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Anzac Day is For Remembering Not Shopping

Anzac Day is a solemn day for commemoration across Australia. It is a day when the nation stops and honours those who sacrificed everything.

Followed the SDA’s Anzac Day is for remembering – not shopping campaign where hundreds of SDA members and Delegates wrote letters, spoke to the RSL and convinced the NSW Minns’ Labor Government to pass the Retail Trading Amendment (Anzac Day Trading Hours) Act. This Act meant that in NSW, General shops would have to close ALL day again on Anzac Day starting with Anzac Day 2025.

The full-day closure of shops in NSW is not simply about closing shops. It is about reopening space for memory, respect, and collective reflection – ensuring that Anzac Day remains what it was always intended to be; a day to remember.

Anzac Day in the ACT 2026

For 2026, the ACT Government had initially decided to move the public holiday to Monday 27 April, two days after the commemorative services. Anzac Day, Saturday 25 April, would just be a normal work day!

Not having a public holiday on Saturday 25 April would have meant that seven-day industry workers like retail, fast food and warehousing workers did not have a reasonable right to refuse to work if they wanted to attend a dawn service, the march or the last post ceremony at dusk. If they did attend, they would be docked pay which many workers cannot afford.

A meeting of SDA Delegates was called in Canberra with over 60 SDA Delegates representing thousands of ACT shop workers attending and expressing how disappointed and dismayed they were by the disrespect shown to this solemn day. The meeting unanimously called for the ACT Government to immediately restore Anzac Day Saturday 25 April as a public holiday to allow shop workers to stop with the rest of the community to commemorate Anzac Day.

ACT Minister Michael Pettersson agreed to meet SDA members and after hearing them out, agreed to make Anzac Day, Saturday 25 April, a public holiday again. We thank Minister Pettersson for listening to our members’ concerns.

We now have to make sure that Anzac Day, Sunday 25 April 2027, is also locked in as a day of remembrance as a public holiday. Anzac Day 25 April should ALWAYS be a public holiday.