We are very alarmed, however, that businesses now face paying for yet another new public holiday, following today’s announcement that a public holiday will be installed on Sunday 25 December. This announcement comes with just five weeks’ notice for businesses that have already planned ahead for the festive season.

The Victorian Chamber supports the original policy, where a Christmas Day public holiday on a weekend is held on the next available work day, but this extra public holiday on the Sunday has gone too far. Adding a public holiday in response to criticism on the front page of a newspaper is bad policy, bad for business and bad for Victoria’s competitiveness against other states. We will continue to advocate on behalf of businesses in 2017 against new public holidays that many businesses can’t afford.

Last Thursday, at our Annual General Meeting, Don Rankin was elected as our new President and Karyn Sobels as Vice President for the next three years.

I look forward to working with Don Rankin as our new President over the next three years. Don is a founding partner of Pitcher Partners, National Chairman of the Pitcher Partners Association and also sits on the Board of Baker Tilly International. With more than thirty years’ experience advising private and family businesses across a broad range of industries, the Victorian Chamber will benefit greatly from his direction and guidance.

Karyn Sobels was elected as Vice President to our Board, bringing more than 30 years’ experience in the retail, telecommunications and banking sectors to the position. As the Principal of business advisors Simply Business, Karyn has already contributed greatly to the Victorian Chamber as a Board member and as Chair of our Small Business Task Force.

Other appointments included Mark Birrell, who was elected Immediate Past President and Brian Negus was also elected to the Board. The other members of the Board are Kevin Brown, Kerry Smith, Adrian Kloeden, Robert van Stokrom and David Richardson.

Please join me in congratulating the appointment of our Board and celebrate their continued advocacy for and representation of Victorian businesses at the highest levels in business and Government.

In addition to the new appointments, Wendy Killeen was elected to the Executive Council, and we also gained three new Regional Chairpersons: Nerida Kerr (North East region), Paul Macartney (Bendigo region) and Stephen Griffin (Ballarat region). Congratulations also to the new members of our Executive Council.

I would like to acknowledge the significant contribution of Mark Birrell as our President over the past three years. Mark has provided strong leadership at the Board level and to me personally. Many of the successful initiatives and actions in the Chamber are a direct result of Mark's leadership. These include the formation of our Taskforce program, our Internship program and a number of Policy decisions at a Federal and State level. We will continue to gain his insight and experience from his role as our Immediate Past President.