2029 calendar

2029 opens with New Year's Day on a Monday, handing the country a three-day weekend to start the year before most workplaces are back in full swing. Australia Day follows a similar pattern, with 26 January also falling on a Friday, so the country gets two separate long weekends inside the first four weeks of the year, on top of the usual summer school holidays and the closing weeks of the Australian Open in Melbourne. It is a favourable start to the calendar for anyone planning January leave around the public holidays rather than against them.

Easter straddles the end of March and the start of April in 2029, with Good Friday on 30 March and Easter Monday falling on 2 April, so the four-day break bridges the two months rather than sitting inside either one. ANZAC Day on 25 April falls on a Wednesday, mid-week and separate from the Easter break by three weeks, giving the last part of autumn two distinct public holiday periods rather than one stretched occasion. Daylight saving ends on 1 April, the day before Easter Monday, so the long weekend runs into the first extra hour of daylight-saving-free mornings.

King's Birthday falls on 11 June in the states observing the second Monday of the month, arriving early in June and giving winter its mid-year break well before the shortest days of the season set in. The financial year closes on 30 June as always, with the new tax year beginning 1 July and the self-lodgement deadline sitting on 31 October. The Melbourne Cup runs on Tuesday 6 November, and with Remembrance Day falling on a Sunday, 11 November, the 11am silence this year lands on a weekend rather than during work hours.

Christmas Day falls on a Tuesday and Boxing Day on a Wednesday, which means the preceding Monday commonly gets treated as an extra day off by workplaces closing over the break, even without a formal public holiday attached to it. The Boxing Day Test and the Sydney to Hobart start both fall mid-week this year rather than over a weekend. With 365 days on the calendar and no leap day, 2029 rounds out a run of years with a fairly typical spread of public holidays, none of which fall on a weekend often enough to noticeably shrink the count of days off.