Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill

There is an extensive Supplementary Order Paper in the name of the Minister, Michael Woodhouse, that, I think, in total addresses many aspects of Part 1 of the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill. It is a complex Supplementary Order Paper that addresses a number of different matters. I am aware that members have views on different clauses and do not universally support or oppose all aspects of the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 179, so I intend to begin by working my way through the changes proposed by the Minister and address, in particular, those that we are opposed to, but also pointing out where members will be in support. I want to make it clear that it is a Supplementary Order Paper that has a number of different aspects to it, and people have views both for and against different parts of it.

The aspect that caused members on the Commerce Committee the most concern was the shift from councils being required to implement a by-law to regulate Easter Sunday shop trading, to a policy. The thinking behind this is understandable. Councils came to the select committee and told us that they would much prefer that the Government take responsibility for this issue so that we have one rule across all councils, and that by passing this responsibility on to councils the Government was actually generating a lot of cost for councils because with a by-law comes the requirement to consult and to draft the by-law and all those matters. So there is a lot of staffing resource and a lot of time that would be dedicated to, essentially, doing the Government’s work for it.

In response to that, understandably, the Government has proposed, through the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper, to relax the requirements somewhat by shifting from having a by-law to having a policy. It is doing this in the name of reducing costs for councils. That is problematic on a number of fronts. First of all, it does not actually reduce costs for councils all that much. They still have to go through consultative processes and they still have to review their policy. In fact, what a number of the amendments proposed by the Minister actually do is they sort of have a policy-plus approach, so that it is somewhere between a by-law and a policy. Councils will be required to have a local shop trading policy but will have to have levels of consultation and review that are normally required under a by-law. So, actually, councils will have to do as much work and bear as much cost by shifting to a policy as they would have had to do under a by-law anyway.

However, it does reduce somewhat the public’s ability to have their say. I know that my colleague David Cunliffe, who chairs the Regulations Review Committee, will traverse aspects of this change, which, arguably, creates a Henry VIII situation where councils will, through a policy-making process and through regulation, be able to overrule the primary legislation. It is problematic, on one hand, in that it creates those difficulties in the legislation, but also in that it does not actually achieve the intention, which is to reduce the costs placed on councils. Councils were quite clear about this—that they do not actually want this responsibility at all and this is sort of a halfway house approach from the Government to attempt to address that.

I will—and I know other members are planning to—oppose those aspects of the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper. There are aspects of the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper that I do support, and they are those that refer to, basically, workers’ rights. Although overall I am opposed to the approach that removes one of those family and community days when people can be guaranteed a day off work, in the event that this House does decide to pass this legislation—and, certainly, the vote at the second reading suggests that the House does intend to pass this legislation—there is some mitigation offered by some of the amendments that the Minister proposes. In the name of making a bad piece of legislation slightly better, I am interested in supporting that.

Subpart 2 of Part 2 refers to shop employee rights, and there are some aspects there—clause 5H refers to the provision requiring a shop employee to work or be available to work on Sunday being unenforceable. The original legislation as drafted said that a worker cannot be required to work. Of course, earlier this year we debated the issue of availability clauses—being required to be available. Clause 5H actually adds in there the situation where a worker might ordinarily be required to be available for work but, with this amendment, they would not be able to be required to be available for work. That is an improvement. It is, as I say, fundamentally bad legislation—anti-worker legislation—but that change, which makes it clear that an employer cannot require a worker to be available for work on Easter Sunday, is an improvement.

New section 5J in clause 15 refers to an employer’s obligation to notify the shop employee of their right to refuse work on Easter Sunday. This is important. You know, a lot of workers are not aware of what their rights are, and it is extremely important that workers are made aware that they have the right to refuse work on Easter Sunday. The amendment there refers to the period of time in which the employer must make the worker aware, and what the Minister has done with this amendment is to create a window of time.

So, previously, the legislation said it must be at least 4 weeks prior to the Easter Sunday. That could have been 4 weeks to for ever, so he could have been able to give them a warning 364 days beforehand that they needed to be aware. This creates a window of time. So between 4 and 8 weeks before Easter Sunday, the employer—if this amendment passes—will be required to inform the employee that they have the right to refuse work. It is important that the employee is made aware of that right and that they are made aware of it at a time that is appropriate, when they will be making their decisions about whether or not they want to spend time with their family, as they are currently able to do under the current law, or whether they will prefer to go into work.

The truth is that there will be a lot of pressure applied to workers in this situation and workers will feel coerced into working, regardless of what their rights are. Regardless of the fact that they have the right to refuse work, the truth is that a lot of the employees that this legislation is going to apply to are on minimum wage, or close to it. They have insecure hours and they know that exercising their right to refuse to work on Easter Sunday could very well lead to their not being able to pick up the hours that they would want to ordinarily. So although the right is there and although this is an improvement in terms of how employees will be informed of their right—

I am pleased to take a call in the Committee stage of this bill. This is my first call on this bill and I am one of the members of the Commerce Committee, which went through an extraordinary process in the discussions and the computations around this bill. I am also one of the members from this side of the House who supported this bill to select committee, and exercised my conscience in doing so. I also note that this is the fourth time—is it the fourth or the fifth time—that a bill on this subject has come before the House, and I believed that it should have the right to go to a select committee and have the arguments heard again in 2016. I am well aware that there are differing opinions and that there are parts of the country that have got much stronger views on this than others, and therefore I felt that it was worthy of a discussion at a select committee.

Having sat through the interminable discussions at the select committee, I am left feeling horrified at the shambles that is this piece of legislation before the Committee today. I note the Minister has tabled Supplementary Order Paper 179, which is an extensive Supplementary Order Paper that completely changes the original bill, but it is a shambles of a piece of legislation and it reflects a pattern of badly drafted bills coming before the Commerce Committee. I think that is a great shame, but I feel the need to make reference to that today, because it is not a good look for this Parliament and this House for there to be such an extensive Supplementary Order Paper tabled in the Committee of the whole House because the Government cannot get it right in the first place. That is just one concern I have.

This bill is the Minister Michael Woodhouse’s third piece of flawed and failed legislation to have appeared before the House in recent times. The first one was the workplace health and safety laws. The second was his failed attempt at zero-hour contracts—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am going to draw the member—because it is quite a broad bill. But we are discussing Part 1 of this bill, and the Minister’s—I should stop using my own mike here. The Minister’s general record is not part of this part of the bill.

This bill, the Shop Trading House Amendment Bill, ultimately aims to undermine, and will have the effect of undermining, the rights of working people. That is one reason to exercise my conscience to vote against it at the Committee stage, and I will be doing so, but there are more reasons to do so, as well.

The second reason that I have got major concerns about this bill—which is outlined in Part 1 and certainly evidenced by the massive Supplementary Order Paper before the Committee today—is that the Government has missed an opportunity to show national leadership on this and actually impose a requirement for a policy change across the country, rather than leaving it up to local bodies. The original piece of legislation attempted to use the mechanism of a by-law. There was a great deal of opposition to that from individual councils around the country because they saw it—and rightly so—was going to be very contentious in each region, and it would cost a lot to impose a by-law and there was the possibility of judicial review. So, as a result of that, instead of coming back with a policy across the country, where the law is required, the Government came back with this halfway-house approach of a local policy rule, which therefore raised questions—significant and constitutional questions—about the consultation mechanisms that would be used in each region to impose what is, in effect, a policy change that the Government wants, but it wants to put the onus on to local communities to deliver it. Again, that is a reason to oppose this bill and to exercise my conscience to do so, and that is what I will be doing.

The third reason why I have concerns—and this came out in evidence before the select committee—is that this bill is unlikely to be enforced. The current mechanism used by the Government to monitor shop trading on Easter Sunday has very little enforcement as it is, and it became clear to the committee that it was a farce and that the process was a farce. Again, that was a reason to oppose it.

The fourth reason is the dilution of workers’ rights and the removal of their ability—and I know a number of my colleagues have already spoken about this—and the dilution of their right to have valuable time off with their families. So this bill—and I go back to the point—is a shambles. The extensive Supplementary Order Paper we have before us in the Committee of the whole House stage comes as the result of the committee not being able to agree on the way forward. We had an unusual step of the bill, in its original form, being sent back to the House and the Minister being forced into the embarrassing situation of having to table the amendments at the Committee of the whole House that were wanted by the Government side. It is a halfway-house approach to a piece of legislation. It was a shambles from start to finish.

There were calls from significant local bodies—the Wellington City Council, the Auckland Council, and the Christchurch City Council—for the Government to take a national approach to this. If it wants the law to change, then it should change it itself, rather than requiring local government to take the burden on themselves. That is not what we have ended up with. We have ended up with an inadequate, flawed piece of legislation, which is the modus operandi of this Minister.

I am very pleased to make a few opening remarks in what I know will be a robust debate on this legislation, the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill. I will pick up on the previous speaker’s comments and also some of the comments that were made in the second reading speeches subsequent to my moving that the bill be read a second time.

I want to start with the issue of the mess of the bill that Ms Curran described.

💬 Clare Curran: Shambles.

OK, so let us talk about shambles. Shambles is the status quo. Shambles is the fact that in my home city and her home city of Dunedin there can be no shop trading on Easter Sunday, except and unless one is a retailer in the Carnegie Centre, but only on the mezzanine floor and only to sell things like—I cannot remember; I think it is second-hand goods and children’s toys—and only if there is entertainment going on at that time. That is a mess. That is the worst excess of the mess that I have seen in the present legislation. The most popular—

💬 Dr David Clark: There’s no problem, because it’s not being used.

The member says that it is not being used. That is quite right, and the reason is—and this shows what a mess of an Act it is right now—that there is no trading at the Carnegie Centre. It has long since stopped being a retail outlet. But there are many other retail outlets in Dunedin. I know that the member who is interjecting knows that.

Most popularly, we have the well-known anomalies of trading being allowed in Queenstown but not in Wānaka. Actually, Pembroke Mall, stage one, in Wānaka can trade; stage two and anywhere else in Wānaka cannot. Taupō can; Rotorua cannot. The mess is the status quo.

I am not portraying this bill as the gold standard of improvements. There is no question that it is not. But there is no doubt that the Act that regulates shop trading hours at Easter will be significantly improved because of this bill, and this is the point the Opposition hates. Those members hate giving choice. They hate giving choice to their own colleagues to have the bill brought back to the House in the best form. If Ms Curran believes it is an embarrassment, it is an embarrassment to the Opposition members of the Commerce Committee who were not prepared to say: “This is a personal vote, a conscience vote, as it always is. Let’s make the bill in the best shape that it can be, to give the best information to enable colleagues to choose.” They could not even do that. If they thought the bill was so bad, they should have portrayed it as such, put up the amendments that they themselves were told were going to improve the bill, and enable the House to choose—there is that word again. They do not think we are smart enough to work that out. They do not think union members are smart enough to recognise that this bill creates greater protections for workers, not fewer protections. And, this is most important of all, they do not want to give the public the choice to shop on Easter Sunday—the choice to go to their local communities and say: “We think this should happen.” I know that the people of Rotorua and on the Coromandel and in Wānaka want it, and they should have it.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am slightly reluctant to interrupt the Minister in his first call, but I do want to remind him that we are talking now to Part 1 of the bill as it has emerged from the select committee. What we are trying to decide is whether the detail we are discussing in the bill and in the Minister’s amendments fulfils the wishes of the House at the second reading. Because I am going to be relatively tight on other members, it would be good to start with this Minister.

Certainly, Mr Chairman. I want to continue to address, in order, the comments that were made by the previous speaker around the question of choice. I think this is at the heart of the bill, including Part 1. Part 1 provides for the process that a local council would follow if its citizens, its ratepayers, want to make that choice. It is a technical change that I am proposing in my Supplementary Order Paper 179 on Part 1 of the bill, to make sure that rather than being done by a by-law, it can be done by a policy. But it comes back to choice. It comes back to the choice that the ratepayers of those communities can make. It may well be that they do not want to make that choice in my home city. That is absolutely fine. I will probably be at the Warbirds over Wānaka International Air Show anyway. I might want to exercise that choice.

There is another matter about the question of process, and that is the fact that this is a personal vote and the National caucus has agreed unanimously that it will exercise its discretion to vote in favour of these amendments. It takes away the questions of worker protection, of whether or not there should be trading on what is, for a great number of New Zealanders still, a very holy day—that is Easter Sunday—and staying away from Good Friday, which theologically is even more important, and saying, as one caucus, that this is about letting the public choose. Yes, individual members may have their own consciences about what that is, and they will exercise those consciences about whether to go to church on Easter Sunday or whether to go shopping on Easter Sunday. But to a person in this caucus, they have said that that should be a choice that can be made by ratepayers, through their local councils. It is as simple as that.

The councils and Local Government New Zealand did say “Actually, we don’t think this is the right way to go.”, and so did the retailers. Here is why: because they wanted the Government and this Parliament to go even further and just simply lift any prohibitions on trading over this period. That would have left us back where we are now, which is at a personal vote, which would not engender the unanimous support of the National Party caucus, and therefore any changes would fail.

So let the great not be the enemy of the good. This is a good bill. It progresses and tidies up what has been a muddle for years. It is not perfect, but it is as good as this Parliament at this time will get. I am prepared to put it up and vote for it, use my conscience to support it, so that the people of New Zealand in those communities can make that choice.

I rise to take a call in the Committee stage, on Part 1 of the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill. The Green Party absolutely opposes the reduction in the number of restricted shop trading hours and days. We already have only 3½ days of the year when shops cannot open, and to sacrifice another one on the altar of consumerism is something we do not support. It is an important time for families to be able to plan ahead, and it is an important time of the year to get together and organise around that.

We also have very grave concerns about the requirement that the decision is going to be foisted on to local councils. This will impose a financial burden that they cannot easily sustain. I understand, although I was not on the committee that heard the submissions, that all the councils that submitted raised that point—that it would be a burden that they do not want. They are already struggling.

We also have grave concerns about the impact on workers’ rights. There seems to be a sort of illusion that a worker can just say: “I don’t want to work that day.” and that will be the end of the story. I have no doubt that there will be some wonderful employers out there and that this bill will have no consequential impact and employees will be free to take the day off, but that is not the reality of many employer-employee relationships. When you have extremely low-paid workers, which is what a huge number of people working in the shop industry are—on minimum wages, or very low wages—they are extremely anxious about job security. They are extremely anxious that any indication that they do not oblige with an employer’s request will have repercussions. They are not in a position, if they are refused, to appeal that decision.

There is very little understanding and awareness out there of workers’ rights, among many workers in New Zealand. For example, just recently, I have been involved with some members in the disability community who were being asked to do things that were completely unreasonable, and they had no idea that, actually, the employer was making incredibly unreasonable requests on their time, and being incredibly bullying. If you already have low self-esteem for whatever reason, if you are already marginalised, and you have ended up working in an industry that is a low-paid industry, the ability to stand up to your employer and say: “This is my right. I have the right to take this day off because this day is important for me.” just is not there. People do not even want to go there. They are nervous—anxious—and they do not understand their rights.

Is the Government going to take on a huge education programme to educate employees of their rights, especially around this bill? I do not see that here. Just sending a notice out so many days, or weeks, beforehand about the right to refuse is not enough and does not recognise the inherent power imbalance in that relationship. That is why we, the Green Party, are so very opposed to this bill, and to these amendments. We feel that this legislation stems from a number of examples of flawed thinking. It is flawed thinking: we have to have, every single day of the year, all the shops open everywhere, the length and breadth of the country—is that where it will end up? Will shops all be open on Christmas Day, and Anzac Day, and Good Friday?

At the moment, the focus is on Easter Sunday, but where will it end up? There are only 3.5 days of the year when shops cannot open, and these days are precious. We should keep them that way. This bill sabotages a very important part of the culture of New Zealand.

In the past 10 years there have been four other similar bills that have come before this House. Each time those bills have come before this House, there has been a conscience vote by all parties, and each time those bills have lost. I am surprised to hear that on this particular occasion—I am hearing Minister Woodhouse say that he is forcing all of his members, the Government members, to vote in accordance with where the Government wants this bill to go.

I want to say that in the last 8 years, with this Government in power, there has been a deliberate and systematic effort by this Government to make legislative change that undermines workers’ rights, that undermines the ability of workers to organise well, and that undermines the ability of workers to bargain in good faith. This bill is an additional effort by this Government to undermine the rights of workers to have a day of rest. It undermines the rights of workers to be able to spend time with their families, particularly those workers who see Easter Sunday as a religious holiday, and a culturally appropriate holiday, as well.

There is a petition that is circulating in South Auckland at the moment telling Mr Key that he needs to give freedom to his members to be able to vote with their conscience on this particular bill. I say that because, having looked at the track record of the National Government members, I note that there are two Pacific members in the Government—specifically the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga and Alfred Ngaro—who have, in the past, when similar bills have come forward, voted against it. I daresay that now, based on what the Minister has said, he is going to force them to vote in support of this bill. That petition, which will be tabled next week, is about calling on the Prime Minister and his Government to allow those members of Parliament in the Government who would not support the Government’s agenda if given their freedom to vote in good conscience on this to do so. I am hopeful that the two Pacific members of the Government will front up and share with this Committee and with the public whether they intend to follow their conscience in not supporting this particular bill.

💬 Phil Twyford: What are the odds on that?

Well, I do not know. Listening to the Minister, I think he is basically forcing them, and I hope they have the courage to come to the Committee—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The member cannot refer to someone as lacking courage. I will just remind the member that 3 minutes of the 5-minute speech have gone and we have not heard anything on Part 1 yet. I will ask the member to come back to Part 1 and concentrate on the substance of Part 1.

Thank you. Part 1—in Part 1, clauses 10, 12, 13, and 14 are really the crux of this bill. That is the part where this Government is passing the buck on to local government. I think that what we have seen is, instead of this Government being bold and doing what it has wanted to do for quite some time—and that is pass legislation for all councils—what it is doing is it is passing the buck to local government and saying: “Here’s the framework. Councils, you decide whether to approve a by-law or whether to approve a policy, in terms of opening up your shops on Easter Sunday.” I understand that Local Government New Zealand says that the premise of the bill is OK, but it does not support the way this Government is passing the buck in terms of asking councils to pay for all the costs.

If you look at clause 7 as amended by Supplementary Order Paper 179, it says that the “special consultative procedure has the same meaning as in section 5(1) of the Local Government Act 2002.” That is a procedure that is enacted when the local government has to approve a by-law when it comes to opening up Sunday trading. That is a costly exercise. It is a costly exercise that will go contrary to what many of the people standing for local government are saying, and particularly those mayors who are saying to their residents that their policy is going to be a constant rating increase or a reduced rating increase. How can there be certainty amongst the councils if the Government passes the buck of implementing this bill?

It is not just a consultation process. It is also about having to hire legal services for the development of the policy and the development of the by-law. Furthermore, this bill seems to suggest that it is then left up to councils to enforce the legislation itself. That just means more costs.

The overall view is that—and this is the reason why Local Government New Zealand is not on board with it—this Government treats councils badly and continues to pass on the costs for them to carry. The reality is—where do local governments get their money from? It comes from ratepayers. So every ratepayer who is listening to this—yes, you might feel that you would like to go down to Sunday shopping on Easter Sunday, but the reality is that you, your neighbours, and your whole community are going to have to bear the cost of implementation of this particular piece of legislation.

I want to come to the fact that by opening up trading hours on Sunday—a day which is traditionally a day of rest, particularly for communities of faith and communities of culture. Sunday is a day of rest, but if this Government is so intent on opening up trading hours on Sunday, it means—the Minister says that the worker has a choice. The reality is that if the shop or the business is open on Sunday, and it becomes a regular trading day for them, any person who refuses to work on that particular day is going to be undermined by that employer and is going to be undermined by their peers. Others are going to wonder why they should be able to take the day off on Sunday and not be penalised.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Trading on Easter Sunday is in Part 2, and we are on Part 1. [Interruption] Sorry? I ask the member to concentrate on Part 1, and that is what we are actually on.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Apologies for doing this, but I have found this bill at times difficult to follow as well, in terms of what is in what part. Part 2 of this bill is clauses 20 and 21. Part 1 of this bill does add new Parts 1 and 2 to the principal Act, and so it can be quite difficult to follow. But Part 1 is the bulk of the bill—in fact, basically everything that the bill traverses is in Part 1. Part 2 of this bill is “Transitional, savings, and related provisions”—clauses 20 and 21.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Thank you for that. I am going to seek some advice. I hear what you say—the bulk of it is in Part 1—and I am just going to seek some advice. The member is correct, and so new Part 2—“Trading on Easter Sunday”—as mentioned on page 5 of the bill, is incorporated in Part 1, which the member has mentioned. I am calling Su’a William Sio—my apologies.

Your apology accepted, Mr Chair. I do want to draw your attention to Part 1, clause 13, inserting new section 4B, which is what I was making my references to earlier. That particular part makes reference to Easter Sunday being opened up as a trading day, when that particular day has normally been a holiday.

The other thing that I suspect many workers would be angry about is the fact that there is nothing in this bill that is providing any extra compensation for people to work on Easter Sunday. When they are required to work on Easter Sunday, this Government is asking all workers to treat Easter Sunday as an ordinary day, so that there is no extra payment and it is not recognised as the special day that we currently recognise it as. It is a spiritual day that is recognised by faith communities as a day of rest and as a day where you would want to be around your family. Traditionally, Easter Sunday, combined with Easter Monday, has been a public holiday that many workers look forward to, to take time out with their families.

What is happening here—the way I read it—is that by opening up trading hours on Sunday, this Government is intent on every fricking worker in New Zealand continuing to work, work, work, and not getting ahead. That is what it has created—a class of workers who continue to work long hours almost every day, and at the end of it they just cannot make ends meet. That is the cause. As I said, this is in addition to the constant attacks by this Government over the last 8 years undermining workers’ rights—undermining the rights of workers to be able to take time off on those Sundays that traditionally, particularly Easter Sunday, have been days where people rest and take time out with their families.

I rise on behalf of the Green Party to most certainly oppose the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill. I agree with Su’a William Sio; Part 1 actually does refer to amendments in the other parts of the bill, so Part 1 ends up being quite wide.

Basically, this bill wants to liberalise Easter trading laws. This is the 10th attempt in 19 years to liberalise Easter Sunday shop trading laws, and the Greens have consistently and continuously opposed these proposals because we want to protect workers’ rights. Specifically, it is including the lower-paid workers and the workers who do not have any choice but to work. If we do not have a nationwide, consistent approach to employment laws, those workers who will not have the choice—by the nature of their jobs and by being in the position of needing that job—will not be protected. They need a nationwide, central government, consistent approach, given their vulnerable position. Their ability to take a day off and spend time with their family needs that nationwide protection.

Part 1 does give that decision back to local government, in some cases, through by-laws, making it possible for local government to say it will allow certain shops in certain areas to continue to trade on what is normally a protected day for workers—one of the few protected days for workers. I will repeat: it is not the workers who can just take days off whenever they want because they are making ends meet and because they have already got loads of money—they should have that choice to take holidays whenever they want. It is actually the workers who will be vulnerable through this by-law, and through this local government approach, and who will be penalised.

We have noted that it seems like there is some sort of attempt to put in a protection—for workers to be protected if they want to raise their hand and say “Actually, no—I had plans”. It does not matter what they were—they could be religious, whānau, community plans, events. The bill seems to try to put a protection in, but the Greens say that it would have been a more acceptable bill if compelling an employee to work Easter Sunday could instead be an offence to be prosecuted by the labour inspectorate, rather than just a personal grievance. Vulnerable workers need stronger backing to be able to feel more confident to put up their hands and say: “Yeah, I actually really need to take this day off.” The bill just does not go far enough in giving workers that confidence. Again, workers are vulnerable.

I do want to pick up on “public choice”, and I want to maintain that the greater good is actually protecting workers’ rights. The public have a whole lot of days, currently, to be able to shop till they drop, and only, I believe, 12 days that are protected for family time, for community time. This is a personal conscience vote, I understand. I oppose this bill because I firmly believe that the greater good for this country, for our development and for our productivity, is to actually have a nationwide, consistent approach to protecting workers as opposed to the so-called public choice to shop. That is actually not being taken away. There are so many other days on which we can choose to shop.

I want to stand and support my colleague Mojo Mathers, who absolutely spoke about protecting workers’ rights. Part 1 of the bill is actually broad because all of the clauses and the amendments that are being made in Part 1 of the bill cover various other sections of the rest of the bill. Thank you.

Firstly, I just want to say that I was very surprised to see that the Government has shifted Easter Sunday shop trading from being what has traditionally been a conscience issue to whipping its whole caucus to vote in one particular way. It is disappointing, because we do look back over the record of this particular issue and we see that over the last 10 years it has been brought to this House four times, all times when members were given the opportunity to vote according to their own conscience. Tonight, the National Government has taken the opportunity away from its own caucus.

I did hear Marama Davidson talking about public interest and the public’s right to choose, and that really has to be reflected in this Chamber when it comes to that issue as well. So, as I said, it is disappointing that the Government members have not been given that opportunity, particularly—and it is important to note—when you look back over the track record of this issue when it has been brought to the House and the fact that, actually, within the National Government and National Party there have been varying opinions on what needs to happen with this particular issue.

I really do feel for the National Government members tonight not having that opportunity. I am sure that many of them are disappointed that they cannot vote according to their conscience and instead have been told what they need to think and how they need to vote. It is disappointing, particularly because I know that many of the people from the National Government’s own benches who would have opposed what the Government has put up would have done so based on religious grounds. So to have that religious freedom removed by your own whips, by your own leadership, is incredibly disappointing. I just needed to make that point before we move into some of the other issues that I have with this particular bill.

I think the major issue that I have, looking at Part 1, is that this simply does pass the buck on to local councils, which will create a shambles of different rules across the country. That is what we have got to be concerned about: that there will not be any consistency. People will not know in one particular area whether or not the shops are open or closed. You move to one area, you have to work there, you are living in another area, you do not have to work there on particular days—there is going to be a high level of inconsistency because of what the National Government is proposing, and, because of that inconsistency, we can expect a shambles to unravel. But I guess most of us here, and the general public, are used to a shambles unravelling because of that National Government.

We are concerned. We are the party for workers—everybody knows that—and we believe that workers deserve to have some guaranteed days off. We believe that, as Marama Davidson and others on this side of the Chamber have said in the Committee tonight, there are plenty of days in the year for people to shop. We do not need to be adding more days and taking away a few of the protected days that we had sectioned off so that people were guaranteed particular days off. It is unrealistic to say that people can refuse to work on Easter Sunday, because people who do will be penalised. There are power relationships in any workplace, so it is going to be very difficult for someone to turn down their boss when they are asked to work on these days.

It is disappointing that in this bill, and just in general, the National Government is not proposing any extra compensation for working on Easter Sunday. It expects people to give up this important family time, this important rest time, this important break from working, without recognising it as a public holiday. I think that the general public would be absolutely shocked by that, because we have always seen that as a sacred public holiday. The fact that now the Government is going to expect people to work, or hand it over to councils to make the decision on whether people should or should not work on those particular days, but not put any safeguards in place in this bill to ensure that they would be getting paid extra compensation, is incredibly disappointing. It just goes to show, again, that the National Government has no regard for workers. That is really what we are talking about when we are looking at this bill. We are concerned that this will be one more cost pushed on to councils at a time when this Government is pressuring councils to lower costs. That is a very valid point that needs to be made.

Just going back to Part 1 of the bill, I also want to point out—and this came up because of a moment with Su’a William Sio and a call that you made earlier, Mr Chair, that you did correct. I am not criticising the call that you made, but even just looking at the drawing up of this bill we are talking about the fact that what the Government is proposing will result in a shambles. Even the way that this bill has been sectioned off is incredibly hard to read, so I can see why, Mr Chair, you had difficulty before and got confused about the two different parts—we have a Part 2 “Trading on Easter Sunday” and we have a Part 2 “Transitional, savings …”—not knowing that the Part 2 “Trading on Easter Sunday” section is actually part of the principal Act. It is not a part of the bill and it is inside Part 1, so it could be debated as part of Part 1. I just want to say that someone has overlooked the fact that this could have been written up a little bit more clearly so that it could be more easily debated in the House. Those are just a few of the points that I have at this point in time. I am sure that I will have some more to discuss later on tonight. Thank you.

I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill. New Zealand First continues to oppose Supplementary Order Paper 179, in the name of Minister Woodhouse, because, fundamentally, the complexity of this bill will still remain the same, the cost to local councils will still remain the same, and the tinkering and confusion that will come about under the sections relating to employment will still remain the same.

New Zealand First has multiple issues with Part 1 of this bill, and I want to talk about new section 5A, in clause 15. What New Zealand First wants to know is how this bill will ensure that local councils are not financially burdened by this poorly constructed bill that proposes to change from a bylaw-setting instrument to a policy-setting instrument. We propose that the cost to local councils, unfortunately, will still remain the same. Throughout the select committee process we heard from Local Government New Zealand and from local councils about the immense concern relative to the costs that this would force on the ratepayers inside of their communities. That in itself was quite contentious for them.

What we are thinking about is the impact on our local community, and I want to bring to the attention of the Minister in the chair, Michael Woodhouse—and I am quite sure he is aware of it at the moment—the fact that the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2) is before the Local Government and Environment Committee. This proposes to councils that they should amalgamate services and dares to suggest that local councils do not know how to remain fiscally sound and fiscally responsible. Yet I ask that Minister and that National-led Government how this bill proposes to go forward when it is going to lump on local councils anywhere between $20,000 and $80,000, whether this is a by-law instrument or a local-policy instrument.

New Zealand First feels that there is a better solution for the National-led Government, and that is to give our local territorial authorities the ability to give local communities the choice as whether in their district, or in parts of their district, shops can open on Easter Sunday. That, of course, would be to actually hold a local referendum, so truly, before the cost—

💬 Brett Hudson: She talks about cost.

Mr Hudson, before the cost hits the ratepayers, let us be responsible. Hold a local referendum before it gets to that point. The last local referendum was held on fluoride in New Zealand, and that was under $14,000, yet that Government expects local councils to spend between $20,000 and $80,000. How is that responsible? That is what New Zealand First asks. The responsibility, Mr Hudson, would actually be to hold a local referendum.

The next issue that New Zealand First has is in relation to new sections 5H, 5G, 5I, 5J, 5JA, 5K, and 5L. What those sections, inserted by clause 15, cover is the employment opportunities of employees. This bill proposes that employees will, in fact, have protection. Well, I beg to differ. As a former employee and employer, this area of the bill makes no sense whatsoever in terms of being put into place within our businesses, and I wonder why the Minister and the National Government did not recognise the issues, the fishhooks, and the absolute ignorance and arrogance that these clauses will put into our local businesses around this country.

I will tell you why. What this bill proposes will, in fact, do the exact opposite—the exact opposite. The Minister has stated that employees and employers must annually renegotiate their availability to work on Easter Sunday. However, this provision inside this clause cannot actually be put into the employment contract. This bill is complex, it is confusing, and it is going to fail to go forward with the intent of this area. The penalty will be on the employee and the employer. In the second reading I brought up an issue that the Minister has not addressed, and that is the fact that if you are on the jobseeker support benefit and you are under the care, I guess, of Work and Income and a manager and you go through the process of applying for a job—because you have to be seen to be actively seeking work—this provision is the one thing that hinders your being able to accept that employment.

That is an unintended consequence for the job seeker, who has to go back to Work and Income. Job seekers must have set out that they are actively seeking employment, and this is where this bill becomes unstuck for the job seekers. They have to go back and tell their Work and Income manager that they are unable to take the job due to the fact that they could, and I use this as an example, have to go away to a family unveiling on Easter weekend, because that is when New Zealanders go and do family events just like this one. They run the risk of having their benefit taken away from them because that will be seen as not actively seeking employment. This bill fails job seekers. It fails in terms of protection for current employees, because they must take on board the fact that each year they have to review whether or not they are available to work. That employee is then expected to work with the employer, and that employer, under good faith, as employment contracts are negotiated, is meant to have no opinion and no frustration in terms of their star employee being able and eligible to work on Easter Sunday.

That puts pressure on them, and the only way that that employee cannot be mistreated in the business—as a former business owner, I know that that does happen. I know that happens, and that is why these provisions in this bill are not fit for purpose. I want to comment too on the fact that employees have to go through a personal grievance process. I do not know what background the Minister came from before he came to this House, but clearly the Minister has no idea how devastating this can be for an employee, a workplace, and a family. That is a fact.

I have discussed the fact that this is meant to be an area that is meant to protect employees. I can certainly say that this is not the case at all. New Zealand First will absolutely be opposing this bill. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to speak on this Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill, particularly after that last contribution. The main point that I think we should focus on here, as we look to progress this, is that this bill is all about providing choice. It provides choice for workers. It provides choice for New Zealanders to choose what they are to do on their Easter Sunday. It provides choice for employers. It provides choice for territorial authorities.

I have yet never met a city, district, or regional councillor who has said that they do not think that regulations, and by-laws, and ways of operating should somehow not be reflective of what their local residents, ratepayers, and constituents want. So it is pretty amazing, actually, that in this Committee, what we hear is people opposing a bill that offers those territorial authorities—offers those councillors—the ability to put out to their residents a question of what they would like to do, and what they would have them do across their area, and then put that into practice. What is more, it offers a means to do so that is far less expensive, I would argue, than something like 77 referenda held across the country. In fact, with Minister Woodhouse’s Supplementary Order Paper 179—a fine Supplementary Order Paper it is—and having listened to expert advice during the select committee process, there was a suggestion that instead of using the by-law process we could do it as a matter of policy, but with special consultative provisions to make sure that we are hearing the right voices, that those authorities and those councillors are hearing the right voices and acting appropriately.

Fundamentally, what this bill would do, should it pass—and I certainly hope that it will, it will have my vote, along with my colleagues in the National caucus—is to fundamentally allow residents, workers, employers, and representatives in the local areas across New Zealand the right to choose whether or not, in whole or in part, shops can open across their district. Fundamentally, if Parliament is going to deal with this issue, the best way to deal with it is to place that power in the hands of those individuals and their local representatives. So I am pretty shocked, it has to be said, that so many people think that choice and freedom are bad things. Nonetheless, that view is what they appear to hold.

The other parts, of course, that are very, very key to making this work are within the changes to section 5 of the principal Act—those changes that will provide protections, particularly for the workers who, for reasons of their own, do not wish to work on Easter Sunday. The bill is very clear that those employees will have every protection that New Zealand employment law and this bill can offer them. What I find astounding is that there have been several contributions in this reading and others that suggest that those protections do not work, because employees are too scared to use them. What those people are saying is that none of the employment protections that exist on the statute book in New Zealand—some of which the previous Labour Government was responsible for—work. What they are basically saying in this House and in this debate, is that we should strike them all off the book, because they do not believe they work. Actually, what I think they really think is that it will work when it suits them, but it will not work when it is a measure that this Government is trying to make. I am quite flabbergasted to hear that those members opposite think that employment protection does not actually work.

This bill, if it is passed, will provide those protections to employees; it is very clear about that. In fact, one of the changes that I do hope is in the Supplementary Order Paper—I will admit, I have not looked at the specific area of detail—concerns one of the changes that we did suggest to officials through the process. In actual fact, the way that the bill had been written, it would have demanded that employees go straight to a personal grievance process should they want to protest against being, in their mind, made to work on Easter Sunday. So as this debate continues, I will be looking to see whether we have changed that. I would say, on the whole, I am very, very pleased to see all the other changes in the Supplementary Order Paper. I do hope that this bill will see favour with the majority in this Committee. I certainly know that I will be voting in favour of it, and my colleagues will be, also.

Kia ora, Mr Chair. Ngā mihi ki a koutou. Kia ora. If anyone listening listened to that last member, Brett Hudson, you would think that this bill was apple pie—that it was all about choice and freedom and the great slogans that the member could come up with. But, if anything, it showed how out of touch that member and the caucus members are, because, sure, it is about choice and about freedom—but choice and freedom for a tiny few, and drudgery, working on the weekends, and less time with your family for the majority of New Zealanders.

To show how out of touch that is, I went through the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives. Standing Order 48 says this Parliament cannot meet on a Sunday: this Parliament needs to close at 11.59 p.m. on Saturday evenings, even during extraordinary urgency. For 50 days of the year this House cannot sit, yet it is all about choice and freedom for the retail workers, the people at the fish and chip shops—all the people who do not have that choice and freedom, who we do know are going to feel pressured into working. So let us not gild the lily with this “sloganistic” language; let us say what it is. This is another plank in the Government’s agenda, which is all about choice and freedom for a small number of New Zealanders—the employers. It is not about choice and freedom for the rest of them.

For many years this country has had what is called a search for flexibility in workplace relations. I remember reading a very influential book by the noted Bill Sutch that described a period in New Zealand’s history as the search for security. We have lost that search for security for workers in the name of flexibility: in terms of the ability for capital and labour to be ported around the world. We are seeing a clear Government agenda—you saw it with the 90 days legislation; you saw with the dodgy deal with Warner Bros, which reduced those workers’ rights. There is a litany of legislation that has weakened workers’ rights, and you see it in Part 1 of this bill. In this bill what we see is this relentless attack on workers’ rights in New Zealand. This is the 10th time in 19 years this Parliament has debated this very issue, to try to weaken what is only one of 3½ days when our shops in New Zealand must be closed. We have 3½ days, but this group relentlessly—like the Terminator from that film—despite 10 defeats in 19 years, ploughs on to try to take one of those 3.5 days.

💬 Marama Davidson: Groundhog Day.

It is like Groundhog Day: where this Parliament is continually voting on the same legislation. And the Government is not going to give up, because it is about choice and freedom for some.

In Part 1 of this legislation the debate has kicked the responsibility to someone else—to the councils—through the by-laws powers. We sat on the Commerce Committee. I want to thank the submitters, the chair—Melissa Lee—and the other members. It was interesting being on a split, tied committee, because we could not agree to those amendments and the bill has been reported back. The concern we have about delegating responsibility to the councils through by-laws is that we are going to see inconsistencies. We are going to see more costs, not only for employees, who maybe give up family time on one of our only 3.5 days of the year when shops must be closed, but also costs for employers and those associated groups. We are going to see varying rules across the country, bringing in considerable inconsistencies. And, as we have seen with other by-laws challenged through legitimate process, no doubt we are going to see some of these decisions go through the court, adding a second layer of inconsistencies and confusions.

This is a bad bill. In the personal vote I will be voting against it. I have been one of those low-paid workers, where you do feel pressured by your employer to work overtime, to work on the weekend, and to drop everything to make sure you can turn up to work—because you do not have the choice and the freedom. You do not have the security of knowing where the next pay cheque is going to come from. We have already got these incredibly lax laws; we do not need to be weakening them further. That is why I am voting against this.

The level of hypocrisy connected to this bill is—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! That is a word that we do not use in this House, and I ask the member to withdraw. [Interruption] I ask the member to withdraw.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I do not use the word flippantly, but—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, I have ruled. Just carry on with the debate—just carry on with the debate.

Can I have a point of clarification, Mr Chairman?

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, I have ruled. Just carry on with your debate. [Interruption] No, I have ruled on the matter. [Interruption] No, I have ruled on the matter. I am asking the member to continue.

The level of duplicity around this bill is unbelievable—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No. I ask the member to sit, please. I did ask the member to withdraw the comment, and then he can carry on. So if the member withdraws that word that he used, then we will continue. I ask the member to withdraw that comment he made earlier. The Hon Damien O’Connor, withdraw the comment. [Interruption] No. You know what the word was—you know what the word was. I immediately was on my feet and asked you to withdraw the comment, and I am asking you to do so now, please.

I withdraw. [Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, no. We are carrying on. [Interruption] No. I have ruled on that word being out of order. It is unparliamentary, and I am asking you to continue.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Is this a new point of order?

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Yes it is, Mr Chairperson. It is my recollection of previous rulings on the “h” word that a—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I have ruled on this matter, and I am not entertaining it any further. The member will sit. I am inviting the Hon Damien O’Connor to continue.

We have members from the other side of the House advocating for choice—choice for councils, choice for businesses, choice for employees, they say, and choice for customers. But there is no choice for National Party members. Leadership comes from the top, and if, indeed, that party over there is the party of choice, the first thing it would do is allow its members the choice of what they will vote for. I see a smile on the face over there of the other Mr O’Connor. Mr Doocey is over there. Mr English might be in his office. Mr Finlayson might be in his office, as well. I cannot believe—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No. [Interruption] Order! I ruled earlier on that this is a pretty narrow debate, and I will just ask the member—[Interruption]; there will be silence when I am on my feet—to concentrate on Part 1. I pulled up the colleague sitting to your right on this matter. Others have done so, and it is your opportunity to speak to Part 1, and I am inviting you to do so.

Clause 10 in Part 1, “Section 3 amended (Shops to be closed on Anzac Day morning, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Christmas Day)”—those are the days that National and all its members are going to allow to be open for retail trading in the naive belief that employees will have choice as to whether they support the business person in whether they want to trade or not.

I stand in this Chamber as someone who has been brought up through the Catholic religion. I am not a good Catholic; I would never claim to be one, but I have been brought up with some values and some views. I do believe firmly that our culture, our country, is one that has been built on Christian values—I am not saying that we abide by all the Christian religions, but we are built on Christian values—and is one that respects culture, in referring to clause 10 here, and is one that respects the culture of identifying with and respecting certain days of the year.

There are 4 of them—not many. There are 4 days when we as a country come together to respect people and to allow them a break from the normal toil, when instead of working to live—or living to work, as the National Party would have—we indeed have the opportunity to take a break and be with our families. The choice that the National Party caucus—not its members, because they have been whipped; they have had no choice—is talking about is that retail on Anzac Day morning and retail on Good Friday and on Easter Sunday and on Christmas Day is essential. It is essential if the councils should choose, through a laborious process of consultation or—

💬 Brett Hudson: Oh! Consultation is a bad thing. The member says consultation like it’s a bad thing.

Oh, the member over there is quite happy to be whipped into this and not to have a choice as to whether he votes or not. I do not believe that the speeches made by members over there are genuine, because they are not, in fact, allowed to have the choice on an issue that has traditionally been deemed a conscience vote.

Part 1 says that these 4 days will be open to retail trading, and the assumption is that that will make New Zealand a better place. Well, I absolutely disagree with that, and I will adhere to the policy that allows us to respect and recognise 4 days in the year as being part of the culture of this country.

And if we hear that visitors who come here want to be able to shop 24/7—I do not believe it. I do not believe it. People come to this country because it is different, because it is New Zealand and we have a culture that we should be proud of, and it is one that does show due respect to those 4 days and lots of other things: Māori culture, a diverse culture, a range of people who have the freedom, who have choice, generally, to do most things, but within a certain guideline, that is, I guess, cultural values—that is what it would be called in other countries. This National Government is so focused on commerce that it will set aside all Christian values, all cultural values that have formed—

It is a great pleasure to participate in the Committee stage of the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill. As I have mentioned in the earlier debates on the bill, the current rules governing shop trading on Easter Sunday are outdated and rather unfair on certain businesses and regions.

Just before I start talking about the bill, I just want to remind members that Easter Sunday is not actually a public holiday. Just because some members in this Committee actually pretend as if it is and say that it is unfair that we are trying to get rid of a public holiday that everyone enjoys, it is actually a mistake that they are making. It is not a public holiday, and telling the public that it is so does not make it so.

It is actually a restricted trading day, and what we are trying to do is to make it even for everyone around the country. For example, in some places in this country, Easter Sunday trading happens, but in some other places, like Rotorua, it is not possible for shops to open. As the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety himself actually said, there are certain parts—even in Dunedin, where the mezzanine floor of one of his places is able to trade, but not the rest of the shop. It is unfair.

Earlier Mr Hughes actually mentioned that it was rather unfortunate that the Commerce Committee could not agree and maybe make some amendments to the bill that came to the committee to try to improve the situation. I think one of the very good recommendations that actually came through the select committee process was the protections that we were going to empower the workers with, and one of them is the right to refuse to work on an Easter Sunday.

I know that Mr Damien O’Connor talks about the New Zealand tradition and the Christian tradition of New Zealand. I am one of those people who actually like my choices on Easter Sunday, when I go to church and spend time with my family, and sometimes it is actually with my family that I like to go shopping. But we have to remember, without actually drawing negativity from certain sectors of this Committee, that I am not actually criticising New Zealand. I am not doing that.

We have to remember that not all New Zealanders are Christian. We have growing population diversity. We have growing religious diversity. We have growing ethnic diversity, with people who celebrate different holidays. Not all New Zealanders actually celebrate Easter. For example, my big brother here sitting next to me, Mr Bakshi, does not celebrate Easter, but he does celebrate Diwali. Maybe, for members of certain ethnic communities who might like to trade their Easter Sunday work programme with Diwali and might like to actually take that as their annual holiday, they might be able to negotiate with their employers. That is some of the freedom that we are trying to give to the workers and the protection that we are trying to give to the workers through this bill.

I am just astounded that the Labour Party and the Opposition oppose the bill to support the rights of the workers to refuse to work on Easter Sunday. It is the extra protection that we are providing to the workers that those members are saying no to, and I am astounded by that. I think this is a great bill, and I look forward to hearing some of my other colleagues from the Commerce Committee contribute on this bill.

I am going to be exercising my conscience to vote against this bill and most, but not all, of the amendments. I want to set out, in reference to Part 1 of the bill, why that is.

I have gladly been a member of this House for the best part of 20 years, and in that time I have seen a number of attempts fail to liberalise Easter Sunday trading. Every time a bill has come to this House, it has failed to muster a majority of the consciences of members of this House. The Government, dead-set, it seems, on liberalising Easter Sunday trading, has come up with an alternative approach: firstly, it whipped its caucus, removing choice, as my colleague Mr Damien O’Connor has noted. It passed to local authorities and local government the burden of making the change that it cannot muster a majority to make in this House. Frankly, if you are going to liberalise Easter trading, do so front-on—not you, Mr Chairman, personally, but this House. Let us do it as a House. We are the policy makers. This House is sovereign. If it is the will of the members of this House to do it, then let us do it. But in the last 20 years it never has been, and the Government knows that. That is why we have got this, frankly, cock-eyed approach to passing the buck to local authorities.

Why is that a problem? I am a member of the Commerce Committee, which heard the submissions, and, as other colleagues have said, major metropolitan local authorities—Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch—and a number of provincial territorial authorities came in one after the other and said: “We don’t want this power. We do not want you to delegate this decision to us. It is best done as a parliamentary matter. Oh, and by the way, nor do we want to go through a by-law process, because that has cost, time, and legal risk.” Hearing those submissions, which were extensive and persuasive, officials went away and no doubt consulted with the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, and rather than doing what the local authorities really wanted, which was for Parliament to make a decision, they went away and said: “Ah! Well, we will take away the by-law protections, and you can do it as a policy decision.”

Well, that brings us to the submissions from the Regulations Review Committee. I want to clarify that I am exercising my right to speak to my conscience today, as an ordinary member of Parliament. I also happen to chair that committee. I am not here speaking as the chair, but I will be trying to be faithful to its representations. The committee, on legal advice, wrote to the Commerce Committee and said that it believed that this bill contained what is known in the jargon as a “Henry VIII” clause—that is, the proposed regulatory instrument to overturn an Act of Parliament by sub-delegating, through regulation, to a local authority the ability to, effectively, override the previous will of Parliament is unconstitutional. That unconstitutionality was, to be fair, contested by officials, and it went back to the Regulations Review Committee, and it stood by its initial advice. It stood by the fact that this was a “Henry VIII” clause at its heart, and was therefore flawed.

However, it was also noted that if you are going to do a “Henry VIII” clause, then one should follow the guidelines set out in the Standing Orders, which is that they are done very rarely, in exceptional circumstances, with clear legislative provisions overseeing them, and with sufficient process protections to mitigate the constitutional outrage. In this case at least there were the bylaw-making processes, which, for example, propose a regular process on the record with full council decisions and extensive consultation and the right to appeal and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet. And so, very importantly, the select committee threw out, by failing to pass with a majority, the Minister’s proposed amendments that would have changed the legislation from a by-law approach to a policy approach, precisely because they made the constitutional enigma worse.

Parliament should make this decision, if it wishes to, on the conscience of its members. It should not delegate that decision to a local government override. But if it is intent on doing so, then it should provide the process protection set out in the bylaw-making process. It was not, in my view, the finest hour of the Government when officials tried to tell the select committee—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the member. His time has actually expired.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Thank you so much for the further call, I appreciate it. I am not going to detain the Committee for very long, but I will briefly recall the argument as it stood before the dinner break and then just complete it with some clause by clause analysis that was put before the Commerce Committee from the Regulations Review Committee.

Before the dinner break, we discussed how the House has, on repeated occasions in past years, confronted the issue of Easter trading and has manifestly refused on a majority vote to liberalise. We then noted that the Government, in its wisdom, has chosen a different approach on this occasion, which is to sub-delegate to territorial authorities the opportunity by regulation, effectively, to change the law under this Act. We noted that on the advice of the counsel of the Regulations Review Committee that was, effectively, a “Henry VIII” provision, which, as you will well know, should be rare, exceptional, and used only under extraordinary safeguards. It was also noted that officials’ advice differed from that on the “Henry VIII” point, but it remained the view of the Regulations Review Committee.

It was noted that territorial authorities, one after the other, in their testimony to the committee not only said that they did not want the power that was being bestowed upon them but that they found the by-law process onerous. It was the hope of some members of the committee that, on that advice, the Government would rethink the sub-delegation of the decision and bring it to the House proper for debate. But, no, it doubled down on constitutional omission and put amendments first to the Commerce Committee, which refused to support them on a tied vote, and they have now been reintroduced to the House by the Minister through Supplementary Order Paper 179.

In a quick minute, what I would like to do is deal with the contention that was initially raised by advisers to the committee, that the policy-making process, effectively, had no different protections from the by-law process. The Committee will immediately confront the logical inconsistency of that position, because if there were no difference, then there would be no advantage in streamlining the local body process by moving to a policy approach, but in any case let me note, as the Regulations Review Committee did, some of the differences. The first, which was noted and then set aside, was that the original bill required an explicit New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet and the amendments do not. However, it was contended that that was implicit anyway and so there may be little difference in action of that change to section 5D of the Act, inserted by clause 15.

However, it is in the change to section 5E of the Act, inserted by clause 15, in the part we are considering that the material differences principally arise. Section 5E, for example, requires a meeting of full council to pass a by-law, but it will not be specifically required to adopt a policy report and release it for consultation. Section 5E required a meeting of a council committee to consider submissions; but the current amendments do not. Section 5E required a meeting of full council to resolve to adopt a by-law and set a commencement date; the amendments as proposed do not. Section 5E, also in respect of review provisions, set out extensive requirements for the meeting of council committees to consider submissions through a transparent process and for the full council to resolve, amend, revoke, repeal, or continue by-laws, which are not required; the amendments as proposed do not.

I could go further, but I think that gives the Committee and the listening public enough examples to note that the policy approach, although more streamlined, contains fewer constitutional and process protections than the bill as introduced. It may be the contention of the Government side and the Minister that that is an improvement. But what I would say as a member of the Commerce Committee who with others heard submissions is that it actually flies in the face of the spirit of the submissions of at least the major metropolitan local authorities, which said they actually did not want to be the decision maker on this matter because they considered it more appropriately a matter for the whole House. In removing the by-law protections, actually, we have aggrieved further not only that appropriate sentiment but also the constitutional issues that are embedded in at least the risk of this being a “Henry VIII” clause, and I would say that, in my personal view, it most definitely is.

In some ways I am actually picking up where my colleague left off. It is about the changes, and I too sat on the Commerce Committee and heard the similar argument from local councils that they did not wish to take that responsibility over. I want to pick up some of the comments Minister Woodhouse made in his contribution before the dinner break, when he contended that these changes in Supplementary Order Paper 179, in his name, were about reducing the shambles that the legislation currently is. He also contended that the bill was about giving more choice. Those were the two phrases the Minister used, and he then tried to back them up using examples out of the bill, although he was a little light on the examples, I have to say.

I want to say right back to the Minister and put into the debate that in fact it does not achieve those purposes. The changes that he is proposing in Supplementary Order Paper 179 include, for example, the change to subpart 1 of Part 2, in clause 15, which replaces “regulation” with “Easter Sunday shop trading policies”. His proposal to change the nature of what local councils might do is, as my colleague has said, not achieving an active choice. The councils still did not want that as a change. They said: “We do not want that responsibility. Whether it comes in the form of regulation or policies it makes no difference.” So it is not actually clarifying that or making it easier for those local councils as the Minister has said.

I would be interested in his response to what those local councils said, which was not something that he addressed in the contribution that I heard. It was something that he skirted around, but if he is going to make those contentions in the Committee and in this debate, then I feel that the Minister does need to back up that assertion that this will reduce the burden somehow or make it clearer for councils and somehow appease them and the wishes that they had expressed in that select committee.

The Minister talked a lot about choice and about this bill giving choice. I want to contend that it actually reduces choice for workers. What we know will happen as a result of these changes is that more pressure will go on people, particularly those who are most vulnerable. Many people in the retail sector are on low incomes, barely meeting their bills, and it is those people who, I contend, have less choice. They will feel the pressure to turn up when they are asked. There are some clauses in here in the bill that talk about personal grievances and so on, and they assume a level of access to legal advice, and a level of confidence and competence in those people that does not necessarily reflect the reality of every vulnerable person in the workplace.

So what in fact will result from all of this is that choice will be taken away from those people. Those people have the option currently of knowing that at some points—it is more than an option; they know—they will have time with their families, and time for rest, relaxation, and recreation in those times when shops are currently not permitted to trade. That choice will be taken away from them. So in fact what is happening is that choice is being taken away from those who most need it. Thus the bill is not achieving the purpose the Minister asserts when he says it is increasing choice. It is, in fact, removing choice from those who already have the fewest choices in our society.

So that is the crux of what I am going to say. That flows through to many of the matters in the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper. So if we look at clause 13, that is exactly where it is enacted—where you are replacing the need for a by-law with a requirement for a shop trading policy. As I have suggested, the local councils do not really see a significant difference between the two. They still see the burden put on them for decision making, for running processes, and for making the same kinds of decisions that they would be making, effectively, with a by-law. So when the Minister wants to assert that it somehow makes it clearer or simpler, it is simply not true, in my view.

Further, in asserting that it makes things simpler, the Minister does not speak about, for example, the lot of tourists who arrive in this country and might want to exercise their consumer rights in the retail sector throughout the country. When they travel through the country they are going to find not a reduced number of exemptions to the overall policy but a more mixed response to this legislation, because it very much leaves it up to the local councils. Every place in the country may have a different take on this, where currently there are only one or two exemptions. Tourists, I would suggest, would not expect places to be open generally unless they knew of the two obvious examples, which are two main tourist centres.

Far from making this simpler, the Minister is in fact increasing things. He talked about it being a shambles, and, as I will assert, it is actually more of a shambles. Interestingly, the Minister himself said the bill was very far from a gold standard, which I thought was a very frank admission on a day when we have also been reflecting on the luggage bill. I do not want to say too much about that, but what are we doing in this House if the Minister is bringing a bill to the House that he is not behind and thinks is not the correct solution—or is far from a gold standard—where we are debating general bills? That suggests to me that the appropriate way forward for this would be for the Minister to hold this bill over—for him to work further with local councils and see whether he cannot resolve the conflict that has been brought to the House, and actually work with them to look at whether there is another way of doing this, because they are not happy with what he is putting forward in his Supplementary Order Paper.

That is what we have heard directly as a select committee—local councils do not want the responsibility for making this decision. They feel that it is a decision for central government to make so that policies can be consistent across New Zealand, so they do not have to put more resources into making decisions at a local level that could be contested and that they are not funded extra for. I can understand that, and I think that members of the Committee can understand that. We all have connections with local councils at various times and understand the burden that is put on them without funding, frequently, from central government.

In concluding, I wish to oppose many of the clauses that the Minister has in his Supplementary Order Paper. I really do not think that they achieve his stated purpose of making things simpler and getting rid of the shambles that he describes, and I do see some irony in the fact that he himself is not willing to say that this is the gold standard way of fixing them. I think this bill is not about giving choice. The changes he is making are actually reducing choice for those in our society who need it most.

I seek leave for all questions in this debate to be taken as one debate, but all questions voted on separately, and for the Committee of the whole House to conclude the debate on this at 9.15 p.m.

I just want to interpret to the Committee that I am assuming that with the debate concluding at 9.15 p.m. it will, effectively, be a closure and we will move to all votes, which will be concluded before the Committee rises tonight. Is there any objection to that process? There appears to be none.

The question now is that parts 1 and 2, the schedule, and clauses 1 to 3 stand part. And I just want to iterate that we now have a new question, and, therefore, I am wiping all calls to date.

Part 1 (continued), Part 2, schedule, and clauses 1 to 3