Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill

People have spoken a lot about choice and have said that this bill and these clauses are about choice. Let us be quite clear about who is getting the choice: this is about shoppers. The context of that—to be able to have the choice to shop 365 days a year—is, ultimately, where the logic leads. That, I would argue, is not the most important thing to be bearing in mind—the ability to shop for an additional day, when we already have the ability to go shopping for the other 360-plus days. It is important to recognise that some choices, although they might be very important for some people, are, in the context of things, trivial: the choice of what colour tie to wear, and so on. They must not override human rights and wipe workers’ rights—and that is what we have got here in this bill.

We have to think about the rights of workers and the right to have some family time. In that context, I would say that the ideology behind this bill, by undermining one of the 3½ days of the year that are not open slather for shop trading, is not only anti-worker, it is anti-family. I want to refer to a submission by FIRST Union, which represents retail staff, some of the lowest paid workers in New Zealand. It refers to a Unicef report from 2007 that states that in New Zealand our workforce has one of the lowest rates of family time in the world. That is the context in which this bill is being brought here.

We already have the lowest rate of family time in the world, and yet family and building family ties is part of building strong communities, so why, at a time when so many families are under stress and struggling to get quality time with their children and other members, are we bringing in a bill that undermines that? I find it absolutely appalling, and it speaks a lot to the values of the National Party members of this House that they are prepared to back a bill that is anti-family—that is undermining families already under significant stress, juggling multiple low-paid jobs—in order to liberate yet one more day for the sake of freedom of shopping, for those who have the money to shop.

The FIRST Union submission also went on to say that not only do we have some of the lowest rates of family time; we have some of the longest working hours in the world—families getting up at the crack of dawn, juggling their first job, coming back for a bite to eat, going out again to work in the evening, and working until late at night. I hear too many stories of that—where they struggle to even get dinner time with their kids.

So removing one of the remaining protected family days—there has been a lot of emphasis on religion. Sure, Easter Sunday has religious significance for me, but that is not why I am opposing this bill. I am opposing it because it is undermining family time. As a mother of three, family time is incredibly important to me. I find it devastating that, in the context of today’s society, people on low incomes are struggling to get the precious family time that we here in Parliament usually are very privileged to be able to have. As my colleague Gareth Hughes has already said, Parliament is protected from sitting on Sundays. For 50 weeks of the year we can often go and spend some of that time with our family, but we do not afford workers that same protection—some of our most vulnerable workers—and that is what we should be doing.

The other thing to think about is where you have the right to refuse. We have already pointed out that, actually, there is a power imbalance. But let us also think about the real situation that workers can find themselves in. Think about rural areas where they know, when they are working for a small business, that the likelihood of somebody else being able—

I want to thank my colleague Mojo Mathers for that speech, because the theme that she took of “What does this mean for families?” is something that every member of this Committee should think about tonight. Having been on the receiving end of a few lectures from people on the other side of the House about what is important for strengthening families in our society, it would seem that those high-minded principles about supporting family have gone out the window with the National Government in this particular piece of legislation, except they have not because members on the other side of the Chamber, like Simon O’Connor, know full well that this piece of legislation runs counter to building strong families and strong communities in our country.

It is an absolute joke if members opposite think that what is now in the provisions in the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 179 for employees to have a right to refuse to work on Easter Sunday means anything at all. We get lectures about how we do not understand what happens in business. Well, Mr Hudson, put yourself in the shoes of a low-income New Zealander who has been lucky enough to get a job—probably paying only the minimum wage—in the retail industry, and the word comes around that people are needed for Easter Sunday. What do they do? Do they take that time to spend with their family—the precious hours, the few that they get; this might be their second job? Or do they take that time and say “I’d better say yes because I don’t know where the next set of hours are coming from, because I don’t know whether my job is secure enough, and because my rate of pay is so low that I have to scratch out every single hour.” That is not supporting families.

This bill and these clauses do not provide choice. They do not provide choice for employees, and we know full well that the practice of an employment relationship is not even. The reason we have laws like the Employment Relations Act in New Zealand—and that Act itself recognises the uneven nature of that relationship—is that we need to protect employees, and this bill does not do that. It pushes people away from that. We need, in my view, to take a stand on this piece of legislation.

I am not a person, as many of my colleagues will know, who shies away from going into shops. I am somebody who enjoys it. I am actually one of those rare males who enjoys getting into a shop—and I will take the Chair down to David Jones at the next opportunity I get and sort him out with a few items from the menswear section there. But there is no need whatsoever—

💬 Dr Megan Woods: Is there a David Jones in Wainuiōmata?

No, “David Jones Wainuiōmata” is the next store that is opening! It is only on Lambton Quay at this stage. But there is no need for us to break into the very days that we currently protect and say should not be broken into in terms of this kind of law.

I think National members might want to reflect on having a piece of legislation where the very people who are charged with implementing it do not want it. That is what they have managed to set up here. It is a piece of legislation where they have dumped it all on territorial authorities, which have come back and said: “No, don’t do it that way. It’s too complicated. It’s not going to work.” They have managed to put themselves in a position where the very process by which they want to implement this is being held up as one that will not work. Lawrence Yule, when he came to the Commerce Committee, said: “Please don’t do it by by-laws. They are complicated. They are subject to appeals. They are subject to judicial challenges.” This is the head of the Local Government New Zealand council saying to the National Government “You’ve got it wrong.”, and it is, as my colleague Clare Curran says, because those members have tried it every other way and Parliament has rejected it. But they come back again and again, and this time they are making it the responsibility of local government to try to carry this off. It is not good enough.

If the Government wants to do this, it needs to pass a law that applies at a national level. I would oppose that as well, myself, and I acknowledge strongly that there are people in the community who say: “Why not give us a go to do that?”, but—[Bell rung]

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Grant Robertson.

I will not take the whole of this call, but I acknowledge that there are people in the community who say: “Why not give us the option? Why not give us the choice?”. This is the time for Parliament to show leadership. This is the time for Parliament to stand up and say there are times when Parliament can say no, we want to support families. We want to give workers some protections about time off to spend with their families, and we want to uphold the rights of all New Zealanders to not feel that every single given moment has to be taken up with work.

We have a chance, again, to send a message out that this House respects the rights of New Zealanders and their families. We respect the fact that there are 363½ other days that people can spend shopping, and we do not need to pass this bill.

We were very surprised—well, those of us who have not been on the Commerce Committee or as engaged as my colleague here, Iain Lees-Galloway, our labour spokesperson—that the Government had decided to bring this bill to the House but not allow its members to have a conscience vote on it. So I think that is where I will start.

Looking back, reflecting on this issue, we see that the bill has been brought to the House four times in the last 10 years, and each time we have had the opportunity to take a conscience vote. When National has been at the helm, it has also allowed parties to have a conscience vote, but tonight is a different situation, and the National Government has instead whipped its whole caucus to vote the same way. So we are really disappointed with that and, in fact, we really feel for some of the National MPs, because we know that in the past they have taken different stances from each other. We see that Bill English has actually voted against this particular issue three times; Gerry Brownlee has voted against it two times; Nick Smith, two times; Chester Borrows, four times—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am going to ask the member to—well, first of all, I will correct her grammar. It is “twice”. But the next point that I will make is that although one can make passing reference, I think, to the style of voting, we are actually talking about the detail of the bill. The comments she has made would be absolutely appropriate at second reading and at third reading.

OK, Mr Chair, that is fine. So those members have not been given the option of a conscience vote, and the reason I raise that is, actually, the views in the House reflect the general public’s views on this particular bill. We know that some of the National MPs actually, like the rest of the House, have their own views on why they should not support this bill, and some of them do not support it for religious reasons. So it is really disappointing that the leadership of the National Government has removed the right for its members to have that freedom of choice, that freedom of religion, to vote based on their conscience.

I do want to say that we have been lobbied quite strongly by members from our Pacific community on this particular issue. Many people in this Committee will know that the Pacific community has probably one of the highest rates of Christianity, if not the highest rate of Christianity, in the country. I am not saying that the fact that Easter Sunday is a religious holiday is the be-all and end-all and that everyone must abide by that, but what I would say is that particular section of the community has expressed concern about this bill and about the fact that the National Government has forced all of its MPs, including its two Pacific MPs, to vote in favour of this bill. The large majority of the Pacific community whom we have spoken to—many of whom are Christians—actually fundamentally oppose this bill.

I do need to make that point on behalf of the Pacific community. [Interruption] Excuse me?

💬 Simon O’Connor: When was the last time that member ever listened to anything to do with religion?

So the National member is questioning my level of religion—my Christianity. I think that that member needs to reflect on himself and not question my religious beliefs and my level of Christianity. In fact, that actually reflects his actual level of Christianity—that he is questioning mine.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: How judgmental.

So judgmental. Anyway, going back to things that matter, like our Pacific communities’ view on this bill, can I just say there has been quite a strong campaign against it, there is a high level of disappointment with the National Government on it, and I think that going into the next election, things like this will be remembered.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): This is the second warning on the same issue. What we are debating now are the details of Parts 1 and 2, the three clauses, and the Supplementary Order Paper. There is actually quite a big range, and I am sure there are parts in this bill and the clauses in it that her communities object to. She should refer to them.

Getting on to the bill, I just want to say that one of the big concerns that we have with this bill is that the bill actually passes the buck to local councils with regard to making the decision about whether or not people are going to be allowed to shop on these particular days. Our concern with that is it will create inconsistencies across the country, and that could result in a shambles with regard to the way in which this is rolled out.

We are concerned, as my colleague Mojo Mathers has said, because people do deserve to have time off and people deserve to have guaranteed days off. Despite the fact that the National Government has said that people do have choice, well, actually, if they are in situations where there is power play at stake or where, in some way or another, they are feeling insecure about their work—and I want to refer to people who may be on a 90-day trial period—they would be less likely to say: “Actually, no. I don’t want to work on this holiday; I want to have that day off.” They would be concerned about whether or not that would result in them losing their job.

So it is easy for the National Government to say it is about choice. Some people have less choice. Those who are vulnerable are the ones who do have the least choice. So that is one of the reasons that we cannot support this bill. We think it is absolutely unrealistic to say that people can refuse to work on Easter Sunday, because people will feel like they will be penalised.

We are really concerned that through this bill National is not proposing any extra compensation for working on Easter Sunday. It expects people to give up that important family time—a day that traditionally they have been able to have off because there has been no shopping on that day. Now National is saying that people are going to have to work on that day. They could say no to their employer, which we know is going to be very difficult, but also, on top of that, if they do work, they will not be compensated for having worked on that day. We do not support that.

We also do not support the fact that more cost is going to be pushed on to councils at a time when we feel the Government is pressuring councils to lower costs. So, again, I just want to reiterate that we are not supporting this bill, for a number of reasons. I took a while to warm up to this, but I think I got there. I would just like to state again, speaking on behalf of our Pacific community, which does not support this bill, and as a Pacific member of Parliament—a Christian Pacific member of Parliament—I also do not support this bill.

Kia ora, ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I just want to stop and reflect on what Easter Sunday means to me. I am not a Christian member, and we had a bit of to-ing and fro-ing just before. But for me it was waking up with a sense of excitement, and it was not just the chocolate eggs you knew you were going to get. It had a sense of family, of being a different day where you were at home with your family and you knew that all your friends, when you were a kid, growing up, were at home with their families. They were probably doing the same things you were doing—sitting around in the lounge in your pyjamas, maybe eating hot cross buns, and then you would go and do a great Easter egg hunt. As a father, one of the best moments I have had with my children is inviting around the other kids from school so they can go round looking for eggs in the back garden. These are the things we will be losing if we see a section of our population who, let us be frank, will be working in the retail sector or in other areas. They are the ones who are going to be missing out on these family experiences, and with only 3½ days when shop trading hours are protected in this country, it is a big loss. It is a big loss of only 3½ days.

I want to point out the irony that right now the Swedish Parliament is negotiating and legislating to move Sweden’s working hours to 6 hours a day. We have fallen down the wrong track as a country in the last couple of decades. What has happened is that as we have progressively slipped down the world’s economic rankings we have had to work harder and work faster. But, instead, what we are not doing is working smarter. We are slipping down those rankings, yet Kiwis work some of the longest hours for some of the lowest wages, and we still pay some of the highest costs of living in the developed world. When you look at the economic literature coming out of the OECD, we have a 20 percent productivity gap with the OECD average. If you look at our other economic settings, such as the ease to set up a business in New Zealand, we should be 20 percent above. It is called the productivity gap, and the problem is that we have not worked smarter as a country. This is another classic example of where there is a misguided notion that if we just work more hours, for longer during the day, we are somehow going to be wealthier as a country. In fact, it is the reverse. The longer and the less smart we work, the poorer we get as a nation.

So what the Government has decided to do, in classic National style—there have been 10 attempts over the last 19 years to achieve this—is move in this direction. Obviously, there has been considerable pressure from certain lobby groups to get this legislative outcome we see tonight. But the Government has kicked it into touch and kicked it to the councils—yet another example where this Government reduces the powers of councils, the democracies of our councils. It sees more of the powers going into these undemocratic council-controlled organisations, yet it is quite willing to lump them with further responsibilities. Under this legislation, what is going to happen is that councils, dozens and dozens of them, are going to have to consider and go through their own expensive processes to work out whether they should implement this as a by-law. What we have seen repeatedly in the past in this country is that these by-laws have been judicially reviewed and subject to legal challenges. I have no doubt we will see this again.

What we see, on the one hand, is a metaphor for the not-smart economic practices and philosophies this country has gone down that have seen us slip down the rankings, that have seen Kiwis languish in terrible poverty, and that have seen a poorer New Zealand. But we also see a classic political example, where the Government is quite happy to kick responsibility and risk to local councils, at the same time as it is bagging them.

I am proud that all of the Green Party caucus will be voting against this legislation. We are pro-worker. We are pro those family experiences. We should be making Easter Sunday a public holiday, not weakening the shop trading hours protections that we currently have. But, also, we need to work smarter as a country. We cannot keep on racing on this treadmill but falling behind. It is a dumb way to run an economy. We need to think smarter.

We should be looking at some of the examples from the Nordic countries. It is not just fewer working hours so that there is more productivity packed into those hours; it is also looking at some of their paid parental protections. It is about looking at the way we run these low-value, commodity-based exports that drive down our national average. There is a limit to how many cows we can cram on paddocks and how many tourists we can cram into Fiordland. There is no limit to intellectual property, software, technology, patents, and services. This is the smarter option, and this is what the Green Party is advocating. Weakening workers’ rights with this legislation is not the answer.

I let the member run, but I do want to warn members that we are not going to have a general labour relations economic debate. We are having a specific debate on the clauses of this bill. Now that this warning has been issued, I will terminate the speeches of members who do not get it.

I would like to start this contribution around clause 10. I wish to do that to respond primarily to the comments made by Melissa Lee earlier on, during this Committee stage. Clause 10 amends section 3 of the principal legislation. Section 3 is about what days shops may not open, and they are Anzac Day morning, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Christmas Day. The reason I refer to clause 10, which amends section 3 of the principal Act, is that Melissa Lee said that New Zealand is increasingly made up of people of a diverse range of religions, not just Christian. Indeed, I would add that a lot of people are of no practising faith whatsoever. Personally, I am thoroughly out of practice with the religion that I was brought up in.

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: I’m not.

Carmel Sepuloni is not, actually, and that is a good point. Carmel Sepuloni, a good friend of mine, I know is not out of practice as a woman of faith. If Simon O’Connor wants to back up that incredibly sanctimonious interjection he made earlier on, he should get to his feet and make a contribution.

Melissa Lee made a good point. We are an increasingly diverse society, so that is an interesting context through which to look at this bill. I refer to clause 10, because out of the days that we have set aside as the days that shops should not open—Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Christmas Day, and Anzac Day morning—three of those are Christian festivals. I asked Melissa Lee: if the reason to vote in favour of this legislation and to vote in favour of this particular clause is that New Zealand is increasingly diverse, then why not allow shop trading on Good Friday and Christmas Day? They are Christian festivals as much as Easter Sunday is. So by that logic, surely, we should be actually expanding this legislation beyond Easter Sunday and allowing shop trading on those other days as well.

That would be a step too far for most New Zealanders, I think. That is not because they are Christian festivals but because we have decided, as a nation, to set aside some days that are for families and for communities—some days that working people can be assured that they do not have to go to work. That is why I am opposing this legislation; not from any religious perspective but because I believe that, as a country, we should set aside some days where working people know for certain that they are not going to be required to work, and they can spend that time with their family, and they can spend that time with their community—and actually having shared days when everybody has the day off work is really important for building communities. A lot of organisations—yes, Christian organisations, but other community organisations—rely on those days to bring their community together.

I know this view is different from others, such as Simon O’Connor’s, but to me it has little to do with religion. It is about families, and about communities, and about setting aside some days. If this Committee was prepared to have a debate about setting aside different days, I would be interested in engaging with that debate. But that is not a debate that we ever have. We only ever have a debate about reducing the number of days that are set aside for families and communities. The National Government has not proposed anything to expand the number of days that are available to families and communities—no. This bill proposes to reduce the number of days that are available to family and community.

It is important that workers have that ability to say “This is a day that I am not going to work.” I know that Government members and members opposite would say that this legislation allows workers to refuse to work on those days, but we have heard from other members about the power imbalance between the employer and the employee—about the fact that most people working in shops are on low wages, their hours are insecure, and they basically need to keep in the manager’s good books to make sure that they keep getting the hours that they need to make ends meet. So even though, to the letter of the law, they are allowed to turn down those hours on Easter Sunday, the truth is that they will feel compelled to work on those days that are currently set aside for them to spend time with their families.

I want to refer, particularly, to new section 5JA, inserted by clause 15 in Supplementary Order Paper 179, which falls under Subpart 2—“Shop employee rights”. New section 5JA I am opposing because it assumes that there is no power imbalance between the employer and the employee. It appears to have been written in by the Minister as a counterbalance to the fact that the employer must make the employee aware of the fact that they have the right not to work on Easter Sunday. It seems as though the Minister has said: “Well, no, that’s not right that the employee has that right; we have to confer some rights on to the employer as well.”

So what 5JA does is it makes it a requirement that employees inform their employer in writing no more than 14 days after their employer has made them aware of the fact that they are able to refuse work on Easter Sunday. They have to tell them in writing that they intend to refuse work on Easter Sunday. It has to be delivered in person to the employer, or sent by email, or, if a manner of giving notice is specified, in that specified manner of giving notices.

That is incredibly prescriptive, and should an employee fail to do that, and is then, in some way, coerced into working on an Easter Sunday, that gives the employer an out. That is incredibly inappropriate. It absolutely ignores something that is written into our employment legislation—that there is an inherent imbalance between the employer and the employee. So even though National members say that this legislation assures workers of their rights, and assures workers of their right to refuse to work on Easter Sunday, they have still managed to find a way to write in an opportunity to trip up workers and to make them vulnerable to unscrupulous or coercive employers. But that is the National Party way. It is the kind of thing that we expect from it.

This is why it is so important that we do set aside days where workers know they are not required to go to work. I do not care whether they are Christian festivals, whether they are Hindu festivals, whether they are Muslim festivals or any other kind of religious festival. I would prefer them to be Matariki, Waitangi Day, and other days that are more relevant to New Zealand, but I do not care how we come to choose what those days are. I just believe that we need to set aside some dates to recognise that family is important and that community is important. As Grant Robertson said, we hear many, many lectures from members opposite about the importance of strong families and how you build strong families. Well, you build strong families and strong communities by spending time together. Surely, as a nation, we can see the benefit of actually giving people some legislated rights to spend time with their families and their communities.

Every time in this Parliament, in this House, that there is a personal vote, a conscience vote, it is really incumbent on every member in this Chamber—every member of Parliament—to really examine their consciences, because, otherwise, why do we have conscience votes? We are trifling with that as being a mechanism to make law. In my view, that is not happening with regard to this bill that is passing through the House. On the other side of the Chamber, the individual consciences of MPs are not being engaged in this bill.

What my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway has just described tonight, as have other members—Mojo Mathers being one of them—is not so much about an issue to do with religion. It is about an issue to do with culture and what Kiwi culture is, how we express that, how we value it and treasure it, and make sure that it is valued and that each of us as parliamentarians value it. What is happening with this piece of legislation is that it is being devalued and trivialised, and I think that is a serious matter. I would hope that any of the National MPs listening to the debate tonight will reflect upon that and think that next time there is a conscience vote, they really should insist on being able to exercise their consciences.

I want to address my remarks to all of the clauses in this bill relating to local policy—the replacement of a by-law, replacing it with a local policy mechanism—and to highlight why that is so flawed and how it has created a catch-22 situation for local government. It is fundamentally one of the reasons, I think, why I am opposing this bill, because I think it is bad law—really bad law. I think that there were other ways, if the Government did want to bring this law forward, that it could have done it. It could have done it in a way that applied to the whole country rather than requiring local government to use a mechanism that, ultimately, is not going to result in true consultation for local communities and, if it does, is going to cost them the amount of money that they opposed en masse in the first place.

I want to refer to some advice that was given to the select committee by the ministry during the tortured process of this bill through the Commerce Committee, on which I sit. The committee was asked whether a judicial review applied equally to both a local policy and a by-law mechanism process. The committee’s advice was that from a constitutional perspective, the use of local policies to allow shop trading would be the same as using by-laws, provided the empowering provision was the same, the consultation process was the same, and the ability to review remained. I want to just refer to two submissions. One from the Wellington City Council said that the Wellington City Council believes that a consistent, nationwide approach would be preferable to the proposed approach—and this was the by-law—as it would ensure greater consistency and clarity for the public. It said that the “nationwide approach removes the need to know where the invisible boundaries lie between territorial authorities. This would be an issue not only for residents of a particular area but also for the many people travelling over holiday weekends.”, etc. They say there are “other instances where differences in approach between territorial authorities have been criticised for the inconsistency created and uncertainty caused. A nationwide approach would avoid this.”

I also want to refer to the Christchurch City Council, which gave an extensive submission that said that it considered that the issue of Easter Sunday trading was a matter that should be decided at a national level. A clear decision is needed that would apply through the whole country. The council submits that the bill would not reduce red tape; it would reinforce the loopy rule problems that were proposed by Paula Bennett—so that is a contradiction—and that it was going to cost a lot of money. [Bell rung] Thank you. That was a very long bell ring, Mr Chair.

The arguments used by these city councils, including the Auckland Council and other city councils, were that the imposition of a by-law and using a by-law mechanism was going to, ultimately, result in huge amounts of money being spent. In fact, they gave a submission to the committee on how much that was going to be, and the amounts ranged between $40,000 and $80,000 per territorial authority as a standard. Some of them said it was going to be more. Then the committee came back, and there was advice that came back to the committee that said “We won’t use the by-law mechanism; we’ll use the local policy mechanism.”, which was going to somehow reduce the amount of cost to the local authorities—the 67 local authorities across the country.

But I want to go back to that advice that was given about the constitutional issues, and that was that in order to remove any constitutional issues to using a local policy mechanism versus a by-law, then they would have to do the same amount of consultation and there would still be the same ability for a judicial review to occur. So, ultimately, local authorities are left in the same position that if they are going to apply that mechanism of a local policy, then they are open to the same risks that they opposed en masse in the first place. Ultimately, what this bill does is use another mechanism that appears to be less onerous on local authorities but, ultimately, unless they use it in the same way then they are acting unconstitutionally.

That is the catch-22 situation of this bill. That is why it is fundamentally flawed. It is a bad piece of legislation. It is a piece of legislation that is being imposed on the House because of a policy decision that has been made by the National Government requiring all its members to vote on a conscience issue using a flawed mechanism that local authorities do not want and, ultimately, being anti - Kiwi culture and taking away something sacred—for some, it is for religious reasons; for some it is for cultural reasons—and that is the ability to spend more time with your families. So, if they were going to do it sensibly, they would have imposed it as a national requirement across the country where local authorities did not have to make the decisions themselves using a flawed mechanism.

Ultimately, this is a very, very poor piece of legislation. It is shambolic. The Minister is having to introduce a major Supplementary Order Paper on the floor of the Committee of the whole House to enable it to go ahead. Most city councils do not want it in the form that it was and that it is, and ultimately, it is anti-Kiwi and anti - Kiwi culture.

Before I invite Mr Hudson to take the call, I just want to clarify the leave that was taken previously by the Committee. I think it was probably not put quite as clearly as it should have been, but just to make it clear I will seek leave again so that clauses 1 to 3, whether they stand part, is put as one question. I think this was the intention that everyone agreed to informally but might not quite have been put to the Committee. Is there any objection to that? There appears to be none.

It is wonderful to be able to speak again on this, the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill, because the great theme of the night is about choice, and I will take the time again to talk about how this bill actually provides that choice.

One of the first ways it is illustrated, actually, is that many members have made comments tonight about the National caucus being whipped to vote in a certain way. I think—and I contend—that those members opposite do not actually understand choice and how choice can be exhibited, because, you see, as a member of the caucus I can assure them of what happened. Members in a caucus meeting discussed this matter and individually we agreed that we would permit our whips to express our votes by proxies. Individually, we have chosen that we will support this bill and that we will have our whips express those votes for us. This is except for those of us lucky to be in the Chamber, of course; when the vote is taken we will mark our names off in the customary way.

But, more than that, the bill is all about choice. It provides choice to families: those families who want to shop on Easter Sunday where it is permissible can do so; those who do not wish to will not have to. Those employees who do not want to work on Easter Sunday will not and cannot be forced to. Local communities that want shopping available in part or all of their communities will be able to. Similarly, local communities that do not want retail open or trading on Easter Sunday will be able to maintain what is probably the status quo for them and not permit that to happen.

Authorities have choice (1) in whether to seek a change to the default position, and (2), in the process of how they consult with their communities. This bill is all about choice. One thing that I find very troubling about elements the members have raised is that the amendments to section 5 of the principal Act are very clear that employees’ rights to refuse to work on this day, for reasons of their own, which they do not have to express or justify, are protected. They are protected with the full force of employee protections under New Zealand statute. Yet tonight we have heard, as we have in previous readings, members opposite claim that those protections will have no force, no effect, and that employees will be too scared to use them. What they have actually been saying, in effect, is that employee protection in New Zealand does not work full stop. Clearly, their view is that we have an amount of legislation on our books that simply does not work and can never work because employees will always be too scared to use it.

What I contend is that what they are really saying is they do believe in those protections when it suits them to, but they do not believe that those protections will work when it is a measure put forward by this Government. I think that is quite sad. But, overall, it is coloured even further in that by taking that position, in effect what they are seeking to do is limit choice, whereas this Government—this party, the party of choice and the party of free will—is saying: “Let’s give our communities the opportunity to make their own decisions.” Ultimately, if I look at all of the dealings that I have had with councillors, whether they are city, district, or regional councillors, they all believe that local communities should have a voice, should have a say in how their communities operate—what is available and what is not.

It is quite interesting, actually, because members have pointed out that a number of the authorities, or representatives of the authorities, said that they would not necessarily want things done this way. Some expressed a view that Parliament should just do a blanket set of regulations for all of New Zealand, which is odd, really, because that is the antithesis of giving local communities a choice—you simply get central government to give one edict, which, I am sure, is not going to please everyone everywhere.

But the other part I would note, particularly to those representatives from those authorities, is that if one wants to have the authority to make decisions, particularly across a broad range of areas, one has to accept that you have to deal with the tough decisions and not just the easy ones. I would note that not one of those authorities that were saying that they did not want this addressed in this manner—not one of them—were offering to relinquish the general competence authority granted to them in the early 2000s. My message to them is: if you want to make decisions, if you want the authority to make calls in your community, you have a responsibility to deal not only with the easy problems but also the tough ones.

Before I call Adrian Rurawhe, I have yet another leave to seek. The leave that I am now seeking—which, again, it is my understanding, was the intention of the House when it was circulated—is that Part 2 and the schedule standing part be taken as one question. Is there any objection to that? There appears to be none. I think we have got there.

Speaking to the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill, I want to talk about the exemption clause, and I also want to talk about the clauses within this bill that give authority and responsibility to local authorities. But I want to do it in the context of a discussion that I remember, probably almost 30 years ago, when Sunday trading hours were being changed and we had a hui in Rātana Pā. The Hon Whetu Tirikātene-Sullivan came to that hui. I remember quite distinctly that discussion and the impact that it would have on our families.

Of course, the majority of our people at Rātana Pā and in the Rātana Church were against bringing in Sunday trading, for a whole lot of reasons. One of the things that came out of that discussion was sort of like a default position, which was that at least we have got Easter Sunday on which there will be no trading.

One of the points that I want to make around that is that over time our perspective around Sunday trading has altered—there is no doubt about that. We have heard members of this House talk about how this is a religious festival, but it is one, also, that families celebrate as a day that whānau can spend together. I agree with my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway that we do not have enough of those, and I agree with the discussion we have also heard that this is another impact upon families. I think it is really important that this House stands up for family values and the impact that things like this legislation are going to have on families.

In terms of transferring the authority to a local authority to make those decisions, members might be sitting here thinking: “Well, that’s off my conscience now. It’s on someone else’s conscience now.” I do not believe that that is correct. I believe that one cannot transfer one’s conscience to be carried out by another body. We in this House are elected to carry that out. We have heard also how local bodies might be carrying out this decision making. I could be wrong, but I do not see anywhere in this legislation where it compels those local authorities to take note of the historical decisions that have been made, and the reasons why they were made, and apply them to the decisions that they will make around creating new by-laws, which creates, as we have also heard, a number of challenges.

We have also heard about the protection of employee rights. We have so often seen the diminishment of workers’ rights, and this is another one. I do not believe for one moment that a young 17-year-old in their first job is going to be able to stand up to an employer and say “No, I don’t want to work that day.”—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: If they’re on a 90-day trial period.

—and to come out at the end of it still having the same number of hours in that job—and still have their job. As my colleague Carmel Sepuloni has pointed out, if they are on a 90-day trial, they might not make it to 91 days. That is a real problem. But, again, transferring that authority to another—

It is my pleasure to take a call on this piece of legislation and to signal that I will be exercising my personal vote to vote against this legislation. I want to spell out the reasons why I am voting against this legislation, and I want to specifically talk to the provisions in new sections 5H, 5I, 5J, and 5JI. I think this is the crux of the legislation, and it shows how out of touch the members opposite are that they naively believe that these words on a bit of paper offer the kinds of protections that are required to ensure that the retail workers are going to be treated fairly.

Listening to Mr Hudson’s speech showed to me just how out of touch that member is. I wonder how many minimum wage retail workers he actually speaks to and asks about their ability—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: In the Koru Club.

That is right; in the Koru Club. I do not know how many he speaks to in the Koru Club. I wonder how many minimum wage retail workers that member has had a conversation with, and has asked about their ability to work their own roster, to nominate the hours, the casual hours, that they want to work. I wonder how many that member has had a conversation with. I wonder whether he has talked to any people on a 90-day trial and asked them, at day 45, whether they can go to their boss and say “No, I don’t think I want to take those hours you’re offering me. I’d like to do something else with my time, so on this occasion I won’t be taking up that offer you’re putting to me.” This shows the naive and out-of-touch nature of the Government that we have sitting opposite us.

If we go through these provisions, new section 5H says that the Employment Relations Act, which requires a shop employee to be available to accept any work that the employer makes available on Easter Sunday, is unenforceable against the shop employee. I would like to hear one of the Government members take a call and tell us exactly how they think that is going to work in practice—how they think that a minimum wage retail worker is going to have the ability to say no.

Then we go to new section 5I, “Shop employee’s right to refuse to work on Easter Sunday”. “A shop employee—(a) may refuse to work on Easter Sunday; and (b) is not required to provide the employer with a reason for refusing to work on Easter Sunday.” Again, I would like to hear one of the members opposite give us an explanation of exactly how they think that conversation is going to pan out—that an 18-year-old minimum wage retail worker is approached by their boss, who says “I want you to work on Easter Sunday.”, and that employee can just say no, and “I am within my legislative rights not to tell you why I won’t work.” That is just absolutely out of touch. And to think that this is the ability just to take a personal grievance that is there—this is just ridiculous.

The fact that we have protected certain days and said that we will give a blanket day off to everybody so they can spend it together is something that we have whittled down in New Zealand to 3½ days. But those days are there for a reason. People have talked about religious observance; other people have talked about the ability to have family time. There are many sporting and cultural tournaments and festivals that are held over periods of time when it is accepted there will be common days off. This is what we are choosing to give up with this legislation.

But the other piece of this legislation, and another reason that I will be voting against it, is that it is just bad legislation. This is the Government deciding it wants to do something, but not having the intestinal fortitude to do it itself, instead palming it off—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I think the member knows that phrase is out of order. The member will withdraw.

I withdraw. This is a Government that is simply palming off to territorial and local authorities the onus—the cost—of doing this. One of the clauses that I especially like in this legislation is new section 5E, where this Parliament is telling territorial local authorities that they must not “delegate to a committee or other subordinate decision-making body, community board, or member, or officer of the local authority the power to make a final decision …”. This is rich from a Parliament that is passing legislation that is passing that onus on.

The heart of this bill is new section 4B in clause 13, which says that shops in certain areas may remain open on Easter Sunday. But that clause in this bill has been hijacked tonight, and we have just heard a lot of pious, sanctimonious, duplicitous, and deceptive arguments from the Opposition. [Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! There was one word in there that is not parliamentary. The member, I think, knows which it is, and even if he does not, he will withdraw and then continue.

I withdraw, Mr Chair.

There are three arguments that the Opposition has put up today. One is freedom of choice. Opposition members are saying that they should have freedom of choice. Well, I remember the Labour Party never had freedom of choice in terms of the marriage equality bill. It does not give freedom of choice to members of its party—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: Yes, we did.

No, it did not—it did not. It did not. It does not give freedom of choice to its members on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement.

💬 Dr Megan Woods: Lies! Lies!

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: I voted against it.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! There will now be two members on my left who will withdraw and apologise.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: I withdraw and apologise.

💬 Dr Megan Woods: I withdraw and apologise.

So we know that there is no freedom of choice in the Labour Party, because with the TPP it would not allow choice.

We have also heard about Christianity. Well, it is great to see the Labour Party talking about Christianity and listening to its Pacific communities. I did not see that when the marriage equality debate came through, and the debate on euthanasia. The Labour Party was not there listening to communities then. And it is all right for the Labour Party to take advantage of the opportunities that Easter Sunday provides, and say that that is important, but it will not support the religious basis for that day, and that is something that the Labour Party needs to come to grips with.

The third thing that Labour members have talked about is around families. This is not the Labour Party trying to protect families; this is the Labour Party protecting its union mates who have told it not to support this legislation. This legislation has been hijacked tonight by debates from the left that are simply two-faced, and represent an Opposition that cannot stand behind itself.

I was not actually going to take another call on this bill, but I felt that I had to. I am very compelled to take a call after listening to that verbal statement there. I would like to talk to the name of this bill, which is the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill. Clause 1, “Title” states: “This Act is the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Act 2015.” I would like to recommend that the name changes to: “The Rights of Families in New Zealand to Spend Easter Sunday Together Amendment Act 2016”.

There have been eight times that similar bills have come to this House to change the Easter trading laws. At the Commerce Committee we heard from various organisations that added to the fact that this bill will erode family time. Submitters, like the organisation Caritas, came in and gave a very compelling submission about the fact that this bill takes away the rights of families to spend time together. It takes away the fact that families, annually, will book, given that they can afford to, time to go away on holiday. This bill will strip away the rights of those families to take that time together.

It is already hard enough in today’s world to make time for family. I know that from being a fulltime worker previously, and I know that from owning my own business previously. It is really tough for families to find (1) the money, and (2) the time. The concern from a few organisations about the fact that this would erode family time was quite evident through the submission stages.

Another organisation that opposed this bill said: “We reject any liberalisation of Easter trading laws because workers deserve this special annual break to spend time with their families. … a focus on economic improvement should never come at the cost of weakening the quality and special time that families can spend together. Anzac Day, Easter, and Christmas remain as one of the few times when the whole country stops and takes a break.” Another submitter said that a much better solution is to normalise Easter Sunday as a true public holiday like Christmas, so that workers who do undertake this work are paid at least time and a half for hours worked and are given a day off in lieu.

On reflection, growing up in New Zealand through the last 20 to 30-plus years I saw how our communities and how our city centres changed from trading 5 days a week to, all of a sudden, pushing out trading to 7 days a week. Families since then have really struggled—really struggled—to find good quality time together so they can sit around the table and the mother and the father are not running off to work. In today’s society some parents are working more than two jobs just to make ends meet. This bill will further erode family time.

I did rise, unexpectedly, to take a short call, motivated by Mr Bennett. I am sure that members on this side of the House absolutely understand the value of family time, and we are quite concerned that the other side of the House has got no idea. Thank you.

In respect of the intervention from Dr Megan Woods some time ago, of all the organisations and people whom the Labour Party demonstrates such disdain for, for their lack of influence or ability to make a choice, the one that Dr Woods now brings in is trade unions. In criticising staff who absolutely have no ability to say no to an employer when they propose that their retail store remains open on Easter Sunday, the employee, under Dr Woods’ thesis, is so disempowered, so unable to say those simple words “No, and I don’t need to give a reason for that.”—for those who have membership of a union she has just said that does not matter, either. That is of no benefit. There are a great number of these vulnerable workers on minimum wages in retail stores, whom the Labour Party professes to be the champion of, and yet it does not have any faith in the unions to represent them adequately.

I have much more faith in trade unions to be able to support their workers. I actually think an employee is going to have every confidence in being able to say: “No. For my own reasons—if you open on Easter Sunday, that’s fine, but I do not want to work.” Here is the interesting thing that none of the members of the Labour Party caucus have told you: the employee protections in this bill have actually been improved. Actually, thanks to the Commerce Committee—and I really want to applaud its chair, Melissa Lee, for her tireless efforts to get the Opposition members of the Commerce Committee to see sense and produce an amended bill, which, in a conscience vote, the Committee will be in the best position to vote the merits of. But no, they could not even bring themselves to do that—they did not have confidence in their own colleagues—even though it is a personal vote. Can one see a pattern emerging here?

I come back to the extra employee protections. Currently, under the Shop Trading Hours Repeal Act if a shop is prevented from opening but an employee is required to work anyway—perhaps stocking the shelves, doing a stocktake, cleaning, and so on—they cannot say no. But under the amendments proposed by the committee and that I have introduced under Supplementary Order Paper 179, every employee in a retail outlet is able to say no, even if the shop does not open, and give no reasons. That, according to the Labour Party, is poor protection. I suggest otherwise.

I want to touch on a matter that was raised by Ria Bond before the dinner break in respect of my experience in employing staff on Easter Sunday. Well, I can tell that member that as the chief executive of a surgical hospital, a place that cannot close in the evenings, cannot close in the weekends, and often did not close over the Easter break—although sometimes we did—I have every insight into the disruption that unusual, unpleasant weekends and public holidays have on working lives. I understand the concerns that employees might have about this. They are the same concerns that ratepayers may have. They are the same concerns that the shop owners themselves may have. But I do not believe it is beyond the wit of them and, indeed, it enables an employee to make a choice to say yes, because, actually, some of them—part-time staff, students who have a part-time job—may want to earn that extra income, but the Labour Party would prevent them from doing so. I think that is a shame. I think this speaks volumes about the issues of freedom and choice in this country, and that is something I hold very dear.

I will finish on this one point, and that was one made by Mr Su’a William Sio before the break: Easter Sunday is not a public holiday. It is pretty simple. If one wanted to make an intelligent intervention on this bill, I would have thought a member would know that. Easter Sunday has never been a public holiday. And in respect of his comments about how the costs are being imposed on local government, as if it had no choice—there is that word again—guess what? If the local council does not want to incur those costs—

💬 Brett Hudson: They don’t have to.

—they do not have to. What this does is it gives the opportunity for the ratepayers—the people who would, ultimately, pay the costs of a consultation on a change in policy—to say to their local councils: “Actually, we do want this.” And they will be saying that in Wānaka, they will be saying it on the Coromandel, they have already said it in Rotorua—they will be making statues of Todd McClay in Rotorua. They do not have to incur a single dollar of cost if they do not want to. That will be between them and their ratepayers.

There is very little that David Bennett would motivate me to do, but in this case I am motivated to encourage that member to correct the Hansard about the comment he made about the Labour Party members who may or may not have voted against the marriage equality bill. Mr Bennett, I can give you the list. If you would care to stand up and correct the Hansard, given your speech—[Interruption]—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, no. The member will sit. That is not a point of order; that is interrupting the speaker.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. We all know that David Bennett is prone to some fantastical ideas and, in this regard, he is still on the money.

I come from a place called Christchurch. There is something in that name that will signal where I am going to head with this particular contribution, because I spend many of my Sundays attending services around my electorate of Christchurch East. Many, many, many people in my electorate choose to spend their Sunday mornings—and a large part of their Sundays—in observance of their faith, and I often attend services all across my electorate. There are many people in my particular electorate who choose to use Sunday as a day of rest, a day of fellowship, a day of sharing and gathering with other members of their faith to have some time together. And they may in the afternoon even choose to go shopping, but their first observance is to their faith on a Sunday.

Not only am I a member who represents a constituency that has a high population of faith-based communities but I am also a member of the Pacific Island community. It is to my distress that I see members from the other side of the Chamber who are of my Pacific community who are not able to enact—

💬 Hon Nicky Wagner: That’s an assumption.

—what they believe they should do. It may be an assumption, according to Minister Wagner. It may be an assumption, but I know because I have had conversations with those two Pacific members about the depth of their commitment to their faith. So it is very sad when we get to the point where Government policy overrides the intrinsic values and beliefs of an individual member.

This should be a conscience vote, and I know that if it was a true conscience vote those two Pacific members on the other side of the Chamber there would be voting against this legislation. They are members of a community that has faith at the heart of everything they do, and after faith comes family. So you cannot tell me that this Government is not whipping its members to vote completely for the bill. It causes me distress to know that my Pacific brothers in the National Party cannot vote the way their true conscience would want them to do.

The other thing that this Government has decided to do is to abdicate its responsibility around this very, very important issue on to our territorial local authorities. It is up to them to deal with this and to develop local policy and bylaws on this particular issue. So we have pushed the responsibility on to our local authorities. They are the ones that are going to have to engage in the public consultation. They are the ones that are going to have to do the hard work on this particular matter, and there may be territorial local authorities whose communities choose, like quite likely my community in Christchurch East or a Pacific community: “Actually, you know what? We’re going to go with what we truly believe, which is we want to ensure that Easter Sunday remains as it should.” Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair, for giving me this opportunity to speak in this debate. I respect those people who have religious belief, and the previous speaker, Poto Williams, just now mentioned that she is going to vote according to her religious beliefs, as I did during the marriage equality bill. Many of my colleagues did the same thing. But the thing is, during that period there were many people from the Opposition who did not vote according to their religious beliefs, so it is irrelevant for those members to bring into this debate today what is going to happen for people with religious belief. We have to see how things are progressing. The times are changing. We need to understand, as my colleague Melissa Lee mentioned, that we are a very diverse country now.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: It’s not about religion at all!

No, I am saying “diversity”; I am not talking about religion. Listen to it.

I appreciate one thing that the Minister is introducing in Supplementary Order Paper 179. He has mentioned that there is a choice, which is very clear; whether or not the worker wants to come to work, it is up to the worker. Fourteen days’ notice has to be given by the employer to ensure that the worker has got choice on whether or not he wants to come to work on that day.

I would like to quote one example. My office is in Papatoetoe, which is part of the Indian community, and there are many retailers in that area who close their shops on Mondays. There is nobody forcing them to close the shops on Monday, but they do that because they feel that they have to have a break, they want to spend time with their families, and they have other things they want to do. On the contrary, other shops are open. The competition is there, but the choice is there for them as to whether or not they want to open their shops.

Similarly, with this bill they are given the choice, and the local body has got a choice of whether they want to ask the people or not, like in Rotorua, where the demand is—because Taupō is open on Easter Sunday whereas Rotorua is not. People are at a disadvantage. The businesses feel the pinch, and that choice is being given in this bill. I hope that with this bill, when it goes through, a lot of businesses will appreciate what this Government has done. Thank you.

In a previous contribution I worked through, with the Committee, the select committee process and some issues that arose with the amendments that were not accepted by the Commerce Committee, which have been reintroduced as a Supplementary Order Paper. What I have not done, to date, is to deal with the issue at first principles, and I wish to spend a few minutes on that now.

May I open by rebutting the ridiculous claim from the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety and the members opposite that somehow a clause in this bill that workers can refuse to work on Easter Sunday with 14 days’ notice is actually going to hold any sway in the real world. If an employer says to a worker “Hey, I want you at work on the weekend, because it’s one of our busy weekends.”, and the worker says they are going to exercise their right under new section 5I not to turn up, the fact is that it will, in the real world, affect the relationship between the boss and the worker. The power imbalance in that situation is so obvious that the Committee really does not need to debate it. If the Government members think that that is a sufficient fig leaf for this disappointing piece of legislation that undermines family life, that undermines the plurality of religious observance, then there is very little that one can actually do to enlighten them.

But all is not lost for National, because the truth is that a number of its senior members and principled members have repeatedly voted against similar legislation. As I mentioned in my previous contribution, there have been four attempts in recent memory to pass through this House laws that would liberalise trading on Easter Sunday: one from Steve Chadwick in 2006, one from Jacqui Dean in 2006, one from Todd McClay in 2009, and another one from Jacqui Dean in 2012. Several National members voted against all or most of those. Chester Borrows: No, No, No, No. Bill English: No, No, No, Yes. Gerry Brownlee: No, No, Yes, No. Nick Smith: No, No, Yes, Yes. Michael Woodhouse: Yes, No—instructive. Alfred Ngaro: No. Tim Macindoe: No, No. Sam Lotu-Iiga: No, No. So here is the real reason why the Government is not bringing a similar piece of legislation to the Committee today: because it would be, on documented voting record, too difficult for a number of principled members of the National caucus to vote for it, hence the workaround.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I have previously ruled—and I know that my colleague has—that this is a debate on the full extent of the bill. I would ask the member to come back. Leave has been granted for a debate on the whole bill as one question, and I will ask the member to come back. Talking about past voting records is fine in passing, but the member is spending a lot of time on that, and I ask him to come back to the content of the bill.

Yes, I am very happy to do that. Before I do, though, I would ask, perhaps, the members opposite—Alfred Ngaro and Sam Lotu-Iiga—whether they would like to take a call or—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, no. I have just asked the member, in a manner that I think is in keeping with the spirit of what we are doing here, with the debate taken as one question, just to concentrate on the content of that.

Thank you, I will readily accept your guidance. The difficulty with the legislation and the clauses that we have now is that, because this legislative process has been such an utter shambles, members are going to have to vote clause by clause and those votes are going to be extremely complex.

Let me come back to first principles: I am going to exercise my conscience to vote against this bill because I stand for the protection of one of these few remaining pieces of legislated family time. I stand for, whatever faith it is, the opportunity for religious observance. There are very few protected opportunities in our calendar. We are increasingly becoming diverse and multicultural, and that is a good thing. But we should not give up the legislated protections that we have. That is why I am going to be exercising my conscience to vote against this bill.

However, because the Government’s constitutional workaround has employed this rather bizarre and circuitous route of using local government as a proxy, and because of the constitutional issues—the “Henry VIII” clause—that arise because of that, and because of the Minister’s amendments in Supplementary Order Paper 179 that seek to make it even quicker and dirtier by doing away with the by-law process and making it a policy stroke of the pen, members who oppose the bill are going to have to have a very close look at this on a clause by clause basis. We are going to have to vote, for example, in favour of the original bill’s new section 5E, which set out a lot of the by-law process protections, and against the Minister’s amendments to that clause. As much as we detest the bill as a whole, those of us who oppose it are going to vote in favour, I would imagine, of clauses that provide for the protection—

I rise again to take a short call to oppose the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill, which liberalises the shop trading hours for retail shops, for example. I just wanted to quickly acknowledge my colleague Denise Roche, who did ask the Speaker, perhaps like other members, to consider that we exercise a conscience vote on this legislation. I agree with other members of the Committee that we should exercise a true conscience vote when we are standing on our principles in this Chamber, which is a very privileged place to stand, and we get to personally exercise our vote.

I did want to raise again the burn from my colleague Gareth Hughes around Standing Order 48, which says that the members of the House never have to sit in this House on a Sunday. It quite specifically says that “The House must not sit on a Sunday.” So we consider ourselves important enough to ensure that this House, where we are all privileged, does not sit on a Sunday. So I thank my colleague Gareth Hughes for raising that really important point. Once again, we are disconnected; we get to take away the freedom of choice from other people who work—who are in paid employment like us. But we are not ruling out Easter Sunday as a protected day for workers.

I also wanted to refer to this whole freedom of choice thing. This Government does not value freedom of choice. It is tightening up the laws to put people in retail trading employment, to put those workers, into the corner with less power, which equates to less choice. It is really hard on my ears every time the members of this Government stand up and rave on about freedom of choice. Also, the freedom of choice argument that is being used always assumes starting from a balanced, a level, playing field—and that is completely not true.

So I did want to pick up on the important part of this legislation around the employment relationship and how it seeks to protect employees from having to work on the Easter Sunday. Yes, strong laws are important to protect employee rights. Yes, unions are effective and important. Yes, strong laws to protect workers’ rights are effective and important. But they do not always guarantee the protection because of the power relationship. I have had many instances of this grievance personally when I was employed and was in the community listening to the grievances of young female workers, working in retail jobs, particularly, who had no power at all—despite the laws and despite unions—against sexual harassment.

So we have got strong, clear guidance around sexual harassment to protect employees, but because of the imbalance in that power relationship, one particular young woman came to me in my role as a human rights worker for the Human Rights Commission for 10 years with a focus on working with children and young people. One young woman came to me and talked about when she knew she was being sexually harassed by her boss—the person with more power, who was in charge, who knew the legislation, who knew the workplace guidance, who understood that that was illegal and all the rest of it, but who still did it anyway because he could get away with it. What was she going to do? What was she going to do, a 17- or 18-year-old young woman, alone in a room who was being sexually harassed by someone with more power than her, despite all the laws in the world. This is why these decisions have to be made on a nationwide basis. We have to ensure that there are strong protections for workers to truly have their rights cared for. So I did want to expand on that one a little bit more. Also, there was widespread opposition—

Just a point: this debate concludes at quarter past 9 and, for whoever is speaking at the time, I will be stopping it at that point.

This bill, the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill, is a sensible measure. The status quo that we have now is simply illogical and absurd. For instance, if I wanted to go out on Easter Sunday and purchase a box of popcorn at the cinema, I could do that because, of course, a cinema is not a shop; it is providing a service to the public. Whereas if I wanted to go down to the local Countdown or Pak ’N Save and do that at a more reasonable price, that would be unavailable to me. Irrespective of the religion of an individual, whether you are a Christian who wants to commemorate the holy day on a Sunday, whether you are a Muslim who celebrates Jumu’ah or mosque day on a Friday, or whether you are a Jew who goes to temple on the Sabbath on a Saturday, one should be free in a country like New Zealand to observe their faith and to respect their culture.

At the same time, I would not expect legislation to be imposed on everybody else who wants to go about their reasonable business, including opening their own private or small business staffed only by themselves; to be suppressed in doing so. For the purposes of this bill we are talking about not a public holiday—and we are talking about, as the Minister pointed out, simply hours in which shops can trade. So for that reason this is a very, very good bill, and I will be walking out the Ayes lobby in support of it.

Tēnā koutou katoa. I just want to take a very quick call to say that I find it ludicrous to be here after the many times—so many times. In the 7½ years I have been in Parliament this sort of bill keeps coming up. Is there nothing sacred to the House except money? What about people’s time? It is ludicrous to suggest that a working person can say to their employer, if they do not happen to be a friendly one, that they do not have to work on Easter Sunday. It is impossible to assert yourself, despite what is written into the law here, if you do not have an employer that is willing to keep you on if you do not play ball. What if you are seen as a bad worker, an uncooperative worker—

I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but the time for this debate has concluded.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 179 in the name of the Hon Michael Woodhouse to clause 13, and to the heading of subpart 1 of new Part 2 and new sections 5A, 5B, and 5JA in clause 15 be agreed to.