Deeply ingrained in the Australian psyche as essential time-off. Those people who work on a long weekend are labelled as poor sods.
This is God-given time for
the family and that trip "down the coast"
taking apart the car, putting it back together, and giving it a good wax
inviting the relos over for a barbie (read: bloody unlikely mate!)
wives to nag their usually absent husbands.
On the Australian calender, the dates to look out for are the Queen's birthday which isn't QEII's actually birth date, and Labour Day. They always fall on a Monday. Surreptitiously organised by higher powers...
And, with no devine intervention, Good Friday and Easter Monday make it a fabulously long weekend; unless of course, you have to work on Saturday, which isn't a public holiday.