A wrong date matters on the day, so nothing here is quietly edited. Each entry says what the site said before, what it says now, and how the error surfaced — that last part being the one worth reading.
24 entries. This log was not empty on the day the site launched, which is deliberate: the errors were real and they were found by the checks described in the methodology.
Victoria showed Queensland’s 98 show districts, and Cup Day was “an ordinary working Tuesday” in Queensland
· /public-holidays/vic/, /public-holidays/, /print/vic/ and /melbourne-cup/
It said: When the Melbourne Cup page went up on 8 October, the Victorian page’s key facts, its card on the public-holidays page and its printable sheet said “plus show holidays in 98 districts” — Queensland’s count, which Victoria does not have. The Melbourne Cup page said Tuesday 3 November 2026 was “an ordinary working Tuesday” in Queensland, where the Collinsville district has its show holiday that day.
It says now: Only Queensland prints its show-district count; Victoria says Melbourne Cup Day moves to a local day in twelve areas. The Cup page says no other state has a STATEWIDE holiday that day and names the Collinsville show holiday.
How it was caught: By an independent review of the Melbourne Cup build the same evening.
Answers added on 8 October: Boxing Day skipped, local long weekends denied, Tasmania’s 2027 learning days missing
· the state public-holiday, school-holiday and long-weekend pages
It said: Questions added to the state pages that afternoon said Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve were not public holidays and that “the next is New Year’s Day” — skipping Boxing Day and its added Monday — on the NSW, Victorian, WA, Tasmanian and ACT pages. The October long-weekend answer said Tasmania had no October long weekend, above the page’s own list of the Burnie and Flinders Island show weekends. The school pages’ pupil-free answers left out this year’s remaining days (NSW 12 October, Tasmania 23 and 30 October) and Tasmania’s four 2027 professional learning days, which its department published on 5 October; Victoria’s said only a school could give the dates.
It says now: The Christmas answer lists each state’s own Christmas and New Year public holidays, read from its file. Month answers say “no statewide” long weekend and name the local ones. Pupil-free answers give this year’s remaining days first, Tasmania’s 2027 days are in, including Monday 19 July 2027 — the first day of Term 3, so K–10 students return on the Tuesday — and Victoria’s answer names the student-free first day of Term 1.
How it was caught: By an independent review of the day’s changes the same evening, which read every answer at every date to 2028.
“Not a public holiday anywhere in Australia” on the Royal Launceston Show, and no later Ekka dates
· /, /public-holidays/qld/show-holidays/ and the long-weekend month pages
It said: On Thursday 8 October 2026 the homepage said today was not a public holiday anywhere in Australia, and its Tasmania row said only “No”. That day is the Royal Launceston Show, a public holiday in seven northern Tasmanian municipalities, and our own Tasmania page said so. The Queensland show-holidays page said nobody can know a show holiday in a year Queensland has not appointed, while the Queensland page listed Brisbane’s Ekka for 11 August 2027 and 16 August 2028. The October page’s opening lines gave Victoria’s Friday 1 October 2027 long weekend without the “not yet officially confirmed” its own table shows.
It says now: The homepage now says only that no state or territory has a statewide holiday, then names the local days this site holds and where they apply, and the state row says it too. It no longer says “anywhere”: Victoria’s council-by-council Melbourne Cup swaps and Queensland’s district show days are not on this site yet. The show-holidays page gives Brisbane’s Ekka as the exception — it needs no council request — with its published dates. Every month page carries an unconfirmed date’s caveat into its opening lines.
How it was caught: By a page-by-page comparison with competing holiday sites: one of them named the Royal Launceston Show on its homepage that morning, and so did Google’s own answer.
Shops “closed” on the day of the Boxing Day sales, and “open” on a WA public holiday
· /public-holidays/nsw/, /public-holidays/wa/, /public-holidays/sa/ and /public-holidays/tas/
It said: The New South Wales table marked both Boxing Days “Shops closed”, and on Boxing Day itself the panel beside the answer would have read “Shops open today? No — restricted trading”. Section 8A of the Retail Trading Act 2008 lets any shop open on Boxing Day if everyone working there freely chose to, which is why the Boxing Day sales happen; our own notes on the page said so, under a table that said the opposite. The trading section also opened “All shops must be kept closed at all times on those five days” before naming any days. And on a public holiday the Western Australia and South Australia pages answered “Shops open today? Yes”, although Western Australia closes general retail shops on every public holiday and South Australia closes shops inside a shopping district; the Tasmania page would have said the same on Christmas Day, when retailers with more than 250 staff must close.
It says now: Boxing Day is marked “Open if staff opt in” and the panel says “Yes, if staff opt in”. It is still one of the five restricted days, because the Act names it, so the trading section now names all five first and says why Boxing Day differs. Where the law answers by kind, size or place of shop rather than by day, the panel says “Depends on the shop” and points to the rules below it. Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania were read for a Boxing Day-style exemption the same day; none of them has one.
How it was caught: By reading the New South Wales page against its own data, whose exemptions already described section 8A, and then checking every place the site prints an answer about shops — which is where the Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania gap turned up: a holiday with no shop status of its own was being answered “Yes” by default.
A school start on a public holiday, a half-published year, and “Saturday to Sunday”
· /school-holidays/wa/, /school-holidays/qld/, /school-holidays/sa/, the long-weekend month pages, /public-holidays/vic/ and /time-zones/aest-to-perth/
It said: The Western Australia school page gave Monday 26 April 2027 as the first day back after the autumn break. That Monday is the Anzac Day public holiday, and the department’s own note says students return on the Tuesday. The October month page showed an October 2028 table without New South Wales or Western Australia and did not say they have not published 2028. The September page said September 2028 could be answered for every state but Victoria. Victoria’s leave-planning table showed the 2027 Grand Final Friday without “not yet officially confirmed”. The Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia school pages said the departments count each break from Saturday to Sunday, but Queensland’s 2026 autumn break starts on Good Friday and its spring break ends on the King’s Birthday Monday. The AEST-to-Perth page said Darwin’s gap with Sydney “grows by an hour” when the east coast is on daylight saving, though it already was.
It says now: Western Australia’s first day back is Tuesday 27 April 2027, so the break is seventeen days, and the date card, the table and the term list agree. A month page leads with a year only once every state and territory has published it, and it names any that have not. An unconfirmed date is labelled everywhere it appears. The school pages say “usually Saturday to Sunday” and give the exceptions. The time-zone answers say when daylight saving is on now and when it ends.
How it was caught: By three independent reviews of the second set of readability changes — a facts check, a code check and a first-visitor read on a phone — run before the next stage started.
Where the dates come from was stated more strongly than the sources allow
· Every public-holiday page, /long-weekends/ and /public-holidays/nt/
It said: A line added on 7 October said “Every date is from” the state’s Act. That is not true in six places: the Territory’s show days are appointed by notice, Western Australia’s King’s Birthday is proclaimed each year, Queensland’s show holidays are appointed district by district, New South Wales’ and the ACT’s extra Anzac Mondays come from an order and declarations, and Victoria’s 2027 Grand Final Friday is worked out from the AFL’s fixture. The Territory’s page also said its dates were checked against those “published by Northern Territory Legislation” (that is the Act; the table is the NT Government’s), and its show days were described as gazetted or declared, though the notice itself was never found. Victoria’s page said every date was checked against Business Victoria’s list, including the 2027 Grand Final Friday, which is not on it yet. And the long-weekends page said only New South Wales and Western Australia had a long weekend from Anzac Day 2026 — the ACT did too.
It says now: The pages say the dates are checked against each state’s own law and the government’s published list, name the right list for the Territory, say plainly that its show-day notice was not located, except unconfirmed dates from the checked-against sentence, and name all three states that added the Anzac Monday.
How it was caught: By three independent reviews of the readability changes of 7 October — a facts check, a code check and a first-visitor read — run before the next stage started.
A second check of the 4 October fixes found more wrong statements
· /public-holidays/qld/, /anzac-day/, /public-holidays/, /print/vic/ and the other printable sheets
It said: The Queensland page said exempt shops are “outside the scheme entirely”. Independent retail shops are exempt, but section 17(2) of the Trading (Allowable Hours) Act still closes the ones that do not sell mainly food or groceries for all of Christmas Day and Good Friday and until 1pm on 25 April. The Anzac Day page said Western Australia names Anzac Day among its restricted trading days (it closes general retail shops on every public holiday, so in 2027 the Monday too), placed South Australia’s restriction in “proclaimed” shopping districts (greater Adelaide is one by definition), and said the ACT and the Territory “restrict no trading on any day” (liquor and gambling licences keep their own hours). The national page said “Tasmania keeps Easter Tuesday”, which is a holiday only for the State Service and some others, and counted Queensland’s regional days as two when it appoints show holidays for 98 districts. The Victorian printable sheet showed the 2027 AFL Grand Final Friday as a firm holiday, though Victoria has not confirmed it, and every sheet said “every date checked against” the state’s Act, when some come from the government’s published list.
It says now: Each statement is corrected on its page. The Queensland rule was read from the Act on 5 October 2026; the printable sheets mark an unconfirmed date as unconfirmed and name their sources as each state page does.
How it was caught: By a second independent fact-check, this time of the text the 4 October corrections had written — the third time on this site that a fix needed its own check.
South Australia’s holidays were cited one subsection short
· /public-holidays/sa/, the South Australia calendar feed, and the Labour Day, King’s Birthday and Anzac Day pages
It said: Every South Australian holiday was cited as “section 3(a)” to “section 3(l)” of the Public Holidays Act 2023 — Labour Day as section 3(j), the King’s Birthday as 3(i), Anzac Day as 3(h). The dates and the Act were right; the address was not. The list of holidays is subsection (1) of section 3, and the site’s own file already cited section 3(2), 3(3)(a) and 3(4) beside it.
It says now: Each is cited as section 3(1)(a) to 3(1)(l), checked against the Act’s text: 3(1)(h) Anzac Day, 3(1)(i) the Sovereign’s Birthday, 3(1)(j) Labour Day.
How it was caught: By an independent fact-check of the pages built on 4 October, which noticed that a file citing section 3(2) and 3(4) could not also have its main list at a bare 3(h). A citation can be wrong while every date beside it is right, and no date test will notice.
A second check of the 2 October fixes found more wrong statements
· Several school and holiday pages
It said: The New South Wales school page said the Western Division’s summer holidays ran to 2 February rather than 26 January (they return on 9 February, a week after the rest of the state on 2 February), that the department’s vacation periods are weekdays only, and that the late-start schools get their extra days at the front of the summer break (it is the end). Queensland’s said its Term 4 finishes earlier than anywhere else (the Territory’s ends a day earlier), that New South Wales and Victoria run to the 17th or 18th (New South Wales runs to the 20th in 2027), and that it has five staff days a year (2027 has six). Western Australia’s said its breaks fall on different weeks from New South Wales more often than not (every one in 2026 and 2027 starts the same Saturday). Tasmania’s said no other state is on holiday during its autumn break (South Australia’s, New South Wales’s and the ACT’s overlap it in 2026, and in 2027 it matches South Australia and Western Australia), and the Tasmanian holiday page that it has more local public holidays than anywhere else (Queensland appointed 98). The ACT page said the ACT nearly swapped Anzac Day “the way Queensland does” (Queensland swaps only for a Sunday). The April long-weekend page counted five different reasons where there are three. Several of these had been reworded on 2 October without an entry here.
It says now: Each statement is corrected on its page, dated where it holds for one year only, and checked against the term and holiday files.
How it was caught: By an independent fact-check of every sentence written or changed on 2 October, run against the data files by a second reader who had not written them. Rewriting text is not the same as checking it.
The Ekka question was answered wrongly for Logan and Moreton Bay
· /public-holidays/qld/
It said: The answer to “Does everyone in Queensland get the Ekka public holiday?” said the holiday applies in the Brisbane local government area “and nowhere else”, and that someone living in Logan or Moreton Bay does not get it. Both do. They are among the fifteen districts that take the same show on the Monday, under their own appointments.
It says now: The answer says Brisbane takes the Wednesday and fifteen other districts, including Logan City, the City of Moreton Bay and the City of Redland, take the Monday. Ipswich and the Gold Coast do not get it: each has its own show day. A test now checks the answer against the appointment list.
How it was caught: By reading every page in full on 1 and 2 October 2026. The FAQ was written before the fifteen Monday districts were read, and nothing went back to it when they were added — the table on the same page was right the whole time.
Five rows carried another district’s weekday
· /public-holidays/qld/show-holidays/
It said: Each show’s “same weekday every year” label came from one district’s history. So Brisbane’s Wednesday Ekka was labelled “Monday in all 6 years”, from the districts that take the Monday, and four Friday rows were labelled with Rockhampton’s Thursday.
It says now: A row is labelled only when the history’s weekday is that row’s own, and a test checks every row. One-year histories, which read “in all 1 years”, are no longer labelled at all.
How it was caught: By reading the table row by row and noticing a Wednesday labelled Monday.
The September correction missed a sentence
· /school-holidays/qld/
It said: The correction of 17 September fixed the caveat about Queensland’s staff days, but an FAQ further down still said the days “sit inside” the holidays and that their effect on a parent is “nil”. The Term 3 student-free day is in the middle of term, and it is a day of childcare.
It says now: The FAQ says four of the five fall in the holidays, names the fifth and says what it means for a parent.
How it was caught: By reading the whole page rather than the sentence the first correction was about. A fix to one sentence is not a fix to the claim.
Five claims that something was the only one were not true
· Several jurisdiction and school pages
It said: The Queensland and South Australian pages said Queensland was the only (or the only other) place with a part-day public holiday; the Northern Territory has two. The Western Australian pages said WA is the only jurisdiction with no Easter Saturday; Tasmania has none either. The Territory and WA pages said the ACT swaps Anzac Day when it falls on a Sunday; the ACT keeps both days. The ACT page said it is the only jurisdiction with no shop trading restrictions; the Territory has none either. And the Queensland page said Labour Day closes shops there “and nowhere else”, when South Australia and Western Australia close some shops on public holidays generally, Labour Day included.
It says now: Each is corrected on the page where it appeared. The Anzac Day answers now give three outcomes: WA, NSW and the ACT keep two days, Queensland and the Territory swap, and Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania add nothing.
How it was caught: By reading every page in full. The unit tests already asserted the right facts — statewide part-day holidays in exactly three places, no Easter Saturday in WA or Tasmania — but the prose was written separately and never checked against them.
Schedule citations printed as “Section ch2 of the Act”
It said: Rows whose authority is a Schedule rather than a section printed the code with its first letter cut off: “Section ch2 of the Act” for the Territory’s and WA’s Schedule 2, and “Section ch1-1 of the Act” for Tasmania’s Schedule 1. The dates were right; the citations were unreadable.
It says now: They read “Schedule 2 of the Act”, “Schedule 1 of the Act” and, for Tasmania’s State Service days, “Section 6 and Schedule 2 of the Act”. The calendar feeds carry the same wording.
How it was caught: By reading the “Why this date” column on every jurisdiction page.
Queensland’s mid-term student-free day was described as falling in the holidays
· /school-holidays/qld/
It said: This page said “staff professional development days sit inside the published holiday periods; students do not attend on those days either”. That is true of four of Queensland’s five days and wrong about the fifth, which falls in the middle of Term 3 — Friday 4 September in 2026 and Friday 3 September in 2027. A parent reading this page would have sent a child to school on a day the school was shut to students.
It says now: The page names all five, marks the Term 3 one as a student-free day in the third last week of term, and says that the two days in the Easter holidays are flexible — a school may move them after consulting its local consultative committee, so those dates are the scheduled ones rather than a guarantee.
How it was caught: By checking the dates against the term dates instead of against the sentence. The claim had been written from the department’s term-dates page, where the days are listed under term headings and look like holiday-period days; the department’s own professional development page states in terms that students are not required to attend on the Term 3 day. The test that now guards it compares every staff day against the student term dates and requires the mid-term ones to be labelled.
Canberra’s two Anzac Day 2027 holidays were named the wrong way round
· /public-holidays/act/
It said: This page had Sunday 25 April 2027 as Anzac Day and Monday 26 April as an additional public holiday beside it — the New South Wales arrangement, which is what an earlier correction on this page had concluded from the ACT Government’s published list. Both dates were right and both were public holidays, so nobody would have booked the wrong day off. The reasons attached to them were the wrong way round.
It says now: Monday 26 April 2027 is Anzac Day, and Sunday 25 April is the additional day. Section 3(1)(a)(viii) sets Anzac Day on “25 April or, if that day falls on a Sunday, the following Monday” — and 2027 falls on a Sunday, so the holiday itself moves to the Monday. Instrument NI2026-387 then declares the Sunday an extra day beside it. The ACT is the mirror image of NSW on the same two dates, and it swaps sides between years: in 2026 the 25th is a Saturday, which the section does not move, so there the Saturday is Anzac Day and the declared extra is the Monday.
How it was caught: By finding the declarations themselves on the ACT Legislation Register, under the Holidays Act’s “Regulations & instruments” tab — which is where they had been all along, while this site’s open-questions list said they could not be located. Reading them also turned up something better: the Territory had originally gazetted a swap for 2026. NI2025-650, notified on 1 December 2025, declared Monday 27 April a holiday and used section 3(2) to declare Saturday 25 April not one. NI2026-154 revoked that on 25 March 2026, three and a half weeks before the day, which handed the Saturday back. Any table copied from the December gazette and never re-read is wrong today.
Twenty pages could not tell you the day had changed
· The school-holiday and long-weekend pages
It said: This site answers as of today, and on a static site that means the answer is only as fresh as the last build. The public-holiday pages carried a small script that re-checks the clock in your browser and puts a stale page right. The eight school-holiday pages and the twelve long-weekend pages did not, and they had never had one — so a build a day or two old would have told a parent that schools were still in Term 3 on the afternoon term ended, in the largest type on the page, with nothing to correct it.
It says now: All twenty carry one. The verdict, the date, the countdown, the next-break card and the facts beside it are corrected together, so the page cannot end up half-right — and it says at the bottom when a correction has happened rather than quietly disagreeing with its own build date.
How it was caught: By asking which pages could go wrong over time rather than whether each page was internally consistent — the question none of the existing build checks had been asked. Verified by building the site with the clock wound back a week and again wound forward past the end of term, then loading the result: the verdict flips from Yes to No and every figure moves with it. There is now a check that fails the build if a page prints a computed date with no way to correct itself.
The Perth calendar said it ran on Sydney time
· Every .ics calendar feed
It said: All sixteen feeds declared Sydney as their timezone, because the line was written once and never varied. A Western Australian subscriber’s calendar announced itself as eastern — two hours out, three in summer, on a state that does not observe daylight saving at all. Separately, the feeds that carry a part-day holiday named a timezone without ever defining it, which Apple and Google resolve on their own but stricter apps do not: Queensland’s 6pm Christmas Eve could have arrived at the wrong hour.
It says now: Every feed names its own zone, and any feed using one now carries its full definition, including when South Australia’s clocks move. Long lines are also folded by byte rather than by character, which the calendar standard asks for and which the em dashes in these descriptions had been quietly breaking.
How it was caught: By measuring the published files instead of trusting the tests. The tests checked that folding happened and that the timezone label was the right string — neither asked whether the result was within the limit, or whether anything defined the zone being named.
The ACT does get a second Anzac Day holiday
· /public-holidays/act/
It said: This page said the ACT moves Anzac Day to the Monday only when 25 April falls on a Sunday, and adds nothing when it falls on a Saturday. An FAQ went further and said Canberra works Monday 27 April 2026 while Sydney has a public holiday.
It says now: The ACT observes both days in 2026 and in 2027 — Saturday 25 and Monday 27 April, then Sunday 25 and Monday 26 April. It behaves like New South Wales and Western Australia, not like Queensland. The extra day comes from a declaration under s3(1)(b) of the Holidays Act 1958 rather than from s3(1)(a)(viii), which is the paragraph that names Anzac Day.
How it was caught: By finally reaching the ACT Government’s own published list. Section 3(1)(a)(viii), read on its own, really does say “25 April or, if that day falls on a Sunday, the following Monday”. The Act was necessary and not sufficient. Every jurisdiction page now cites the Act and the administering agency’s published schedule, in that order.
The two withdrawn trading citations now have real answers
· /public-holidays/act/ and /public-holidays/nt/
It said: Earlier the same day, both pages were changed to say we had not established what regulates shop trading in the ACT or the Northern Territory, after two Act names we could not confirm were removed. That was the honest state at the time and it was still an absence.
It says now: Both are answered, and the answer is the same in each: nothing restricts shop trading. The ACT repealed its Trading Hours Act 1996 outright, by the Trading Hours (Repeal) Act 1997, on 29 May 1997 and never replaced it. The Northern Territory has no such Act at all — its complete alphabetical list of 383 Acts in force carries no Trading Hours, Shop Trading or Retail Trading Act of any kind.
How it was caught: By going back to the registers with better handles. The ACT’s Act really did exist — it was A1962-19, not the number that had been guessed — and following its repeal chain gave the answer. The Territory’s was a negative finding, which is only worth publishing because it was checked against the whole statute book rather than assumed from silence.
Two shop-trading Acts cited that we had not opened
· /public-holidays/act/ and /public-holidays/nt/
It said: The ACT page named a “Trading Hours Act 1962” as the source of its shop trading rules, and the Northern Territory page named the Public Holidays Act 1981 — an Act that says nothing about shops at all.
It says now: Neither page names an Act. Both say plainly that we have not established what regulates shop trading there, or whether anything does, and point readers elsewhere in the meantime.
How it was caught: While reading the other five trading Acts. The ACT citation could not be confirmed on the legislation register and the NT one was simply the wrong Act. The underlying cause was worse than the symptom: a build check required every jurisdiction to name a trading Act, including the ones marked unverified, which quietly pushed toward inventing a name. The check now allows an unverified section to cite nothing.
NSW shops must close all day on Anzac Day, not until 1pm
· /public-holidays/nsw/
It said: The design this site was built from carried the widely repeated rule that NSW shops may open after 1pm on Anzac Day. It was corrected before the page was ever published, but it is logged because the claim is still everywhere else.
It says now: Section 4 of the Retail Trading Act 2008 reads “at all times on Anzac Day”. The Retail Trading Amendment (Anzac Day Trading Hours) Act 2024 made that change, and Schedule 2 Part 6 clause 12 removed the leftover exemption that had carried over from the Shops and Industries Act 1962. The 1pm rule is still live in Victoria, which is probably why it persists.
How it was caught: By reading the section rather than a summary of it.
A colour that could not carry text was carrying text
· Every page
It said: The approved design used the site’s cyan accent for the small uppercase line above each heading and for the countdown pill. Measured against the page background it came to 4.28:1 and 3.96:1 — below the 4.5:1 minimum for text.
It says now: Cyan takes three steps: a graphic-only tone, a darker text-safe tone, and a pale tint. Every colour pair on the site is measured by a script that runs in the build, and the build fails if the graphic-only tone is ever used for text.
How it was caught: By measuring the palette before committing it, rather than after someone complained.
A stale page could say “Yes” and “Shops open” about the same day
· The public-holiday pages, the homepage and the social cards
It said: The browser correction on the public-holiday pages rewrote the headline, the date and the countdown when a build had gone stale — and nothing else. Wound forward to Christmas Day, the NSW page corrected itself to “Yes — today is a public holiday” while the panel beside it still read “Shops open today? Yes”. Christmas Day is a restricted trading day. Past the last gazetted date, the next-holiday card kept counting down to a holiday that had already been. The homepage answered for New South Wales alone, so a reader in Perth landed on the wrong state. And the social card drawn for each page carried one day’s verdict, so a link shared on a holiday could arrive saying “No”.
It says now: The correction recomputes every element that depends on the date with the same code the build used — the facts panel, the year strip and both tables included — and shows the “not yet gazetted” message rather than a stale countdown when the dates run out. The homepage answers for every state and territory, each on its own clock. Social cards carry the page’s title, which does not change with the day.
How it was caught: By an external review that loaded the built site with a mocked clock on real dates — Christmas Day, a Perth midnight, the day after the last verified date — rather than by reading the code, which had looked complete.
Found something wrong?
Tell us and it gets fixed and logged. Every page names the Act it was checked against and the date it was checked, which should make an error easy to point at — start from contact. Things we already know are unverified are listed on the methodology page, generated from the data rather than kept by hand.
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