Holiday Calendar

Labour Day Australia

Next celebratedMonday, March 8, 2027

All eight of Australia's states and territories give workers a public holiday for the eight-hour day, but on four separate dates and under three names, with no date common to all eight.

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Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATESecond Monday in March
OBSERVED INAustralia
CATEGORYFederal
ORIGIN

Event Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Operative Masons' Society (Victorian branch)
FIRST OBSERVED
1856
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

The day a trade walked off and won.

On 21 April 1856 stonemasons at the University of Melbourne downed tools and, led by James Stephens of the Operative Masons' Society, marched to Parliament House. The settlement that followed gave them eight hours for the wage previously paid for ten hours, and the victory procession they held on 12 May 1856 became an annual event and, in 1879, a paid public holiday.

Read the National Museum's accountvia National Museum of Australia
INTRO

Australia never settled on one date for it

Tasmania's official holidays list does not use the words Labour Day. It calls the March holiday Eight Hours Day. The Northern Territory calls its own version May Day and keeps it in May, while New South Wales waits until October.

There is no national Labour Day date. Australia's eight states and territories each set their own public holidays, and this one lands on four different patterns with no date shared by all eight. The Fair Work Ombudsman, the national workplace regulator, says public holidays can be different depending on the state or territory you work in.

The eight-hour day was not won once, either. Sydney's stonemasons won the first eight-hour day in New South Wales in 1855, a year before the Melbourne march that Victoria's March holiday commemorates.

They marked it with a victory dinner on 1 October 1855, a Monday by the calendar and the first Monday of that month. New South Wales keeps the first Monday in October to this day. Nothing in the sources opened here ties the modern date to that dinner.

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ORIGINS

Labour Day Australia history

INTRODUCTION

Before the eight-hour day, a working day could run to 16 hours a day and six days a week. The idea of a shorter one was not Australian. The National Museum of Australia records that Robert Owen had proposed an eight-hour day in 1817 at his socialist community in New Lanark, Scotland.

Melbourne's masons won it in 1856. Making it the rule for every Australian took another ninety-two years.

CHAPTER 01

The Chartist who called the men out

James Stephens was a Welsh stonemason and a Chartist. He had been at the Newport Rising, where the Australian Dictionary of Biography records that soldiers fired on the rebels, killing twenty. He worked on Windsor Castle until he was dismissed for being a Chartist, and he landed in Victoria on 17 July 1853.

On 4 February 1856 he and James Gilvray Galloway formed a Victorian branch of the Operative Masons' Society at Clark's Hotel, Collingwood. A committee went to the building contractors, and most of them proved co-operative. At a mass meeting on 26 March, on a motion by Thomas Smith that Stephens seconded, the meeting resolved that the eight-hour day must come into force in April.

CHAPTER 02

The walkout at the law faculty

On 21 April 1856 the stonemasons building the law faculty at the University of Melbourne put down their tools. Stephens marched them to Parliament House, gathering masons from other sites along the way. A banquet followed at the Belvidere Hotel in Fitzroy.

The employers gave in. The masons got eight hours for the wage they had been paid for ten. On 12 May the win was paraded from the Carlton Gardens out to the Cremorne Gardens in Richmond, with dinner, speeches, games and fireworks.

CHAPTER 03

From one trade to every worker

The 8 Hours Procession ran every year for 95 years, and in 1879 it became a paid public holiday. An Eight Hours Act passed in Victoria and New South Wales only in 1916.

Victoria renamed the day Labour Day in 1934. In January 1948 the Commonwealth Arbitration Court approved a 40-hour, five-day working week for all Australians.

Melbourne held its last Labour Day parade in 1951, and the Moomba Festival parade replaced it in 1955. The holiday outlived the procession that made it.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Owen proposes eight hours

Robert Owen put the eight-hour day to his socialist community at New Lanark in Scotland.

The masons walk off

On 21 April stonemasons at the University of Melbourne downed tools and marched to Parliament House behind James Stephens.

The procession becomes a holiday

Melbourne's annual 8 Hours Procession was made a paid public holiday.

An Eight Hours Act passes

Victoria and New South Wales put the eight-hour day into statute, long after the Melbourne walkout.

Victoria renames the day

Victoria's 8 Hours Procession and its holiday took the name Labour Day.

A 40-hour week for everyone

In January the Commonwealth Arbitration Court approved a 40-hour, five-day working week for all Australians.
It was a burning hot day and I thought the occasion a good one, so I called upon the men to follow me, to which they immediately consented, when I marched them ... to Parliament House, the men ... dropping their tools and joining the procession.
James StephensStonemason, recalling 21 April 1856 in the Australian Dictionary of Biography

GOOD TO KNOW

Labour Day Around the World

Victoria

Labour Day on the second Monday in March, set by section 6(d) of the Public Holidays Act 1993

Tasmania

the same March Monday, but the state's official holidays list prints Eight Hours Day rather than Labour Day

Western Australia

Labour Day on the first Monday in March, not the second

Queensland

Labour Day on the first Monday in May, an arrangement in place since 2016 under the Holidays Act 1983

Northern Territory

Schedule 2 of the Public Holidays Act 1981 names the first Monday in May as May Day, and the Act never uses the words Labour Day

New South Wales

Labour Day on the first Monday in October, the same Monday South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory keep

South Australia

Labour Day on the first Monday in October, listed by SafeWork SA across four years

Australian Capital Territory

Labour Day on the first Monday in October, among holidays the territory sets under the Holidays Act 1958

New Zealand

a separate Labour Day on the fourth Monday in October, a holiday since 1900 under the Labour Day Act 1899

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about Labour Day

The movement ruled against its own founder

In 1883 the Operative Masons' Society determined that Stephens had begun the eight-hour agitation but that a number of his companions were entitled to at least equal honour, the most prominent of whom was James Galloway. It commissioned a further inquiry into the movement's origin in 1912.

888 sits on top of a Melbourne obelisk

A bronze emblem reading 888 tops the Eight Hour Day Memorial, under an encircled globe carrying a crown and orb. The globe is inscribed Labour, Recreation, Rest.

The movement had its own workers' ditty

The National Museum of Australia records the verse: eight hours to work, eight hours to play, eight hours to sleep, eight bob a day. It ends, a fair day's work, for a fair day's pay.

The movement had to pass the hat for the man who led the march

The Trades Hall Council appealed for him as an old man, almost blind and maimed by a fall from a scaffold, wholly unable to provide for himself and his wife. Unionists subscribed upwards of £500, and he died of Bright's disease at Carlton on 14 November 1889 leaving an estate sworn for probate at £448.

The monument was moved for standing near Parliament

It first went up in Gordon Reserve on Spring Street and was shifted to the corner of Russell and Victoria Streets in 1923. The City of Melbourne's catalogue records that its presence near Parliament House was said to offend the conservative members.

MYTH VS FACT

Common Misconceptions

The myth

Melbourne's stonemasons were the first in the world to win the eight-hour day.

The truth

The claim was made at the memorial's unveiling in 1903, where Mr Ward, MLA, said in his keynote address that the pioneers had led the way, not only for Victoria, but for the rest of the world. None of the National Museum of Australia, the Australian Dictionary of Biography or the State Library of Victoria makes it. New Zealand History records the carpenter Samuel Parnell setting an eight-hour condition at Petone in 1840, sixteen years earlier, and also notes rival claimants to his own title after his death.

The myth

The 1856 win gave every Australian worker an eight-hour day.

The truth

The National Museum of Australia records that only a minority of workers, mainly in the building trades, won it, and that most workers, including women and children, generally worked longer hours for less pay. The City of Melbourne's catalogue says conditions for women and child labourers in particular remained unchanged and unreasonable for decades.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why Labour Day Matters

ARGUMENT

The case was never only about hours

The National Museum of Australia records three arguments the union put for a shorter day: Australia's harsh climate, labourers' need for time to develop their social and moral condition through education, and the claim that workers with adequate leisure would be better fathers, husbands and citizens. The demand was for time, not only for money.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe Labour Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Confirm the date that applies where you work

Public holidays are set state by state, and the Fair Work Ombudsman publishes the national list. Look your own jurisdiction up before you plan anything around a long weekend.

VISIT

Visit the Eight Hour Day Memorial in Melbourne

Percival Ball's granite and bronze obelisk was publicly funded and now faces Trades Hall. The City of Melbourne's catalogue record lists its materials and both of its inscriptions.

READ

Read the museum record of the 1856 walkout

The National Museum of Australia's Defining Moments entry sets out the Queen's Theatre meeting and the walkout that followed. It carries the resolution the workers passed, that the time had arrived when the system of 8 hours should be introduced into the building trades.

LOOK

Look up the clause that fixes your state's date

Victoria's date sits in section 6(d) of the Public Holidays Act 1993, which reads that the second Monday in March is Labour Day. The consolidated text on AustLII is a single clause.

ASK

Ask a workmate interstate when their day falls

Someone in Queensland, someone in Western Australia and someone in New South Wales will each name a different month. It is the quickest way to show that this date belongs to the jurisdiction rather than to the country.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know Labour Day Australia?

1 / 9

Which state's official public holidays list calls the day Eight Hours Day?

Answer

Yes. It is a gazetted public holiday in all eight of Australia's states and territories, each under that jurisdiction's own statute.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

18sources
14primary records
5independently dated
Primary records
Parliament of Victoria via AustLII
Public Holidays Act 1993 (Vic), section 6
The Victorian clause setting the second Monday in March as Labour Day.
View source
Tasmanian Legislation Online
Statutory Holidays Act 2000 (Tas), section 4
Names the second Monday in March as Eight Hours Day or Labour Day.
View source
Northern Territory Government2023
Public Holidays Act 1981 (NT)
Schedule 2 lists the first Monday in May as May Day.
View source
WorkSafe Tasmania
Public holidays
Tasmania's official holiday schedule, which prints Eight Hours Day.
View source
Government of Western Australia
Public holidays in Western Australia
Five years of Western Australian dates, all on the first Monday in March.
View source
Queensland Government
Public holidays
Queensland's Labour Day on the first Monday in May since 2016.
View source
NSW Government
Public holidays
New South Wales dates, with Labour Day on the first Monday in October.
View source
SafeWork SA
Public holidays
South Australia's holiday list across four years of October dates.
View source
ACT Government
Public holidays, school terms and daylight saving
Four years of territory dates and the Holidays Act 1958 behind them.
View source
Fair Work Ombudsman
Public holidays
The national regulator's list, noting holidays differ by state and territory.
View source
Queensland Government, Ministerial Media Statements2012-08-21
Labour Day public holiday to move to October
The 2012 bill shifting Labour Day to October, with the minister's reasons.
View source
Queensland Government, Ministerial Media Statements2015-10-13
Palaszczuk Government returns Labour Day public holiday to first Monday in May
The 2015 amendments returning Labour Day to the first Monday in May.
View source
City of Melbourne Art and Heritage Collection
Eight Hour Day Memorial
Catalogue record for the 1903 obelisk, its inscriptions and its 1923 move.
View source
Australian Dictionary of Biography
Stephens, James (1821-1889), by Clive Turnbull
Stephens' Chartist years, his own account of the march and his last years.
View source
Additional coverage
National Museum of Australia2024
Defining Moments: Eight-hour day
The 1856 walkout, the union's arguments and the road to a 40-hour week.
View source
Museums of History NSW2022
Eight-hour day procession, 1915
Sydney's 1855 win and the 250,000 people who marched through the city in 1915.
View source
State Library of Victoria
Ergo: Winning the 8-hour day
How the Melbourne procession ran for 95 years and became a public holiday.
View source
New Zealand History, Ministry for Culture and Heritage
Samuel Parnell
The carpenter who set an eight-hour condition at Petone in 1840, in his own words.
View source
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