Australians will get a one-off public holiday as a national day of mourning to mark the death of Queen Elizabeth II the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has announced.
Appearing on the ABC’s Insiders on Sunday morning, Albanese said Thursday 22 September, which coincides with a memorial service for the Queen, would be a national public holiday.
“It will be a one-off national public holiday to allow people to pay their respects for the passing of Queen Elizabeth,” Albanese said.
“I spoke to all premiers and chief ministers yesterday and I’m writing to them formally this morning, they will have received their letters by now. They have all agreed that it’s appropriate that it be a one-off national public holiday.”
The day of mourning will include a ceremony in Canberra and be held after her funeral in London, on 19 September.
The day off will mean Victorians enjoy a four-day weekend, as the Friday before the AFL grand final is also a public holiday.
The prime minister and the governor general, David Hurley, will travel to London for her majesty’s funeral on Wednesday and stay for the week.
Australia’s parliament is currently suspended for two weeks to mark her passing, despite politicians in the UK only taking 10 days. MPs in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords convened for special sittings to pay tribute.
Albanese said the government would make up for the lost sitting days.
“It would be difficult to envisage the sort of adversarial activity that occurs in our parliament … so I think it was appropriate, and protocols require the automatic cancellation,” he said.
The public holiday announcement has been criticised by the Australia Medical Association president, Steve Robson, who said it would be a huge disruption to hospitals.
“Operations and lots of patient consultations booked that day, at a time when access is difficult,” he tweeted. “Thanks for dropping this at short notice.”
Head and neck surgeon Eric Levi said he had eight patients booked in for surgery on that day, and did not know what would happen to them.
“For those who say ‘stay open’, remember that we need nurses, allied health, clerks, technicians, etc to run a clinic or operating list,” he tweeted. “If schools and childcare are closed, a lot of the health care workers can’t turn up to work and health care won’t run.”
The Queen’s death has fired up the long-running debate on Australia becoming a republic.
Albanese said despite having strong views supporting Australian independence from the monarchy, now was not the time to have the discussion – but instead to pay tribute to her majesty’s long reign.
The Queen’s popularity was a major factor in the loss of the 1999 republic referendum, with former-PM John Howard revealing that in the lead-up, the Queen drafted three different responses to use depending on the outcome.
“My office and her private secretary were exchanging drafts of three press statements,” Howard said.
“One of them in the event of the republic getting up, and one of them in the event of the republic going down and one if we had the improbable result of a mixed result and that is the majority of people voted for a republic but not a majority in a majority of states – because you need both to order our constitution.”
He said she was “pleased with the result”.
“She accepted the result. I can remember vividly, “I accept the result, I’ve always taken the view that this is a matter for the Australian people, but I won’t alter my affection and altogether though our relationship will be different, I will always love Australia and I will want Australia to succeed.”
“I think they were the sort of statements you expect her to want to make. She was pleased with the result. It was a good weekend from my point of view.”
