No. Easter Saturday in 2026 (Saturday 4 April 2026) is not a public holiday uniformly for all employees across Australia. There is no single national answer. Public holidays in Australia are set by each state and territory under its own legislation, so whether Easter Saturday is a public holiday turns on the jurisdiction in which the employee is based, and the answer changes from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Easter Saturday (the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, also called Easter Eve) is a public holiday in most, but not all, states and territories:

- New South Wales: yes, Easter Saturday is a public holiday.
- Victoria: yes, Easter Saturday is a public holiday.
- Queensland: yes, Easter Saturday is a public holiday.
- South Australia: yes, Easter Saturday is a public holiday (though traditionally treated as a part-day/restricted-trading arrangement in some respects, it is gazetted as a public holiday).
- Australian Capital Territory: yes, Easter Saturday is a public holiday.
- Northern Territory: yes, Easter Saturday is a public holiday.
- Tasmania: no, Easter Saturday is generally not a public holiday for the broad workforce (Tasmania does not declare Easter Saturday as a statewide public holiday in the way the others do).
- Western Australia: no, Easter Saturday is not a public holiday. WA does not gazette Easter Saturday; its Easter-related public holidays are Good Friday and Easter Monday only (with Easter Sunday added as a public holiday in WA, but not the Saturday).

So the position to give the payroll officer is:

1. There is no uniform national rule. Public holidays are a matter for each state and territory, not a single Commonwealth list, so an employee's entitlement is determined by the state or territory their work is connected to (their place of work / the relevant state award or enterprise agreement, read with that jurisdiction's public holidays legislation), not by a country-wide answer.

2. In most jurisdictions (NSW, VIC, QLD, SA, ACT, NT) Easter Saturday 2026 is a public holiday, so the public-holiday provisions of the Fair Work Act and the applicable award/agreement (penalty rates, the right to reasonably refuse work, public-holiday pay for those who would ordinarily work that day) apply.

3. In Western Australia and Tasmania, Easter Saturday is not a public holiday, so for employees whose work is in those states it should be treated as an ordinary day (subject to that state's Good Friday, Easter Sunday in WA, and Easter Monday holidays, which are separate).

4. Practically: confirm the gazetted public-holiday dates for each relevant state/territory for 2026 before processing pay, and apply the public-holiday rules per employee according to the jurisdiction governing their employment. Do not run a single national rule across the whole workforce.