Repeal of Good Friday and Easter Sunday as Restricted Trading Days (Shop Trading and Sale of Alcohol) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I move, That the Repeal of Good Friday and Easter Sunday as Restricted Trading Days (Shop Trading and Sale of Alcohol) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill.

I’m really pleased to introduce this bill, and I know business owners throughout the country will be very happy at the moment, at least. This is a bill that is long overdue to ensure there is consistency as to when shops can trade, and the silly rules around the sale of alcohol can be made more grown up. The bill seeks to remove an extra burden on businesses by removing the restriction on trading and selling alcohol on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. On these days, businesses are prevented from opening or are unnecessarily restricted in their operations. These restrictions may have been necessary in the past, but they are not required in 2022.

The impact of this is felt most severely by small businesses, who generally have a smaller pool of cash reserves and tighter allowances. Small businesses make up 97 percent of all businesses and employ around 30 percent of the total New Zealand working population. By removing these restrictions, trading will be permitted throughout these days, allowing businesses to decide themselves which days they would like to open. The bill retains the existing employee protections under the Shop Trading Hours Act 1990 that apply in respect of Easter Sunday, and extends these protections to Good Friday. Sections 8 to 13 of the bill set things out quite clearly regarding employees’ rights. An employee can choose whether they would like to work or not, and the rights and obligations of both employers and employees are very well-defined. I know some employees are happy with the time off; however, others are really happy to work and receive the benefits that working a stat holiday provides them—time and a half and a day in lieu to take off whenever it suits them.

We are slowly but surely coming out of an economic crisis that the world hasn’t seen for a very long time. Throughout the last 2½ years, businesses have tried very hard to stay afloat and to keep their staff employed while having a huge number of extra costs piled on to them. The old adage “If business was easy, everyone would be doing it” could not be more true. But everyone is doing it tough at the moment, and there should be choice for both the businesses to open and the employees to work. The experiment that began in 2006 to allow councils to decide the rules has failed. This bill is needed to take the burden away from the individual regions.

Currently, councils throughout the country have to decide whether their town or city is worthy of the status “tourist destination”. This has led to a huge inequity between regions that are quite ludicrous. For example, Carterton can open; Ashburton can’t. Marlborough can open; Christchurch can’t. Napier can open; Hastings can’t. Upper Hutt can open; Wellington, Porirua, and Hutt City can’t. Tasman can’t—unless you live in Golden Bay. Nelson shops cannot open unless Founders Park is open. Founders Park is as a heritage park featuring historical themes like buildings and transport.

Or how about this one in Auckland? Only these shops selling certain goods can legally trade on Easter Sunday: service stations, dairies, restaurants, cafes, takeaway food, duty-free stores, garden centres, or shops on Parnell Road between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. I’m sure the hard-working business owners in Queen Street will be asking why their MP doesn’t support them like the MP for Parnell does his constituents. Little wonder everyone’s confused. The rules have become so complicated and subjective no one understands them.

Retail New Zealand point out, quite correctly, that it is completely hypocritical of councils to try and ban shopping while their own services continue to operate. Across the country, there are swimming pools, leisure centres, landfills, and recycling shops that open at Easter. If it’s acceptable for local councils to open, why can’t retailers be given the choice?

Part 2 of the bill refers to amendments to the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 and gets rid of the quite silly rules and regulations that leave hospitality venues scratching their heads and patrons wondering what on earth is going on with archaic laws that don’t make any sense at all. This bill is about treating people like adults, and, currently, the rules around serving alcohol at bars and restaurants over Easter treat people like irresponsible schoolkids.

In my hospitality venue in Nelson, I’ve spent the last 12 years dreading Easter because I know that my staff will spend a lot of their time apologising and explaining to sometimes irate customers who just can’t understand the rules they are having to abide by. The stress this puts on staff is not fair. The fines for not following the silly rules are huge. Young wait staff have to tell middle-aged and elderly customers that they can’t just have a bowl of chips for lunch, even if they have a bowl of chips for lunch every weekend, because the rules say that that’s not a substantial meal. But, if they have a little salad with it, that’s OK! You really can’t make it up. Then staff have to tell them that, once they’ve had their lunch, they can only stay for another hour, enjoying the sun or reading their book, before they have to leave the area.

Here’s a quote from an esteemed member of the community: “There are businesses that are allowed to operate at the moment that have to go through this farce of policing what people are eating in order to be able to sell them alcohol.” He continues, “I think it’s a ridiculous situation where, if I went to a pub in an area which was allowed to operate on Easter Sunday and order a plate of chips, I might not be allowed to buy a pint. But if that plate of chips includes a piece of fish, I probably would be able to.”—from Kieran McAnulty.

Section 47 of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol 2012 states on Good Friday and Easter Sunday a person cannot be on licensed premises to dine if he or she is there at a time “(i) more than an hour before he or she starts (or is due to start) eating a meal; or (ii) more than an hour after he or she finishes eating a meal.” Surely no one thinks this is acceptable. Tourists think we’re joking. The inconsistency between hospitality venues when upholding these rules is blatantly obvious and creates more inequity between those who follow the law to the letter and those who are inclined to interpret things a little bit differently. Police have much better things to do with their time than worry about these archaic laws, and I’d like to think that council alcohol licensing teams would prefer to be doing something else with their time.

This bill is needed to bring some consistency and common sense to the Easter trading laws. I do have some sympathy for those who will argue for the status quo, maybe because of religious beliefs or a belief that workers’ rights might be affected. They will just want to leave things as they are. But things are broken and they need fixing. I think it’s worth noting that 52 members of this 53rd Parliament took an affirmation when they took office; only 71 took an oath on the Bible. Times are changing. But more than two-thirds of councils have allowed Easter trading in their districts, and it’s time for a serious debate about the issue. Hear the pros and cons from submitters and consult with the very people this affects. This is all about choice. We live in a democracy, and I believe businesses should be allowed to open if they want to and employees should be allowed to work if they want to. I look forward to the select committee process. I’m proud to present this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on this bill from the Labour Party side. I’ll first talk about what the bill does and then I’ll talk a little bit about the Easter Sunday trading—Easter Friday, Easter Sunday—and then I’ll talk about the view on the bill from this side of the House.

First of all, I’d like to begin by acknowledging the member who had the good fortune of having his bill drawn. He certainly put a lot of thought into this bill and it comes from personal experiences that he has experienced. I have visited the member’s establishment in Nelson and it’s a very, very good establishment. I won’t mention the name of it. I won’t put the name of it on Hansard—I’ll leave it to others if they would like to. But I’d just like to acknowledge the member’s excellent establishment. He’s run it very well for 12 years.

What the bill does is it seeks to remove, as the member says, an extra burden on business by removing the restriction on trading and selling alcohol on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The legislation is aimed at removing the restriction on selling of alcohol on the two statutory holidays at Easter time, so Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The member didn’t put Christmas in there. I’ll be interested in why he didn’t put it in there. He may give us a reply at the end on that. I see some nods over there, but certain members were focusing on Easter Friday and Easter Sunday, two very religious days. Christmas is also a very religious day, Christmas being the birth of Jesus and Good Friday being the death of Jesus, and then Easter Sunday being the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So the member, as he has already outlined as well—a little bit more information as to the reasoning why.

Just a brief history lesson, for the benefit of those here in the House and those watching at home, in terms of the restricted shop trading days. So currently, almost all shops must be closed under the Shop Trading Hours Act of 1990 on the following days: Christmas Day, which is a public holiday; Good Friday, also a public holiday; Anzac Day until 1 p.m. on 25 April, also a public holiday; and Easter Sunday, which is actually not a public holiday but they are closed on those times.

Look, if I was to summarise why we have those current rules in place, I think there’s an aspect around history, particularly linked to Anzac Day; it’s a way of honouring those soldiers who have fought and died for the ANZACs—the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps.

And aspects of a religious nature—personally, I’m a Christian and I hold those values really strongly. As a country, we are founded on Christian values and Christian principles. The member acknowledged that we certainly are more secular as a country now than we were, you know, going back years ago. And we do see that in the House when people give their oath. As he said, some say “So help me God.” and others leave that part out. So I acknowledge what the member is saying: we have become more secular, that is correct. But we must also acknowledge the fact that as a country we are founded on Judeo-Christian values.

And I think, by and large, they have served us well. Our legal system is based on Judeo-Christian values. We are part of other countries around the world who broadly subscribe to those Judeo-Christian values. Most of those countries make up the OECD countries, and we have very strong relationships with those countries. However, we probably are moving more towards a secular society, but it’s important we don’t lose sight of where we came from and what we have, what it’s based on.

So there are religious aspects, and there’s another aspect I’ll probably put in there, which is around family. It’s around having certain times of the year when the shops are closed and that people are really strongly incentivised to look at doing something else rather than the commerce aspect, and having time with family. Now, some would argue you can also be involved in commerce and have family time at the same time, which, yes, technically you can. But I think that there’s no harm in just having a breather for a while is sort of one way I would describe it in terms of that.

So before I move on to the next part, just to finish the history lesson. So Saturday trading was introduced in 1980; we didn’t have any Saturday trading before that. And when I look at the history of why that came in, in the 1960s and 1970s airline travel became a lot more prevalent. So New Zealanders would travel overseas more frequently and they saw overseas that other countries were open, they were having trading on a Saturday. They’d come back to New Zealand and they would start asking questions, “Oh, why don’t we have it?” And so there was some pressure put on the Government by various groups and people, and in 1980 Saturday trading was introduced.

Sunday trading was introduced in 1990. So 10 years later we had Sunday trading—quite strong restrictions, and those restrictions have changed. In fact, there was a protest for the Sunday trading in 1990, and one of the slogans read, “Don’t weaken the weekend.” And that was by the Shop Employees Union. And if I can interpret that correctly, they were saying that the weekend is a time to not engage in commerce, but to spend time with your family and focus on those strong family values.

As I said, I grew up going to church every Sunday morning, and then we’d have lunch together with either other members of the church or with our own family and then we’d do family activities in the afternoon. In fact, we didn’t have any Sunday sport then either. Some people will remember the All Black Michael Jones didn’t play rugby on a Sunday. So he played for the All Blacks—absolutely incredible player; I still remember his efforts in the 1987 Rugby World Cup—would not play on a Sunday, and that was from those religious values that he held.

So, I’d better move on to the next part—I’ve only got three minutes left. So in terms of the Labour Party, I am sorry to disappoint the member, but the Labour Party will not be supporting this bill. It’s primarily around supporting our workers; supporting our workers to have a balanced life, and in terms of time off. Now, I acknowledge the member said in his opening speech that some workers do want to work on that time, and that’s probably correct; I think that’s a fair statement. However, it’s not right that any workers could be pressured or forced into this. I’m sure other speakers will sort of touch on that point to, sort of, tease that out a little bit further in terms of those details.

But basically, I think there’s only a few days in our calendar—there’s really only a few days left—where we’re focused on spending time with families and not putting pressure on people to go out to work. Now it used to be, and as I said before, the Judeo-Christian values used to be: Sunday, didn’t work because that was church—that was the Sabbath, as you would often term that. And so every Sunday, people wouldn’t work unless you were in the emergency services or other aspects where you certainly had to—that’s gone. Saturday trading obviously went before that. What we have left is Christmas Day, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday—so there’s a religious aspect to that—but there’s only a few days left and we have to be very, very careful with these days. We lose that and, I think, personally, I think we’ll lose one of the key foundations of our country. So that’s from a religious aspect. And then in terms of the workers’ aspect, and as I mentioned, others will sort of touch on that a little bit more.

The reality is there is no business without workers—there is no business without workers. And the Labour Party has always stood for the rights of workers. That is the fundamental aspect that we stand on as the Labour Party. Now, if the member had brought a bill to the House where it was that shops that were already open and already trading and then they added in the alcohol, well that might have received a different response, but the aspect around shops that are now currently closed being allowed to open—that’s very different. Because what that means is those workers, instead of having those statutory days off, that time with their family, they will be working. They will be working in that time. As I said before, there’s only a few precious days—in fact we’re only talking about two days in this bill, but I’d add it to three with Christmas Day—we’re only talking about three precious days. Let’s not lose these days; let’s hold on to what we have as a country. Let’s hold on to the values, the history we have as a country, and let’s support and protect our workers as we do that.

💬 Marja Lubeck: Weaken the weekend.

Let’s not weaken the weekend.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased to be taking a call on this bill. Kia orana, I should say. So we’re talking about the Repeal of Good Friday and Easter Sunday as Restricted Trading Days (Shop Trading and Sale of Alcohol) Amendment Bill by my colleague Chris Baillie.

First up, I would like to congratulate Chris Baillie on his good fortune of getting this bill drawn out of the ballot. But like my Labour colleague before me, Jamie Strange, has already said, we will not be able to support this bill.

As has been said already, this bill is aimed at removing the restriction on selling alcohol on the two statutory holidays around Easter time. Parliament has, in fact, dealt with this particular issue several times already. I did a little bit of digging into this issue and I believe that in the last 20 years, this is roughly the 12th time that this kind of bill considering Easter trading has come before the House.

Now, my colleague Jamie Strange spoke about Saturday trading commencing in, I believe, was it, 1980, and when I first came to New Zealand in 1989, I remember that most shops could not trade on Sundays. They were actually closed nine out of the 11 public holidays at the time. Now, of course, they can trade 51 out of 52 Sundays, and restricted shop trading applies to only 3½ days in the year—that’s all that there’s left. My colleague Jamie Strange already mentioned those days, so I won’t go over those again. Also, of course, some shops can open with some conditions attached if they have an area exemption or an Easter Sunday local policy.

Now, the explanatory note of the member’s bill reads, “The bill retains the existing employee protections under the Shop Trading Hours Act 1990 that apply in respect of Easter Sunday and extends these protections to Good Friday.”

I also remember the member in charge of this bill stating that employees should be allowed to work. Now, if anything, that shows a total lack of understanding of the real world. Many workers in these retail shops are young, they’re in their first job, they’re on casualised jobs, they’re on minimum wage, and they’re often required to work seven days in any given week, days or nights, weekends, public holidays. It’s open slather.

These young, casualised workers often don’t have the knowledge about their employee rights. They will not know that they could say no to the boss for working on an Easter weekend. Even if they did, many of them would not feel empowered to do so. So, in reality, a vulnerable worker in these industries would fear, potentially, repercussions for their employment relationships if they were not to agree to work on any of these days.

Now, my colleague mentioned it before: Easter remains a significant holiday in New Zealand, and some workers would prefer not to work on these days. Since its origins, Easter has been a time of celebrating, of feasting, traditional Easter games, egg colouring, egg hunting—I’m sure all of us have participated in it with our whānau. Also, of course, many sporting events and social events take place over the Easter weekend. It is an opportunity for many of the workers to get together with the whānau and enjoy a bit of time off; take time out.

Apart from all of that, the employee’s right to refuse to work on Easter Sunday in the Shop Trading Hours Act—and that this bill would extend to Good Friday—creates also an inconsistency in the Holidays Act. I see I’m running out of time, so perhaps someone else can pick up that thread and explain a little bit more about that.

But the effects of this bill on our society are that it takes time away from our families, it takes time away from people to spend time with their children, and it takes time away from our communities. It does all that in the name of choice, self-determination; it, basically, places sales before any of the other important values in our communities.

I will be voting against this bill, and will be standing with workers employed in the approximately 2,500 off-licence holders in New Zealand who no doubt don’t want their guaranteed days off during Easter taken away. So I do not support this bill. Thank you.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Thank you for your time this evening. It’s a pleasure to stand and, as has already been said, just to congratulate Chris Baillie on his member’s bill being drawn from the ballot. And then, I guess, thank you: I appreciate the sympathy that you have made for me in your speech. I was one of the 51 who took my oath on the Bible. And I don’t come into this House as someone who—I believe that my faith is my engine, but it’s not something that I expect everyone or anyone to adhere to what I believe, and I have respect for that.

In this situation, I guess, it’s just reflecting on not necessarily what those days mean, because I think they’re actually—I’d say they’re far less than a religious holiday; they’re actually part of our cultural make up in Aotearoa. For example, Easter Sunday, it really isn’t empty tombs; it’s Easter eggs and chocolate. Christmas day isn’t about—

💬 Marja Lubeck: Turkey.

Yeah, it’s about turkey and big roasts in 30-degree heat by the beach—it’s ridiculous—as opposed to celebrating the birth of Christ, but I digress.

What was said earlier was that there are silly rules, and I get there are lots of silly rules, and my household has a lot of them too. But as you get around the country and you look at different councils and jurisdictions, there are lots of differing rules, and that’s just how it operates.

For example, there are licensing trusts that still exist in New Zealand. If you go to west Auckland it’s different than if you go to South Auckland. For example, if you go to New Plymouth, where I’m the MP for, the hours of trade for liquor are different to if you go to central Wellington here. So there are differences, but I also think the mention of people being confused or it being infuriating for people—I think people just get it that things are different. In fact, in the last few years, if anything, people have become so much more flexible in terms of how life operates.

So it’s been said, for me, it’s very much about the ability to have some time off, as opposed to thinking about the actual liquor licensing or the trading days. And I look back to when I was a kid, when I remember Thursday night was late night shopping to go to 3 Guys in Mount Roskill in Auckland because shops were open until 7.30. It was quite exciting to go to 3 Guys on a Thursday night with mum and dad and get the groceries—so exciting! But the cool thing actually was that at the weekend there was no one in the supermarkets, and there were always a few trolleys left lying around, which we got to enjoy. I was the youngest of three, and for some reason I always ended up in the trolley. I was always the idiot that ended up in the trolley being pushed down the ramp, and then realising my fate and having to try to save myself. But obviously I survived—not too many head injuries. Don’t be the judge of that, please!

But this piece of legislation—and actually, I guess, looking back on it, as Marja Lubeck said before me, it’s been around for a long time. And I know for the ACT Party it’s been something that they’ve worked on for a long time. In fact, it was 20 years ago in 2002, Rodney Hide yet again had pushed around opening up trading on public holidays on Christmas and Easter.

I actually remember, back at that time, him talking about going to—I think he said Singapore or somewhere and everything was open on Christmas Day and we’re such a backward country, nothing’s open. But I think that’s part of the charm. And when I actually moved to New Plymouth in the year 2000, I was initially shocked actually because New Plymouth was pretty much shut down on Sundays, not for any religious reasons but I think because workers and families could get together and could actually have time together, which was a surprise to me. But then I realised the charm and beauty of it that families and people didn’t have the expectation of working.

And my concern with this piece of legislation is that there will be expectation for people to work. Like my previous two colleagues have said, there’s 3½ days left in the calendar; let’s keep it like that. Mr Speaker, I appreciate you listening to me this evening. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m not sure I’m being entirely representative by getting to speak again, because I too will be opposing this bill, though I do want to acknowledge the member Chris Baillie for bringing this forward. I did acknowledge his point, in his first speech, around the inconsistency in the country and some of the rules not making sense and the difficulty of explaining that.

For me, the answer to that would be to go back to simplifying that and actually locking in these holidays for the entire country without those inconsistencies. That’s kind of at the foundation of why I’m opposing this, and it happens that the Greens are all of one mind in terms of our opposition to this.

I would say that for myself and quite a few of my colleagues, it’s not on religious grounds, and, personally, I would love to see this bill renamed so that it wasn’t locking one religious belief into our systems. But, for me, it’s fundamentally about the sense of what we value as a country and what makes us happy. In reality—and all of the research tells us this—it’s not consumption and it’s not alcohol. It is family and friends and nature and connection. We need more opportunities to go back to those values, and this bill is taking it in exactly the wrong way. It’s just saying that, actually, the 3½ days a year that we have as a country to be able to have a high chance of being able to get together with other people we care about at the same time is too much—3½ days in a year is too much.

The Greens disagree with that, and I really think that the fact is that we need to consider our patterns of consumption and acknowledge that, globally, we’ve signed up to commit to more responsible consumption and production through the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and recognise that for decades, scientists have been explaining the ways in which humanity is driving the three planetary crises of climate—

💬 Hon Member: Chris, what have you done?

—biodiversity, and pollution. Whilst I’m hearing laughter from behind me while talking about the planet burning—it’s confusing for me—that’s about the fact that those things are connected to us being sold products all of the time. We’re being told that those things will make us happy and that we cannot even have 3½ days a year where we are not being sold things and told that they will make us happy—that that is too much to ask.

We need more spaces in our lives that are free from being sold, free from treating us as if the only reason we have value is by the work we provide for others, and free from being told that alcohol is more important than time with our families, in a country where 800 people a year die as a direct result of alcohol use and where we acknowledge we have a massive problem around alcohol use in this country.

So the Greens are quite keen to protect these two days and the 1½ more so that, actually, we can all just take a break. We can get back to those things that we care about, and recognise, as well, those patterns of consumption. I do just want to make the point that our country consumes resources at a rate of almost 32 times more than those people in lower-income countries. We are not separate islands, even though we are separate islands—it is all connected. The more we drive consumption, the more we drive the destruction of our planet. It is countries like ours that need to shift our patterns. This bill is taking us in the wrong direction, and the Greens—and myself—cannot support it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you to our National colleagues for offering the opportunity for the ACT Party to have a second call on this bill.

Now, we’ve heard from the Labour Government members and the Green member why they oppose the bill. Apparently, they want to save us from ourselves. They want to make sure we don’t have too much fun on Easter Sunday or Good Friday. They want to make sure we don’t just have the pint, that fantastic stein of lager with a good inch-deep head on it. They don’t want us to have that with a bowl of chips. They want us to have the salad as well.

Anyway, it’s nice they’re thinking of our health, but, actually, what we want and what businesses want is to be able to make choices about whether they open, whether their staff have a choice to come to work and earn time and a half and get a day in lieu—because not everybody wants to take a holiday when the Government tells you to. Shock, horror!

Now, I’ve been to my colleague Mr Baillie’s pub. Fantastic food, great range of craft beers. Is it The Honest Lawyer? Is that what it’s called? The Honest Lawyer, in Nelson. Fantastic pub, The Honest Lawyer. But it’s not just The Honest Lawyer in Nelson that wants to be able to offer people a plate of chips on an Easter Sunday or a Good Friday; there are hospitality businesses and retailers up and down the country who want to be able to trade.

Now, if I was a tourist at Easter and I came to West Auckland—I know, people do it! They come to West Auckland as tourists at Easter. If we went out on Friday, we wouldn’t be able to go and pick up a bicycle tube if somebody had had a puncture. In fact, we wouldn’t be able to go to the bike park, even, because they’re not open. The Easter trading laws mean that I can’t go biking at my local bike park, because that’s a business and it has to close.

If tourists came to New Zealand like they came to West Auckland, where I live, the garden centre would be open, so maybe they could take a hydrangea or something back on the cruise ship with them as a memento of their trip—we’re not quite sure. Or maybe they could go to one of the duty-free stores and buy a Gucci handbag, or something. These exemptions are ridiculous.

This is not a new problem. Bands, all kinds of entertainers come to New Zealand, and they play shows at Easter. They play multiple-day shows sometimes. If you were a touring band—you’d been all around the world and came to New Zealand—and you played a show on, say, a Saturday night, and you decided you were going to go out on the Sunday and you found that you couldn’t have a beer if you got there an hour before lunch, you’d think, “What kind of country is this?”

Well, there was a band that had an experience like this—not in New Zealand, but in the UK, a long, long time ago, before they liberalised their trading laws. That was The Ramones, one of the best punk rock bands of all time. In fact, they wrote a song about it. It’s called “I Want to Be Sedated”. It was so boring when they woke up in England on Christmas Day, they sang, “24 hours to go, everything’s closed, I want to be sedated.” That’s how New Zealand businesses feel. That’s how Chris Baillie of The Honest Lawyer feels when he hears Labour and Green MPs telling him he’s not allowed to give people a beer unless they have salad with their chips. A lot of us just want to be sedated!

State control over business benefits big business, big corporates, because they can afford to carry the cost burden of being forced to remain closed. It’s small and medium enterprises that actually suffer—those people who do work in their businesses long hours and many days and have to choose when to take holidays. What they don’t want is the Government choosing when they open. They want to have that flexibility, and that’s what this bill provides for.

So I would urge my colleagues: you might have thought you were coming to this House to vote against this bill going to select committee. I hope I’ve given you a window not just into my world and the world of touring bands but the world of what it means to be a small-business person who has to find a way to generate the revenue to pay staff and pay suppliers. I urge you to support this bill at first reading.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): The great thing about a mask—it hides a lot of things!

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to do a different take on being a small-business owner. When I was growing up back in the 1970s, one of my fondest memories was listening for the bus on a Friday night. As soon as I heard it go past, I’d be running down the road to meet my dad, who always worked a late Friday night in his souvenir shop in the New Plymouth mall. Back then, shopping was pretty much Monday to Friday, but you had the excitement of going downtown on a Friday night. For those that wanted to go and pick up that extra little bit of shopping, you had the ability to do so until 8.30 p.m.

The thing is, everything was closed at the weekends, and so what that meant is dad had heaps of time to be with us kids. So we had fantastic times going down to the beach, going to the park. He used to build us play forts. He used to build his chicken coops. He had a whole empire of self-sustainability in terms of the fruit trees and the veges in the garden.

Then the law changed and Saturday trading came in. I guess for him, it was a bit of a dilemma because while everybody else opened on Saturday morning, if he didn’t all his customers would go to his competitors. So what happened is Dad just extended his work hours. He still had to work Friday night, Monday to Friday, but he went in again on a Saturday, for his customers, to stay open.

I don’t think he actually earned any extra money, but basically, it was something where he wouldn’t lose money if he was there. So what happened is Sunday became the combination of our family day, but also him juggling all his church responsibilities as well.

Fortunately, what happened is by the time Sunday trading came about nine years later, all us kids had grown up and the business was no longer there. I think the thing for him, though, was that working on a Saturday and a Sunday really wasn’t a choice, because if your competitors are working, you don’t really have any other option otherwise you’re going to lose your business.

So, basically, now what we’ve got is a fact that small-business owners, if they wanted to, can stay open and work 24/7, seven days a week. I think the issue we’ve got now is everybody’s stressed, and we’ve got mindfulness and we’ve got meditation, and they’re a billion dollar business. So what happens is many of us look forward to our public holidays as having that little bit of time off. But as you’ve heard from my colleagues, we’ve got 11 public holidays we celebrate now as a country, but there’s only really four of them where workers can actually be guaranteed that bit of time off. That’s Christmas Day; then we’ve got Anzac Day up until 1 p.m., as my colleague Jamie Strange had talked about; then we’ve got Easter Friday; and we’ve got Easter Sunday.

I think of our other public holidays; so we’ve got Boxing Day, which is now synonymous with excess and with sales; then we’ve got the day after New Year’s Day, again where basically many of us are going out and catching up on the last of the bargains that came from the Boxing Day sales. So we’ve got very, very few days where somebody working in retail can actually say, “I’m going to have that holiday, spend it with my family and with my friends”, and basically don’t have to have the pressure of justifying why they want to do that to their employer. Also for many who are working in vulnerable conditions, the actual pressure to actually stump up and say, “No, I actually want to spend that time with my family and friends.” may well be incredibly difficult. So we’ve lost that whole protection and we’ve lost a lot of that ability for people to spend that time.

As, again, my colleague Jamie Strange said, for many, those particular days—Easter Friday and Easter Sunday—are not just holidays, they’re holy days. They’re where you go to church and you mark the death and the resurrection of Christ. For many of them, that’s a significant moment where you don’t want to be out there shopping.

So basically, for others, though, it’s actually just a time to spend with family and friends. So for me and for our side of the House, what we’re wanting to do is not to lose any more of those protections that our workers have. I’m proud, actually, of some of the protections we have put in place for workers since we’ve been in Government over the last four and a half years. I think about, you know, just the things like the increases to the minimum wage, reinstating meal breaks and rest breaks, and doubling the number of sick days that people have. So again, there’s not the pressure to come to work when you’re sick. Also, thinking about what we’re going to be doing in terms of fair pay agreements.

So this is not a bill that on this side of the House we can support, because I think we want to make sure that people can take that time off and be with family and friends on those limited extra days of the year. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call in relation to this bill this evening. Like some of my colleagues, I’ll just start by congratulating Chris Baillie for having his bill pulled from the tin; that’s not something that I have had the excitement to have happen to me as yet, but I do congratulate the member. But, as others have on this side of the House have spoken to this evening, it’s not a bill that I will be supporting this evening.

It’s a bill, of course, that seeks to remove restrictions on trading and selling of alcohol on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. A number of my colleagues have spoken about the fact that really what we’re trying to protect here is wellbeing. There are only 3½ days when people are not expected to sit in to many of the roles that they hold for the rest of the year. It is a very slim line, but it is so powerful for families and for individuals.

I wanted to speak about a particular group of workers we don’t always talk about, but who I have done a lot of work with. For about nine years of my life, I worked at YouthLaw Aotearoa. We were in the business of giving free legal advice to under-25-year-olds. One of the biggest areas of law we advised on was education law, and that’s perhaps something that you would expect. But what you might not expect is that about 50 percent of our work was related to employment law.

Often what the young people would come to us with were situations where they had felt really bullied into saying yes, saying yes to additional hours, saying yes to working at hours where they didn’t feel safe doing so, saying yes to working in conditions that they felt were unsafe. And that was only part of the problem. What we started to understand was that these were the young people who were coming to us, they knew a whole cohort of other young people who simply would never ask for help, they would just subject themselves to conditions that were not fair. And it wasn’t necessarily that they didn’t have those legal rights in play, they just wouldn’t call on them, and they were very aware of that sense of being almost bullied into having to say yes.

So I think, from this side of the House, there’s an acute awareness of what it is like to work with some parts of our community who are often subject to overt pressure to take on those extra duties, and they simply don’t feel empowered to be able to say no. Their mental wellbeing is worth protecting as well.

I do think that we’ve all just been through this unusual experience that is COVID for the last two years. Every time I think about that experience, I think of that beautiful T S Eliot quote where he talks about “the still point in a turning world … where past and future are gathered”. It was a time of extreme stress, yes, but was also a time that gave us the opportunity to reflect on what matters. New Zealand responded well, we put people first, but we also started to get an understanding that people’s wellbeing is complex—it is complex—and it needs active attention if we’re going to protect it. So we cannot support this bill, on this side of the House, this evening.

I also recall, just a couple of weeks ago, visiting the Salvation Army near my electorate office, where the lovely team there talked about the impacts of COVID on people’s wellbeing, and that sense of pressure, acute pressure, that they were under, which meant that one problem led to another problem, led to another problem. Sometimes there were addiction issues. Sometimes there was a need for food bank. And what they found was that as soon as they were connected to people, that they had active time to be connected, that wellbeing radar shifted.

It is worthwhile protecting those 3½ days when people can actively reconnect, where there is no pressure, overt or otherwise, for people to compromise their family lives, and their wellbeing, for work. I do not support this bill this evening.

Kia orana, Mr Speaker. It’s getting late and I believe it might be time for a little bit of a bedtime story, as we put, I hope, this bill to bed. It’s an old story, but it appeals to me because it talks to the one remaining day of protected holiday that we would have left for workers in this country were this bill to pass.

Let’s see how long it takes my colleagues to pick up what we’re talking about: “At length, the hour of shutting up the counting house arrived. With an ill will, Scrooge, dismounted from his stool and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk. ‘You’ll want all day tomorrow, I suppose.’ ‘If quite convenient, sir.’ ‘It is not convenient and it’s not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you’d think yourself mightily ill-used, I’ll be bound.’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘And yet you do not think me ill-used if I have to pay a day’s wages for no work.’ ‘It’s only once a year, sir.’ ”

That’s what we’re going to have. This perhaps should be renamed the “Scrooge Bill”, because it will put us back in the Dickensian position of having one day a year in which people can guarantee that they will have a day with their families without the pressure of work.

Because for all the fine rhetoric coming from the ACT Party as to the freedom to work, what we’re really talking about is people of extreme vulnerability—people like my colleague Ms Walters was describing, but also, going back over 150 years, the people that Mr Charles Dickens was discussing when he made this story about a clerk with a family to support, who felt almost unable to take that one day a year, who was begrudged it, who was only given it out of a strong sense of custom.

It is so little—it is so little to ask, really, for our families to preserve just a little bit of space within the year where they do not have to worry about disappointing employers upon whom they rely. Business is not just about profit; business is about people. Without the people, there is no profit and there is no business. It is not too much to ask of each other that we preserve a few small days in the year where vulnerable workers do not have to negotiate or worry about the time they take off.

I am not a Christian and, for me, the fact that these holidays that we have left are religious holidays is not an issue. I find it more of a cultural phenomenon, but it is one that even a non-Christian family like my own celebrated and found extremely precious. The fact that Easter was available to us—there are so many memories I have around the Easter holidays. There are so many memories, because there are so few opportunities for families to stop in the middle of things. I, too, remember how important and how special and, yes, how dull sometimes those Sundays were without shops, but how precious in retrospect that we had that time to stop, with our families, and spend that time together.

I don’t quite know, speaking of spending—I’m not quite sure how the anticipated profit is going to come, because the very fact of us having two less days of holiday doesn’t actually mean the money is going to increase. The people’s wages will stay the same. Their discretionary spending will stay the same. It’ll just be packed into—shock, horror—two less days in a full year. It doesn’t seem to be a problem. People will still be able to go out and they will be able to spend on the day after Easter is over.

💬 So: “Mr Scrooge told his worker, ‘Oh, it’s a poor excuse for picking a man’s pockets every 25th of December, but I suppose you must have the whole day. Be there all the earlier the next morning, he said.’ ” Let’s not let ourselves become like Mr Scrooge with just that one day where families are protected. Good night, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand in an unanticipated ability to speak on this bill. I’ve got to start off by saying—I’ve already said this once in the House today, and I’ve just got to say it again—what a kookaburra’s codswallop that’s coming over from the Labour Party.

I mean, really, we’re talking about having a couple of days where small business can actually get out there and make a difference in their communities, and, perhaps, even do something novel like survive during a cost of living crisis that we have happening at the moment. What I’ve heard from the Labour Party is obviously from non-business owners because they’ve really got no idea about the struggles that they’ve put on small businesses. I don’t think they even realise that 97 percent of the businesses within New Zealand are small.

💬 Hon Poto Williams: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Point of order. I’m afraid the time clock’s not going.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): My one’s working, luckily.

Shall I start off again with the kookaburra’s codswallop that I’ve been hearing from across the House? It’s very disappointing when we have a political party who complains in one speech about taking two public holidays away, yet this year they gave one.

We have to actually have a look at the effect that the laws have on small businesses—the cost of living crisis, the COVID mandates that had gone through under Parliament, closing down a lot of businesses and restricting some of them from being able to operate. We have a good reason for allowing businesses to open during the Good Friday and Easter Sunday trading days. While I’ve heard some arguments across the House suggesting that, well, people can’t go away on holidays, one might suggest that perhaps they had to work on the Saturday anyway, and that if they get the opportunity to work on the Friday and the Sunday as well they might actually be able to earn some more money for their family. I think that that’s an important consideration that is possibly being missed from the other side of the House.

What’s even more disappointing is the fact that we can’t even debate this bill at select committee. We can’t go through the pros and cons of it, and get advice from officials, because we are just being shut down by a Labour Party who is burying their head in the sand, like kookaburras might do, one might think.

It’s a disappointment that we are unable to actually go about having a debate where we can talk about the pros and the cons of opening up on statutory holidays. I think it’s really, really important, as do the ACT Party, that we look to support all of New Zealand. One of the things that is in Mr Chris Baillie’s bill is the fact that people don’t have to operate on those days. They can choose to open, that the workers that are employed by them do not have to work on those days. They are protected within this bill. They can choose. But we have a Labour Government from across the other side that don’t even want to engage in the debate, and they just end up putting their foot on the throats of small businesses once again, determining that they are not essential to the survival of our economy or our communities, and that is a failure on part of that party.

It’s a disappointment: disappointment for the families, disappointment for the communities—especially for those businesses that are struggling. I think that it would be a really great idea to be able to put this through to select committee. But as it’s obviously not going to happen, I’ll leave you with this final thought: another kookaburra’s codswallop. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I call Chris Baillie—five minutes in reply.

I’m not going to “labour” on this for too much longer—I don’t like using that word—but thank you very much for everyone’s contribution. It was anticipated, if you listened to what I said at the start—I did say that people will argue for the status quo because of religious beliefs or a belief that workers’ rights might be affected. The bill well and truly covers that so they won’t be affected, and I’ll address that again shortly.

Just to look at some of the last contributors: Jamie Strange, he asked why not Christmas Day and Anzac Day, and I quite agree. I did not think that society is ready for those two days, unlike Kieran McAnulty, of course, who wanted to include Christmas Day and Anzac Day and open it right up in his bill, which has now been withdrawn. I accept that there is family time; however, if you work, as has been said, you get a day in lieu to take that day whenever you feel like it.

Since 1990, since the shop trading hours—you mentioned that—since 1990, workers had three weeks’ leave, and that was it. Since then, four weeks’ leave, 12 stat holidays, two weeks’ sick days, and numerous other holidays that they’re entitled to now. You’re probably aware, I’m not sure, that Rome—the great city of Rome—has no restrictions on trading or the sale of alcohol for Easter—just a bit of trivia there.

Glen Bennett—he mentioned 52 took the oath on the Bible; it was actually 52 took the affirmation and 71 took the Bible. I’m not sure where he got the thought that I wasn’t sympathetic to him, because I took the oath on the Bible as well, no problem at all.

Jan talked about as we expected: alcohol is bad—everything to do with alcohol is bad and everything to do with marijuana is good. So we won’t go down that track.

Liz Craig talked about stress and mindfulness, without actually acknowledging that that is part of a business owner’s remit now. They have to consider stress, mindfulness, and how workers are reacting and their mental health—everything. That didn’t happen before.

Vanushi Walters again talked about wellbeing, and I quite agree, quite agree, but I must remind Vanushi of last week during the electoral reform bill, when she said things should go to the select committee to be discussed. It just seems a little bit inconsistent.

Emily Henderson, protecting holidays—I think if my staff heard you refer to me as a Scrooge, you’d have them to answer to, because you obviously don’t understand what employers and business owners actually have to do for their staff these days. One of my cleaners just recently said, “What are Labour trying to do to us? Put us all on the dole?”

Hansard is an interesting tool, and I just had a quick look over some previous speeches. Grant Robertson, during the 2013 marriage amendment bill—oh, just carried on and on about personal choice, that people should be able to choose for themselves. It just seems except for business owners and employees.

There were lots of speeches from Labour members quite viciously attacking the Opposition for voting along the party lines, and rubbishing the Opposition for not having an opinion of their own. Just a lot of inconsistencies.

There’s a lot of talk about business owners and people being forced—and it just really shows the utter naivety and/or ignorance about what employers actually have to go through. This bill would not make employees work—it is written there; it’s quite clear. Really, to me, it just shows it’s lucky Labour and Greens don’t own businesses, because they would be awful employers. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 9.57 p.m.