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

Members, the Repeal of Good Friday and Easter Sunday as Restricted Trading Days (Shop Trading and Sale of Alcohol) Amendment Bill will be the subject of a personal vote at the end of the debate. [Interruption] Is there a problem going on over there? Members are welcome to seek the call to speak in favour of or against the bill. I’ll aim to allocate the calls as closely as possible to the proportionality of membership of the House, but also to ensure that different sides of the debate receive a fair hearing. Members may wish to come to the Chair to indicate to the presiding officer that they’ll be seeking a call.

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

Can I first take the opportunity to thank all members from across the House who have engaged with me on this bill—those who immediately saw this as a pro-customer, pro-worker, and pro-business policy, but also those members who have brought legitimate concerns and have been part of the discussion over the last year. I hope you find that I address some of those concerns in this speech. Can I also thank Chris Baillie, who brought this bill to a previous Parliament, and the stakeholders and staff who have been getting the word out about what we are trying to do here.

This bill seeks to enhance the enjoyment for all New Zealanders over the Easter weekend through a mix of simplification and choice. My bill does what it says on the tin: remove the provisions in the Shop Trading Hours Act and Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act which restrict trading on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. There are four days making up our Easter weekend: Good Friday, Saturday, Easter Sunday, and Easter Monday. New Zealand has 12 public holidays: secular days, the hararei Matariki, and, importantly for those of us who are grateful to our heritage, Christian holidays, two of which fall, obviously, on Easter. To be clear to the House, my bill does not change a single one of these days from their position as public holidays in New Zealand. What it does seek to change are the restrictions on how New Zealanders choose to spend these days.

I’d like to briefly traverse the lay of the land for the different days of the Easter weekend. Good Friday is a public holiday and a restricted trading day. Saturday is just a normal Saturday. Easter Sunday is not just a public holiday but it is a restricted trading day. It is also a special day in our calendar, not just because of the Christian celebration of this Day of Resurrection but, in the law, it is also the only day of the year when a shop employee may use their discretion and refuse to work without having to provide a reason—a discretion day. Easter Monday is a public holiday, with a long history dating back to before Mondayisation, to allow for an extended Easter holiday weekend. It is not a restricted trading day. In 2016, there was a change to the rules which allowed local councils to liberalise their trading policies. This has led to a hodgepodge of confusing rules throughout the country, which every year befuddle tourists and locals alike. With four days, with four different sets of rules, it is no wonder that this is a perennial issue and one which in a recent poll showed a majority of New Zealanders from all sides of this House support to see changed.

I’m incredibly grateful that this bill was drawn so early in my first term. In the months since, I have been around the country, as many in this House do, to different towns, and I’ve heard different experiences. Some business owners have told me that, even though their local area has a liberalised trading policy, they find the prescribed rules so cumbersome that, despite being allowed to trade, they choose to remain closed rather than attempting to comply. These rules include having to supply a substantial meal if one wishes to enjoy a beverage, the definition of which is up for debate, or restrictions on the amount of time that friends and family can spend together at a venue before being moved on. I’ve met restaurant and bar workers who say that, despite wanting to work on restricted days, they “don’t like having to treat my customers like children and tell them what they can and can’t eat and drink and how long they can stay before they must leave”. People are just trying to enjoy their Easter and, if our alcohol laws work the other 361½ days of the year, why do we need a special rule on these days?

I’ve met employees who say that, because of the disjointed structure of the Easter holidays, rather than enjoying a four-day weekend with their family they were rostered to work on the Saturday, meaning this messes up the whole weekend for one day’s pay, when it would be better to work the Friday or the Sunday and use a day in lieu to spend on extending other times of the year with their family in a way which is important to them. Many Kiwis have other days of the year which hold significance to them, when using a day in lieu would mean so much to them—days like Diwali, Eid, or dates of importance to religious groups that have grown in these lands, like Ringatū, Rātana, or Pai Mārire.

Retail businesses tell me they would like the opportunity of a level playing field with online retailers, because online stores don’t face the restrictions that brick and mortar ones do, who must also pay leases and rates for their stores. Warbirds Over Wanaka is an infamous example of a town whose rules were not aligned with the needs of the community and tourists who visited in the 2024 Warbirds Over Wanaka. Two New World supermarkets decided to open and cop the fine rather than leave the bulging tourist population unserved—which brings me to the punishment. If a business owner was to trade on a restricted day, the law states that, upon conviction, they shall be liable for up to a $2,000 fine. I’ve met business owners who have received this conviction and subsequent fine but felt that it was capriciously applied, as a business just up the road was able to trade without enforcement action taken.

Central government has meddled in this space. Government created a framework for local Easter trading policies which means businesses could make their case to the council to be allowed to trade in a specific area. The law requires councils to review these policies after five years. Now, when I went out and asked how many councils in New Zealand have these policies, I found out that last year five councils had their policy lapse without realising. This meant they allowed Easter trading in their area, which was not within the law. I don’t blame these councils. Central government, rather than allowing Kiwis to make their own choices, created a halfway house. Central government should take this burden off councils and say, “We live in a default permissive country”, and if you would like to restrict trade on your neighbours, this is where the philosophy of localism should live.

I’d like to clarify the worker protection in my bill, because it is an extremely important and core part of it. As I’ve said, currently a worker may refuse to work on Easter Sunday. Their employer, if they would like them to work, must give written notice letting their employee know that they have the right to refuse to work, and that notice must be given no less than four weeks before Easter Sunday. I’ve asked the Library, I’ve asked people in the industry, I’ve asked my fellow MPs: “Have there been any cases or complaints where an employee feels they have been adversely treated because of exercising their right?” Yet I have yet to hear back on any such case. I am confident that, by extending this provision—their right to refuse to work—to Good Friday we will create two discretion days in our calendar where all Kiwis can choose how they spend their time and in what way they would like to spend it.

There are legitimate concerns about alcohol. We know that many New Zealanders have a negative relationship with alcohol. It’s been hard to find data on the following claim, but I’ve been told that the average sale volume of alcohol doesn’t change over Easter week. The restriction on the sale of alcohol over Easter weekend means that people who feel or are dependent on alcohol may, out of a sense of nervous preparation, over purchase and therefore have more alcohol in their homes, the most harmful place for it to be.

From talking to people about my bill over the last nine months, I’ve realised that there is a view which comes from a warm place in New Zealand history, one that remembers how we spent our holidays in the garden or at the beach or at the park or the lake—somewhere wholesome in nature, akin to the quarter-acre paradise vision of New Zealand. New Zealand has changed a lot in recent decades. Along with the rest of the world, the quarter acre with a garden has become a subdivided section or a townhouse. We have seen screens become a ubiquitous part of our lives. I think the vision that if we close all shops and forms of commercial entertainment, Kiwis will be seen in their gardens or in their droves at the lakeshore is not necessarily the case. It may be true for some sectors of New Zealand, but many others, I fear, will see more children and even adults with their faces glued to screens. Because we have changed in the way Kiwis value and spend their time, I say a restaurant, a shop, an ice cream stand, a go-kart track, or a bit of mini putt is a legitimate way to get Kiwis out and enjoying themselves.

In closing, I’d like to say that this bill does not remove anybody’s rights. If you are a worker, your rights are extended. If you’re a business owner, no one will be able to force you to open. If you enjoy a day off as a day off, you don’t have to shop. If you want to visit a beach or a park, you can. If you want to spend your days in religious observance or attitude and by going to church, your rights are protected and enhanced. I ask my fellow members to use your conscience to vote this bill to select committee so that the views of New Zealanders can be heard. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I appreciate the ability to be able to take a call on what is a conscience issue, and I do so in my capacity as the Labour Party spokesperson on workplace relations and safety, as this bill falls into this general area.

I want to start by respectfully saying to the member Cameron Luxton, who brought this bill in, that I thank him for the engagement that he has had around this bill, the passionate way he has advocated for this particular bill, and the respectful way he has engaged with certainly myself but, I’m sure, with other members of the House as well. It’s not easy to get a member’s bill drawn from the ballot, and especially not one that you feel so passionately about as Cameron Luxton does, so thank you for your engagement on this. When we did engage on it, I did indicate to Cameron Luxton that I would seriously take his advocacy into account, and I have done. Unfortunately for the member, it’s not a bill that we will be supporting in this instance, and I want to take the time, out of respect, to go through some of the reasons why that is.

I think that it’s very important to see the rights that people have in New Zealand in respect of work and the time that they have with their families in the context of an existing ability to spend that time together and to enjoy their life. I very much believe that people should have fair working conditions, but they should also be allowed the time for rest and relaxation as well, and although I appreciate this is a very small part of what forms holidays under this Act, I do think it’s worth protecting in this instance—not for the religious reasons that may cause some other members to oppose this bill; this is very much on the basis of protecting the rights of workers to be able to enjoy that time off and to not put additional pressure on them to work. I appreciate that the member did engage specifically with me on that issue, and my colleague Rachel Boyack has worked extensively in unions that work with supermarkets and has experience of that, so we’ll be talking to that specific point. I appreciate that those examples were specifically sought, and Rachel Boyack will be able to speak to that.

This is not, from our perspective, to do with the religious nature of Easter. We do note that Easter goes over four days, and we are talking about two of those days of restrictions, so in terms of the balance of being able to trade, on an objective basis that seems, from our perspective, to be about right. Personally, I come from a family that has been religious in the past. I’m not religious myself; my objection to this is not on the basis of wanting to practise my own religion on those days, although I would note that many secular families do celebrate Easter and do celebrate other religious holidays as a tradition as well, and those traditions can be held very dear, despite the lack of religious adherence to it.

I’m sorry to the member that our party will not be able to support his bill, in the sense that I do believe that, for him, it’s a genuinely passionately held belief that this law should be changed. For us, also, it was in the context of looking at the other measures that have been brought in—not by the member himself but by members of his party that, in our view, do take away from the rights of workers. Quite ironically, I suppose, in the very week or fortnight that this bill was coming up for hearing, we have heard the Minister from the member’s party talk about a review of the Holidays Act. I have not heard, and I would like to hear, assurances from the Minister that that won’t result in a loss of entitlements for people. I think that’s, essentially, the main grain of our opposition to this bill: we don’t want to see further rights of workers go backwards. We do know that this is a small, discrete area, but we do not think the flexibility of businesses are so significantly curtailed by these existing restrictions that this needs to be changed at this stage.

It is, I think, relevant to look at the wider context of what is happening at the moment. We have even seen, yesterday, the minimum wage be set at the smallest amount since the 1990s, so this is not a Government that is, in our view, delivering for workers. It’s in that context that we also don’t want to see any roll back further of the rights that workers enjoy to their time off with their family, and I think we’re all thinking about time off with our families as we get ready for the holiday break now, and how precious that is to us. Although this is a small part of that, for us it is something small that we’re willing to fight for, and that is the basis of the Labour Party’s opposition to this bill. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Just before I take another call, for those who weren’t in the House at the beginning, the Speaker in the Chair indicated that he was going to prepare a list, and he invited people to come to the Chair to, I suppose, argue for a place on that list. I do have a list in front of me. If anyone wants a call, feel free to approach me and I’ll give you the name of a member of your party you may wish to negotiate with for that slot. Other than that, I currently have a list before me, so for those who have come to the House with other expectations, I’m sorry; that’s the way that it will now stand.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Ultimately, today, I am going to vote in favour of this bill. I don’t know that I naturally feel in support of it, but I do think there are some genuine questions to be answered, and I want to see the bill go to select committee so these can be teased out and to give a broader number of people the opportunity to appear before the select committee to make submissions. I want to see people with the opportunity to come and appear before them and actually present their case.

Look, my starting point is I like what the current rules achieve. I like that we have just a couple of days in New Zealand where families have an almost unobstructed opportunity to get together. It might not be the right mechanism that Government has to tell you that today you can’t go to work and today you should spend time with your family, but I do think it’s the right outcome, particularly because I feel like we’ve seen a gradual breakdown of community and in some levels of family in New Zealand. I’d like to see more of that.

I do like what these rules achieve, but I do think there are questions that we need to answer—for example, the tension between the public holiday being on the Monday and the no-trading day being on the Sunday. What this means is even if workers—yes, it is true, they have their rights protected and under this member’s bill that would also apply to Good Friday, but they don’t have the backup of it being a public holiday. If they do work, they get time and a half or they get a day in lieu—they have those other provisions in place. It does feel a little bit messy to me to have a public holiday Monday but the trading days on other days. I do hear the call from the other side that they want to ensure people have the freedom not to work. I know it’s never quite that simple that everyone feels they’re in a position to say no, but I do think this is an issue worth teasing out.

Now, of course, one of the questions is: well, what’s left? That leaves us with Anzac Day morning, that leaves us with Christmas Day—and no one’s suggesting we should touch Christmas—but the question might be, “Well, why not? What is the difference between Christmas and Easter?” They both come from a faith perspective. They have both traditionally been days on which, if you look at the tikanga on which this modern New Zealand was founded, they were important days in the calendar, days where families came together, days where we didn’t trade. When we went to Sunday trading some decades ago, obviously the protections for Sundays remained in place, and no one said we would take on Christmas, but if the position of those in favour of the bill is, “Well, everyone should be free to choose whatever day they want.”, why wouldn’t the same apply to Christmas?

Not for one minute am I advocating that this should apply to Christmas, but why are we drawing a line there? The argument there would fall flat on itself. On the one hand, we’re saying, “Well, everyone should be free to choose, and if you want to work, if you want to open your business, you can”, but then we’re also saying, at the same time, “But not on Christmas, because we’ve decided that day is too important.” Actually, we do think it’s OK that Governments sometimes will say, “Well, there are days that are so important we’re not going to touch them. We’re not going to touch the morning of Anzac Day; we’re not going to touch Christmas Day.” But why Easter? I think there is a genuine question here, and I’m sure the member in his reply will do it. I’m happy to see this bill go to the select committee to tease out some of these questions. I don’t think in its current form the bill answers all of these, but I do think it’s a question that more New Zealanders should be able to comment on as we ultimately decide the kind of country that we want to be living in.

Look, from where I sit, it seems madness that when I went out with my family for dinner on Good Friday this year and we said, “Well, let’s go to this one place, let’s get some garlic bread and have a drink.”—“Sorry, garlic bread is not enough to get a drink.” “Well, what if we have two garlic breads? Is that OK?”—“Oh, not quite. Maybe if you had some fries as well.” OK, so we went to the other place, and we just had an earlier dinner. Now, I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think that can be the answer that we want to end up on. If the bar is open, then let them do what they do. If people want to have a meal, let them have a meal; if they want to have a drink, let them have a drink. If you really are worried about the length of that, you can look at earlier closing rates, but that should be determined at a local level.

I do think there are some issues with the way it sits now, but I also want to see those couple of rare days we have in this country that are protected, that kind of drive to a great outcome of families together—and I hold Christmas Day and Easter Sunday as being two really special days along with Anzac Day for me—that I would like to see some protection around. But I think the alignment of the rules on trading, the rules on alcohol sale, on public holidays, needs to be looked at. No one is saying, “Well, let’s have an extra public holiday”, because they don’t want to suddenly take away the Monday day off. And why not? Well, because we want a day off. But, actually, that’s what we’re getting rid of here. I think there are some questions. I’m going to support this bill to select committee to give people a chance to comment on those, and then I’ll reassess from there.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Let me begin by acknowledging the member in charge of the bill, Cameron Luxton, who has been engaging right across the House and, of course, with different members of Parliament within the Green Party, and that that’s a good thing. It’s a good thing for members to be engaging on things that they are passionate about, and that certainly has resonated in the interactions that the member has had with people that I have talked to as well. I hope that that can continue, whether people agree or disagree.

Unfortunately, in this case, I disagree. The reason for that is we need to really focus on getting that work-life balance right. It is important for us to uphold workers’ rights—that’s important—to secure an adequate income, to fair treatment and safety at work, and to be involved in workplace decision-making via workplace democracy and collective organising—that stuff is important—but, at the same time, we foster a working culture which recognises the fullness of people’s lives and restores balance between paid work, voluntary and care work, and leisure time. We don’t have that balance within our society. Too much of our time, as the member said previously, is being spent on devices and other issues as well—that we actually need to carve out that time. I take a different view because—and this is not for religious reasons—there are so few days that it should be about family, where it should be about community, and which should be about society that it would be unfortunate if this Parliament were to roll those back.

I note that in the discussions that we’ve had so far, the member talked about there being the right for workers to refuse to work on that day, and he went to some lengths to explain the extension of those rights within his member’s bill. However, anybody that’s worked, anybody that’s had particularly low-paid jobs, will know that you don’t want to get on the wrong side of the boss. There are these other pressures that play into place. Yes, you might have the ability to do something, to tell your boss, but who in reality would do that? There is a power imbalance which is not addressed in this bill, so I have concerns about that.

The issues that the member raises about extensions into other religious holidays or other cultural events of significance are important conversations to have. I hope that we will continue to have those conversations, because it’s important to be able to have those conversations, but I can’t see how that is addressed with this bill. I also agree with the point around the seeming advantages that online businesses have compared to brick and mortar businesses. I think that is also an important issue that needs to be addressed by the Parliament, but I also can’t see that being addressed in particular with this bill. I do want to encourage the member to continue to engage in good faith. I think he has done that.

I also see all of this within the context of what’s been happening in the realm of workers’ rights. There’s been attempts to rein back the ability to strike. At the beginning of this Parliament, we had the 90-day trials come back and fair pay agreements were rolled back as well. Workers are under attack. Workers are feeling that this Government doesn’t care about them. If we talk about the freedom to choose in terms of how you will work or not work within a particular workplace, it is also important to think about the freedom to organise, the freedom to not just choose who will have power over you—because that’s the problem—but also the freedom to actually own and organise our own lives. This is a bill which is happening in the context where workers’ rights are being rolled back. That context is why I cannot support this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on this bill. I won’t be supporting this bill today, but I do want to acknowledge the member for having his bill pulled and for the engagement he’s undertaken. I did just want to respond to some of the comments he made around pressure being placed on workers to work on Easter Sunday. I understand he did ask that question of my colleague Camilla Belich, but not directly of me and I do want to bring some of my experience to the House today. I worked as a retail union organiser for six years. I represented workers at Countdown, now Woolworths; New World; Pak ’N Save; Farmers; Bunnings; Mitre 10; Kmart; and Cotton On—large retailers—and some small retailers in New Zealand.

I was representing those workers when the law changed in 2016. What happened was that, in Tasman, they originally voted No but have changed that to Yes; in Nelson, they have kept with no trading; and in Marlborough, they did make an immediate move to trade. One of the things that happened was the supermarkets in particular were particularly bad at following the law, which required a written notice to employees, which the Countdown supermarket in the heart of Blenheim did not do. They were required to have a process for employees to say they wanted to opt out, and, again, they didn’t do that. As the organiser, I actually had to take it upon myself to set that system up. I had to create an opt-out form and give it all of my members, and they then provided it to the employer.

There was a lot of subtle pressure placed on employees—some of whom, like myself, have a Christian faith—to work on Easter Sunday. I would say to fellow Christians—and that’s not the main reason I’m opposing this bill—that, arguably, for us Easter Sunday is far more important than Christmas Day in terms of our religious calendar. I do want to note that—and I’ve had representation made to me from Christians—while, culturally in New Zealand, the practice is to spend engagement around Christmas, for those of us practising the Christian faith, Easter Sunday is a more significant day. That is not the main reason I’m opposing this bill, though; it is based on my experience of that subtle pressure that’s put on workers.

The other thing is the member was incorrect in his first speech. Easter Sunday isn’t a public holiday, and so workers are required to work on Easter Sunday—they may make the choice to work on Easter Sunday—unless they’re covered by an agreement. Now, many retail workers are covered by a collective agreement that does put in place a time-and-a-half provision, but there are a lot of workers who work on that day and don’t receive time and a half and don’t receive a day in lieu and don’t get those extra provisions that you would get for a public holiday—so there is an anomaly in the law—and without that, I absolutely could not support this. For workers to be working on a day that is of such significance in terms of being both a family day and a religious day and not receiving that extra support is something that I just personally could not support.

I want to talk a little bit about that subtle pressure. Absolutely you can write into the law that there are workers’ protections. You can write that on a piece of paper, but how does it work in practice? Things are said like, “Thanks to all the team players who worked today.”—and guess who gets the promotion! It’s probably the person who’s willing to work the extra hours or work the days that people don’t want.

What you end up having is subtle discrimination against people. We have a lot of Pasifika people, for example, who work in supermarkets. A number of them are of the Christian faith, and so they feel that pressure to go to work on a day that is of significance to them. I do take the point that there are people of other faiths in this country that don’t get that same protection. I’m really happy to have a conversation about what that could look like—that’s something that is of interest to me—but this bill does not cover any of that. It does not put any of those conversations in place. It doesn’t put any extra protections in place. I have seen in practice, over six years of working, people feeling pressured to work because someone’s called in sick and they’re short-staffed that day. It happens all the time.

Workers don’t want to let their team mates down, they don’t want to let their boss down, so they will often make those decisions when they would rather be spending time with their family, and for some of them, it will be going to church on that day. For me, this is an absolute no-go area, and I cannot support this bill.

Mr Speaker, with your leave, I would like to make a very short contribution and split my time with Te Pāti Māori, in order that they can speak—having not been at the beginning of the debate, but wishing to speak, if that’s OK with you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): That’s fine and very magnanimous. Thank you, Mr Seymour.

Well, it is Christmas, Mr Speaker, and all people, in the spirit of Christ, deserve forgiveness from time to time. Can I begin my speech time from now?

I rise on behalf of myself, the people of Epsom, and the ACT Party, in support of this bill. The one thing I wanted to say to people of a Christian faith is that this is in no way an offence, an insult, or a slight. I myself am a baptised Presbyterian and someone who believes deeply in the roots of imago Dei, because they tell us that each person has an inherent dignity, being made in the image of God. That is the foundation of my beliefs and it is the foundation of our Western society based on liberalism and each person having equal rights. It also applies to each person who may not have faith and may have different views from yours. It applies to people who have a whole range of aspirations. Sometimes those aspirations are grand and profound, like becoming an astronaut or bringing about world peace. Other times the things that people really want are just to be able to conveniently buy what they need or want at the time that is convenient for them. I actually don’t think that, if you believe in freedom and the dignity and rights of people to choose for themselves, you should discriminate between those large and small wants.

The next question you should ask is: regardless, what harm does it do to allow a person to go to a shop, which is allowed to be open anyway? We hear that it’s terrible for the employees—to go to a shop that’s allowed to be open anyway, such as a supermarket, and often is open anyway, and be able to buy a bottle of wine to share with their loved ones. People say, “Oh, you should just get organised earlier.” But why? There is no justification for restricting another person’s freedom to transact with someone else that wants to be there, that wants to do it. They still get time and a half, because it doesn’t change the Holidays Act. They still don’t have to work, because of the Shop Trading Hours Act, but they can work—they can choose to if they want to.

Really, I find it astonishing that we’re even debating something as simple and straightforward as this. Should we allow another person to pursue their dreams and hopes if it does not affect ours? The answer is we should send this bill to select committee so people can do precisely that.

Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka, otirā tēnā rā tātou e te Whare. I just want to mihi to the member and also his party in reaching out with their different staff on this certain bill, the Repeal of Good Friday and Easter Sunday as Restricted Trading Days (Shop Trading and Sale of Alcohol) Amendment Bill. I also just want to provide a bit of clarification that with only five members in our party, it’s pretty hard to get over the select committee process and this at the same time. That’s why we’re running around.

This bill would allow businesses to sell alcohol on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. It would also allow workers to refuse to work without justification on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. There are some good reasons to support this bill. Firstly, this would remove privilege that one religion has over other religions in Aotearoa. Currently, a Christian holiday can dictate a restriction on selling alcohol, but other cultures and belief systems are not afforded that same opportunity—Matariki, for example.

The penalty for not complying with restricted-trading laws is a fine of $1,000. This means that some large businesses are able to pay the fine and sell alcohol anyway. This is unfair to small businesses. I also agree that people should be allowed to refuse to work without justification on Good Friday, but I also think that this right should be extended to all religions and cultural holidays.

While I support certain aspects of this bill, in our Te Pāti Māori value system, I cannot, in good conscience, vote in favour of increasing access to alcohol while it continues to harm our people. Māori suffer disproportionately from alcohol-related harm. Over one-third, 37 percent, of Māori men were classified as hazardous drinkers compared to 29 percent of European men. Between 2012 and 2016, the percentage of Māori women who were considered hazardous drinkers increased from 21 percent to 29 percent.

Allowing the sale of alcohol on Good Friday and Easter Sunday will encourage drinking and worsen alcohol-related harm. The Government needs to restrict alcohol advertising and increase funding for alcohol harm reduction strategies before I can support a bill that increases to alcohol. Tēnā rā tātou e te Whare.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on this conscience vote. I will be personally not supporting it. I do want to thank the member Cameron Luxton for all of the work he has done, and he has done a lot of work in bringing this bill to the House. However, I would like to make some comments on why I personally will not be supporting this bill.

I would like to read a quote, if I may: “Public parks make no economic sense at all. We leave a whole lot of space unbuilt on and not capitalised in any way, but that is not the reason we have them. We have parks because they do us good. … They do not make economic sense but they do us good.”

The point I want to make is families—family togetherness, being connected with one another—does us good. It does the family good, it does the community good, and when communities are united, then a country will be united, and at a time when New Zealand needs to be united, I can’t think of a better time for us to encourage togetherness, family, and being together. That is one of the main reasons why I do not support this bill—because I want to encourage family; I want to encourage people coming together again. I know the value of doing that.

There are so many areas that I would like to speak on here, and many have already been mentioned, so I’ll only speak on the ones that I feel are quite important. In one of the documents, the explanatory note starts by saying, “The bill seeks to remove an extra burden on businesses.” I want to focus on the “burden” that this might put on family; I want to focus on the burden that it might put on the entrepreneur who desperately wants a break. So many entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, have difficulty in giving themselves permission to have a rest, and they love the opportunity to just do nothing. I know that for many of the people I have spoken to in my previous career, that is one of the things that they find hardest to do—to give themselves permission to stop. I want to think about the children—the partners at home who would rather have their loved one at home on these special days.

As a House, we often talk about mental health and the declining mental health in New Zealand. One of the big contributors to that is loneliness, alcohol. I have spoken to many non-governmental organisations who all say that the last thing they need is another day where someone who is suffering from mental illness can go out and easily get their fix—“That is the last thing we need. We are struggling. We are at our wit’s end trying to help people” with what they called a “pandemic of loneliness.” These holidays, Christmas, Easter, Good Friday, those long periods of time when one is struggling with their mental health, it is even harder during these times, because it is a reminder that they are alone, it is a reminder that they aren’t part of a family unit any more, and it is so easy for them to go out there and run away from that.

I would also like to, in my time available, speak about the pressure that some workers do have. New Zealand First will always support the workers. I’ve had many communications from families, many of them Christian, reminding me that, actually, 30 percent of the population in our last census were Christians. One father said that his two sons asked their employer, “There is just one day of the week we don’t want to be rostered on please, and it’s a Sunday.” However, they were told that if they didn’t work on a Boxing Day, which was a Sunday, then they would lose their jobs. It does exist—not all employers do that, but it does exist that some take advantage of that power over relationships.

I really have spoken on most of the things that I would like to speak about, but, really, I think the big one is that I want to focus on family. This is one way that we can focus on family, by ensuring that we give them the permission to be together instead of giving them another reason to not be together and remain busy. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a short call on the Repeal of Good Friday and Easter Sunday as Restricted Trading Days (Shop Trading and Sale of Alcohol) Amendment Bill. I just want to acknowledge on behalf of the National Party that this is a conscience vote. There will be people in this party voting for; there will be people in this party voting against. I think that one of the great things about the National Party is that we allow our members to be able to exercise their conscience and have their say. I will be using my conscience vote and voting against this bill for a number of reasons, but that represents, I think, a significant part of New Zealand which does support the National Party and the values that they hold, and they are representative of a huge number of New Zealanders.

Firstly, Easter is an incredibly important time in our calendar. Yes, I know that our country is changing, but, ultimately, we also have a history and a heritage of Christian values where we recognise Easter as being an incredibly important part of the calendar, and the rules and regulations around this day have come out of that history and heritage. Not only is that important to recognise but the important time that this provides for people to spend as a family has, I think, actually become how this day has become recognised, how Easter has become recognised, how Christmas has become recognised—as important parts and foundational building blocks of what we have as a country. From my perspective, that is important. It’s worth preserving. I’m a conservative; we preserve things. That’s, ultimately, one of the reasons why I’m voting against this piece of legislation.

Now, I’ve heard the arguments in favour around supporting choice and supporting businesses to be able to make choices and also individuals being able to make choices, and I appreciate those arguments, but I also would like to point out that there are many businesses, particularly small businesses in New Zealand, who ultimately have very limited choices. I consider a small business in my own electorate, which is a fruit and vegetable shop. It’s a family run business. They open every single day that the supermarket is open, because they, ultimately, don’t have a choice but to compete when they’re in a small business, there are tight margins, and it’s the family running the show. At the moment, they have 3½ days of the year where they don’t open their shop doors. Now, the issue here is we’ve heard about workers’ rights. Businesses like that will, ultimately, be forced into a position where they will be left with only 1½ days of the year where they are able to actually have that time as a family. When we’re talking about a family business, it’s the parents and it’s the children. Ultimately, that choice will be taken away from them if this legislation is able to be passed. Those are small businesses. Many thousands of small businesses, up and down the country, will be put in that position.

The second point I’d like to make is that councils do have discretion when it comes to the law already. Different communities have, for a long time, called for the ability to have that flexibility. The 2016 law changes have given councils the opportunity to be able to make different decisions in their communities around how they need to respond. We’ve seen those areas in the country where there is high tourism respond in a way which supports them to be able to meet that need in their community. That allows local communities, through their council, to be able to make those decisions which best reflect the needs of their local community.

The final point I want to make is just around the point of consistency, and this point was touched on by my colleague Tim Costley a little bit earlier in the debate. I put it to those who are supporting this bill: if you truly are going to support this bill, why is this not also the “Repeal of Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Christmas Day, and Anzac Day Restriction on Trade Bill”? If you’re going to be consistent and say, “We’re going to actually repeal the sales on those days.”, you should be prepared to turn up to your electorate or to your community and say you’re also prepared to take Christmas Day and Anzac Day away as well, because all of the same arguments which we’ve heard from the speaker who spoke first—all of those same arguments—can be applied to those other two days too. He hasn’t been prepared to come here and actually put a consistent argument to this House, which is what he should have done if that’s actually what he believes. If that’s what he actually believes, that’s what he should have brought to this House. I say to those members who are considering voting in support of it: that is the consistent position. It’s not a position I support, but that is a position that they should be considering.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in quite an astonished state that I’m going to be agreeing with Simeon Brown, and I do it because—

💬 Hon Simeon Brown: First time.

There really is a first time for everything, and maybe it’s a Christmas spirit issue. I wanted to take the tack, really, to emphasise the issue over the coercive power in this situation, which actually impacts not only on workers but also on business owners, as has been mentioned.

I was interested to hear so many people comment on the nature of the statutory list of holidays as if they were bound to those very holidays and that there was no movement in those holidays for workers and employers. There is. If you look at section 44 of the Holidays Act, you’ll find that workers can agree with their employers to move to holidays that are, in fact, more conducive to their own religion, etc. I have never seen that happen, and I was doing the job of employment law for a very long time. It doesn’t happen, because people do not negotiate such things. The reality is that most workers are given a set of rules and they agree to them without question, and those rules tend to be the statutory list that we have. That’s a really good demonstration of the lack of bargaining power that is in the average employment relationship.

These days that we have set are so minimal when you think about it. Yes, they’re better than America—there, they have 12 days—but, actually, America has all these other different holidays. We get better annual leave than America, but we have actually very little rest time in this country, and employers too are dancing to the tune of the demand of consumers by having to open on those days because their competitors do. In a way, having these days that are a little bit sacred and where we close down our materialism actually protects everybody, and everybody gets a day off consumerism, which doesn’t do them a scrap of harm.

Now, I want to talk about the alcohol issue, because, again, the member bringing in this bill—and I congratulate him for getting it to us in the ballot. He talked about the issue of the possibility that people who had a negative relationship—I think he called it—with alcohol would go and hoard alcohol. The research suggests that that’s not actually the case, sir. What happens, when there is an issue with alcohol, is that an alcoholic will buy more alcohol if there is availability. If you have shop hours extended for alcohol sales, they will actually go and buy more alcohol at that time. It’s a strangely opportunistic relationship that they have with alcohol.

By closing alcohol sales off in time, you actually do affect the ability of people to drink, and it doesn’t affect just the person drinking; it affects their whānau. These are days when things shut down and people have a day without the constant tapping in to alcohol as a solution to a problem and doing harm to their families. Now, it’s not all over—obviously, it’s an extremely serious issue in this country. It’s not all over for that family. They still have an alcoholic in their midst, and probably causing havoc, but it’s a damned good start that we signal that it isn’t constantly on tap. It isn’t constantly the crutch to the way that we operate in our families.

I, for one, am going to vote against this bill because I think it’s incredibly important that we start to rebalance our lives, we start to take seriously our religions and respect the religions in our culture, we take seriously the power dynamic between workers and employers, and we take seriously the need for our smaller businesses to have a day off, too. Actually, they do not have to compete with others who are out there using labour which they have managed to persuade to stay in employment on those days—they’re not using them to undermine competitors who have shut up shop for the day and who want to spend it at the beach with their kids or in their churches. I will not be supporting this bill.

This is a 2½-minute split call.

For most of my life, I’ve supported restricted trading hours on public holidays. I’ve also implicitly supported restrictions on alcohol sales. I’ve never really been pressed on my reasons, so a default “Well, I think it’s good to have a few days where we all unplugged from consumerism” has sufficed. However, now I’m a lawmaker and my opinions have real consequences. Hence, for several months, I’ve been thinking deeply about this issue and I’ve changed my mind. Here’s why.

There are two essential critiques of the proposed changes, and we’ve heard them both repeatedly here. The first one is about the protection for employees. To my mind, that has been well canvassed. The reality of it is that Easter Sunday is already unique in legislation in New Zealand. It’s great for all people who consider that as an incredibly special day, like myself, and this bill extends that to Good Friday. These two days will literally be unique in employment law. For those people who say that we can’t trust the law, then, as lawmakers, we have a deeper issue than the one before us. We need to trust the enforcement of our laws.

The second critique is a version of the one I long held—i.e., it’s healthy to have a few days each year where the shops are closed and alcohol is less available. Others also add that it’s important to honour Easter. As I tested my opinion, I reminded myself that law restricts human freedoms. This is a serious matter and thus must be well justified. To my understanding, those two justifications are: to protect people and our world from exploitation or harm, and to, secondly, maximise participation or access. I do not consider the Easter restrictions on trading and liquor meet either of those tests, particularly given the clear protection of employees as discussed. Enforcing rest time does not meet those tests.

For many, shopping, or indeed working, is their fulfilling activity. On what basis should a Government tell them otherwise? Some argue that for people to have the right to shop, others must work, but as already explained, the protected choice of those workers is guaranteed. I am also mindful that while we forbid service workers to labour, there’s no such prohibition for those in offices, including political. Others argue that people don’t need to shop and or buy alcohol every day. That may be true, but, again, it’s insufficient justification for Government restricting freedom of activity. We wouldn’t stop trading and alcohol sales on every Sunday, nor would we legislate for Dry July.

I have the rest of my speech here; I’m not going to get to it. I’m very happy to send it out to any members who’d be interested in reading it—it’s obviously going to be after the fact. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to acknowledge the work of Cameron in this process. As the member knows, I rise to speak in opposition to the Repeal of Good Friday and Easter Sunday as Restricted Trading Days (Shop Trading and Sale of Alcohol) Amendment Bill. Very quickly, there are a few things I wish to touch on. Firstly, localism: if this House truly believes in the concept of localism, what is the problem we’re trying to solve? Forty-three of our local and regional councils currently have policies to localise their trading rules. The fact that some of those lapsed maybe indicates the underlying real view of New Zealand when it comes to this policy.

💬 Secondly: employee rights. I acknowledge this bill could address the fact that employees are required to work on Easter Friday. This bill would mean that they could choose not to work on Easter Friday and Easter Sunday. However, the cost of that is removing the significance of these two days. I feel that this is then, simply, a slippery slope to Christmas and Easter. I remain very sceptical that employee protections provide real-world protection. They are good in theory, but, in this case, questionable in practice. The inconsistency of the argument related to Anzac and Christmas Day by allowing this bill to proceed, in my view, is a step towards those two things happening. Whether you are of the Christian faith or not, Easter has a special place in New Zealand’s history, and this should be maintained. The online argument is also just not solid. Taking this to conclusion would require every retail store to open 24/7, 365 days a year. It’s an abolitionist argument that does not hold.

My colleague Carlos Cheung asked me to mention the concern regarding alcohol harm. Ultimately, the underlying intent is the recognition of these two days in our national calendar and the history that this has can’t be ignored when considering alcohol sales on Easter Friday and Easter Sunday. I do not commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): In reply, Cameron Luxton. Can I indicate there will be a vote at the conclusion of this speech.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m going to try and make my reply brief so that members can get their conscience recorded and get off and enjoy the summer holidays.

Briefly going quickly through it, Camilla Belich—I deeply appreciated being able to engage with Camilla in the process. I did actually make a lot of overtures to the Labour Party as a whole, and specific members in the Labour Party, so it’s unfortunate that Rachel Boyack either didn’t receive that message or didn’t reach back out with her concerns, because I would have liked to engage with her. Showing that the rules weren’t followed, I think my colleague over here—Greg Fleming, who gave a great speech about the way he’s changed and evolved his thinking on this—shows that as lawmakers we should be respecting the law, not just saying, “OK, someone’s ignored the law, therefore the entire concept of governing through law is void.”

The question about not having time and a half on Saturday that Rachel Boyack also brought up, that is something that can be negotiated, but there will be time and a half pay on Good Friday, which is what my bill is seeking to change. It doesn’t change Easter Sunday, which is currently the case.

Going through it—Te Pāti Māori, I’m glad to hear that you’ve thought deeply about this, and I appreciate that you have been engaging with me on this.

I think that the idea that restricting the sale of alcohol, as the member from the Labour Party Helen White said, increases the harm works if you think about it as in just a quick grab off the shelf, but if you’re thinking about it in a way that someone who has got alcohol-dependency issues may feel rather nervous that they’re not going to have access to that and stock up, maybe by three dozen instead of two dozen for the weekend, the worst thing we can be doing is locking people in their homes with the alcohol which is causing them so much harm.

There were a couple of members who raised the slippery-slope argument that this is going to lead to the removal of Christmas and Anzac Day. The reason for bringing this bill isn’t because of an attack of we just want to get rid of religious—as I gave in my speech, I deeply hold respect for the founding religion of our country. This hasn’t been a debate to try and extend the slippery slope out to include Anzac and Christmas; what it is doing is addressing the concerns that address the confusion throughout the country that New Zealanders experience every year. Nobody is confused about Christmas. No one is confused about Anzac Day. These are religious and secular days, and they should be treated with the respect that they deserve, in the same way that New Zealanders should be treated with the respect that they deserve and treated like adults over the Easter weekend.

The Greens—we often hear that the Greens want a conscience vote in this House. Well, here’s a chance to use it. It’ll be interesting to see if, as the polling shows that 62 percent of their supporters, as with the Labour Party, support this change—we’ll be interested to see if 62 percent of their members exercise their conscience vote and represent their voters. I commend this bill to the House, and I thank you very much for the opportunity.

I’ve determined that the subject of this vote will be treated as a conscience issue. In this case, I know that there are members who want a personal vote, and I am prepared to accept one.

The House is adjourned until 2 p.m. Thank you, members.

The House adjourned at 1.21 p.m.