ANZAC DAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25208, 24 April 1943, Page 4

ANZAC DAY

BARGAINING POINT IN AWARDS RETURNED SERVICEMEN’S PROTEST (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Apl. 22. The following statement has been issued by the New Zealand Returned Services’ Association: — “In support of the protests from many sources, the association has frequently drawn the Government’s attention to the increasing tendency to use Anzac Day as a bargaining point in award negotiations and has asked that this practice be prohibited by regulation, thus keeping Anzac Day in the spirit of the Anzac Day Act, which enacts that Anzac Day shall be observed on April 25 of each year. “ Replying to the association’s representations on this matter, the Minister of Labour, Mr P. C. Webb, in January last, stated that the Government wholeheartedly endorsed the observance of Anzac Day as a national memorial day. ‘Under the Act Anzac Day is declared to be a public holiday and shall be observed in all respects as if it were a Sunday,’ said the Minister. ‘ I understand that Anzac Day has been included in some awards as one of the special holidays to be observed. Such inclusion does not, of course, permit Anzac Day to be observed other than as a Sunday. You may rest assured that the position will be watched with a view to the observance of Anzac in accordance with the spirit and intention of the legislation.’ “ The Dominion Executive Committee of the association is very disturbed at the tenor of the Minister’s reply, as he states that he understands that Anzac Day has been included in * some ’ awards, whereas, by virtue of its being declared a statutory public holiday, it must be included in all awards. That, however, does not entitle any body in this Dominion to use Anzac Day as a bargaining point to obtain another holiday when April 25 happens to fall on a Sunday or some other public holiday. “ Returned servicemen are justly indignant at this debasement of their sacred day. The association makes a most emphatic protest and calls upon the Government to honour the promise contained in the concluding part of the Minister’s letter and rectify the position by a regulation that will provide that Anzac Day shall not be observed on any day other than April 25, which is the anniversary of the first landing of the New Zealand and Australian troops on Gallipoli.”