Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. This is indeed a red-letter day for Rotorua, whose people are all listening at home. We hit the double when the Rotorua bill in my name was drawn from the ballot only 2 weeks after Jacqui Dean’s bill. I supported that bill—even though it is more parochial, being in respect of only Wānaka and Tauranga—as it was the only mechanism that I could work with to get Rotorua the right to trade at Easter, and we are now in an MMP environment. At a future point I will move that this bill be referred to the Commerce Committee.

I note that chambers of commerce around the country, in areas like Cambridge, are also asking to be counted in with other districts such as Napier, and things then start to get messy on the mechanism of Jacqui Dean’s bill. That bill was voted through to the select committee by 73 votes to 41. I hope the same support will be given to this member’s bill. It is only democratic that bills reflecting local community interests are supported through to a select committee, so that submissions are heard.

The history of Easter trading, though, is unbelievable. It goes back to 1977, so it is now almost 30 years old. The anomalous schedule of exemptions that makes us shudder in Rotorua was established by the Shop Trading Hours Commission back then. In 1990 the Act revoked individual business exemptions but retained these absurd geographic area exemptions. Rotorua was simply left off the list—an act of omission, not commission—overlooked, and then the mechanism to get it back on to the schedule of exemptions was no longer there. We had no other choice.

This is the Rotorua District Council’s second attempt in 6 years at a bill. In 2001, as a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed electorate MP, I introduced the first bill, which lost in 2002—and I understand losing a bill—by eight votes. It was unbelievable—63 votes to 55. Timing is the art of the possible, and everything in politics can find the right sense of timing and place. In 2003 the then Minister of Labour, Margaret Wilson—during another frustrated attempt of mine—established the Shop Trading Hours Working Group, with the New Zealand Retailers Association, the Consumers Institute, Local Government New Zealand, and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions. Those organisations recommended two options: to remove Easter Sunday trading as a restricted day—that was the majority view of the committee—or to empower local authorities to exempt shops from trading exemptions. The last movement on Easter trading occurred with Rodney Hide’s bill, which was a carry-over of Patricia Schnauer’s bill, in 2001. This movement permitted garden centres to open on Easter Sunday. That Act contained protections for workers that ensured that they could not be compelled to work unless both employer and employee agreed—that was a Green amendment. That was the last bit of movement.

Rotorua conducted an Easter Sunday electorate survey in July of 2005. Fifty-eight businesses responded, and 83 percent of those businesses wanted a law change. Seventy-six percent supported a law change for Easter Sunday only. Seventy-one percent told me to resubmit another bill post-election, so here we go again. There was only a 20 percent increase from a previous chamber of commerce survey in 2001, when only 56 percent of people wanted Easter Sunday trading, and only 20 percent were in favour of trading on Good Friday.

The value and economic benefits to Rotorua, as an iconic tourism town, are known. We actually earn $463 million every year in direct value from tourism. One in six of our locals is directly employed by tourism. It is a great opportunity for us. Retailers are proactive supporters of tourism. We have been only too aware of the risks to retailers who open on Easter Sunday, and this was graphically evident in 2005, when 87 retailers were visited by the Department of Labour, and 10 of the 54 retailers who had opened their shops in support of the Jambalaya Festival were summonsed to court. They were dismissed without charge. What a ridiculous waste of court time! That incident increased the anger and frustration of those who experienced the reality of this ongoing nonsense.

One can gamble on Easter Sunday. There is no restriction on selling alcohol in cafes on Easter Sunday. Petrol stations with shops can trade. Airport cafes with shops can stay open. Taupō, right next door to us, can trade, but Rotorua cannot—it just gets sillier.

So what does the bill do? It allows the district councils to adopt the special consultative procedure in Part 6 of the Local Government Act 2002 in order to ask their communities, anywhere in New Zealand, whether they want to trade. The bill does not compel any shop to open on Easter Sunday, and it does not compel any worker to work on Easter Sunday, unless both the employer and the employee agree. The bill passes the New Zealand Bill of Rights vetting. The National Distribution Union, the Retailers Association, chambers of commerce, and Local Government New Zealand support the bill being jointly considered by the Commerce Committee along with Jacqui Dean’s bill.

At the moment we are running a petition in our region. It is supported by the local newspaper—the Daily Post—the district council, Retail Rotorua, my electorate office, and the chamber of commerce. Such unlikely partners have never worked together on any other issue in our city. The petition closes at the end of this week, so it will be beautiful timing to refer it to the Commerce Committee. Responses are incredibly positive, from the West End supermarket to McDonald’s. They are saying: “Give us the petition. We are glad to fill it in.” I do hope tonight that this will be the end of Rotorua’s crusade to correct the anomaly that beset us in 1990. I appeal to sensible members of the House to support the bill going to the Commerce Committee. Then that committee can consider both bills together, and it may come up with something better.

The good news is that Rotorua’s crusade was won a couple of weeks ago, when my Easter Sunday Shop Trading Amendment Bill was read a first time and sent to the Commerce Committee.

I rise to support Steve Chadwick’s bill, which is called—it has a long name—the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading) Amendment Bill 2006. Anomalies do exist in the current Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Act. Queenstown can trade happily over Easter, whereas Wānaka cannot. Taupō can trade happily over Easter, whereas Rotorua cannot. In fact, a number of towns and cities throughout New Zealand do trade, against the law, over Easter, and it is that anomaly that Steve Chadwick’s bill—and, indeed, my bill—seeks to overcome.

I have to say that the anomaly has stuck in the craw of many, many busy tourist towns in New Zealand, with the current law, as it stands, being patently unfair to some towns and to the advantage of others. Wānaka, like Queenstown, is a busy tourist town, particularly over Easter. Every second year the Warbirds over Wānaka International Air Show and the Race to the Sky bring up to 100,000 visitors to the district, all of whom want to holiday and many of whom want to shop. Every year the Department of Labour brings prosecutions against many of those retailers—in fact, some schedule it in their calendar. It has become a Groundhog Day situation for many retailers throughout New Zealand, where it appears that nothing seems to change.

Both Easter shop trading bills—both Steve Chadwick’s, which is under discussion today, and mine—seek to provide a level playing field for retailers all over New Zealand. I want to talk about the features of my bill, just as a reminder. My bill would allow retailers to have the choice as to whether they open. The bill that I have proposed, which has been sent to the Commerce Committee, applies to Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I note here that a spokesman from the Catholic Church has indicated that it has no problem with shops remaining open over Easter. In fact, I note that most shops in Rome trade happily over the Easter festival.

My bill does not, in any way, cut across or diminish provisions in the Holidays Act or, indeed, the Employment Relations Act, and I note that those are the worker protections that are included in the bill that I proposed. I refer to the advice I received from Ministry of Justice officials regarding the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. They advised that section 47 of the Holidays Act 2003 states that employees may be required to work on public holidays when they have agreed in their employment agreement to work on public holidays and the public holiday falls on a day on which those employees would normally work. If employees do not wish to work on Good Friday and/or Easter Sunday, they cannot be required to work unless they have agreed in their employment agreement to do so—and I would imagine that Steve Chadwick has been provided with the same advice on her bill.

My bill does not cut across any lease provisions that may be in existence. Most important, the bill I have proposed provides for an opt-in mechanism, whereby towns and cities—if they want to be—can be added to the schedule of the bill by way of an amendment, which some would say is an elegantly simple process. I am pleased that that bill has passed its first reading and now sits with the Commerce Committee, and I hope that Steve Chadwick’s bill will join mine for consideration by that committee.

When my bill was sent to the select committee I wrote to the chambers of commerce around New Zealand, retailer associations, Business New Zealand, various retailers, and individual business owners. I have also written to every local authority in New Zealand. I believe that if this bill is to finally succeed, it must be driven by the retail sector. I believe we have a changing environment here in Parliament and I anticipate good support for this bill, but if we really want change, then it must be driven by people in the retail sector. So I am lobbying those people hard in order to get their indications of support.

I am receiving a huge amount of mail in support of the bill, and also a number of suggested amendments. Many of those amendments are from people in areas with high visitor numbers who would like their towns and cities to be added to the schedule of my bill. They want to be part of the opt-in process. I am also very happy for any of those amendments to be discussed by the Commerce Committee. I am aware that some chambers of commerce are suggesting that picking towns, opting in, and devolving to local government is not the way to go, and they would like to see the law changed for all New Zealand. I am very happy for that option to be discussed by the select committee. So members can imagine my joy when Steve Chadwick’s bill was drawn from the ballot several weeks after mine. Steve Chadwick’s bill has a similar aim to mine. As I have said, we have agreed to support each other’s bill should it be drawn, so I do support this bill. We want to achieve the same aim, but we want to achieve it in different ways.

Steve Chadwick’s bill seeks to allow shops to open on Easter Sunday only. The responsibility for giving effect to this bill is devolved to local authorities, and that is where I have a problem with the way this bill proposes to proceed. I believe that by devolving responsibility to local government, the bill will, arguably, trigger a special consultative process under the Local Government Act 2002. That process would add 6 months, 7 months, 8 months, or more on to the time local authorities take to deal with this process. I have sought advice from one small local authority, which advised me that it would add more than $20,000 in costs to its ratepayers. That local authority may have no desire to have the ability to trade over Easter. I imagine, and I am pretty sure, that this would be a compulsory process for local authorities. So, for example, in the Waitaki district and, maybe, in the Grey district, there may be no call for shops to trade over Easter, yet the local authorities would incur the cost, time, and angst of that consultation process. I have huge reservations about that process. I believe that that is an unnecessarily cumbersome process and my biggest fear is that it will not be settled before next Easter.

I would be open to the select committee establishing an appeal authority where, for example, cities or towns could apply in the future for an exemption to the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Act, as was the case pre-1999. I think that I am in favour of this bill, and I am open to the select committee having a good discussion on it, because I believe that we must put this matter to bed, once and for all.

For most towns in New Zealand with a significant visitor industry, like Wānaka and Rotorua, Easter trading provides a boost to the town’s income and a service to the thousands upon thousands of visitors who are there for the full range of visitor experiences. I believe that the time has come for us to put right the anomalies in the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Act, and to recognise that tourism is, in fact, a 365-day-a-year industry and that it is one of New Zealand’s largest contributors to gross domestic product and to goods and services tax. Now is the time, finally, to let tourist towns with a significant visitor industry go about their business without unfair, archaic, and unnecessary regulation. I urge members to send this Easter Sunday shop trading bill—however imperfect—to the select committee.

It was good to hear the member who has just resumed her seat spend at least some of her time talking about this bill rather than her own bill, which came before the House a few weeks back and which New Zealand First was pleased to support. We are much more comfortable with this bill than with hers, for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, this bill can apply to the whole of the country. The previous speaker’s bill applied basically to Tauranga and Wānaka—

💬 Jacqui Dean: Why didn’t you listen to what I was saying?

—and she could add other towns and cities on to the list. I know the member could add to that list. Second—and this is important—New Zealanders are warmly disposed towards Easter Sunday trading, but they are not as warmly disposed towards Good Friday trading. If the member does not believe that, she should go out and ask members of the public, but I know people are quite warmly disposed towards Easter Sunday trading. I do not agree with the member that it will take 6 months or be very complicated to implement this bill. I think it could be done very, very rapidly. Another area of difference that I think should be highlighted is that this bill refers to the areas of territorial authorities that actually exist, whereas that honourable member’s bill revolved around where post offices were sited. A post office can be moved relatively easily overnight, which would mean that the trading areas would keep shifting.

I come from Tauranga, and I know that Tauranga will accept this bill warmly and very quickly. Tauranga has been absolutely brassed off—and that is putting it as politely as I can—to see cruise ships come in, and taxis and minibuses pick up all the passengers and take them out of Tauranga, through Rotorua, to trade in Taupō. That is absolutely daft. This bill allows that situation to be corrected very, very quickly, to my mind.

New Zealand First has carried out a number of surveys on the proposal that shops trade on Easter Sunday; some were informal and some were more formal. Every survey we have taken has shown huge support for trading on Easter Sunday. We have involved ourselves in discussions with church people, and with people from all walks of life, in fact, but we were very pleased with the response we received from church people. That was principally in Tauranga but also in other areas of New Zealand. People are very keen to see Easter Sunday trading introduced.

New Zealand First will, without a doubt, support this bill. We support the earlier bill. We hope that the two bills can be combined together and an appropriate degree of common sense will be applied, so that this House is not ultimately faced with deciding between Bill A, Bill B, and what have you, at the end of the day.

This is an issue that has gone on for far too long in this House. The honourable member who just resumed her seat made reference to the retailers who are driving this proposal. I do not think there are any problems with regard to retailers. They will accept this type of legislation very, very quickly—overnight. I do not think there is any problem with regard to the public. The problem for this sort of legislation is the members of this House. Some of the members of this House have adopted a totally head in the sand attitude toward this sort of legislation, and it pleases me no end to know that many, many members will now support this bill going to the select committee. New Zealand First has tried for many years to get this sort of legislation before the House. I forget the number of attempts we have made, only to fail at the last minute or right in a last-ditch effort.

We are absolutely delighted that this bill is here. The decision will be made by local authorities, after consultation with their local communities. We wish the bill every success and we will most certainly support it.

For the second time this year we find ourselves debating yet another attempt to reform the ramshackle laws relating to Easter trading. I have to acknowledge that Steve Chadwick’s bill, which we are dealing with tonight, is the best attempt yet to remove some of the inconsistencies in this area, but the Green Party will still oppose this bill and the value system it privileges.

Steve Chadwick’s bill is fairer than Jacqui Dean’s is. We appreciate the fact that it does not include Good Friday as a shopping day, and that there will be some protections for workers so that they cannot be compelled to work on Easter Sunday unless both employer and employee agree. However, those are still not good enough reasons to endorse the bill.

There is a lot of rhetoric in the debating chamber about freedom of choice, but, in fact, when we start to think about the wide-reaching effects of this legislation it pays to ask whose freedom of choice we are really serving. For example, exactly how many business owners want this freedom of choice to open for business on one of the 3½ remaining days of the year when they do not have to open? How many of their staff really want the freedom to be able to work on Easter Sunday? Low-wage workers desperate for money to pay the bills will find themselves behind the counter through the economic imperative, without the protection—in those localities that mandate this legislation—of a day off, which they may badly need.

At the moment, most workers—and business owners and managers, for that matter—can relax in the knowledge that on Christmas Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and the morning of Anzac Day they do not have to go to work. Perhaps they would just like a chance to rest and recuperate. Perhaps they would like time to do things with the family. If they are Christian and it is one of the holy days, they might even like to go to church. Those are 3½ precious days that are not defined by the everyday buying and selling that seem to characterise every other moment of our lives. I commend the recent statement from the Anglican archbishops on this matter. Headed “Hamsters or Humans?”, it states, among other things: “Are we simply consumers running like hamsters on a wheel in the marketplace or is there more to us than this? What we require is legislation which represents the interests of all people, not simply the economically and commercially powerful.” Good on the archbishops!

Is this legislation before us tonight truly representative of the popular will of the majority of ordinary New Zealanders? I doubt it. It is time this House was reminded that economic decisions have human consequences and moral content, and that they do actually hurt or help people. They strengthen or weaken our family life and advance or diminish the quality of justice in this country. Every economic decision we collectively make must be judged in this light: does it protect or undermine the dignity of being fully human? As politicians we tend to trade in the positive generalities of concepts like families and children. We all jockey to position ourselves as the political party that best represents the interests of families. This is the obviously rhetorical stuff of politics. Today this House is being asked to look beyond the rhetoric in order to make a specific judgment on an economic issue that will directly affect the quality of life of families.

Some have argued that the bill will make some families materially richer. For a few it no doubt will, and I certainly do not want to downplay the necessity and benefit of a vibrant economy. However, we have already set aside 361½ days of the year to do this. Only 3½ days remain when this is not necessarily the case. We have only 3½ days to re-imagine ourselves differently, without the all-pervasive presence of market forces. If we allow trading on Easter Sunday, as this bill before the House ultimately proposes, why stop there? Good Friday is no more holy in a Christian sense than Easter Sunday. Why close shops for only half of Anzac Day? What is the logic of sanctifying one part of the day but not the other? As for Christmas Day, why let the shopping suddenly stop? Why close on Christmas Day, when the music of commerce is reaching its crescendo?

We say that other values in life are more important than buying, selling, and making money; values that the Green Party believes are of more consequence to the quality of our lives than promoting the freedom to shop.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker; kia ora tātou te Whare. The rising of the Mātāriki in the north-eastern sky in June is significant to many people in the South Pacific. For Māori, the Mātāriki marks the turning point of the seasons—a time to reflect on the year gone by and to plan for the days ahead. Mātāriki is a time to celebrate a new dawn, to embrace new growth, to practise and express our spiritual beliefs and values, and, for Māori people from throughout this great nation of ours, to switch to the Māori roll.

The Māori Party knows the importance of Mātāriki to Māori throughout Aotearoa, and it is with that knowledge that we come to the second saga of the Easter trading series—indeed, to a second and separate bill on Easter trading itself. That appreciation helps us to understand the importance of honouring Easter’s Christian traditions for Māori and other New Zealanders. I raise here the objections from the Anglican archbishops of Aotearoa, who say that the Easter trading bills are ill-conceived and will strip away family freedoms and workers’ rights. Māori, regardless of iwi, regardless of birthplace, and regardless of occupation, still cling to many traditional spiritual practices, and after many years of dawn karakia, openings, blessings, and tangihanga, I know that our desire to worship and share spiritual practices with one another remains one of the features that still binds us as a people today.

The Māori Party is aware of the historical, spiritual, and religious significance of Easter, but we are not unaware of the economic realities facing our people, either. We stand by our responsibility to raise the status of those most in need in Aotearoa. I raise again the ugly reality of poverty in Aotearoa, and I point also to the cold, hard fact of 230,000 children living in poverty at a time of conspicuous wealth and at a time when political parties can blithely break the law then seek absolution for their crimes, not through the payment of penance but by the passing of dodgy legislation. People in Taupō and Queenstown have the opportunity to bring more money into their household by being able to work through Easter, but others in Rotorua and Wānaka are denied that opportunity. It is because of those anomalies that the Māori Party is happy to support this bill at its first reading.

Speaking of anomalies and looking at some of the geographical exemptions carried over in the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Act of 1990, I must say it is apparent how silly the application of the law has been. For example, in Richmond Court in Thames, a shop can trade on Easter Sunday as long as Easter Sunday falls in March. In Mariners Mall in Picton, a shop can open only if a cruise ship is in port. In one of the more bizarre twists, in the Carnegie Centre in Dunedin, a shop can sell toys and books on an Easter Sunday only while performances are happening on the mezzanine floor. The law is crazy, it benefits some and denies others, and it simply does not make sense. Too much legislation being passed through this House fits those criteria. The Māori Party wants to see laws made simple, clear, and equitable.

To be honest, I am not overly fussed about new laws that jeopardise quality family time. Sundays, for me, are precious moments at home, soaking up the sun—even in the winter the weather is always fine in the far north—resting the soul, talking to the kids, catching up with the whānau, and stacking up the “zzzs”. So I am not happy at the thought that sometime down the track my moko will say to me on a Sunday: “Sorry, papa, but I’ve got to go to work.” It would be nice, though, if he had the choice—if he could say: “Hey, paps, they wanted me to work but I said no and they were sweet about it.”

Stevie Chadwick has promised to protect workers’ rights in her bill. Although I am naturally suspicious about people who are promising to look after the workers, I will take her at her word and will watch this bill as it goes through the select committee, to ensure that those rights are indeed protected in legislation. So, as we look forward to the Mātāriki, the Māori Party will support the first reading of this bill, and will listen carefully to the submissions made by those who also have the interests of the family at heart, to ensure that in advancing our economic situation we do not take our society backwards. Kia ora koutou katoa.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Let me begin by saying that the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading) Amendment Bill in the name of Steve Chadwick will be a conscience vote for United Future, so the remarks that I will be sharing with the House tonight are according to my conscience, and they are mine alone.

This bill, once again, has led me to search my conscience as to my convictions about what it really means to be a human being. Humanity, I believe, is born to be free. Women and men are not slaves, and work is not the sole, or indeed necessarily the most important, end of our lives. We are not designed to be slaves in the sense of slavery, nor are we built to be slaves to the economy. Indeed, the Greek root of the word “economy”, or “economics”, relates to the management of the household and therefore of the family. If we go from that Greek root of the word, we realise economics and the economy therefore exist to serve families—exist to serve the needs of human beings—and not the other way around.

My second conviction coalesces strongly with the first—namely, the ability of families to spend time together. We know the purpose of having holidays, when we think of it, is to set time aside to be together and to be families. What do I mean by that? I mean mums and dads with their children, I mean grandparents with their children and grandchildren, and I mean the ability to have uncles and aunts and other family members together on important holiday occasions. It is the opportunity, for example, to bring an elderly member of the family—a parent or grandparent—home from a retirement home, to spend an afternoon or a day with his or her family. Those are the moments that give us joy in living, and New Zealand now has only 3½ days on which that remains possible for many, many families.

New Zealanders now rank in the OECD as second only to the Japanese in working the longest hours. We are already a work-saturated society, and I for one believe that we already have the work-life balance wrong. I believe that this bill will simply make that situation worse. I am not prepared to see those precious 3½ days further eroded. It is bad enough, when we get together as a family, and someone is not there. Every one of us in this House has had the experience of asking: “Where’s Jim today?” or “Where’s Mary today?”, and being told they are working. That is acceptable when they happen to be working in a hospital, in a restaurant, in a pharmacy, or even in a service station—because people need gasoline—or working for any of the essential services: the police force, or the fire service. Those essential services are necessary 365 days a year. There is no argument with that. But I want to ask people to examine their own consciences as to whether it is necessary for them to shop 365 days a year. It is not, for me. I like to have a day when we can get as many members of the family together as possible. I simply see this proposal as the thin edge of the wedge.

One of the logics advanced in this House is that we already allow trading in some towns on those days, so we should give everybody that opportunity. I bring it to the attention of the House that it is possible to look at it the other way around. The fact is that we have only 3½ trading-free days. By the way, one of those is Anzac Day, and that is not a day on which families can get together, because all the shops are open at lunchtime. Last year in Lower Hutt, for example, all the big shops had sales starting the moment the half-day observed for Anzac Day ended. Anzac Day, instead of being a day to commemorate our war heroes and those who have gone before us in that cause, and a day for time with our families, has actually become a great selling day for the shops. I regret that. I think that is negative for family life and negative for who we are as human beings.

Quite frankly, I can get by with shopping on 361½ days a year. That is more than enough. I have no desire to buy a car on Easter Sunday; I have no desire to do many things on Easter Sunday. I have a strong desire to see our nation preserve some time when we can get together with our families, when we can relax together, and when we can be together with as many family members as possible. Everything that reduces that opportunity I strongly oppose, and therefore I will be voting against this bill. Thank you.

I rise to speak in support of the first reading of Steve Chadwick’s Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading) Amendment Bill. The bill enables territorial authorities to decide whether retail shops in their districts may open on Easter Sunday and requires those authorities, before making any such decision, to consult their communities by adopting a special consultative process provided for in Part 6 of the Local Government Act 2002. I support this bill going to the Commerce Committee, and in doing so I thank Steve and Jacqui for putting two bills of this nature before the committee. I am sure Maryan Street, as part of that committee, will join me in thanking both members for giving us this particular workload. I am sure they can trust us to make sure we get a good result from the two bills.

Tonight I want to support this bill but also to discuss the differences between the two bills, which I think is important. Some differences have been highlighted, and also some confusion. Firstly, Steve Chadwick’s bill relates only to Easter Sunday, whereas Jacqui’s bill relates to Good Friday and Easter Sunday. So my initial thinking is that this bill goes only halfway. The second point is that Steve’s bill puts the responsibility on to local councils, whereas Jacqui’s bill allows legislation in Parliament to take account of the whole issue. My concern with responsibility going to local body level is that, as Jacqui pointed out, it once again puts costs back on to local councils. Jacqui used the example of a $20,000 cost for a council in the South Island. I think that is a concern. We are always hearing in Parliament that we are continuing to put costs back on to local body councils. So I say once again that it is a concern.

I say to Peter Brown that Jacqui’s bill allows for multiple local territorial authorities to come on board.

💬 Peter Brown: Why didn’t you say that at the beginning?

Well, it is pretty clear in the bill that there is that opportunity.

In terms of similarities, both bills seek to allow trading on an Easter weekend. There was some confusion in a New Zealand Herald article today, but both bills do protect employees’ rights as to whether they wish to work on those days. I say to Gordon Copeland that that is something I want talk about. The bills do provide the choice for people to work or not to work, which is the point Gordon raised. Both bills do not specifically compel shops to open. It is that choice that I want to talk about. In terms of my own businesses, being given the choice to open on Good Friday or Easter Sunday I would have no compulsion to open my businesses on those days, and I would certainly allow people who work within my businesses the opportunity to continue to have a holiday. I believe that it is a matter of choice. Gordon talked about mankind being born to be free; I guess by being free there is that choice to allow people to have holidays, which I think is important.

I believe there are anomalies in the current law, as Steve pointed out—specifically that shops in Taupō can open, yet shops in Rotorua, 1 hour up the road, cannot. It is a crazy situation. Garden centres around the country can open regardless, but many other retail shops cannot. That is just silly. New Zealand has a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week trading environment; there is nothing more sure. The tourism industry currently provides approximately $12 billion of New Zealand’s gross domestic product, so I believe that it is important for, in particular, cities like Napier and Rotorua to be able to continue to provide services throughout the Easter period. That will be good. Comments made recently not by the Anglican Church but certainly by the Catholic Church show that the church has no particular issues with this bill, because it is believed that choice will reign.

Both bills will now come before the select committee. Once again, I thank both the ladies who are putting that additional work before us. I am confident we will get to a resolution on this issue, but, in closing, I say that I certainly believe there should be no half measures and that we should not be imposing additional costs on our regional councils, because they have enough costs as it is.

It is my pleasure to speak to this bill tonight, but I am very sad to have to speak against the bill proposed by my good friend Steve Chadwick. I oppose this bill.

I listened with some interest to the last speaker, who comes from Napier. In 5 minutes he again gave one of his profound speeches for Napier by, firstly, noting simply that the territorial authorities would not approve of this bill—and, of course, they would not—and, secondly, making some inane comment about travel agents in Napier not choosing to open on certain days. Napier has bigger issues to address than trying to stretch the dollar of a few over a few extra days. Napier has large areas of social deprivation, and it is the people there—the young kids—who will be called in to work on the extra day. Of course there is choice, but it is not a real choice.

I speak in this debate as someone who has continually parented for the last 37 years. I started parenting when man first walked on the moon—in fact, in the same month—and my youngest child is now 14. So for the last 37 years, or however long it has been, I have been raising children. In that time I have seen shops close fully on the weekend, whereas today some are trading for 6 or 7 days a week. In that time we have also seen the breakdown of family life. The dollar does not buy more; people just work longer hours to have the same buying power for their family. And we now have two parents working. The effect on the family is that children no longer grow up coming home to one parent who is there and dedicated to their needs. We can beat our chests all day and all night about what causes family breakdown, but if there is not one parent in the house whom children can relate to in downtime, when that parent is not harried by work pressure, then that family will have all the symptoms and signs of family breakdown. There are suburbs in Napier where parents have no choice but to work every hour available to them in low-paying jobs in shops or in cleaning jobs. There are suburbs in Napier where the children do not lack the love of their parents, but their parents lack the time to give them their support, because of the competing demand of earning an income.

I also speak as a member for 6 or 7 years of a board of trustees of a decile 2 secondary school. I know only too well the difficulties a decile 2 school has in engaging with its parent community. Again, it is not because the parents do not want to be engaged; it is because their time is so committed. Many of the parents work for a wage that does not give them the choice that property developers, property speculators, and the like have to govern their lifestyle accordingly. In Napier we see the clashes of the two styles. We see those who are privileged with choice and who want shops to open 7 days a week so that they can go and buy from those who have to work for a menial wage at the expense of their family life; and we see those who do not have a choice whether to work those hours—even though it may be written into the bill that they do—because shops opening for longer hours will put pressure on the 16 and 17-year-olds to work at the expense of their school work, and put pressure on the mums and dads to work the few extra hours so that their children can have the glittering toys that the well-off have.

This is a real debate in the suburbs of our community. It is the pressure of time that is the biggest cost to family life. This bill does nothing to ease the pressure of time. It is absolutely fallacious to say that businesses in Napier will improve because the shops open on a few extra days. There is not an unlimited amount of money going around and waiting to be spent. Every dollar, in the suburbs in Napier that matter, is well committed before parents look to see how many days a week the shops open. Many parents could not spend enough money to feed the kids, even if the supermarket was open on only 3 days a week. An extra day will not help the young kids in Napier who have time on their hands and are on the streets because their parents are working hard to meet the cost of buying a house in Napier, or the cost of paying the exorbitant rent that some landlords charge, because the National Government sold State houses and there was no income-related rent legislation. We do not have the stock. People cannot get a State house.

These are the issues we have to address, rather than increasing our shopping days by a few measly hours. I stand here as someone who asks people to look over the other side of the fence. What this bill proposes may be unimportant in the scale of things, but it is part of the principle of whittling away, for the mighty dollar, what is really our greatest value in this country—our people. What is most important? It is people; it is people; it is people. And we cannot have people without relationships, and relationships are families. Families need to have downtime to spend together—time when they do not need to do anything, so that real relationships can be formed. That is why I speak against this bill, despite the good intentions of my good friend Steve Chadwick.

I want to take a short call on this bill, and I do so because although I did not vote for Jacqui Dean’s bill when it came before the House a few weeks ago, I will be voting for Steve Chadwick’s bill to go to the select committee. I want to explain why I am doing that.

I oppose Easter trading, and I always have. Many small-business people came to talk with me when they heard this bill was coming up and asked me not to vote for it. They felt that when the Warehouse opens they also have to open, otherwise they might lose customers because they would think they had not bothered to open that day. Those people were the only people who came to me about this bill. I support many of the comments made by my colleague Russell Fairbrother, but I feel that in this House there is a will for this bill to proceed and I am facing the reality that it will probably pass. If this bill is to pass, then I want it to be the best bill it can be for all the people who will be affected by it.

With all due respect to Jacqui Dean, she was quite prescriptive in terms of the areas that would or would not be affected, and I thought that could be problematic. It is good that the two bills are going forward side by side, because it will mean we can decide whether the legislation should be district-wide or prescriptive. It may well be that councils will come along and say there is no way they have the political will to say they will open up everything on Easter Sunday. That is very true, but it is a discussion the select committee should have.

Most important, Steve Chadwick’s bill addresses the issue of workers’ rights. When I was at high school and working in a dairy, I was forced to work on Christmas Day. I was told I had to work on Christmas Day or I would be fired. That was fine for me. My mother was really angry with me that I went along to work, but I needed the job. On Christmas morning I worked alongside a single mother who had three kids. She was working on Christmas Day because she had been told the same thing I had been told. I do not know whether that is an isolated case or whether it is widespread practice, but it is a real concern to me—because it does happen.

Clauses in Steve Chadwick’s bill address the issue of workers being made to work on Easter Sunday. Easter Sunday is a very special day for many people, and it might be for those workers. But if they are forced to choose between their religion—their beliefs—and their job, then that is a very difficult decision for people. I think the select committee needs to consider that very, very seriously. If businesses want to open on Easter Sunday, well, more power to them, but they should not have the ability to coerce their workers to work on that day, as well. It may well be that this is more of an issue with bigger employers than it is with smaller ones.

The reason I will vote for this bill to go to the select committee is that I think it will pass through the House and therefore I want it to be as good as it can be. The two bills going through together will mean that more of the issues that are important to the people in my area will be addressed than would be the case if this bill were to be defeated tonight.

I have been pleased to hear the range of issues before the House tonight, and I believe that it is reflective of the debate we have had in the House at previous times. I think that getting the two bills before the Commerce Committee will be of great interest and will give us a more robust bill. As a result of the submission process we may even think of other ideas that we have not had a chance to consider before. I entirely trust the Commerce Committee to come up with something to report back to the House for the Committee stage that will be even better than both our local bill—which, I must say, was drafted by the Rotorua District Council legal division after great consideration of the debate that had gone on at the Rotorua District Council—and Jacqui Dean’s bill.

This has been a very interesting process with both bills being pulled out, because it has shown that we are learning about the MMP environment. We are learning, issue by issue, to work on issues that bring people together instead of taking traditional party lines. It is even interesting to note that my colleagues are not all in agreement with this bill—and I respect their right to hold their individual views. I just think that the issue is the absurdity of the way Easter trading has been crafted since 1977. That issue—and the principle—has caused great frustration and grief in places like Wānaka, Rotorua, and Tauranga, and for the sake of that very principle we want to see it sorted out.

The petition we are running talks about the anomalous schedule of exemptions and the geographic variances. We asked only for Parliament to consider a mechanism to get that sorted. I believe that with these two bills that mechanism can now be sorted.

To Hone Harawira of the Māori Party I say I do believe that Mātāriki probably will be a public holiday in this country one day, and perhaps that will happen on the demise of the Queen’s Birthday holiday. We need to consider these things and be flexible over time. That is the opportunity we have in bringing these issues to the House.

I do not see the necessary support for restrictions on both Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We were very careful about following research and following the surveys that we conducted, which were not hugely subscribed to. It tended to be the business community that responded, because they are the most affected. I always feel that one has the personal right to not go shopping. I do not actually go shopping on Easter Sunday. If anyone wants to, kē te pai—they can go shopping—but I choose to spend the day with my family, just like Gordon Copeland. I do not see that as an erosion of anything, but that is just my personal view.

I was very cognisant of a Green Party amendment that I want to acknowledge came from Rod Donald. It was interesting to hear Sue Bradford say tonight that she was concerned about worker protections. It was Rod Donald’s amendment on garden centres in relation to Rodney Hide’s bill that I saw as quite inspirational. So it is interesting to hear the Greens saying that the workers are not protected adequately by this Rotorua District Council bill.

Everybody at Rotorua is dying to know the result of the count tonight, and I hope we have some good news for them. I trust the Commerce Committee to come back with something even more robust and, what is more, enduring so that we do not have to visit this issue again.