when did australia day stop being a long weekend
Public holidays in Australia Australia Day has been celebrated as a national public holiday on 26 January since 1994.[33]
Workweek and weekend The present-day concept of the relatively longer 'week-end' first arose in the industrial north of Britain in the early part of nineteenth century[1] and was originally a voluntary arrangement between factory owners and workers allowing Saturday afternoon off from 2pm in agreement that staff would be available for work sober and refreshed on Monday morning.[2] The Oxford English Dictionary traces the first use of the term weekend to the British magazine Notes and Queries in 1879.[8]