Public Holiday Pay for Petrol Station Workers in Australia

Public holidays are the highest-cost shifts on your roster. They are also the most commonly miscalculated. For Australian petrol station operators, getting public holiday pay wrong is not just a margin problem. It is a compliance risk that can result in back-pay orders, penalties, and Fair Work investigations. Here is what you need to know.

The award that applies to most servo staff

Most petrol station workers in Australia are covered by the Vehicle Repair, Services and Retail Award (MA000089). This is the award that sets minimum pay rates, penalty rates, and entitlements for servo counter staff, console operators, and retail fuel employees. If you are unsure which award applies at your site, the Fair Work Ombudsman's Pay and Conditions Tool will confirm it based on your industry classification.

The right to take public holidays, and the conditions under which you can ask someone to work on a public holiday, come from the National Employment Standards under the Fair Work Act 2009, specifically Section 114. The award then sets the rate you must pay.

What the public holiday rate actually is

Under MA000089, employees who work on a public holiday are entitled to 250% of their ordinary rate, that is, double time and a half. For a permanent employee on the Level 1 base rate of $24.95 per hour (as of 2025-26), that is $62.38 per hour for every hour worked on a public holiday.

For casual employees, the calculation is different. The casual loading of 25% is added to the base rate first, bringing the casual base to $31.19 per hour. The public holiday penalty then applies to that loaded rate. A casual on a public holiday is therefore costing you significantly more than the 250% headline figure suggests when you work through the maths.

These rates change each July when the Fair Work Commission hands down its annual minimum wage decision. If your pay rates have not been reviewed since last July, check now.

Which days count as public holidays

This is an area where operators get caught out. Public holidays vary by state. In Victoria, Melbourne Cup Day is a public holiday. The AFL Grand Final public holiday applies in Victoria and some other states. In Queensland, the Brisbane Show holiday applies only to the greater Brisbane area.

If you operate across multiple states, every site has its own public holiday calendar. Running payroll on a single national roster without accounting for state-specific holidays is a common compliance error.

The Fair Work website publishes a state-by-state list of public holidays each year. Bookmark it. Review it before you publish your roster at the start of each quarter.

Can you require staff to work on a public holiday

Yes, but only on reasonable grounds. Section 114 of the Fair Work Act means you cannot simply roster someone on a public holiday and expect them to comply. The rostering must be reasonable given the nature of the work, the employee's personal circumstances, the type of employment, and any other relevant factors.

In practice, petrol stations are considered an essential service, and the need for staff to keep a 24-hour site running is generally accepted as a reasonable ground. But this is not a blank cheque. If a staff member refuses on reasonable personal grounds and you penalise them for it, you have a potential adverse action claim.

The safest approach is to identify your public holiday roster requirements early, offer shifts to volunteers first, and document any decisions carefully. Having a standing clause in employment agreements about public holiday expectations also helps.

The most common public holiday pay errors

Operators get this wrong in predictable ways.

• Using the wrong base rate. Applying the public holiday multiplier to a rounded or outdated hourly rate. Rates must be current and must match the employee's actual classification.
• Forgetting state-specific days. Running one national payroll run without accounting for Melbourne Cup, Easter Saturday in some states, or any other day that is a public holiday in one state but not another.
• Miscalculating casual rates. Applying the 250% to the base rate and then adding casual loading on top, instead of applying the 250% to the already-loaded casual rate.
• Not paying for the day when a permanent employee does not work.Permanent employees are entitled to a paid day off for each public holiday, even if they were not rostered that day. If Christmas Day falls on their normal work day and you do not roster them, you still owe them a paid day off.

How to keep public holiday pay under control

The practical fix is a roster system that knows the public holiday calendar and flags the rate impact before you publish. When you can see that the total wage bill for Christmas Day is three times a normal Sunday, you can make informed decisions about minimum staffing levels, reduce hours to what is genuinely needed, and avoid being blindsided by the cost at payroll.

Accurate clock-in records matter more on public holidays than any other day. If a staff member clocks in 20 minutes early, those 20 minutes are at 250%. A shift that runs long by an hour is costing you significantly more than the equivalent overtime on a Tuesday. The financial case for precise time records is strongest exactly when the rates are highest.