Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill

I move, That the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Commerce Committee to consider the bill. New Zealand has 3½ restricted trading days. They are Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Christmas Day, and Anzac Day until 1 p.m. On those days, shops are restricted from trading with the public. Some areas, and most know about them, like Taupō and Queenstown have an exemption from these restrictions, but there are others—Ponsonby Road. Even in my home city of Dunedin an exemption exists for trading in the Carnegie Centre in Moray Place, but “Only Arts, Crafts, Children’s Toys & Books (toys and books sold only while performances happening on the mezzanine floor)”. I think it is a very good example of an arbitrary and outdated exemption regime. Those exemptions predate the Shop Trading Hours Repeal Act 1990 and were made at a time when there were far more general trading restrictions on weekends.

Easter trading restrictions have been the subject of numerous debates, both in this House and around the country. The Government acknowledges that Easter remains a significant time for many New Zealand communities. New Zealand, like other comparable countries, provides for public holidays on Good Friday and Easter Monday. However, this Government also acknowledges that many New Zealanders want to be able to undertake a range of activities over the long weekend, including being able to shop. In addition, those involved in our retail and tourism sectors wish to be able to provide their goods and services. Tourists also come to expect it. A large and growing number of events are scheduled over Easter—for example, Warbirds over Wānaka International Air Show. It draws large crowds from New Zealand and around the world, and the inability to do a bit of shopping around those events is something of an anathema.

This bill provides a pragmatic solution to a problem that has been considered on numerous occasions by this House. One such consideration was of a member’s bill in the name of Todd McClay, narrowly defeated in late 2009, and I want to acknowledge the Hon Todd McClay and Waitaki MP Jacqui Dean for their advocacy on this issue on behalf of the communities they represent. Mr McClay’s bill proposed that authority be given to local authorities to decide whether shops should open on Easter Sunday, rather than have that dictated to them. I agreed with that sentiment then, as I do now, and this bill is modelled on that goal.

The bill will enable territorial authorities to create by-laws that will allow shops in their districts, or parts of their districts, to open for trade on Easter Sunday. The bill will also provide shop employees with the ability to refuse to work on Easter Sunday out of respect for the significance of that day for many New Zealanders. The use of by-laws will give communities the choice about whether shops will be allowed to trade. The by-laws would require territorial authorities to give consideration to community views. By-laws require community consultation, a review process, and a requirement that they be made available to the public. Providing territorial authorities with the discretion to lift shop trading restrictions through a by-law for their entire district, or parts of it, will enable them to give effect to the views of their communities.

The bill has a transitional provision for businesses operating shops in malls that have terms and conditions in their contracts or lease arrangements with the mall requiring them to be open during certain times. The transitional provision means that those terms and conditions will not apply to Easter Sunday. The transitional provision, however, will not apply to any contract or lease agreement entered into after the commencement of the amendment.

This bill will preserve the exemptions that have been in place for towns such as Taupō and for garden centres on Easter Sunday. I have maintained these exemptions to avoid any confusion for the public and disruption to the concerned businesses. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment will continue to be responsible for the enforcement of all breaches of shop trading restrictions on Easter Sunday—local government will not be responsible for enforcement. This is consistent with the enforcement of shop trading rules on the other restricted trading days.

Easter Sunday has never been a public holiday. While some assert that Easter Sunday is a guaranteed day off, this is misleading. With the shops being closed and unable to trade with the public, shop employees may be required to do other work in the shop such as stocktaking. If workers do get time away from work they are entitled to be paid only when they take annual leave.

The bill introduces a new protection for shop employees. Employees of shops that will be able to open on Easter Sunday will have the right to refuse to work that day. This protects a shop employee—

💬 Hon Members: Yeah, right!

You hear the cynics on the other side—they do not like choice. They do not like choice. This will protect a shop employee from being compelled to work on Easter Sunday or from being treated adversely for their refusal to work on Easter Sunday. Any such action by an employer would allow an employee to bring a personal grievance action against them in accordance with the Employment Relations Act 2000. This right to refuse to work on Easter Sunday will be extended to all shop employees who work in shops that can open on Easter Sunday under the Act. This includes employees who currently work in shops that are able to open on Easter Sunday, such as those garden centres, petrol stations, and dairies, and shops in places with exemptions from trading restrictions. The bill will also ensure that an employment agreement cannot require a shop employee to work on Easter Sunday. Any such provision in an employment agreement will be unenforceable.

The bill will require territorial authorities to inform the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment of the by-laws they introduce. This is for the purpose of enforcement and for information about by-laws that will be made available through territorial authorities and the ministry website. This will ensure that the ministry can enforce the shop trading rules and that the public is well aware of where shop trading is permitted through a by-law.

This bill will also simplify the name of the principal Act from the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Act 1990 to the simpler Shop Trading Hours Act 1990.

What I have proposed is a balanced package that provides choice to local communities regarding whether or not to trade on Easter Sunday, while also giving protections to all shop employees. I commend it to the House.

Well, this bill has all the hallmarks of another Woodhouse shambles. We had the health and safety legislation shambles—it is going to be worm farms all over again. He is the Minister with the record for the most shambolic legislation. We had the worm farms fiasco, we have got a zero-hour contracts law that does not get rid of zero-hour contracts like he said it would—it actually enshrines zero-hour contracts in the law—and now we have got this. This is a ridiculous patchwork approach that we are going to get where if you live in one town, you may have to work on Easter Sunday, but if you work in another town 10 kilometres down the road, you may not have to work on Easter Sunday. It is ridiculous.

I have to ask why the Minister is sending this legislation to the Commerce Committee when it is quite clearly an industrial relations matter. The people who are going to be affected by this legislation are working people—that is where this legislation belongs. So the thinking behind this is completely muddled and completely shambolic—exactly what we would expect from Michael Woodhouse.

There are three main reasons to vote against this legislation, and that is certainly what I intend to do tonight. First of all, this is not local government’s responsibility; this is an industrial relations matter. This relates to workers’ rights. This relates to employment agreements. That is not the purview of local government. At a time when this Government keeps piling the pressure on local councils to cut costs and to keep rates under control, it is simply giving councils one more job to do.

My local council has just agreed to spend another $100,000 a year employing extra staff to deal with all the extra by-laws and regulations it has to process because of that Government. This is just one more thing that is going to add cost to councils and cost to ratepayers, and it is not their responsibility.

The National Government needs to take responsibility for this. If the National Government wants to get rid of Easter Sunday as a day that families can have together, it should do it itself. That is its responsibility, not local government’s responsibility. It is kicking the can down the road, and the buck stops over there. It does not understand that though. It does not want to take responsibility; it wants to push the responsibility off on to local government.

The second reason to vote against this is the fact that we are going to have a mishmash of rules and regulations across the country. As I said, you could work in Palmerston North and be compelled to work on Easter Sunday, and you could work in Feilding, 15 minutes up the road, and you might not be compelled to work on Easter Sunday. There is going to be patchwork across the country of irregular laws and irregular regulation. It is going to be a dire mess.

Thirdly, it is the fact that some workers are going to lose one of the few days we have left in our calendar where people—

💬 Hon Maggie Barry: Aw!

“Aw!”, says Maggie Barry—“Aw!”. She is not interested in families; she is not interested in people actually spending time in their community, spending time with their families. Easter Sunday is one of the few days that we have got left when people can believe that they are going to have a day off and spend some time with their family. And, as the Minister pointed out, it is not a public holiday, so they are not going to get any extra compensation for it. So people are going to be expected to work on a day that has been a sacrosanct day for families and they are not going to get any additional compensation.

The Minister says: “Oh, you know, they can refuse to work if they want to.” What planet is he on? The man is in la-la land. He needs to actually go and spend some time with some minimum wage workers—people who are actually at the beck and call of their employer—and see what it really means to refuse work. Oh sure, you can challenge it. If the boss is actually silly enough to say “I’m reducing your hours.”, or “I’m dismissing you, because you turned down work on Easter Sunday.”, sure, they can challenge that. There will be myriad ways in which people can have their hours manipulated if they refuse to work on Easter Sunday and if that is what their employer demands.

They have no idea on that side of the House what it is like to be someone with insecure work—someone who is on a zero-hour contract, someone who is stuck in casual work, or someone who is stuck in fixed-term contracts or seasonal work. Those members have got absolutely no idea what that is like. They have got no idea what it means to struggle to put food on the table, and that is why they are prepared to support this legislation.

Actually, I think there would be a lot of members on that side of the House who, if they were not whipped into this, would not support this legislation. There are a few members who consistently vote against Easter trading. Sam Lotu-Iiga is one. I want to know why he has agreed to be whipped into supporting this legislation. Tim Macindoe is another one. Why has he agreed to be whipped into this? Chester Borrows—Chester Borrows is a man who has been absolutely consistent on this legislation.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member will not draw the Deputy Speaker into this debate. Have another go.

He has been consistent though, I will give him that. Anyway, there are a number of members on that side of the House who have been dragged into this because the Government knows that if it gave the National members a free vote it would not have a hope of getting this legislation through.

When we talk about employment relations and when we talk about workers’ rights, what we are actually talking about is people’s ability to live a full life, to spend time with their family, and to be able to do things like join a sports team, which you cannot do if you cannot guarantee that you are going to be at practice or that you are going to show up for every game. You cannot be a volunteer in the community because you cannot tell them: “Yes, I’m definitely going to be there on the weekend to do my volunteering role.” You cannot guarantee that you are going to have time to be there for your kids and to go along to your kids’ school production and see them performing because you do not know whether you are going to be given extra work on, say, a Wednesday night or a Thursday night. You cannot guarantee those things, and that means people cannot live a full life.

I hear it often from the members opposite that the way out of poverty, the way to having a full, productive, fulfilling, and good life, is through work. Well, not if work is like this—not if work is low-paid and insecure and it dominates the rest of your life. Not if you cannot live the rest of your life because you are at the beck and call of your employer and you have got no rights because every year the National Government takes more and more of your rights at work away from you.

Those three reasons are the reasons why every single member of the National caucus should be considering voting against this bill. And I know some of them have been consistent—they have voted in favour of having Easter trading in the past, of making people work on Easter Sunday. I know some of them have been consistent on that, but a lot of them have not, and I want to know why those who have opposed this type of legislation before are not going to take a call and actually explain why this legislation is better than what they have had before.

And why are they not going to take a call and explain to the House why they think it is appropriate for local government to have to take up the slack? Why are Government members not prepared to actually make the decision themselves? Why is National, the party of personal responsibility, not actually prepared to make this decision itself? No, it is going to push it off on to the poor old councils, so they can deal with the politics of it. They can deal with the pros and the antis and they can go through the consultation process.

Every single territorial authority in New Zealand is now going to have to go through a full consultation process, spending millions in the process. What has the Taxpayers’ Union got to say about that, I want to know. The Taxpayers’ Union, which is so opposed to councils paying the living wage—I want to hear what the Taxpayers’ Union has to say about the Government causing local government to have to spend more because the Government has not got the guts to do this itself.

There are plenty of reasons to vote against this legislation, and I am surprised and appalled that the National members have allowed the whip to be applied in this situation. This has always been a conscience vote in the past. Where is your conscience, I say to the members of the National Government. Where have your consciences gone? Why are you not prepared to stand up for what you believe in and oppose this legislation?

I would just like to thank the member Iain Lees-Galloway for pointing out that it is actually a conscience issue. I am taking a conscience vote and I will be voting for this legislation, and I would actually take issue with that member. If members of the public listened to that Opposition member’s speech, they would think that on Easter Sunday New Zealand was shut down—that everything was shut down and there were no hospitals, there were no police officers, and there was nobody on duty. They would think that we have turned the lights out and gone home for the day and that we do nothing as a family. They would think that spending time with our families does not mean that we actually travel to different parts of New Zealand—that as families, we actually want to go and do things together as tourists or that, within our own country, we also act as tourists and we do visit some cities that are actually not open to tourists.

But this is what we are trying to do. We are trying to give people the choice to open up for that tourist market. If those cities want to open up, then they can. I am really—

💬 Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: Enjoy it with their family.

Then they can enjoy it with their family—that is right, Mr Bakshi. I am pleased—

💬 Hon Maggie Barry: Go gardening.

Exactly. Sometimes, as a migrant—well, not a new migrant; I have been here for nearly 30 years—it used to really surprise me, having grown up overseas and come to New Zealand, to see New Zealand shut down at a particular hour. That was really, really surprising. You know, we were closing shops at 5 o’clock when, in other cities, shops were open to 10 or midnight, or all night—

💬 Hon Member: 24/7.

—and 24/7. It is about choice. It is about people wanting to have that choice to either go and spend their money—go shopping and do touristy things—or to go and spend time with their family and have meals at a restaurant. Whatever it is, it is their choice.

So I am really pleased to be able to take a call in the first reading of the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill, and I commend the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety for bringing this bill to the House. Do you know, just in the last few years, as the Minister pointed out, there have been a number of debates about the Easter trading law, including debates on the member’s bill of my colleague and my next-door neighbour Jacqui Dean, and on the Hon Todd McClay’s bill as well. Each time that legislation was debated in this House it fell short of the mark due to an odd amalgam of voting behaviour and a mix of reasons by MPs for their opposition to the change.

I think, you know, today we are able to see the beginning of the end of the debate for New Zealand shopkeepers and businesses. This House will give back to communities the decision of when and where and how their ratepayers want to operate their Easter period.

When my colleague Jacqui Dean, the member for Waitaki, spoke on the legislation, she said: “Easter trading is just such a contentious issue, and any proposed change always gives rise to questions about how to strike a balance between the interests of businesses and the interests of employees, alongside public recognition of … activities.” I would like to add my own words by adding the religious and cultural significance of that date as well. For Christians, Easter Sunday is the foundation of our faith. It was when Christ died on the cross, and his resurrection proved Him to be the son of God.

But modern-day New Zealand is actually a multicultural country. It is actually a multi-ethnic one and it is actually a multi-religious one. It is secular, and the needs of one should not overweigh the needs of another. I believe that. The law changes that we are proposing today, that we debate today, seek to address the balance. This law will give the decision-making powers back to the people. It is a long-term, fair, and appropriate solution that will not burden communities with a law that they do not actually want.

Earlier, I think it was Mr Iain Lees-Galloway who was actually saying that he wants one law for all—is that right? But Easter trading is actually not about central planning. We have different rules for different cities, and there are some cities in New Zealand that can actually trade during Easter and there are some where you cannot. What we are trying to say is that we actually need to give the decision back to the people for them to decide, because they can have the choice.

💬 Andrew Bayly: We trust them, Melissa—we trust them.

And we do actually trust them. This is a great bill, and, as chair of the Commerce Committee, I look forward to the submissions on this bill. Thank you very much. I commend the bill to the House.

It is a very great pleasure to stand and speak on the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill at its first reading, because this is one of those rare moments where my Catholic upbringing and my trade union principles absolutely intersect and guide my conscience. My party is allowing me to use my conscience and cast a conscience vote on this bill. I am very confused—and I think that Melissa Lee is very confused, actually—because Ms Lee seemed to be in front of this House telling us that the National members will have a free conscience vote on this. Is that correct?

💬 Melissa Lee: We always do.

So they are. So this means that the National Government has flip-flopped again. Melissa Lee tells us that National is now going to be having a conscience vote on this issue. That is what she has just clarified for us. That is great. That is what we have been calling for. We have been calling for the National Government to truly make this a conscience issue so that we can test the conscience of the Parliament on this. Now that Melissa Lee has clarified that issue for us, I know it means that this bill is unlikely to proceed past its first reading. I know that a number of Government MPs will use their conscience votes to vote against this bill. They will use their conscience votes to vote against this bill if they are not whipped into doing otherwise.

We know that Bill English has a track history of voting against measures that take Easter Sunday away from working people. We know that Gerry Brownlee has a track record of voting against bills that take Easter Sunday away from working people. Nick Smith is another one, as is Chester Borrows, whom I can now speak about. He is another person who has regularly voted against these measures, so he will be able to use his conscience to vote against it again, will he not? I am not so sure. Now that Melissa Lee is not here to answer, those members do not seem so sure any more. They are now starting to scratch their heads, but here is the really interesting thing—

💬 Hon Maggie Barry: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The tradition continues, I think, that members who are not present in the House do not have that drawn to—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I am dealing with a point of order. [Interruption] Order! I am dealing with a point of order. That is not a point.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. But here is the really interesting thing. Tim Macindoe is the senior Government whip, and he has voted against these measures to take Easter Sunday from working people on two occasions since he has been in Parliament, and yet he is now going to be the whip requiring all of those other MPs I just talked about to vote against their conscience. How ironic is that? I think that the churchgoing people of Hamilton will have some questions for their local MP Tim Macindoe if he exercises the role of whip in a way that forces him and other MPs who do not agree with this piece of legislation to actually vote for it. Now Chris Bishop is looking really confused. He is not sure whether it is a conscience vote or whether it is not, so can we have some clarification, please, from the whip in the House at the moment, Joanne Hayes? Is it a conscience vote or not for the National members? They are really unclear about that—there is no answer. I would like that to be clarified by the end of this debate.

I want to put on record my conscience vote. It will be recorded in opposition to this legislation. What both my Catholic upbringing and my trade union principles tell me is that the economy is here to work for people—the economy is here to work for people, not the other way round. That is where the National Government has got this so badly wrong.

We are debating this on Melbourne Cup day. The reason I refer to that is not just that I like to say “Melbourne Cup day” rather a lot. The reason I refer to it is that, actually, it is the race that stops a nation. Why do they call it the race that stops a nation? Because it is a public holiday in Victoria, and there they celebrate that. They do not quiver in their boots about it and get frightened about it and run and hide from it. They proudly say “This is the race that stops a nation.” because people have the day off. They have the day off to celebrate and go to events together.

Minister Woodhouse talked before about the events that happen over Easter. He talked about them as if they are reasons why we have to have shops open. Actually, those events are the reason why we should not have shops open. They are the reason why those workers should be free to go to the Easter tournaments. Those workers should be free to go with their families to family gatherings. Those workers should be free, if they choose, to go and celebrate Mass on Easter Sunday. These are the events that happen on Easter that make it important that working people have the right to actually go and participate in those events. What is it that this National Government has got against families? This is another piece of legislation where those members are voting, I think, in a whipped manner—Melissa Lee seemed a bit confused about that—against families having this time off. And what is the harm? What is the harm of families being able to actually get together over Easter?

In my family, traditionally, because my children are involved in basketball, it has become the weekend that we do the basketball Easter tournament, because it is always at Easter. The Easter tournament is a big thing in my family, and the ability for me as a parent—and for me as a parent if I happened to be working in a shop—to accompany my children and be courtside while they play their Easter tournament in basketball every year is something that I want other families to have the ability to do also. Those are the sorts of things that happen over Easter.

There are not many of these days. In fact, I think there are about 3 of them.

💬 Denise Roche: 3½.

There are 3½ days every year when shops are not able to open. Is that too much to ask? This is the green space—the time that is put aside for family time. And, yes, there is, for many people, a religious component to this. This is about prioritising the things that are important to New Zealanders, but that National Government cannot stand it. It cannot stand for people to be able to prioritise their families or their religious events. Whatever occasion they choose to celebrate together over a long weekend, that National Government has got to take it away from them.

Melissa Lee in her contribution—which I think was a confused contribution; almost as confused as this legislation is—talked about wanting to stop certain voting behaviours over Easter Sunday trading. Well, what are those voting behaviours that she wants to stop? Are they the voting behaviours of Bill English; Gerry Brownlee; Nick Smith; Chester Borrows; Chris Finlayson, on the odd occasion; Michael Woodhouse, the Minister himself; Alfred Ngaro; Tim Macindoe; and Sam Lotu-Iiga? Are those the strange voting behaviours she wants to stop? They are National MPs who, if left to their own conscience—when allowed to actually exercise that—would vote against this bill, and I would encourage them to do so.

I would particularly put the challenge out to Tim Macindoe. I particularly put the challenge out to him to stand on his principles and not allow his colleagues to require him to force everyone else into voting for a piece of legislation he does not even agree with—going by his former voting record, if that means anything at all.

I am proud to be standing here to say that I will use my conscience to vote against this bill. It is anti-worker. It is anti-family. It is all those things that the National Government is known for, and it does not take New Zealand forward. It certainly does not fix the 150,000 jobs that the Government is losing in the economy as we speak. It does not address any of those issues. What it does is make a shambles out of industrial legislation, and it puts it on to local government—and local government does not want this responsibility.

I rise in support of the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill. On this side, we believe in choice. We believe that customers should have the choice to go and shop when they want. We believe that businesses should have choice whether they want to actually serve their customers and that employees should have the choice to either work or not work on days such as this and have protections under law for that. This bill will offer just that.

What is stunning, sitting in this House tonight, is to hear, particularly in the contribution from Mr Lees-Galloway, just how out of touch Labour is with New Zealand. The first point Mr Lees-Galloway made was that he did not feel this bill should go to the Commerce Committee but to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. Well, here is a little bit of edification for Mr Lees-Galloway: businesses do not open for their employees. Their employees are worthy of protection under the law, but businesses do not open for employees. They open for customers—they open for customers. That is commerce. That is the reason businesses are trading.

Of course, it got worse, because we have seen on so many occasions that the Labour Opposition will rail for more legal protection for workers, and then Mr Lees-Galloway stood up here tonight and said that legal protections do not work and the ability of employees to take action against employers, such as are being provided in this bill, does not work—somewhat in contradiction, some would argue, with those members’ normal line. But it gets worse. It gets worse because Mr Lees-Galloway said that local bodies should not have to consult with people in their areas and that local communities should not have choice. Well, on this side, we think the opposite.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member is misleading the House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No, no. These are debating points. It is a matter of interpretation.

The public can listen to what Mr Lees-Galloway said and they will hear it loud and clear.

What we are proposing here is that local communities have the choice to do what is right for their communities. In New Zealand, we know that Queenstown and Taupō can open for Easter, but just a few tens of kilometres away, Rotorua and Wānaka cannot. We have a mismatch of situations today. Why not give the communities the choice to serve the interests of their communities best, to their best judgment, and for the authorities that have been elected for that purpose? I commend the bill.

I rise to take the first call for the Greens on the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill. I am really pleased to see that the Speaker has responded to the letter that I sent to him yesterday, asking that members be able to exercise a conscience vote on this bill, even though it is a Government bill. I am really pleased that he has responded to us and said yes. That is great. I, like other people in the House, hope that that is what will happen.

We have got to wonder where this bill came from. It kind of just got announced and put on to the Order Paper, but it came out of nowhere. Even the regulatory impact statement suggests that this bill was scrambled together in a hurry. The covering note from Gerald Clark, the manager of employment standards policy for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, said in his last point that the regulatory impact statement “included consultation with government agencies and Local Government New Zealand.” He goes on to say: “MBIE has not been permitted to consult with other stakeholders, or to consult more widely about shop trading [hours].” It seems highly unusual, to me, to not consult other stakeholders. Business New Zealand, for example, would be a classic one that you would want to consult with. The Employers and Manufacturers Association would be another group that you may want to consult with, and, certainly, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and FIRST Union, which represents shop employees—they would be very clear stakeholders that you would probably want to consult with, if you were not in a dreadful hurry to get this through and on to the Order Paper. But I would certainly think that the trade unions should have been consulted, given that we are talking about workers, shop assistants, who work on Easter Sunday.

Back to the regulatory impact statement—it basically confirms that this bill was put together in a rush. It says that the bill was based on Todd McClay’s 2009 member’s bill. That is quite handy, if you are in a rush—there is one just there, really handy, for you. The fact is, though, that it failed then. The Government members voted against it, and this was in 2009. It was National that was in power, and it was a National member’s bill. So it will be interesting today to see whether Chester Borrows, Bill English, Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga, Tim Macindoe, and Jonathan Young actually utilise their personal vote to oppose this bill this time, because, essentially, it is the same bill. One would expect the same response—wouldn’t one—particularly if they voted against their own colleague’s bill because of strongly held Christian beliefs.

There is no reason to suppose that this bill will pass its first reading. If MPs across the House do have a genuine personal vote—and given the number of times that this House has discussed liberalising Easter Sunday shop trading hours and voted against that proposition—we may not pass it tonight. The haste with which it was developed really makes me question why it is before the House at all.

I think the reason that it has been put is that—really, we should go back and consider what was happening at the time that the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, Mr Woodhouse, announced the bill to the media, on 24 August. Interestingly, that announcement about this bill coincided with the debate in the Committee of the whole House on his Health and Safety Reform Bill. In fact, just a few days before it the Minister was facing severe criticism with the release of the list of low-risk industries that would be exempt from requiring a health and safety representative. We must remember that those low-risk industries included dairy and cattle farming and high-risk industries included minigolf and worm farming. It was also at this time that the families of the men who had been killed at work in the forests and at the Pike River mine were attending Parliament and were calling on the Government to strengthen the law and deliver legislation that would actually ensure that other people’s sons and partners and fathers would make it home from work alive. If we think of this bill within that context, I guess we could say that at the time the Government was really keen to look for a distraction from those crucial and really emotive issues.

Let us talk about this bill. This is the 10th attempt since 1996 to liberalise Easter Sunday trading hours—that is, once every 2 years, on average, there is a bill in the House about Easter Sunday trading hours. Green MPs have opposed these bills and we have exercised our consciences because Easter Sunday, whether it is observed as a religious holiday or not, is one of only 3½ days that gives shop assistants a guaranteed day off, and one of only 3½ days a year that gives everyone else a break from the mad drive to consume—goodness knows, we sometimes need a break from that.

It strikes me as kind of strange that this bill liberalises only Easter Sunday when one could really argue—and I guess it falls back to the argument that Melissa Lee was putting forward—that if the religious ceremony of Easter Sunday can be ignored by commerce, then why not Christmas Day or Good Friday. But this bill does not look at those other days. Actually, this is one of the comments that was made in the regulatory impact statement—that maybe they should be reviewed, really. Where the Greens come from is that we support having more public holidays. We would consider supporting making Easter Sunday a public holiday to increase our annual total to 12 per year, and to actually enable those shop assistants, if this bill went through, to get paid without having to take annual leave. We would support that. We would consider supporting that. But this is not what this bill does.

The other thing that concerns us is that this bill essentially gives local councils the bylaw-making power that means they can decide whether they have shops open in their areas if they wish. I have to say that this seems to be a fairly inconsistent approach, given the way this Government has treated local government and the centralisation of an enormous number of local powers—things around housing, things around annual plans, and things around water. Those sorts of decisions seem to be taken away from local councils, but, hey, they can have a say and bear the costs of creating a by-law so that they can have Easter Sunday as a shop-open day.

The whole area around Easter Sunday trading hours is kind of a dog’s breakfast. There are already exemptions in place, and this bill will keep those exemptions in place, for Parnell Road in Auckland, the Arts Centre in Christchurch, Carnegie Centre, Moray Place in Dunedin, Market Place only on Collins Road in Hamilton, Harbour Market in Napier, Nelson, Paihia, Mariners Mall in Picton, Taupō central, Richmond Court in Thames, and Wānaka—you can shop in Wānaka on Easter Sunday—at Pembroke Mall, Stage I only. What I am saying is it is a heck of a dog’s breakfast because these exemptions were not made by local council; these exemptions were made by central government. So you have to wonder whether this Government is abrogating its responsibility about having a consistent approach to shop trading hours on Easter Sundays. I certainly think it is.

Finally, the other area we are dreadfully concerned about is this idea that employees can say that they are not going to work on Easter Sunday and suffer no consequences for it, which is ridiculous in this current environment of industrial relations, which has tipped the balance in favour of employers in terms of—

I am sorry, but the member’s time has expired.

It is wonderful, actually, to be back in the House, with the opportunity to speak, and on a piece of legislation, the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill, that raises some curious ironies, just having listened to the debate here this evening. I have to say from the outset that New Zealand First will support this bill through to the select committee. We do so, because we understand the realities out there in terms of the economy and the opportunities that exist for people to create a living, but with some reservations. Those reservations lie in the areas of employment, and the way in which some employers behave. It is our desire that the rights of employees not be undermined through legislation that aids and abets unscrupulous employers who wish to create circumstances in the workforce where, if a person chooses not to work on a day that they do not wish to work for religious or other reasons, that employer may choose to constructively orchestrate that employee’s dismissal or orchestrate a reduction of hours or, by other means or other measures, make their continued employment there untenable.

We would like to put very clearly on the record that we support this legislation through to the select committee for a constructive analysis, for a constructive examination, and for thorough public consultation, and we will make our final decision once all of those things have occurred. But I cannot allow some of the comments and some of the hyperventilating that I have had to bear witness to this evening to go without some comment.

I would have thought, actually, that if the Government wanted this legislation to go through, it could have done it quite some time ago at far less cost to the taxpayer. I get a little bit nauseated by hearing lectures from members of the National Party both here in the House, out on the hustings, and through the media about how concerned they are about taxpayers’ money and the expenditure. Well, we have wasted how many hours and how many tens of thousands of dollars seeing Mr McClay’s bill go through unsuccessfully when, in actual fact, this Government is just demonstrating what it could have done right from the outset. It could have taken the bill up as a Government bill, put it on the floor of the House, and rammed it through, as it probably intends to do anyway.

The other thing that I have got to comment on is Mr Hudson’s comments about choice. What a farcical speech that was. If the member truly believed in choice he would explain to the House why there is no choice—

💬 Brett Hudson: Good choice.

Mr Hudson, you have had your say, so now it is our turn. If the member truly believes in freedom of choice, then explain why all the members of his party are being whipped tonight.

Mr Hudson, let me take one back to the smacking legislation. The choice in the National Party ranks was so clear that members of the National Party back in the old days—you know, when Helen Clark was the Prime Minister and John Key was in Opposition, ranting and raving about what he was going to do in Government and how appalling the anti-smacking legislation was. That was not choice. They were whipped like a bunch of little puppies—puppies. So, Mr Hudson, can it. Can it because, actually, Mr Hudson, you are like that old Hudson car—slow, smoky, rather rounded at the edges, and going nowhere fast. And no one buys the crap we just heard this evening, thank you.

I want to go on to the other comments of Melissa Lee, one of these other wonderful National Party members. She is from Korea, as Wikipedia says. Melissa Lee told the House in her rather condescending manner, which she is becoming renowned for, that we need to grow up in New Zealand. Well, I have got a short message: if you do not like New Zealand, go back to Korea. That is the first message.

The second message is—[Interruption] That got them going. The second message is let us look at public holidays in Korea—let us look at public holidays in Korea. So in Korea we have the Korean New Year. Do they work on the Korean New Year? No. Let us look at the independence day movement—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I would like to hear what the member is saying.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. So let us look at the public holidays in Korea, where nobody—

💬 Hon Amy Adams: Racism and vitriol.

Oh, the Minister is upset. This is one Minister in the House who, when she gets her little dander up, cannot resist having a slap. Well, Amy, listen up—

💬 Hon Amy Adams: Only at racist comments.

Oh, I am a racist? Well, telling the—[Interruption] Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No, no. Look, this is a robust debate, and I will just ask you to calm things down. So, Ron Mark, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Without any overtures of racism, let us look at the holidays in Korea that are public holidays that people do not work on. Coming to New Zealand and telling us we should grow up, in our House, where we allow freedom of speech, is a little different to what we see. Buddha’s birthday—holy heck! So now we say that New Zealanders should have to work on a religious day, but in Korea, where Miss Lee comes from, Buddha’s birthday, on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month, is a public holiday when no one works.

So let us look at another National Party member. Oh, jeepers—Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi. This gentleman also understands and respects the value of religious days and the need for public holidays, but he sits in this House ready to take a call—I guess—to support this legislation. But let us have a look at India. There are so many, I just could not read them out in this time that I have available, but one of the religious holidays in India is Easter—Easter—when people do not have to work. And there is Good Friday, Easter Sunday, St Thomas the Apostle, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the feast of St Francis Xavier, and Christmas Day. And let us have a look at a few others: Eid ul-Fitr, Eid ul-Adha, Eid al-Ghadeer, and let us not forget Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday.

Do not come into this House preaching and telling New Zealanders to grow up. Do not give us the condescending rhetoric, because on one hand we know that although certain people are towing the National Party line like a bunch of little whipped puppies, back in their own world they would never ever dare stand up and say this.

So I come right back to where I started. New Zealand First is happy to support this legislation going to the select committee for a constructive debate and for a constructive analysis. We actually differ from Labour. Being a former mayor and a member of Local Government New Zealand, I talk regularly and frequently with those people. They have no objection to Local Government New Zealand making that decision within the territorial authorities. They do accept that it will incur costs.

I would remind this Government that Local Government New Zealand has said time and time and time again that every time this Government passes on a new responsibility to Local Government New Zealand, it puts costs on ratepayers, and then the next thing we hear is Nick Smith standing up blasting local government for increasing rates. Well, this piece of legislation will, in Carterton, probably cost the Carterton ratepayers around 100 grand a year, just to go through the consultative process. That will put a 1 percent increase on rates just to cover this off. So my point I would make to the Government of the day is that when you are looking at the papers coming from Local Government New Zealand contesting and proposing other ways it may be able to raise revenue other than through rates, think of this bill. Think of the compliance costs that this Government is foisting upon ratepayers of territorial authorities, and address, with an open mind, that issue of revenue collection funding for local government.

Every time this Government puts through legislation that passes on a responsibility, along with compliance costs, to territorial authorities, it then sits there, washes its hands and says: “Oh, we’ve done a good job and now it’s up to the ratepayers to decide.” Well, the bottom line is that ratepayers have no problem deciding themselves whether or not they want trading on certain days, whether they see an economic advantage, whether they see employment opportunities that they may lose, and whether they see that it will be good for them.

If we had a port like Tauranga with cruise ships coming in, we may well want, in Carterton or in Masterton or in south Wairarapa, to service those cruise ships and have people working. But that is a decision we should make, and that is a question we should analyse thoroughly at the select committee. But we in New Zealand First will not sit here and allow other members who come from different countries that actually do stand steadfastly by their religious holidays to sit here and preach to us and tell us that we should grow up.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill. First of all, I would like to clarify a few things that the previous speaker, Ron Mark, has raised. On any religious day in India, if there is a public holiday, every business is open and they trade. They do not—

💬 Ron Mark: No.

Your knowledge is totally zero. The only two holidays—yes, I am from India; I lived over there for 35 years. I can tell you that on every religious day, every shop is open; every shop is allowed to trade. The only 2 days when the whole of India is closed are not religious days. They are the Republic Day of India and Independence Day. So, for your knowledge, clarify it for yourself before you speak, and do not try to be racist.

The previous speaker talked about how we are puppets. You are a puppet of your leader. You stand up every day and talk about regional growth. While this Government is doing something for the regions to grow, your party is objecting to it. So I tell you to grow up and allow other people to live over here.

Let me say one thing: this bill will allow the regions to grow. This will give them the opportunity to trade on a holiday, Easter Sunday. Every long weekend we see long queues going out of the main cities to the regions, where people go and spend family time. When the family is together, the only things that they can do are go out and eat or fuel their cars and come back. But if the businesses are open and shops are allowed to open, then they can go and do some shopping together with the family and spend some quality time in the regions.

New Zealand First keeps on talking about the growth of regions. This Government is very focused on putting up legislation that will help the regions to grow. With these words, I commend this bill to the House.

I call Mojo Mathers—5 minutes.

The Green Party will be opposing this bill, which opens up trading on one of the very few days of the year when trading is currently restricted. I have to say I do not understand the obsession of some people with liberalising trading on Easter Sunday. This is something like the ninth or 10th attempt to do so in the last 9 years. I just think that this is inappropriate.

Easter Sunday is one of only 3½ days in the year that offer Kiwi families a day where they have some protection from work commitments and from the constant pressure of mass consumerism. Of course, there are many exceptions. There are many service industries, emergency services, and utility operators whose employees are obliged to work or be available for work 365 days of the year and may be required to work on Christmas Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, or Anzac morning. But retaining a few special, precious days of the year that are free from the expectation that retail shops will be open—for the people who work in the retail industry, that is incredibly important.

When you talk about choice—for people to have the choice to shop—what about the people who work in the retail industry having the choice not to work, and to be with their family and to have a family gathering without having to juggle around these work commitments in the retail industry? These people are some of the lowest-paid people in the workforce. These are the ones who most need this protection because there is an incredible power imbalance in negotiating around taking leave from work. If the shop is going to be open that day and you work for that shop, you are going to find it very difficult to say: “No, I would rather spend the day with my family on Easter Sunday.”

These days stand as significant symbols of freedom from a culture of unfettered, unconstrained, unbridled consumerism at all expenses, and we need to value and encourage such days that are free from these pressures because it is that pressure of mass consumerism that is destroying our planet. They are also incredibly important symbols of valuing family life and work-life balance. We need to protect these 3½ days. We need to grow and expand them, not constrain them, because it is a struggle already for many families to get together and have genuine family time.

For personal reasons Easter Sunday is of personal significance for me and for many other hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who will use this day to go to church to celebrate. That is important and we should honour that. Yes, there are other days that are equally important to other groups of people, but we should be looking at those and making more public holidays. We should be expanding them, not reducing them.

We need genuine public holidays, and it is Green Party policy that Easter Sunday would be a public holiday, so that if you are expected to work on that day, then at least you can have a day in lieu. But this is a dog’s breakfast of a bill, and we will not be supporting it. Thank you.

I call Marama Fox—5 minutes.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Nei te mihi atu ki a koe. I came to the House this evening interested in the debate. When I heard that it was going to be a conscience vote, I took out the bill and had another look at it. I wondered to myself—we had made a decision as a party where we would sit on this, because the bill gives people the choice to not have to go to work. But most people in the House understand that I am a deeply religious person, and if I had to do this on conscience, based on my faith and my religious practices, I could not, in all fairness, stand up and vote for this bill.

But I did not intend to speak to it. I came merely to listen to the debate and then to cast our votes, until I heard the member from New Zealand First deliver a borderline racist diatribe about the members of this House and their ability to cast their vote or not. In fact, I was embarrassed to have to sit here and listen to that. These members who come to Parliament do so because they have been voted in and are New Zealand citizens. To make assumptions about their religious practice and to make assumptions about their ethnic practice and their cultural practice is, to me, abhorrent. I could not sit here and abide to listen to that type of drivel any more without standing up and saying my piece.

I would like to think that if I cast a conscience vote here tonight based on my religious practice and on the faith of the other thousands of people just like myself in this country who would like to have their voice heard, I will not be belittled for that and I will not be treated less than fairly for that. I would like to think that here in this Parliament we would have the freedom to speak, and that here in this country, where we value our freedoms, we would have the freedom to assert our opinions without threat—

💬 Ron Mark: Without being condescending.

—thank you to the member—of being treated as a lesser citizen for doing so, of being disparaged, and of being spoken down to in the way that was demonstrated here tonight. The member might think that he was listening to someone who was being condescending in voicing her personal opinion, but she made no personal attack on any of the other members in this House in doing so. What I had to listen to was a personal attack based on someone’s cultural, religious, and ethnic background, and I object to that.

So tonight I will stand and deliver the conscience votes of the Māori Party—one for and one against—as per my religious practices and as per the discussions that we have had with the rest of our party membership. I stand tonight to support the voice of freedom, the right to choose in this country, and the right to speak freely without fear of being belittled, without fear of racial prejudice, and without fear—unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case in all circumstances—of having your words used against you in unfair and abhorrent ways. Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak briefly on this bill. Firstly, I would like to endorse the speech of the previous member, Marama Fox. I too was disgusted to hear the criticism of members in this House based on their religion, their colour, and the place where they were born. That is very disappointing, and the member has cast a shadow across his own party. He has done it to himself, and it reflects on him only.

This bill gives people choice. It is quite ironic also that a former Mayor of Carterton is voting against this bill, because he has been, I thought, a strong advocate—

💬 Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have already signalled in my speech that we are voting for the legislation.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): These are debating points. It is a matter of interpretation. I heard what the member said. This member has a different view. He can express that view.

The former Mayor of Carterton was criticising the bill in that he was not sticking up for local government. He complained about the costs of putting democracy to local government. This is a man who has been advocating for giving power to the people—power to local government—for a long, long time, yet he criticises the same bill because of the cost of democracy.

This bill does give local government bodies the choice to open up stores and allow people to trade on Easter Sunday. It is not even across the whole district; they are able to specify particular areas that can and cannot be open for trading on Easter Sunday. I suggest to the previous Green speaker: put yourself in the shoes of a business operator—a business operator in Rotorua who cannot open on Easter Sunday and who wishes to take the opportunity to trade in order to turn a few bucks through the till so that the family and the community can prosper and better themselves.

The opportunity to trade on Easter Sunday should be available to people in this country if they choose, and, similarly, employees will have the choice as to whether or not they wish to work on this day without fear of being sacked or pressured. This is a good bill because it allows local government bodies to be consistent across the whole country, giving them the choice to trade or not trade. I support this bill.

The next call is a split call. Dr David Clark—5 minutes.

I want to invoke in this debate the famous sermon of Rutherford Waddell, known as the sermon on “The Sin of Cheapness”. It was a sermon that transformed working and living conditions for a swath of working New Zealanders a century ago. It was delivered on a Sunday morning in early spring 1888 by a Dunedin church minister who spoke to his congregation about sweated labour and the sin of covetousness.

Reverend Waddell was a skinny Irish Presbyterian minister with a slight speech impediment, but he brought about some significant social change. He did it from the context in which he worked, in an area known as the Devil’s Half-Acre back then. It is actually in my electorate, where Princes Street, Maclaggan Street, and Maitland Street align. It was an area of poverty, cheek-by-jowl bars, gambling, opium dens, and the like. People were brought together by poverty—that was what they had in common. In 1880 he started work in that area and set up a food bank—an association to run a food bank. A decade later he had set up a free library, a savings bank, and New Zealand’s first free kindergarten, with the help of a parishioner. He was a man who talked, but his actions spoke louder still.

It is his spirit that I believe was captured in what the founders of the Labour Party called applied Christianity. He was concerned particularly about the wages, which were less than subsistence wages, that were being paid to seamstresses in his area, and they were the topic of part of his sermon. He believed that there was both a spiritual and a moral imperative to fight against the evil of forcing down wages below what people could live off in order to ensure the profitability of manufacturing.

The claims he made in his sermon were picked up by the Otago Daily Times. The editor of the day sent along his chief reporter, who investigated those claims and found that they were perfectly true. From there a royal commission was established—or subsequently, at least—and Mr Waddell was appointed as one of its members.

The reason that I bring this up here today is that he challenged the working conditions of the day that were driving down and down and down and down and were not allowing for sufficient income for those families living in poverty to live in dignity. This is part of an ongoing battle in our society. Back then Mr Waddell recognised that New Zealanders did not want the wealth and poverty extremes that they had experienced in the countries they had come from, but that is the direction we are heading in again, and with much of the legislation coming to this House we see employment conditions further undermined.

With that invoking of “The Sin of Cheapness” sermon in mind, I see that today we have a bill before us that wants to promote consumerism at any cost. It wants to make everything available all the time at no extra cost, and those who will be forced to respond as workers to the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill—the people who work and live on low wages in New Zealand—will have few choices. We know that is their reality. They have to work the hours that their employers ask them to, to meet rent, to meet power, to preserve their employment, to meet family obligations, and so on.

We have a problem ongoing in this country. There is a cost from this kind of legislation that falls on families, that falls on human dignity, and that falls on social engagement and social capital. We as New Zealanders, I believe, have to challenge this kind of legislation when it comes to the House. This is not the New Zealand that we want—the New Zealand that undermines the few days that are left for people to be sure that they can spend time in common with friends and family, that they can maintain social bonds, that they can build social capital, and that they can create the kind of society that I wish to live in and that I am sure many New Zealanders wish to live in.

In the 1950s an ordinary storeman—and they mostly were—on the shop floor could earn enough with a weekly wage packet to support a family on his own and also to hold down a mortgage. A storeman in Mitre 10, I suggest, today would not be able to manage that. We live in a society where zero-hour contracts are maintained and where precarious workers are forced to do things they should not do. I will be voting against this legislation and I encourage others to do so.

I would just like to acknowledge the previous speaker, David Clark, for allowing me the opportunity to say a few words. We have heard from speakers on the other side of the House that this bill will provide choice. How ironic when it does not provide choice to MPs in this House, because on what has always been considered an issue of conscience, National has refused to allow its own MPs choice. Just as there is the reality of their not being allowed a choice in voting on this bill, the reality for workers over whether they will be able to choose to work on Good Friday or Christmas Day or Easter Sunday is that they will be told by their employer, just as John Key has told members of the National Party that this is what they will do. Let us not kid ourselves here.

I was brought up a Catholic. I guess I had the privilege of being taught some Christian values, many of which, I think, underpin many of the laws in this country. I am not saying that we are in any way any better than any of the other religions, and I think that we have a wonderful and a diverse country that is evolving. But at this point the 3 days of Christmas Day, Easter Sunday, and Good Friday have been respected by the law and by the country as being days that should be held for family. What this National Government is determined to do is to put commerce over conscience, to put values after value, because it thinks we should all be working every day to generate the economy. It is failing to uphold the family values that were and have been preserved on those 3 days—just those 3 days out of 365. It is not too much to ask.

What I say to the members on the other side of the House, who I think will be struggling a little bit with this one, is stand up for yourselves. Stand up for the people you represent and the values you have been taught. I ask them to stand up for their own consciences and vote for the reality, which is that when it comes to whether a worker will be able to choose to work or not, they know that the worker will have no choice, just as the National MPs have been given no choice. It is outrageous.

I have been in the House longer than quite a few around here and I know the issues on which we are privileged to have a conscience vote, and when it comes to issues like this we have been—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Oh, you guys have been whipped by the unions.

Not that righteous Minister there—he is a johnny-come-lately. Ask what the issues of conscience are. You would not know, because you have not got one. You have not got one. Can I say—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take personal offence at that comment, and I ask that it be withdrawn.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Yes. I ask the member to withdraw that comment.

I withdraw. All I ask is that the members on the other side who have a conscience are given the right to exercise it, just as we are saying that workers should be given the right to genuinely say whether they want to work or not. We know—and it is no good pretending otherwise—that when it comes to asking a worker to work on Christmas Day, Easter Sunday, or Good Friday, they will have to work and their families will suffer.

So where is the conscience of the righteous members? I listened to their rantings, quite frankly, on legislation like the smacking bill, like the Civil Union Bill, and like the gay marriage bill. They demanded—in fact, they insisted—that members have the right to a conscience vote, to be allowed to do what they like. Indeed, that is what happened on this side of the House. I respect my colleagues for whatever decision they made. But on this piece of legislation, let us be clear: National has overridden the conscience of its members of Parliament, to say—

💬 Paul Foster-Bell: Not true.

Yes, it has, and it has removed the right for them to uphold the values—not just spiritual values but community and family values—that have always been a part of New Zealand in upholding Christmas Day, Easter Sunday, and Good Friday as days that should be for family first and not for commerce. The National Government has put commerce over conscience and it is outrageous, and people should know that.

I would like to start by acknowledging Marama Fox from the Māori Party. Kia ora, Marama. That was a very heartfelt and thoughtful speech, and I am really pleased that I was here to witness it, so thank you for that.

I am used to working on Easter Sunday, as a grape grower and a winemaker. If we were not out there harvesting grapes or bird scaring and we happened to be finished early, I would be down at the Classic Fighters air show in Marlborough, which is on every second Easter. In the alternate years, it is at Wānaka, which has its own version of it—Warbirds over Wānaka. Thousands of people travel to both those places in alternate years to go to those air shows, and the number of people who complain because they cannot shop when they are in those areas is phenomenal. The retailers and the people who work in those shops actually want to work. They want to be able to open. They want to be able to provide a service, and there are plenty of people there who want to utilise that service.

I am somewhat of a lapsed Anglican, and I do not have any particular strength in my religious views. I think that we have to acknowledge that in modern New Zealand there are many, many religious groups of different faiths with different religious days that they wish to mark. If we go down the path of having no flexibility in this area, it would be quite unjust to not recognise those other religious faiths’ particular days.

This is a great bill. The bill gives the choice to the local people, and I commend it to the House.

Members, this debate has concluded. The Speaker has determined that the subject of this vote will be treated as a conscience issue. In this case, I know that there are members who want a personal vote, and I am prepared to accept one. This is the process that we are going to follow: I am going to put the question, and I am going to announce the result. At that stage, any member can ask for a personal vote.