This episode explores the nature of Australia’s system of public holidays and the growing calls for it to better reflect the religious and non-religious diversity of our multicultural society. The episode features an interview with Hugh Piper, the Program Lead at the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy and Defence Dialogue. Earlier this year, he put forward a secular solution to the problem – a system in which everyone would have a quota of portable public holidays to decide which days they want to take off.

SHOW NOTES

Hugh Piper’s original article detailing his proposal for portable public holidays appeared on the Lowy Institute’s Interpreter blog on 17 January 2023. You can read it here.

The article was a response to a previous article by Osmond Chiu, who is Research Fellow at the Per Capita think tank, published on the Interpreter on 12 January 2023. You can read it here.

The theme music of the Secular Agenda podcast is called 'Curiosity', and it's by Shimmer.

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