CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) : I rise to speak to this bill, one of two Easter trading bills that were brought before the Commerce Committee, of which I was a member, last year. That committee was ably led by Katherine Rich. Both bills enjoyed support from across the House. We worked together with Maryan Street and Shane Jones to bring both bills before the House this evening. We are bringing two bills that I believe can be well debated and well considered as we go forward to try to solve the anomalies that have existed with this legislation over many, many years.

As I said, there are two similar bills. The one I will speak to tonight is the Easter Sunday Shop Trading Amendment Bill, nicknamed the “Jacqui Dean Bill”. The second bill is the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading) Amendment Bill, the “Steve Chadwick Bill”. The intent of the bill we are now debating is to liberalise shop trading on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, as opposed to liberalising shop trading purely on Easter Sunday, as provided for in the Steve Chadwick bill. The bill tonight provides for a partial exemption from the requirements under the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Act 1990 to be closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday for shops located in two visitor districts—namely, Tauranga and Wānaka. The bill specifies that the shops can open from 10 a.m. in the morning until 5 p.m.

Darren Hughes: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I see that this bill is set down in the name of the member Jacqui Dean, who is present in the Chamber. I am confused as to why the member for Napier is speaking on this bill when it is in the name of another member.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you for raising that. It should be obvious to you, but Jacqui Dean was not here when the bill was called and any member can move it on her behalf. There will be no further comment on that, thank you.

CHRIS TREMAIN: I am always keen to take the opportunity to stand and speak in the House, and I am pleased to continue at this point in time to make sure we debate this important legislation tonight.

There was much demand from other regions around the country, including from my own electorate, Napier, to be included in the Jacqui Dean bill and for their shops to be allowed to trade between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. As a result, shops located in the district of a territorial authority specified in schedule 2 of this bill will be granted an exemption from the requirements in the principal Act to be closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. It was beyond the scope of the bill to provide a nationwide exemption, and that is why we have allowed for the schedule and for all the territorial authorities to be provided for in the first instance. Each territorial authority is listed in the schedule, and at a later date—either in the Committee of the whole House or by amending legislation—a territorial authority may apply to be exempted from that schedule.

The Steve Chadwick bill seeks to liberalise Easter Sunday only in the sense of allowing territorial authorities the authority to decide whether shops in their districts remain open on Easter Sunday. In that situation, those authorities should be able to consult their communities on this matter, using the special consultative procedure set out in section 83 of the Local Government Act 2002.

As I said, the committee was ably led by our chair, Katherine Rich, and we had Chris Auchinvole, Pansy Wong, and, indeed, Jacqui Dean speaking on the bill. But in considering both bills, we were also joined by Shane Jones, Winnie Laban, Charles Chauvel, Gordon Copeland, and Maryan Street from the other side of the House, who sought to point out some common features in both bills, particularly with regard to employee rights and to the leases applying to shops in shopping malls, which may have been forced to open under a wider agreement.

There are two strong sides to the debate, which we saw in the submissions that came before the House. In submissions arguing for the bill we see the importance of tourism, with advocates for the tourism industry saying that their industry operates 365 days of the year, and that we need to account for that fact. There were arguments around economic opportunities. Businesses have invested a heck of a lot into their businesses and they need every opportunity to trade to make sure that the return on their investment is maximised.

There were submissions from towns like Wānaka, where employment opportunities were key to shops catering to overseas tourists or visitors working in New Zealand. People operating those businesses wanted to work over those weekends so they could service the community of Wānaka. There are regional events such as Wings over Wānaka, whose organisers put in a submission arguing that local shops should be allowed to trade on that particular day.

Another reason is the anomaly in the existing legislation. For instance, down in Wānaka there was an exemption for some shops like those attached to petrol stations, which could sell magazines quite legally, but the Dymocks bookshop down the road was unable to do that. There are anomalies with regard to the location of shops within particular districts, as well. In Wānaka again, the back door of one shop was unable to trade on Easter Sunday, but the shop was able to trade through its other door, which is somewhat ludicrous. Also, there is the anomaly of areas such as Wānaka versus Queenstown, whereby in one situation shopkeepers could trade in Queenstown, but just down the road in Wānaka, shops were unable to trade.

Another submission cited the ludicrous audit procedures from the Department of Labour. We had submissions coming in from some shop owners who had been audited and who had to go though and count particular items in an audit in order to list what had been illegally traded on that particular day.

Lastly, submitters supporting the bill did so through a straight-out belief in freedom of choice. Neither bill makes trading compulsory, but right now, shops have the freedom of choice to trade on 51 Sundays out of 52 in the year and, by shops using that freedom of choice, there are already many businesses that choose not to trade on Sunday because the people operating them want to observe Sunday for religious reasons and they choose not to trade on that day. They have the choice anyway, and, legally, they are able to trade.

The arguments against the bill came through pretty loud and clear, as well. Firstly, the submissions cited family community time. Given the number of days that shops are open now, many families asked for that time to be protected and ensconced in law. The second point in submissions against the bill was the protection of employees. It was argued that employees have employment contracts, and it was asked how, if the law changed now, they would they be able to fight for a right to not work on a Sunday, if they did not want to work on that particular Sunday. So while working on this legislation the committee has spent a lot of time making sure that employees’ rights are protected, so they can front up to the owners of their businesses and say they do not want to work on that particular day.

A very strong theme in submissions against the bill was religious reasons. Many church groups oppose trading on the grounds of their religious beliefs, and we have heard that throughout the submissions.

I will now focus on a submission from Napier, which is my own electorate. The Napier City Council put in a strong submission for the bill based on a number of key reasons, and I will go through that now. Firstly, tourism is a key industry in Napier and is continuing to grow in importance—[Interruption]—as Dr Cullen would realise. Napier City Council is a part of many tourism events, such as the concerts at the Mission, which happen just around the corner from him. The art deco days are another tourism attraction. Tourism is becoming increasingly important, particularly with the likes of British American Tobacco, PDL Electronics, and Medallion Foods closing down. It is important that we focus on tourism in our city.

Napier’s inner city was one of the first regional shopping areas to introduce 7-day shopping each week. It is already very strongly supported, as Dr Cullen knows. I am sure that quite regularly he goes into Emerson Street and enjoys a latte. I am not sure whether that is his coffee of choice, but I am sure he goes there on a Sunday morning, enjoys a quiet coffee, and enjoys the fact that those shops are open.

The other point Dr Cullen will be very aware of is the number of cruise ships that come into Napier now, and cruise ships have come in over Easter and continue to do so. The member will know that the number of cruise ships coming into Napier continues to rise every year, and the cruise ships are getting bigger and better each year. When we see 3,000-odd people coming into the port on those days, it is important that we show them a strong shopping centre that they can come and shop in.

The other point the Napier City Council raised was about tourism services that are already able to open, such as the swimming baths and the aquarium. There is an anomaly in that those services are able to open on Easter Sunday, but on the other side of the coin, many of the shops that support those businesses are unable to open. Again, as Dr Cullen would be aware, there is the anomaly between Taupō and Napier. Taupō shops are able to open on Easter Sunday, but Napier shops are unable to.

In summary, there is strong debate between the two sides of the House on this issue. It has been before the House for many years, and it is something I think will be brought to a head with this bill.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Would the member care to move, on behalf of Jacqui Dean, that the bill be read a second time.

CHRIS TREMAIN on behalf of Jacqui Dean (National—Otago): I move, That the Easter Sunday Shop Trading Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) : Indeed, we finally have a question before the House, at the end of the member’s speech. I suppose one thing that I should note about that speech, since the member chose to light upon Napier at some length, is that I do believe that those who are engaged in such a great deal of phone canvassing and pamphlet distribution on his behalf—that is to say, the Exclusive Brethren—will be somewhat disappointed by his voting record on this Easter Sunday Shop Trading Amendment Bill. Mr Tremain’s speech to move Easter Sunday trading—almost the second speech he has given in the House—will come as a terrible shock to the Exclusive Brethren of Hawke’s Bay, who spent a great deal of time on the telephone lines, attacking the Labour Party as being godless and goodness knows what else. That was about as good as we were, as far as the Exclusive Brethren were concerned.

I have voted in favour of Easter trading on a number of occasions, but I will be voting against this bill for a number of reasons, and I will make clear why. First of all, this issue has come before this House on any number of occasions. On every occasion my friends associated with the industrial wing of the labour movement and my somewhat lesser friends from the religious movement in New Zealand have entered into an interesting coalition in order to defeat moves in favour of Easter Sunday trading, in particular. I will deal with Good Friday later; I think that is a somewhat different kind of issue.

The reality, however, is that, clearly, New Zealanders, by and large, actually support Easter Sunday trading because, given the chance to do so, they go and trade on Easter Sundays. People vote by going to the shops, and every Easter Sunday we have the somewhat farcical situation where some shops open and are subject to the penalties of the law. People wonder quite why we continue to carry on in the way that we do in that particular respect. I do not think that when we have reached the point where the public clearly does not regard the law as sensible in respect of Easter Sunday, it makes sense for us to continue to vote as if those views no longer really have any great meaning at all. That is not to denigrate those who hold very strong views, particularly on religious grounds, about the significance of Easter Sunday, and I will come back to that point a little bit later on.

The issue around workers’ protection is, of course, a crucial issue. It is absolutely crucial that nobody who holds strong religious convictions about the significance of Easter Sunday or Good Friday should be forced to work on that day. I think it is very appropriate that the Commerce Committee has put into both bills very strong protections in that regard, because I think it would be quite against strongly held feelings of conscience for some workers to be placed in the position of having to work on that day. In terms of the general issue around workers’ conditions being protected on such a day, of course, there is the anomaly around the fact that Easter Sunday alone, of all the days that we think of as being a public holiday, is not, in fact, a public holiday, and that has implications around the position of workers. Perhaps we might want to consider at some later point how we might rectify that particular position, should either of these bills pass through the House. I think it would be appropriate to do that to ensure further worker protections in that respect.

I have been consistently in favour of the bill because, generally speaking, I favour liberal laws around shop trading hours in any case. It is very interesting that the United States, which is a very, very much more religious society than New Zealand and which is a country where regular church attendance is very, very much higher than it is in New Zealand, generally speaking has much more liberal shop trading rules than New Zealand does, including a number of days that nobody in this House would suggest should be open slather in terms of shop trading, and we do not seem to find that inconsistent with the dominant Christian beliefs of the United States. I think, however, it is true that most of us would—perhaps illogically, but then most of us are illogical at some point or other in our lives—draw a distinction between Good Friday and Easter Sunday in terms of the depths of religiosity that surrounds those two particular days. One of those days is so absolutely central to the story of Christianity, which, although it is not our State religion, is certainly so crucial to our story for most of us in this nation as a people. I say this as a person who comes from a very long secular tradition. I proudly exited from my secondary school as the only baptised Anglican who was not a confirmed Anglican, which took some degree of doing given the level of pressure that came on to be confirmed as an Anglican during those 5 years, along with my record in not achieving any kind of status in the cadet corps. But those are my two proudest achievements in my 5 years at that school. There are a few other bits and pieces along the way, but in recollection they pale into insignificance compared with those two particular things, which says something about where I stand and where I come from.

But when we face the two bills I think we face an interesting issue. At some point one or other of these bills has to pass. At the end of the day it does not make any sense for both of them to be passed, because if they are both passed it will be rather strange. I understand that Jacqui Dean has indicated that she is prepared to move amendments to remove Good Friday from this bill at the Committee stage. Nevertheless, the bill we are dealing with at the moment has both Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The other bill deals only with Easter Sunday.

The reason why I will be voting against Jacqui Dean’s bill and in favour of Steve Chadwick’s bill, in particular, is because of the structure of the two bills—where they actually come from in terms of their structure. If we go through the Jacqui Dean bill, we see that it bears rather too much the pains of its birth, in the sense that it went into a select committee to provide for limited opening on Good Friday and Easter Sunday in two places in the country, and came out of the select committee providing for full opening on Good Friday and Easter Sunday—the bill provides not just for 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. opening but open slather on Good Friday and Easter Sunday—effectively across the whole of the country by the rather artificial device of tacking on additions to the current very odd rules around visitor centres, which no longer bear any great logic anyway. We say that some places are visitor centres and others, which, like Rotorua, clearly are, somehow or other are not covered within the current legislation. Napier, which is not so much a visitor centre at Easter, has its big visitor period during February with three weekends in a row: the Mission Estate Winery Concert, the wine weekend, and the art deco weekend. Nevertheless, we have hopes of becoming a more continuous visitor centre during the year. As Mr Tremain rightly said, we are getting more of the cruise ship traffic through the city, and it seems strange that when people come in a cruise ship on Easter Sunday, the entire city is closed except for a few bits and pieces around the place. That does not make sense.

But a bill that, when one reads through it and imposes it upon the original legislation, actually says that shops will be closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday in all these places except for those listed in the schedule, which includes every territorial district in the country, is not good legislation. It is just a bad thing for Parliament to pass a bill that is so illogically structured as that bill actually is. On the other hand, Steve Chadwick’s bill says that shops may open on Easter Sunday if the local authority decides that they should, subject to the consultation processes in the Local Government Act 2002. That means, then, that before that decision is taken, the local people have a right to be consulted around that—I think that is a good thing—so that localities can make their own choices in that regard. It is an exercise of direct democracy. And then shops can be open if that decision is made. I am sure that in an area such as Napier the decision will be taken that the shops will be able to be open. Perhaps Hastings may go first and we will follow afterwards, which has happened in other areas of shopping in relation to our two cities—

Chris Tremain: And Havelock North.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Well, Havelock North maybe, but it might be regarded as more for the workers if the shops open. Havelock North will remain closed so that the working-class areas of Hastings and Napier will remain open, and “not in my backyard” will operate rather nicely in Havelock North.

So my view, given that at the end of the day, the House has to pass one bill or the other, is that—although in the absence of Steve Chadwick’s bill with its structure I would actually vote for this bill, despite what I think are some fairly strange structures—it does not make sense to me to vote for it at this point. As Leader of the House I am particularly conscious that it will be quite difficult to pass either bill before Easter. Even though they may not be able to come into effect at least it will be a clear signal if they get through before Easter—at least, probably only one of these bills can possibly proceed through to passage before Easter because of other business in front of the House. For those reasons, although normally I vote always in favour of liberalisation of shop trading hours, I will be voting against the Jacqui Dean bill and in favour of the Steve Chadwick bill.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) : Before the battle commences—as I am sure it is about to do; I can see my colleagues over the other side of the House winding themselves up to enter the fray—I just want to take a moment to apologise to the House for not being here earlier today to speak to my own bill. I thank Chris Tremain for stepping in so well for me. Just to pray for an apology, I was detained on a personal matter.

Having got that out of the way, let us let the games begin by acknowledging that the issue of Easter trading will always be and has always been utterly, utterly contentious. I am acutely aware that I am just one in a long line of members of Parliament seeking a reform of legislation around Easter trading—seeking to bring some sense into the Groundhog Day situation of retailers being prosecuted every year, year after year, for opening their doors on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

The arguments against the reform of the legislation have not changed much, either. They range from freedom to trade, to have a choice of when to open one’s doors for business—

Mark Blumsky: You still pay rent on your lease!

JACQUI DEAN: —yes, whether or not one’s doors are shut—to the economic benefits that one might get out of trading over Easter, versus concern to acknowledge a religious festival, arguments of preservation of family life and preservation of just a few holidays in the working year, and, indeed, arguments that traverse protection of workers. Each argument for or against the liberalisation of Easter trading has its merits, of course, and each argument needs to be taken into account when this House passes legislation.

What we have—we cannot run away from it, and we cannot ignore it—is a persistent call for liberalisation. Like it or not—some of us do; some of us do not—we have to deal with that. I am sponsoring this bill because the Wanaka Chamber of Commerce asked me to help it. The Wanaka Chamber of Commerce represents Wānaka retailers that trade over Easter and have done so for a number of years. Wānaka retailers trade over Easter because there is a huge demand for them to do so—largely because of the Warbirds over Wānaka International Air Show, which comes to Wānaka every second Easter and attracts up to 100,000 extra visitors to the Wakatipu Basin.

The hard part for the Wanaka Chamber of Commerce and its retailers is that just over the hill, in Queenstown, retailers have an exemption to trade, both on Good Friday and on Easter Sunday. So all the benefits go to Queenstown—where retailers can trade and have a good day scot-free—whereas year after year the Department of Labour prosecutes Wānaka retailers. It was telling that in the last round of prosecutions the judge when sentencing a particular retailer convicted him but declined to fine him, commenting that it was about time Parliament got its act into gear. This is why I am very pleased to be finally speaking to the House this evening.

I am promoting this bill, as I said, because the Wanaka Chamber of Commerce asked me to help it. Steve Chadwick is representing the interests of Rotorua. Many chambers of commerce and retailers’ associations are keen to see this matter settled so that they can get on with doing business without the annoyance of the annual Easter trading prosecutions.

I acknowledge the work put in by all members of the Commerce Committee when considering this bill and Steve Chadwick’s bill, the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading) Amendment Bill. It was acknowledged by us that notwithstanding all the objections, the retail sector and many, many members of our society are looking to us for leadership. They are looking to us in Parliament for a solution to the anomalous situation we have now with Easter trading. I also acknowledge the large number of submitters who took the time to write and to speak on their submissions. My thanks go to them for the high-quality and well-reasoned suggestions that many of them made for a way forward in this difficult issue.

I acknowledge that for some people Easter trading is incompatible with the celebration of their faith. I acknowledge that some people feel that working over Easter cuts into family life. I would argue that no one is forced to go shopping, and no one is forced to work over Easter.

Hon Member: Yeah, right!

JACQUI DEAN: I thank the member for biting right on cue. Several unions are concerned at worker protection issues, and amendments to the bill in the select committee, from members right across the political spectrum, have resulted in several slight changes to both bills. No one can be forced to work over Easter and there can be no penalty for declining or refusing to work.

I also note that many retail workers are young and work part-time. They value the extra hours and the opportunity to earn extra money. I asked a lot of retailers in Wānaka about this issue, because it is an issue that we should all be concerned about. Retailers in Wānaka advised that they have no trouble finding people to work over Easter, and, generally, the young people who are working in the retail sector in tourism towns are those who work during the day so that they can party all night. I do not see terribly much wrong with that.

A number of historical privileges add to the anomalies and inherent unfairness of the shop trading legislation as it stands. Picton and Queenstown have exemptions carried over from the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Act 1990. Both those towns can trade on Good Friday from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., with no other restrictions. Section 4(2)(a) of the Act provides that the general prohibition under section 3(1) of the Act does not apply to a shop being closed at any time, on any day, if “On the 31st day of July 1990 there was in force in respect of the area in which the shop is situated an order under section 20 of the repealed Act”. So these historical privileges exist for shops in Picton on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, in Queenstown on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, and in Taupō on Easter Sunday only, but not for other, similar tourism areas, such as Rotorua or Wānaka. In other words, it is a legislative dog’s breakfast, and an uneven playing field. We already have Good Friday and Easter Sunday trading, but not on a fair basis.

I turn to some changes I propose for the Easter Sunday Shop Trading Amendment Bill. The provision in this bill for a general exemption for Easter Sunday by way of a schedule remains unchanged. Schedule 2 contains a list of every territorial local authority. In effect, should this bill be passed it would become the business owner’s decision whether to open on Easter Sunday.

I want to signal a change to the bill that I will introduce as a Supplementary Order Paper at the Committee stage should the bill pass its second reading. The general exemption applying to Good Friday would go. It would be replaced with the following: “The bill would enable a territorial authority to decide whether shops in its district may remain open on Good Friday if a significant event were occurring in the district on that day.” I believe that this is a much more focused approach. Only those districts like Wānaka, which holds Warbirds over Wānaka every second year, would be interested in applying for an exemption to trade on Good Friday. So what I am effectively doing is defining the scope of Good Friday right down to those areas that specifically want it. If Rotorua or Tauranga, for example, were planning a major event for the Easter weekend, and if their chamber of commerce supported it, they could apply to the city council for an exemption to trade on Good Friday. Wānaka would apply for an exemption only every second year, for the year that Warbirds over Wānaka is held.

It became obvious during the hearing of submissions on Easter trading that although there was broad support for liberalisation of trading on Easter Sunday, there was not the same level of support for Good Friday—although a number of submitters did indicate their support. Yet some credible solution needs to be found if we as a Parliament want to be seen as credible. We have the opportunity to get this legislation right. I would like to see the House send this bill through to the Committee stage. Thank you.

Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) : I am pleased to be taking part in this debate, on a day when we have heard many speeches in an earlier debate about the importance of family. Quite frankly, if there is a bill that deals with that—in terms of knocking that very important aspect of our society—it is the Easter Sunday Shop Trading Amendment Bill.

I will read from the letter sent to all members of Parliament by the Catholic bishops, who represent a view held by many New Zealanders—not only those of the Christian faith but also many people who are interested in, and concerned about, families and the effect of work on them. What the bishops said in the letter was this: “Much has been written and spoken lately about the disintegration of family life with financial pressure being an important contributing factor. When parents are forced to work long hours at the expense of time spent with each other and with their children, we see children and young people who are left without the comfort and security of traditional family interaction. We don’t need to spell out the dire consequences that often result when young people look elsewhere for their support and for ways to spend their time. New Zealanders work some of the longest hours in the OECD countries. We believe the government should do more to promote a work/life balance. Extended shopping hours will not achieve it, but the few days when shop trading is restricted provide some opportunity to strengthen and develop this balance.”

Well, I will spell out the dire consequences that I believe come from the massive changes to the labour market and the rules we work under in this country over the last 15 to 20 years. I will do so by quoting from another report. This one is entitled From Wannabes to Youth Offenders: Youth Gangs in Counties Manukau. This is the research report that was done over about 6 or 7 months of last year as a response to several young people being killed in my community. If people do not want to take this issue seriously then they need to read this report to see why I take it extremely seriously. This is not a simple matter of some tourists on a boat being deprived of the right to shop on 2 or 3 days a year; it is about the disintegration of families, as talked about by the Catholic bishops and many other social commentators.

The report notes: “Parental disengagement: It was common for youth gang members to come from families with working parents, many of whom have multiple jobs. The majority of participants drew attention to extreme work-life imbalances experienced by parents who, in an effort to financially provide for their families, are under stress through long work hours and, as a result, are not able to engage with their children.” The report talks about the financial pressures that many of these families are under, and the indebtedness of them to the loan sharks who operate in our community.

Simple questions are raised by this legislation, such as where these shops that will be open will be. Under Jacqui Dean’s bill, they will be everywhere. They will not be just in the tourism areas; they will be everywhere. I noticed in the East Coast and Bays Courier recently an article about the Remuera shops. Some of the owners had just decided to open on Sundays. But I tell members that in the part of Auckland I live in, the shops have been opening 7 days a week for 24 hours a day, except for these 3½ days, for as long as the law has allowed them.

Who works in these shops? It is these low-paid workers—low-paid parents—whom I am talking about, and whom the Catholic bishops and the researchers into gang violence are talking about. They are the ones forced to work and be out there instead of at home with their family. They are the ones who get the finger pointed at them by the judges who say the law is wrong when it is enforced, and say: “I’m not going to fine this fellow because I think shops should be open.” That same judge probably gets some young guy in front of him the next day, whacks him round the ears, and gives him a severe penalty for breaking the law, which he did because he has not had the parental guidance that people say he should have.

That is the sort of nonsense that, in my view, backs up this shallow bill. It says we can just keep on liberalising and there will be no consequences. We have the consequences right now in my community, and it is spreading throughout this country. We get crocodile tears from people on that side of the House who talk about an underclass and families that are dysfunctional. Why do we have dysfunctional families in this country? Does it not coincide with the fact that we have liberalised our labour market so much that there are only 3½ days of the year that low-paid workers in the retail sector can have off to spend with their family?

Members should look at who most retail workers are. They are women. Yet, under this bill, will childcare facilities be required to open up to look after their kids? They are closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. In fact, they are closed most weekends. I am ashamed to think we are now having to look at the idea of children’s hotels where people can drop off their kids 24/7 so that they can work.

I do not want to live in a society that thinks that is a positive, because I do not think it is a positive. I grew up in this country in the fortunate days when one parent went out to work and the other stayed at home and brought up the seven kids in our family. We were not wealthy; our father worked in low-paid jobs because he came from the Pacific Islands without an education. As a result of that upbringing, my generation came through with a support that today’s generation—my grandchild and many like him—do not get, because those kids are shoved into early childhood education at a very early stage.

This bill is just one more nail in the coffin for families, for the rights of workers, and for the ability of families to engage with each other. Members should read the research into the youth gang problem in South Auckland. They should not put their head in the sand and say it is the parents’ fault and the parents’ problem, when bosses are lining up at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to tell us they do not need flexible working hours legislation in this country because they already have flexible working hours, and that if the workers do not like the flexible working hours in this job, then they can go down the road and get another job. That is what people in the hospitality industry told us. They will not be paid any more as a result of this bill. There will be a restaurant next door to a supermarket and there will be two different sets of conditions for two different sets of low-paid workers, under this bill and under Stevie Chadwick’s bill. I oppose both of them.

I think it is a good time for this country to be entering into this debate about what is really pulling families apart in low-income areas, to start thinking about the consequences, and to do some serious thinking about what we do to resolve it. Keeping shops closed on these 3½ days is not a hardship for people; they can go out and buy things the very next day and still survive—still be alive. In many countries in this world that we go and visit happily as tourists the shops are not open at all on Sundays. Do all of those people who go to the Pacific and enjoy their lovely holidays there question the culture and say they will not go there again because the shops were not open on Sundays? We actually enjoy it because of the relaxed nature of those societies.

I am deadly serious about this. I challenge members who say this bill is about the right to shop, to think about the right for families to spend time together. If they say there should be no such right then they had better start facing up to the problems that are confronting us in South Auckland, Hamilton, Hastings, Porirua, and just about every province of this country, where people are forced into 24/7 jobs—sometimes multiple, low-paid jobs—and more and more of their conditions are being stripped away.

I have been given an employee contract of a large employer coming into being in Auckland soon—the labs that lab testing is going to be contracted out to—and the contract makes it compulsory to work on a public holiday. That is the sort of thing that employers up and down this country now expect as a norm.

I say it is time to turn back the clock and get some understanding of the impact of such things on the labour market. That member over there, David Bennett, shakes his head because he would not have a clue. He should start facing up to the consequences of the massive changes to this society and what is causing it, and not just blame the parents. He should start to look for the real causes—as the researchers, Catholic bishops, and so many thinking people in this country have done—then we will have a proper debate about this sort of bill. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) : I am always a little bit apprehensive following the Hon Mark Gosche. I would like to say he is a friend of mine, but he really does put some passion into issues that he is concerned about. I know that this is an issue he is concerned about, but, in a nutshell, he is wrong. Let be more correct: he has overstated the case. If families became dysfunctional because shops were open on a Sunday—particularly on Easter Sunday—we would have more dysfunctional families in Taupō than anywhere else, because shops in Taupō are allowed to open on Easter Sunday. That is the fact of the matter. Another fact of the matter is that the Easter trading rules are in a mess.

New Zealand First is pleased with Jacqui Dean for bringing the Easter Sunday Shop Trading Amendment Bill to the House, but we thought she took it a step too far. Having said that we are pleased with it—we supported it at the first reading—we say that we are not going to support it any further, because in the pipeline, following this bill, is a better bill: Steve Chadwick’s Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading) Amendment Bill. It is superior.

Bob Clarkson: Oh, come on!

PETER BROWN: The National Party wants a little bit of success. I am sure Jacqui Dean understands our position. We think that Jacqui Dean took the bill a step too far by providing for the opening of shops on Good Friday. New Zealand First said so when the bill was introduced. If this were the only bill that addressed the issue to choose from, we would have supported it going to the Committee stage and sought to make amendments. But we are not prepared to do that now, because the Steve Chadwick bill is almost a carbon copy of a bill that the Rt Hon Winston Peters tried to get through the House on two earlier attempts. So we are very, very pleased to support the Steve Chadwick bill.

I would like to address one or two issues that have been raised. I was very interested when Dr Cullen, in acknowledging that Easter Sunday was not a public holiday, said that if one of these bills were passed, then in the fullness of time he would not be averse to looking at Easter Sunday becoming a public holiday. Let me say here and now that I am almost certain New Zealand First would look very positively at something along those lines. I cannot speak categorically, because we have not discussed it formally, but I know there would be some sympathy, if Easter Sunday became a trading day, towards looking at it becoming another public holiday for the people who are employed.

Let us also acknowledge that many occupations and professions work regularly on Easter Sunday. The people I think of, first and foremost, are the police, ambulance officers, and those who service the downside of our communities. But there is also the industry that I come from—the shipping and stevedoring industry. People from those industries work in all weathers, any day of the week. There are very few days on which they do not work, and they are on shift work 24 hours a day.

Nowadays, shopping is becoming therapy, as I am told quite frequently not only by my good wife but by very many other women. It has turned into an enjoyable pastime. I must admit that I enjoy walking in the supermarket and pushing the trolley for my wife while she just fills it up. I get a little bit worried when it starts to overflow, because sooner or later someone has to pay for the items. But, by and large, shopping can be an enjoyable experience.

In the place that Bob Clarkson and I come from, where we have the most efficient port in this country—they are all efficient, and I am not going to damn any port, but the Port of Tauranga is by far the most efficient port in the country—they bring in cruise ships regularly. It does not make sense that when tourists come off the cruise ship, they cannot go shopping on an Easter Sunday so they get in a bus, or a taxi, and go through to Taupō. That does not make sense to the people of Tauranga, so we need some legislation to address the issue. Unfortunately, I do not think that Jacqui Dean’s bill will make it, but we are encouraged by the Steve Chadwick bill. As I said earlier, it is a carbon copy of what Winston Peters came up with years ago—

Tariana Turia: Winston Peters?

PETER BROWN: Yes, really, the Rt Hon Winston Peters—about 10 years ago.

Rodney Hide: Is he still in Parliament?

PETER BROWN: Mr Hide has done too much dancing if he does not know that Winston Peters is still the most effective politician in this place by a country mile—and the member knows it. But I digress.

When it comes to Easter trading, our shop trading legislation is in a mess. We need to address that. We need to take note of what the public of New Zealand want. We need to take note of the advantages to New Zealand. We need to address the social downsides, as was very well illustrated—though it was a little bit over the top—by my colleague Mark Gosche. But we need legislation based around one of these bills, and the best bill to address the issue is the Steve Chadwick bill, which is entitled the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading) Amendment Bill. New Zealand First will be voting against Jacqui Dean’s Easter Sunday Shop Trading Amendment Bill and voting for Steve Chadwick’s bill. Thank you very much.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) : What a shambles! In my 7 years in Parliament, I have never seen such a confusing and shambolic report from a select committee reach the floor of this House. Tonight we have two bills before us—this one and one set down to be debated shortly after it—attempting to amend the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Act. These attempts follow a string of other unsuccessful attempts over the last few years.

Our shop trading hours today are set by the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Act 1990 and the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Amendment Act 2001, but our Parliament is littered with other failed attempts to impose more shopping days on the New Zealand public and shopworkers alike. The Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter) Amendment Bill 1996 was defeated. The Shop Trading Hours Repeal of Restrictions Bill 1997 was defeated. The Shop Trading Hours Abolition of Restrictions Bill 1999 was defeated. The Rotorua District Easter Sunday Shop Trading Bill 2002 was defeated. The Shop Trading Hours Easter Trading (Local Exemption) Bill 2004 was defeated. These all sit in the dustbin of legislative history, and this is where this bill and the other amendment bill tonight also belong.

The Commerce Committee had the opportunity to study both bills, listen to submissions, and bring back to the House recommendations based on the submissions heard that at least we could debate. But, no! The select committee commentary on both bills states: “We have no clear preference for either bill and are recommending that both proceed with amendment.” What a cop-out! The Commerce Committee wants this House, in the Committee stage process somehow, to do its work for it.

So we now have two bills before us, each seeking to do different things and with amendments that go well beyond what was sought in the original bills. They were going to be debated together and now we find they are going to be debated separately, which makes this even more difficult. The shambles continues. Plainly, both cannot be passed, as one is in conflict with the other. I urge all of my parliamentary colleagues to now throw both of them out and to chastise—non-violently, of course—the Commerce Committee for its failure to do its job and for bringing this shambles to us.

It gets worse. Earlier today I attended a press conference organised by Caritas Aotearoa - New Zealand, the Catholic agency promoting justice, peace, and development, regarding the two bills that we are debating. I attended this media conference together with fellow MPs Hone Harawira, Darien Fenton, and Gordon Copeland. We were presented with large baskets of Easter eggs, which we shared with all of you.

Hon Member: From where?

SUE BRADFORD: They came from the National Distribution Union. At that press conference Gordon Copeland stated that he was deputy chairperson of the Commerce Committee and complained that there had been, in his words, an “abuse of process”. The committee has reported these two bills to this House with amendments recorded as unanimous, when the significant amendments to Jacqui Dean’s bill that extend liberalisation of shopping hours to all territorial authorities in New Zealand were put together by a couple of members of the committee after the submission process had finished and without any submitter being able to speak to these amendments. This does not make for good lawmaking.

I would therefore urge those who may have some sympathy for further liberalisation of Easter trading to vote against both bills as a sign of displeasure at the process, even if not at the content of these particular bills. The report of the Commerce Committee on Jacqui Dean’s bill is a shocker. The original purpose of the bill was to grant a partial exemption to shops in visitor districts from the requirement in the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Act 1990 that they be closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. First up, Jacqui Dean was disingenuous with the name of her bill, which hid her attack on Good Friday by calling it the Easter Sunday Shop Trading Amendment Bill. But now the select committee by unanimous decision—or was it—has given the bill a completely new purpose of exempting all shops located in a territorial authority listed in schedule 2 from remaining closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, then including in schedule 2 every territorial authority in the country.

We are told that territorial authorities can opt out through their local consultation provisions under the Local Government Act, but the mechanism to give effect to this opting out is either by the Committee of the whole House or, later, by amending legislation. So what does that mean? Either territorial local authorities will have to undergo their local consultation over the next few weeks, while the bill is before the Committee of the whole House—a legal impossibility if they are to abide by the consultation provisions of the Local Government Act—or they will have to wait for a member’s bill, to opt out. If this is not a shambles, I do not know what is.

I will spend my remaining time going to the heart of the shop trading hours debate. For me and for the Green Party overall, stopping the further commercialisation of family days and family life is a priority. I want to explode the myth, which we New Zealanders hold close to our hearts, that this country is a great place to grow up in. A recent Unicef report that came out last week on child well-being describes children’s health and welfare in New Zealand as being amongst some of the worst in developed countries. Our parents rate in the bottom quarter for time spent with their children. Is this the New Zealand we grew up in, or has this pervasive cultural myth outlived its usefulness? Why are New Zealand parents not spending quality time with their children? One of the reasons could be seen in the results of another OECD study that shows that New Zealanders work some of the longest hours in the OECD—1,826 hours per year, compared with an OECD average of 1,778.

We have before the House two bills that are, quite simply, manifestations of the relentless pressure of market forces upon the social culture and spiritual fabric of our society. These two bills, whatever their humble intent, seem to overlook the wider implications of their provisions for the 200,000 retail workers and their families and the more than 2 million people who continue to affiliate with the Christian religion in New Zealand.

Despite the very large numbers of people whom these bills could adversely impact directly, I argue that this is not a numbers debate; this is a conscience issue that will affect us all. As MPs we have been delegated the authority to vote according to our consciences and do what we believe to be morally right. But how can one be truly moral when one lacks a vision for what it means to be fully human, or reduces that vision to one of pure economic opportunity? Although this bill seeks to address some stated anomalies with the current shop trading legislation, it overlooks the bigger picture that Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Christmas Day, and Anzac Day are actually the anomalies themselves, good anomalies—3½ days of the year when the logic of the market and economic opportunity do not prevail.

Let me remind members that retail businesses may open to trade on almost any day of the year and at any time they choose. The remaining 3½ days are the anomalies in that they stand against the prevailing winds of the relentless pursuit of profit and the “affluenza” that Oliver James describes as consuming societies like ours. Within these 3½ days we have the breathing space to reconsider what it is to be human, what it is that we live for, and what we value most highly and cherish above all else. At some deep level this debate is about defining what we value and what we do not—what it is about us as New Zealanders that makes us unique.

If we really want to be a country that is a great place to grow up in and bring our children up in, then we might need to start actively working towards implementing ways that make this more than a comfortable cultural myth, and more than the social equivalent of the clean and green myth. It is time for us to get real about how we might help to stem the disintegration of child welfare and family life in general in New Zealand. When parents are forced to work long hours at the expense of time spent with each other and with their children, children and young people are left without the comfort and security of traditional family interaction. I do not need to spell out consequences that often result when young people look elsewhere for their primary support. The Unicef report has captured those consequences well already. We all want to see better outcomes for our children. That obviously means better outcomes for our families, and that, in turn, means better outcomes for the workers who support the economic livelihood of those families.

The Green Party does not support this bill, because it works to undermine positive outcomes for children, their families, and the workers who support them. In effect, the liberalisation of Easter trading corrodes the once sacred value we placed around these days and around the family. But in the market-driven world it appears that nothing is sacred any longer.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) :Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Kia ora tātou katoa, itēneipō. Members may not know this, but the Easter before last was the year a cyclone hit Tūhoe country at Rūātoki in my electorate. It had nothing to do with the fact that the Taupō retail community was able to open its doors, and that of Rūātoki was not. It was, in fact, the cyclone that threatened to devastate a biennial Te Hui Ahurei o Tūhoe. Despite the big winds gusting forward and the tents collapsing all around us—I was present, as was Tariana Turia—Te Hui Ahurei stood strong. Despite the rain, the wind, and the mud Te Hui Ahurei continued for the 4 days of Easter. In many ways it was that Tūhoe spirit that I thought of when our attention turned to this Easter Sunday Shop Trading Amendment Bill.

You see, Tūhoe, as a tribal nation, are a very young people. In fact, in 1996, 42 percent were under the age of 15, and it is precisely because of the youthfulness of Tūhoe that in the early 1970s Te Hui Ahurei o Tūhoe was established as a strategy to connect young Tūhoe to their culture. It was a product of renaissance and a way of maintaining Tūhoe identity amongst the younger members, most of whom lived away from the lands of the Urewera ranges. Nowadays, Te Hui Ahurei o Tūhoe attracts more than 25,000 people who come each Easter to the Eastern Bay of Plenty to celebrate Tūhoetanga. This year, as with other years, there will be netball; kapahaka; rugby; wearable arts; food; exhibitions; taupatupatu, or debates, with stimulating kōrero to and fro; and lots of competition and friendly challenges to bind the people together.

I look at that festival not as the member of Parliament for Waiariki, and not even because I have had the privilege of attending and sharing the celebrations with the people; I look at it today by thinking about how the Easter Sunday Shop Trading Amendment Bill will affect it. The first rendition of the bill from Jacqui Dean might not have affected too many Tūhoe, other than possibly those living in Wānaka and Tauranga. But if the recommendations of the Commerce Committee are enacted—which would mean that all shops in all areas could open on Good Friday and Easter Sunday—there would be a significant and longstanding effect, certainly on whānau, Tūhoe, and everyone else. Te Ahurei o Tūhoe, at its very heart, is an expression of whanaungatanga, a celebration of kinship. But if the shop trading amendments are to come into force, it would mean that the very basis of the festival is at risk.

I want to make it clear that the opportunity for whānau members to work or not to work on a public holiday is something that every individual worker is entitled to consider. There may well be solid economic reasons, lifestyle reasons, or career promotion factors that justify taking up every opportunity to work additional hours. For promoters of these bills the central factor is the due expression of individual choice, not the impact of this choice on others. There are only 3½ days every year that are genuine public holidays, as others have talked about. Although many previous restrictions on shop trading no longer exist, general restrictions still remain for trading on Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Christmas Day, and until 1 o’clock on Anzac Day. Three and a half days out of 365 is not a lot to ask for, really. Easter Sunday is the only Sunday left in the annual calendar when shops are not able to open. Easter Sunday, added to Good Friday, is also the only long, commercial-free weekend in which families can be together, basically uninterrupted by work commitments. But with this bill, and the accompanying Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading) Amendment Bill, this all stands to change.

So we in the Māori Party come to this bill thinking particularly about the impacts it will have and how it will impinge on whānau time. We wonder whether people will be working when ordinarily they would not be. How will this bill enhance and strengthen whānau participation in community activities? We think about voluntary and community work. If whānau members have to work, who will care for pakeke, younger children, and younger tamariki on days when, presumably, other forms of care might be harder to come by?

I return to this notion of choice. Providing an individual with the opportunity to work is not just a matter of that individual’s choice. Members can take, for example, in the case of my own whānau, my eldest daughter. If she takes up the opportunity to work on Easter Sunday or Good Friday, that choice will have implications for her younger siblings, her parents—her whānau—for we will all miss out on her delightful company, and whanaungatanga is therefore compromised.

We do acknowledge, however, that the protections around the work choices for employees at Easter have been strengthened by the recommendations from the select committee, and we will support those proposals. In the previous version of the bill, employees had to opt in to protections by agreement. That provision, of course, contrasted fairly significantly with existing legislation that applies protections to all employees.

However, we do not support the amendment made at the Commerce Committee to add all councils to the list of exempted areas, potentially allowing the total liberalisation of Easter trading across the entire nation. This is a far cry from the original intent of the bill—as Dr Cullen alluded to—to allow trading exemptions in the visitor districts of Tauranga and Wānaka. Although the select committee has made it possible for councils to opt out from exempting shop owners to trade during Easter, there are some very practical restrictions and questions around this capacity to opt out. The select committee report fails to detail how this would be done, what consultation would be required, and whether legislation would be amended. We believe it is vital that the bill describes the nature of the process that would be required, in order for district councils to decide appropriately whether to opt out of the exemption.

My understanding is that since 1997 there have been five bills before Parliament proposing amendments to the Easter shop trading hours legislation, and Sue Bradford alluded to some of those. Only one is passed, and that was the legislation giving garden centres an exemption on Easter Sunday. Following conscience votes the others have all failed to get sufficient support in Parliament. Surely that has to tell us something about central values that members of this Parliament will be revisiting in their decisions on the two bills in front of us. A vote for either of the bills will have many impacts on the constituents we represent. Neither bill will treat Easter as a public holiday. Therefore, workers will not be benefiting from compensation for family time by earning time and a half pay or a day in lieu.

The Māori Party is well aware that 30 years has passed since the Shop Trading Hours Act 1977, which placed significant restrictions on the hours and days that shops could operate. That law was amended in 1990 to provide much greater freedom for retailers. It permitted retailers to open up to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In a sense we went from the floodgates being fastened tight and secure to, 13 years later, the opposite occurring.

At the same time as work hours increased and employee protections had been reduced, the need for quality care of employees and whānau has never been more important. If the bills do miraculously make it through the Committee stage, a key priority would be to enable those working either Good Friday or Easter Sunday, or both, to be granted the pay rates and conditions commensurate with those of a pubic holiday. We appreciate, too, that no matter how we flesh the pay packet, one can never underestimate the importance of preserving precious family time as the reserve of the family and the family alone.

The Māori Party believes that working at Easter impinges on the ability to participate in whānau activities. We are, of course, mindful and fully supportive of the freedom to practise and express one’s spiritual beliefs and values. We are sufficiently aware of the compromises and sacrifices that far too many New Zealanders are experiencing, bringing in its wake the all too familiar trend of work-life imbalance. Kia ora tātou.

GORDON COPELAND (United Future) : As the deputy chairperson of the Commerce Committee, I would like to begin by clarifying how it has come to be that this Easter Sunday Shop Trading Amendment Bill, which when it received its first reading in the House permitted shop trading on Good Friday and Easter Sunday in just the Wānaka and Tauranga districts, is now extended to cover the entire nation and every single territorial authority within the nation. Let us be very clear that the bill we will be voting on tonight now permits unrestricted shop trading on Good Friday and Easter Sunday from North Cape to Bluff, with no single area exempted or excepted. I want to explain to the House, because Sue Bradford touched on this matter, how that situation arose.

This bill was before the Commerce Committee for some time—for several months—and we received many submissions on it. At the conclusion of that phase, when we came to the consideration of the bill, there was no majority on the Commerce Committee for either this bill or the accompanying bill in the name of Steve Chadwick, on which we heard submissions at the same time. So it looked as though we would be referring both bills back to the House completely unaltered. At that point the Leader of the House, Dr Cullen, intervened at the Business Committee to say that he thought that was not a satisfactory process, when the bills under consideration were to be debated in this House as conscience bills. Members may recall that subsequently the Speaker wrote to every select committee, stating that if the committee is considering a conscience bill, then it at least has an obligation to bring it back to this House fit for its purpose.

Having received that advice from the Speaker’s office, we then proceeded to examine the bills in detail. Some members of the committee made it clear from the outset that they were going to oppose the bill. So when Sue Bradford stated that this bill was reported back unanimously from the select committee, that is incorrect. That was never the case, and Sue Bradford misunderstood the situation in that regard. The select committee basically said that if it was OK with the member in charge of the bill, and as suggested by a member of the committee, we would put a nationwide provision in the bill, in the knowledge that at the Committee stage it could, if necessary, be taken out. That is how schedule 2 was amended from including just the Wānaka district and Tauranga district to including the entire nation.

But I make the point that that change did not arise from one single submission made to the committee or heard by the committee. I repeat that there was no submission to the committee that this bill should be widened out to embrace the entire nation. Therefore, in my opinion, the nation’s inclusion in schedule 2 is contrary to democracy, is contrary to parliamentary process, and should not be permitted. It was done in the circumstances I have set out, but I can signal now that should this bill be passed tonight, there will be a move in the Committee stage to take its provisions back to ones that apply to the original two districts only: Wānaka and Tauranga. There will be such a move, and people will have an opportunity to vote the rest of the country out. I make the point again that its inclusion was done without any submissions from the public on that issue being heard at all.

I turn now to the fact that I oppose this bill. I would like to see as many New Zealanders as possible continue to have a holiday on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. There are 350,000 people directly or indirectly associated with the retail sector and other organisations similar to it, such as used-car and new-car dealerships. Those 350,000 people at the moment, as of right, have a holiday on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. This Parliament is debating tonight whether we should remove that right from those people and force them to work on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, willingly or otherwise—because that is the commercial reality. Let us not be naive about it. The commercial reality is that those 350,000 people will, if this bill is passed, be working on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. That is the reality, and we are removing that right not to work. Therefore, I believe that the House should proceed with great caution. We are removing a right that New Zealanders have had, as far as I know, for a very, very long time: the right that if they work in, manage, or own a retail shop or similar business, they do not have to work on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Henceforth we are going to change that.

I believe that is absolutely tragic for those 350,000 people and all of the people, which probably includes most New Zealanders, who will be affected, as Te Ururoa Flavell said so clearly, by their absence. Those people will no longer be with us on Easter Sunday for family celebrations. They will no longer be with us for sporting and other occasions on Good Friday. We should bear in mind, by the way, that people can now go to garden centres on Good Friday, as that provision is already there. This change is proposed in spite of the fact that there is no really good reason for doing that.

I was also very taken by the explanation given by Hone Harawira today at the press conference that in Māoridom Easter is now the time when hui are held. It is the time when whānau, and even iwi and hapū, come together. That is because it is the only time in the entire year when they can get together, when they are all on holiday. We are going to destroy that. If they continue to have those activities, and I am sure they will, a significant segment of those hapū, iwi, or families will no longer be there.

I think all of us, even on Christmas Day as we get together, find ourselves asking where a granddaughter is, only to be told that she has had to work because she is a nurse, or whatever she is. Already a lot of people have to work even on Christmas Day, of necessity. But it is completely unnecessary for anyone else who is not involved in the provision of essential services, such as nursing and so forth, to work just in order to chase a very elusive extra dollar.

I make the point that New Zealanders are already some of the people who work the longest hours of people in any OECD country. I would also like to make the point that according to statistics produced by the New Zealand Institute, the fact that we work longer hours does not mean that our labour force is more productive than that of other countries. On the contrary, there is a certain point at which just working longer hours actually reduces productivity. An example of that would be France, which has a 35-hour working week and a productivity rate that is way better than New Zealand’s. So this measure is counter-productive. Why? Because people are stressed, they are tired, and their health is suffering, and it really is not even good commercial sense to have exhausted people working on those two very valuable days.

Only 3½ special holidays are set aside each year—only one single Sunday out of every 52—and I believe that those special days should remain special for all New Zealanders or, as I said, for as many as possible, having regard to the fact that essential services must continue. Service stations need to be open to sell gasoline, restaurants need to be open so that people can eat, and so on. Those facilities are already open on Good Friday and Easter Sunday anyway. But the rest of it is simply optional, in reality. We should not remove the right of people to have a holiday on those two days without any compelling reason, commercial or otherwise. Those days should remain special for all New Zealanders. United Future members will therefore—although this is a conscience vote, I stress—be voting against this bill tonight, because we believe that we should not arbitrarily, without any submissions at all along those lines coming to the select committee, open the entire country to shop trading on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. It simply does not make sense. It is poor law, and we should not proceed with it.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) : It is worth reflecting on what we are doing in this House when we debate shop trading hours. There are 121 MPs in this Parliament who are deciding on when workers can work, when businesses can open, and when communities can hold an event or engage in mutually advantageous capitalistic acts by trading. That is what we are deciding.

What I do not understand is how people can stand up in this House and think that somehow they have the right to decide whether a dairy, shop, store, or cafe should open on a particular day and that if they have some religious view, it should be foisted on to a Hindu, a Muslim, an atheist, an agnostic, or a Christian who actually wants to work on that particular day. I was astonished to hear Mark Gosche quote the Catholic bishops. It is a bit rich for the Labour Party to quote Catholic bishops, in favour of its argument. Then I heard people say that somehow—

Sue Moroney: Some of us are Catholics.

RODNEY HIDE: Some woman over there who never speaks is yelling out that some of us are Catholics. I am just making the point that when the Catholic bishops—

Russell Fairbrother: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. My friend Sue Moroney is entitled to be referred to by her proper name, rather than as “some woman”. That comment may say more about the speaker than it does about Sue Moroney, but this “other woman” has a name, which should be used.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): If the member speaks about another member he should use the member’s correct name.

RODNEY HIDE: She should identify herself before interjecting. The lady never stands up and speaks. I do not know what she is called.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): Mr Hide, I asked you to use the member’s name if you are going to speak of her in the way you did. I just ask you to use the member’s name.

RODNEY HIDE: Then I heard, from people standing up, that somehow if people are working it means that they are neglecting their children. What a lot of nonsense that has to be! It is the parents of the neglected children in New Zealand who do not work. That tends to be the pattern in New Zealand—there are plenty of children in homes who are totally neglected, and it cannot be said that it is because their parents have to work on Easter Sunday. They do not work on any day. That is part of the problem. Darren Hughes over there is shaking his head. He should be looking to some of the statistics that are occurring in the electorate that will lose at the next election. That is what he should be doing. He should be following the arguments that are going on here about the underclass.

The idea that parents who are doing an honest day’s work are somehow neglecting their children has to be rubbish, and it shows how out of touch with the people of New Zealand this Government has become. This may come as a shock for Darren Hughes, because he does not work on any day, but there are a lot of people in New Zealand who have to work on Easter Sunday. That is the reality of the situation right now. They have to work. Are their children being neglected because they are working on Easter Sunday? Of course not. Who is this Darren Hughes to be telling people that they, as parents, should not work on an Easter Sunday if they choose to? Who is Darren Hughes to say to business owners in Wānaka—or wherever—that they should not work? I would be very interested to see if Darren Hughes votes for Steve Chadwick’s bill, because what would he be saying then about the parents and that particular thing? Anyway, what would Darren Hughes know about anything, one asks oneself when one actually listens to him speak.

People are scraping the bottom of the barrel to be saying that cafes cannot be opened on Easter Sunday because children’s—

Darren Hughes: One percent. I didn’t take a party from 7 percent to 1 percent. The whole party took a holiday when he took over.

RODNEY HIDE: I like Darren Hughes! He wants to talk about the last election. How did he get on in his electorate? I ask Nathan Guy what happened. I will tell members what happened to Darren Hughes in his electorate. What was his majority? Thirty-four. How much was it? How many? It was 34. He is going to lose that seat the next election. I would be concentrating on that, not on the ACT party. [Interruption] Here is a man, Darren Hughes, who is sitting there getting all red in the face—I swear to heaven he has gone all red in the face—when I get up to speak. He is worried about the fact that ACT has only two MPs. If I were Darren Hughes I would be worried about his electorate, because the people in it are sick of this MP not doing his job and they will vote for Nathan Guy at the next election. That is what that member should be doing and not worrying about the ACT party. I tell him that ACT will do very well at the next election—I thank Darren—with or without his help. But I ask him to keep it up, because I am sure if he keeps getting red in the face someone in the Labour Party will recognise his efforts and he might get a promotion.

Darren Hughes: I bet he was red in the face when he was drowning in the harbour the other day. His party drowned, he drowned when he went swimming, and he cannot even talk about the bill. What about people who are forced to work on that day?

RODNEY HIDE: I say this to Mr Hughes. If he comes along to the Tauranga ocean swimming race, I will give him a race. [Interruption] Bob Clarkson will be there. It is another feature of the Labour Party that no one is allowed to have any business open on Easter Sunday because that would be fun. People are never allowed to go dancing, because that might be fun. Now Darren Hughes has got upset because on Saturday I went for a swim in the harbour. What sort of life are we going to lead under the Labour Party when they want to tell us all what to do, that we cannot take any risks, and that we have to check with Helen Clark before we get up in the morning? I tell Darren Hughes—that man over there—that he should get out more often and have a bit of fun.

We should get back to the point of this speech and this bill. The point is this: a business employs people and pays their wages, and it raises the money that pays the taxes to pay Darren Hughes’ wages each week—heaven knows why; to get abused—so why cannot that business and the people it employs, and the community in which those people work, decide whether to open or close on any day they choose on any part of the year? Why cannot people decide for themselves whether they want to go shopping on Easter Sunday? Why cannot we leave it up to them? Why do we think it is only people like Darren Hughes who have the moral and intellectual development to decide for people whether they can work, open their shop, or do their business?

I say we vote for this bill and the other bill like it, because I believe in the freedom of New Zealanders and I trust them to make decisions for themselves, their businesses, and their families that are a whole lot better than those Darren Hughes ever could make. Thank you.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) : After that hilarious speech by Rodney Hide, I come back to the issue, which is about workers’ rights and whether workers can be forced to work on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

I thank the member Sue Bradford for bringing to the House’s attention the nice little gift this afternoon; most members obviously did not know where it came from. She reminded people that they—it is the Easter eggs, I am talking about—were gifts from members of the National Distribution Union on behalf of the 200,000 retail workers in New Zealand to remind us that if this bill, and the other one that I will be voting against, become law, they will not be able to spend their time with their families on Easter Sunday and, under Jacqui Dean’s bill, on Good Friday.

I went with some other MPs to a press conference today and along with those other MPs, I placed the letter and a chocolate egg on members’ desks. Just in case members were too busy munching on the chocolates, I thought I would read a little bit from it because I am sure most have not bothered to read it—that is the blue paper that was distributed to members today. “Dear Member of Parliament, Easter Sunday is the last shop-free Sunday we have. It is not a public holiday, meaning that shop workers will not be paid any more for working on that day, nor will they earn a day off in lieu. At a time when New Zealand has been exposed by the Unicef report as a country where parents do not spend enough time with their children, we urge MPs not to make matters worse.”

Actually, it is not just about the unions. This is from the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference, the Social Justice Commission of the Anglican Church, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, and others. [Interruption] Some of these are people who work in Mr Bennett’s community. I want to make it very, very clear to this House that I am on the side of these workers. Retail workers already work evenings, weeks, and on many public holidays. Easter Sunday and Good Friday are currently the 2 days in a year on which they can guarantee they will not be asked to work.

Let us remind ourselves of history. People have talked about the bills that have come through this House, but in 1990 most shops could not trade on any Sunday and they were unable to open on nine of the 11 recognised holidays. Now they can trade on 51 out of 52 Sundays and every public holiday except Good Friday, Christmas Day, and the morning of Anzac Day. [Interruption] So Mr Bennett thinks those shops should open on the morning of Anzac Day, as well. He should let us know, so we can tell his constituents. This means that there are only 3½ days left in a year when shops cannot trade. I cannot accept that the public—or, indeed, tourists or those off big boats—cannot cope without shopping for those 3½ days a year. Really, can they not just wait one day?

Colin King: What about the 6 weeks’ holiday you get?

DARIEN FENTON: What about the member’s holidays? National tried to take holidays off a whole lot of workers in 1990. Let us not go there again, please. Shop workers have combined with other community groups and churches to call on this Parliament to save working people from the inexorable march of commercial demands made over and above the needs of ordinary New Zealanders. I support the call for Parliament not to continue to liberalise the working lives of these workers. I join with other parliamentarians who do not accept that it is inevitable that every day in the year should be a working day, or a shopping day for that matter.

As my colleague Gordon Copeland has pointed out, New Zealanders already work some of the longest hours in the OECD. Many of us have been to European countries—France has been mentioned, and I spent some time in Spain earlier this year—and we all know that shops there are not open on a Sunday. Does the world end? Do things change? Do people not go to those countries? Well, they do. Also, as other people have mentioned, the level of productivity in those countries is much, much higher and working hours are lower than they are here. Instead of learning from those examples and considering their possible application for New Zealand, we continue, through bills like this one, the relentless quest for the expansion of working hours.

I am a member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, which has been considering quality flexible work. We hear all the time about balancing work and home life, how it is a growing concern for both employers and workers, how improving that balance could help with employee recruitment and retention, how it can match jobs with people who would not otherwise work, and how it can benefit families and communities. We all know that there are more women, more dual-income families, and more sole parents in the workforce. That amplifies the potential for conflict between work and family life, yet here we are today debating yet another extension and, actually, another intrusion into family lives.

Also today we have been debating the important Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline) Amendment Bill, relating to section 59 of the Crimes Act. The concern of those who are supporting the removal of the reasonable force argument is our children and what kind of environment and safety they are growing up in. Add to that the Unicef report that I have already referred to—and that some of the Opposition members made much of last week—and we get to the heart of the problem with this bill. It is anti-family, anti-community, and anti-worker. It focuses on the commercial imperative of shops being able to open on Easter Friday and Good Sunday above all of the interests of families. We hear so often in debates in this House members going on about families. This bill puts commerce before families. Surely on one or two days of the year we can put families before commerce?

This bill ignores the 200,000 people working in this industry who, if this bill proceeds, will be unable to participate in the range of family, community, religious, and recreational activities that take place around New Zealand over Easter. I would also say that the bill takes quite a monocultural approach. It ignores the fact that New Zealand now has a range of different cultures, particularly those of Pacific people, who regard Sunday as a special day for worship, for families, and for cultural activities.

Although I appreciate the efforts of the Commerce Committee to insert some worker protections in the bill, I think the committee needs to get real and understand the real world. On many occasions, in my role as a worker representative, I had to deal with employers who tried to force people to work on Sundays when they had family and other responsibilities. Indeed, I have dealt with the same situation in respect of many public holidays. I appreciate that the rights are in the bill, but those will just not work.

I do appreciate that the member in charge of this bill is trying to represent her community, but I ask this House whether New Zealand will lose any trade or tourism because the shops are shut on one or two days a year. I quote again from the letter that was distributed to members this afternoon: “Whether it is making it easier for teenagers to be with their families at Easter or for shop-working parents to spend time at home, the current restrictions are very important. Opening the shops at Easter would impact on far more than those workers who work on those days. We all talk about the decline in volunteers, the impact that weekend shopping has had on sports clubs, community events, and family life. We cannot turn the clock back, but we can put community before commerce on at least one Sunday a year.”

So I call on this Parliament, and also on business and communities, to put families and their interests first on this occasion. I recall the efforts made by the National Government during the late 1990s to take away the holiday rights of workers. That move was resisted by workers, unions, communities, and families, and National failed. This bill will be resisted in the same way. If members opposite had been at that press conference today, they would know that pressure is mounting against this bill amongst the retail workers whom I met and talked to today. I tell those members to talk to some retail workers to see what they have to say about this issue. They are not behind this bill. They do not want to be forced to work on Easter Sunday, let alone Good Friday. So those workers are getting behind it. I am on their side; let us not go there again by supporting this bill tonight.

SUE MORONEY (Labour) : We are talking this evening about a conscience vote on two bills with regard to Easter Sunday trading and Easter trading—the Easter Sunday Shop Trading Amendment Bill and the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading) Amendment Bill—and I have to say that my conscience has absolutely no difficulty with this vote. My conscience tells me that I will be voting against both these bills. There are several reasons why I will be voting against both these bills, but let me start by saying that it was pretty ironic that both bills were drawn out of the ballot, one after the other. Some might call it an act of God, but I do not think so. The Commerce Committee had to try to deal with the issue of these two very similar bills being drawn out at the same time, and the bills have come back to the House in a format that will make it quite difficult for members to deal with issues that are fairly similar. Some members may be voting for one bill and against the other, or vice versa, but for me it is absolutely clear: I will be voting against both bills.

This is a moment for me where, by using my conscience vote as a member of Parliament, I can actually satisfy both my Catholic upbringing—yes, I say to Mr Hide; I am a Labour member of Parliament with a Catholic upbringing—and also my trade union activism. Voting against these bills allows me to satisfy both of those aspects. In my maiden speech I talked about work-life balance, with it being an issue that I had come to this House to deal with. If I apply that issue of work-life balance to this bill—

Bob Clarkson: But give us choice.

SUE MORONEY: Well, the member can have choice, but he cannot have work-life balance and that choice at the same time, because for retail workers—Te Ururoa Flavell was quite right—there will be no choice. We can put as many worker protections as we like into these bills, but there will be pressure put on workers for reasons of promotion, for reasons of whether they will get the right shifts given to them in the future, and for all of those reasons that are out in the real world. Those are the choices faced by retail workers out there.

My colleague Darien Fenton spoke to these retail workers. She would be able to tell members opposite about that. [Interruption] I notice that members opposite do not seem to know what retail workers think. They did not take the opportunity to go out and talk to them today, but I can tell them that retail workers would easily be able to explain to members of Parliament the sort of pressure that is brought to bear on them to work particular days or shifts, because of how their work life goes.

Everyone seems pretty keen about the test of work-life balance, because all the surveys will tell us that when New Zealanders are asked about the things that concern them the most, guess what comes top of the list? It is work-life balance. Can people guess what does not even feature on that list? The list never features the sentiment: “Gosh, there are 3½ days a week when we cannot go shopping. That is the most desperately urgent thing that we want fixed in this country.” That is not at the top of the minds of New Zealanders, but they are concerned about the lack of time that they have to spend with their families, they are concerned about family life, and, yes, they are concerned about work-life balance.

These bills do not pass the test of work-life balance. They do nothing to enhance it. In fact, they do things to make work-life balance worse in this country. It is not just for those retail workers and their families that work-life balance would be reduced through the passing of these bills, but also for the rest of us. Because when the shops are open then maybe we might go to them. I think Peter Brown talked about this before. Maybe we might feel like we need some retail therapy on Easter Sunday. Well I tell Peter Brown that if he needs some therapy on Easter Sunday there are lots of other options. For me, they are kicking a ball around with one’s kids, or going for a walk. There are lots of things people can do if they feel they need therapy on Easter Sunday. People could even go to church on Easter Sunday if they wanted some therapy. But the sort of therapy that we do not need on Easter Sunday or Good Friday is shopping. We can do that on any other day of the year, except for just those 3½ days.

I want to ask the proponents of this bill about the other 1½ days that would be left if the bill in the name of Jacqui Dean was passed. What are the plans for the morning of Anzac Day from the members who support this bill? Is that up for grabs as well? Is that the next thing that those members want to go after? Is that the next commercial interest that will be put before the lifestyles of New Zealanders? Some of those members must be feeling quite disappointed about the revival that Anzac Day has had recently, because I am sure some of the retail sector are concerned that that will put paid to their plans to open on the morning of Anzac Day as well. What about Christmas Day? Is that next on the shopping list of members who support this bill? Because, gosh, if these bills are passed we will still have 1½ days where there is not that freedom of choice that is so desperately sought by some members of this Parliament.

Obviously at the top of everyone’s mind are those 1½ days that are left, and how we are going to grab them—how we are going to get hold of them. But then, of course, members are listening to a member of Parliament who is a little unfashionable. Going to horse racing is one of my favourite pastimes, and in most circumstances I would do anything to get a day at the races. Well, I will not even go to Sunday race meetings because I object to the idea of Sunday racing. So, yes, I am a little old-fashioned in this field. Should the racing industry ever think that it wants to put forward legislation to start race meetings on Good Friday or Easter Sunday, it would not get my support for that either. So I just put that on the record right here and now.

It is a rare occasion that I can satisfy both my Catholic upbringing and my trade union activism with just one vote. It is a good day to be able to do that. I want to quote what the Catholic bishops had to say. Rodney Hide may think that Catholic bishops do not have anything relevant to say to New Zealanders today, but I certainly believe they do. Those people who are voting in support of these bills may think that the Catholic bishops are out of touch with New Zealanders, but—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): I think members just need to quieten down and show a bit of respect for speakers.

SUE MORONEY: I would like members to pay some respect to what the Catholic bishops had to say, because members opposite do not seem to want to know what they said. They said: “The importance of spending adequate quality time together, especially for parents and children, is vital for strengthening family relationships.” They talked about Cardinal Thomas Williams pointing out in an earlier statement—and this is important, so I think National Party members opposite may want to listen to what the Catholic bishops had to say: “If profit is to take priority over people, the outcome will be a society less human and more stressful for individuals, families, and the community at large.” I tell Mr Hide that that is why it is the business of this Parliament to discuss this issue. That is why we have something to say about shop opening hours. That is why we have something to say about workers’ rights. It is about a society that will become less human. They went on to say that when parents are forced to work long hours, it is an expensive time.

• Debate interrupted.