicable industrial instruments. The Order lists specific actions that affected parties should take, grounded on the text.

1. Check the publication date and confirm commencement (cl 2). The Order “commences on the day on which it is published on the NSW legislation website.” Organisations should:

   • Identify the date of publication on the NSW legislation website and treat that as the date the Order took effect.
   • Ensure any staff notifications, rostering changes and public notices are aligned with the publication date.

2. Identify whether the location is inside a declared area (cl 4). For entries that refer to council-published maps, compliance requires consulting the specified map:

   • For the locality of Kangaroo Valley, consult the Shoalhaven City Council map as published on that council’s website.
   • For police patrol districts and “City of Grafton” references, consult the Clarence Valley Council maps cited.
   • For Parkes Shire show boundaries (Trundle Show, Peak Hill Show, Parkes Show), consult the Parkes Shire Council maps identified.
   • If a premises is near a boundary, retain and archive the relevant municipal map (download or print-dated copy) as contemporaneous evidence of whether the premises was within the declared area on the operative date.

3. Apply the correct temporal interval (cl 4, cl 5, cl 6). The Order specifies three temporal descriptions:

   • Full-day entries (e.g. “27 May 2026” for Coonamble) , treat as a full public holiday under the Act for that date.
   • Part-day entries with start and end times (e.g. “Part-day from 9am to 5pm on 13 February 2026”) , adjust rostering and payroll for the precise times specified.
   • Half-day entries described as “Half-day from midday” , note that the Order provides a start time but not an end time; consult the Public Holidays Act 2010 and any regulator guidance for the intended meaning of “half-day” or any established convention for the end time of a half-day.
   • For whole-of-State declarations (cl 6), standard whole-of-State processes and notifications should apply.

4. Coordinate with payroll, rostering and HR systems. Employers should:

   • Update payroll rules to calculate public-holiday entitlements only for those employees whose place of employment or rostered location falls within the declared area and within the declared times.
   • For part-days, ensure time-and-a-half or penalty calculations (if applicable under the Act or awards) are applied for the specified hours.
   • Maintain contemporaneous records (timesheets, location records, roster confirmations) showing that an employee was or was not required to work during the declared interval.

5. Preserve evidentiary materials about boundaries and timing. Because the Order relies on council maps and the NSW legislation website publication, parties should:

   • Archive the dated legislation webpage or the PDF of the Order as published.
   • Archive the relevant council map as published on the council website, including any date-stamped archive or cached copy.
   • Where disputes are foreseeable (for example, close boundary cases), document address geocoding or authoritative confirmation that a premises falls within or outside the declared area.

6. Notify affected stakeholders and the public in sufficient time. The Order does not prescribe notice periods. Organisations should:

   • Communicate to staff and contractors when a declared public holiday or local event day will affect operations, providing specific start and end times where the Order specifies part-days.
   • For businesses that operate across multiple LGAs or near boundary lines, provide location-specific guidance to staff and clients.

7. Consult the Public Holidays Act 2010 for substantive entitlements. The Order is not a substitute for the Act. To apply rights and duties arising from a declared day, consult the Act and any relevant industrial awards, agreements or employment contracts to determine:

   • Whether employees are entitled to penalty rates, time off, or substituted holidays.
   • Any employer obligations to provide notice or to refrain from requiring attendance.

8. When in doubt, seek authoritative confirmation. Because the Order ties declarations to external maps and sometimes uses “half-day” terminology without an explicit end time, practitioners should consider obtaining formal guidance from the relevant regulator or legal advice where the outcome would be material to payroll or operational decisions.

These steps flow directly from the instrument’s structure: commencement upon publication (cl 2), geographic specification often by reference to council maps (cl 4), temporal specificity and variety (cl 4, cl 5), and whole-of-State declarations (cl 6). The Order is a scheduling instrument; compliance therefore is largely administrative and evidentiary, with the substantive legal consequences to be applied under the Public Holidays Act 2010.