ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) : I move, That the Education (School Boards of Trustees Single Transferable Vote Option) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. It is with great pleasure and considerable pride that I present to this House the Education (School Boards of Trustees Single Transferable Vote Option) Amendment Bill. This is a short and simple bill, but its impact is far-reaching. By making a small amendment to the Education Act 1989, it gives school boards of trustees the option of adopting the single transferable vote (STV) system for their elections. It is nothing more, nothing less, and nothing radical or compulsory. It merely gives schools and their boards greater discretion and sovereignty over how they go about ensuring that the wishes of parents are fairly reflected in the election results and that the boards are truly representative of the diverse school communities they represent.

This bill follows in the footsteps of my previously successful STV option bill for local bodies, which has been incorporated into the Local Electoral Act. That bill was also about increasing sovereignty, making elections fairer, and ensuring better, more representative outcomes. I cannot tell members how delighted I am that every enrolled voter will have the opportunity to use STV in the forthcoming local body elections as a result of my previous bill. Not only will 10 mayors and councils be elected by STV but also all 21 district health boards will be elected by the sophisticated system provided for under the Local Electoral Act.

The October local body elections represent a massive step forward for local democracy in New Zealand. No longer will there be minority mayors elected with as little as 24 percent of the vote, as happened in Napier in 1998, at least in the forthcoming elections for the 10 councils using STV. No longer will more than half of the votes for councillors be wasted in those council elections where STV will be used. No longer will significant proportions of voters feel unrepresented, because none of their choices were elected due to the impact of block voting under first past the post.

I am told by reliable sources that even more councils will adopt STV for the 2007 local body elections. That is because STV has already proved its worth with dairy farmers, who use it to elect the Fonterra board and shareholders council, and because many councillors and council returning officers have overcome their initial fear of STV and now recognise that it is a far superior electoral system than first past the post.

I am, therefore, obviously disappointed that the Minister of Education has indicated his refusal to support this bill, but I am not surprised. After all, Trevor Mallard was one of only three Labour MPs who crossed the floor to vote with National to defeat Labour MP Richard Northey’s original STV bill in 1998. Even ACT supported the 34 Labour MPs, 12 Alliance MPs, and one United MP who voted for that earlier version of the STV option bill, because they recognised that STV enhances democracy. I look forward to the support of ACT for this bill. I also look forward to the support of New Zealand First for my bill, as I know that Ron Mark was upset that he had to vote against the 1998 bill because of the coalition agreement with the National Party. I also hope United Future will maintain Peter Dunne’s consistent support for STV by voting for this bill. Indeed, if the National Party is prepared to allow this bill to go to the select committee, with the support of all the other parties in this House, then we could override Trevor Mallard’s opposition to fair electoral systems and send this bill to the Justice and Electoral Committee for the scrutiny that it deserves.

By promoting the change to STV for school boards, I know I run the risk of being seen as an electoral reform zealot who is trying to fix problems that do not exist, but I have not introduced this bill merely for the sake of pushing STV down people’s throats. I believe there are real problems with our current school board elections. To give members a personal example, I recall agonising over how to vote two elections ago. There were about 10 candidates for our local primary school board, and I could cast up to seven votes. I strongly supported four candidates, I was indifferent towards three, and I did not support the remaining three. In the end, I cast only four votes, because I knew that a vote cast for a less preferred candidate could cancel out a vote for one of my most preferred candidates. It was that personal experience that prompted me to introduce this bill.

I have not introduced this bill just to solve my problems with tactical voting; I have introduced it because I am concerned about the very low turnout in school board elections and the extremely high level of wasted votes at those elections. It has been difficult to get comprehensive information about this year’s school board elections, but I have discovered that of the approximately 70,000 voting papers that were issued in the South Island, only 25,000 came back.

In other words, only just over one-third of parents bothered to vote in this year’s elections. While I am certainly not claiming that STV would automatically lift the turn-out, it may have a positive impact, because more people would feel that it is worth taking the trouble to vote if their votes would be more likely to help.

The analysis that I have done of results gleaned from newspaper public notices reveals a disturbingly high level of wasted votes in this year’s school board elections. For example, at Wellington College, 2,159 votes were cast. Of those, 1,123, or 54 percent, were for successful candidates. However, 318 of those votes merely boosted the majority of the candidates who had already won. Overall, only 37 percent of the votes cast in that election were effective. In other words, 63 percent of the votes made no difference to the election outcome. In case members think that is an isolated example, I can quote for them numerous other cases where there was a high level of wasted votes—for example, 46 percent at Auckland Grammar, 44 percent at Onslow College and Burnside High School, and 43 percent at Shirley Boys High School. When one factors in the boost votes, the effective votes at those schools were 50 percent or fewer in all cases. Those outcomes are the hallmark of an electoral system that is very crude and patently unfair.

I fully concede that STV is most needed where a large number of candidates are standing, and where significant groupings in a school community are unrepresented on the board. In other situations, it may simply not be necessary. However, if the Government is serious about improving school governance, it should recognise the benefits of STV for those communities that have a diverse ethnic make-up. Even Ministry of Education officials have acknowledged to the Minister that Pākehā parents are overrepresented on school boards, while Māori, Pasifika, and Asian parents are under-represented. The officials claim that this does not mean voters’ preferences are being ignored. They may be right, but in the example that they use, they make a presumption that exposes their limited understanding of first past the post. They reason that a low number of elected Māori trustees in a school with a high proportion of Māori students is because most Māori voters wish to elect non-Māori trustees. In fact, what happens with first past the post is that a dominant group wins all the seats, even when that group is a minority. In other words, if a school community is made up of three ethnicities, with one being 40 percent and two being 30 percent, it is quite conceivable that the 40 percent community could win 100 percent of the seats on the board.

I am not trying to advocate some sort of party or ethnic ticket for school boards; quite the opposite. I want schools to have the option of using an electoral system that maximises the opportunity for every community in the school to be fairly represented on the board, without resorting to separate seats or candidate tickets. STV does that because its proportional nature means that significant minorities are more likely to win their fair share of seats, and everyone is more likely to have voted for at least some of those who are elected. STV also means that a successful candidate needs to win a minimum quota of votes, whereas with first past the post, there is a risk of candidates being elected with low levels of support where a large number of candidates have split the vote.

I obviously believe that the arguments in favour of STV are compelling, but I also acknowledge that adopting this voting method has some practical problems and financial implications. I believe those can be easily overcome at minimal additional cost. The first and most obvious issue is the need for voter education to explain to parents how STV works. As the Government’s own literature in the forthcoming local body elections makes clear: “STV—It’s simple to vote.” In fact, as my T-shirt says, “it’s as easy as 1, 2, 3”, because that is all one does.

Hon Member: It’s not a T-shirt.

ROD DONALD: Never mind. One ranks as many or as few of the candidates in one’s order of preference. The TV advertisements, which will start screening this weekend, make very clear not only how straightforward STV is but also how logical and natural the ranking process is.

The second problem is the counting of STV votes. Obviously, it is more complicated than first past the post, but it presents no greater difficulty. Already most schools use an outside provider to run their elections. Those organisations use specialist contractors to count the votes right now. Because of the introduction of STV for district health board elections, not only do counting companies have access to the sophisticated software that has been developed by the Department of Internal Affairs but they have developed sophisticated optical scanning equipment to count voting papers rapidly.

Contrary to the advice given to the Minister by his officials, I have been assured by the Department of Internal Affairs that its software is suitable for school board elections, and I have been assured by the counting companies that counting STV votes for school board elections presents them with little more work than what they have to do now. Yes, the cost would be higher, because the technology is more expensive, but even that cost would come down in time, and at the moment, it is only 10c to 40c more per ballot paper than first past the post.

In conclusion, while I acknowledge that schools do have limited budgets, I must pose the question: what price democracy? That is the challenge facing this Parliament.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) : I begin my remarks on the Education (School Boards of Trustees Single Transferable Vote Option) Amendment Bill, which is sponsored by Mr Donald, by saying that he and I share a view about electoral reform. We are both supporters of proportional representation. I would probably say that I am not that much of an enthusiast for MMP as a particular form of proportional representation, but because it was the one—[Interruption] I say to Mr Power that I always know what I say on these core issues, because they are issues I have championed and worked a lot on, unlike himself. Once we had decided on MMP—it was the system that was clearly going to gain support—and because I support proportional representation, that was the system I supported.

However, I say to the member that I respect his points of view on this issue. Like me, he has been a long-term supporter of electoral change, and I respect his point of view on the particular effort he has put up today. But, unfortunately, I have to tell him, much to the glee of Mr Power, that the Government will not support this legislation. Because of that, because of our respect for Mr Donald, because of his longstanding track record on this issue, and because we do not want him to think we are opposing the bill for any other reason than an evidence base that tells us it is not a good idea, I will spend a few minutes on saying why the Government will not support this bill.

First of all, the bill is unnecessary. It is not supported by members of the School Trustees Association. That is a test that I think we do have to apply. If those people wanted it, then we would want to listen, but they do not.

The bill would clearly add compliance costs. It would not add them so much to the voting process, because I think—I will come back to this point in a second—voters would find the process as simple as the member said, and as it states on his T-shirt. Everyone knows how to list, in order of preference, who they want to vote for. The problem, of course, is the compliance costs that would come out when the vote was counted. That is the big issue, and the big problem we face here.

Frankly, I am afraid that I cannot see how the single transferable vote (STV) would improve the democratic running of our 2,600 schools. If I could, I would urge Government members to think again.

Let us get the flavour of this bill. School board elections are, on the whole, pretty low key. They are the responsibility of the school boards that administer them. The last lot of elections cost $5.4 million to run. If we introduced STV, we would introduce a large number of administration changes that would fall on schools, trustees, and the Government.

Rod Donald: How much?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I will come back to that, because I think the figure is reasonably easy to arrive at, in terms of all this. But whatever the system was, it would cost more money, and if we were to pay more money for it, we would want to see some real benefits.

At the moment, there are a whole range of things school boards can do if they want to make things more appropriate. If they want skill levels increased, or representation increased, they can stagger elections. They can co-opt if they want to. They can request organisations to appoint trustees. They can request a Minister to intervene to make sure things are done in a kosher way. They have all those options at the present time, in terms of trying to make their boards work.

We would have to decide which type of STV system we would use. There is not only one model of STV, of course. It would be a nonsense if different boards were allowed to use different forms of STV, because that would cause confusion. There is already flexibility in the legislation to allow people to do different things in terms of their voting system. So we would end up with a whole range of added complexities for school boards, when really they already have a lot of tools to try in order to make themselves skill-based and representative, to make sure things are done in a professional way, and to change things if they want to.

STV is about encouraging proportional representation. I heard the member say that he does not want parties running for board places—thank goodness! He does not want ethnicities running, thank goodness. Basically then, we should ask ourselves how representative school boards are now. If we flick through the figures, we see that it is pretty hard to say that they are not representative. If they are not then we can make them so, because the tools already exist to do that in a purposeful kind of way. So why go to a whole new system when, as the member said, there is no problem now? What are we trying to fix? Right now, it is certainly not the core question that proportional representation usually tries to adopt—that is, would we get different electoral outcomes from this bill? Not really; I do not think so. I do not think we would end up with a more representative system.

Rod Donald: Give it a try.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I think there are a lot of things we want to give a try in life, but this bill would affect 2,600 schools and a lot of people who volunteer their time. We are talking about taxpayers’ money. I am all for trying things—that is why we pilot things all the time—but I do not think the member is serious when he says just to give this system a whirl. Basically, we would want to try it only if we could rack up good, positive reasons for doing so. In the end, the key question asks whether we would get different electoral outcomes. I really do not think the issues stack up to say: “Yes, we would, and it would be really worth going through all this.”

STV is a more costly form of voting. The member himself will know that instead of being able to sit down with a piece of paper, which under current arrangements one can, and just by hand count up the votes for one’s local school—so that it costs basically a biro, some time, and a piece of paper—it would be very difficult to do that without computing if we were to use STV. Nobody who uses STV does not also use some computer-based form of counting to get the result in a reasonable period of time. Local governments, hospitals, and so on that use that kind of voting all have computer-based systems. I have no doubt that we would end up with the same pressure for that if we were to introduce STV for school board elections.

I do not think that voters would have any difficulty in understanding STV. As I said before, it is the complexity of handling their votes that would cause issues for us, and in relation to 2,600 schools and a computer-based system, it would all come down to saying that all that is being loaded in for no real reason.

I do not want to labour the point today because, as I said at the beginning, I respect Mr Donald’s commitment to proportional representation issues. He wants to pitch forward that argument into what ought to be the good democratic environment of the running of our schools. That is why Tomorrow’s Schools was introduced in the 1980s and that is why we all stick to it now. We want community involvement.

But, frankly, I have to say that we already have good community involvement. The current system is cheap to run and simple to understand. I have not heard people complaining that they want to move to a proportional representation system, where in the end we would have greater compliance and regulatory costs without any real gain in terms of what we were doing with the system. So I say to Mr Donald that I am sorry but on this occasion we will have to agree to disagree. The Government will vote against this bill.

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) : The National Party will oppose this bill. Like Mr Maharey, I have some sympathies for the campaign that Mr Donald has waged over a long period of time for the single transferable vote (STV). In fact, I voted for STV in the referenda when the option was put before the public—I was one of the 14 percent. But I very much have to say from the outset that not one parent from any of the 63 schools in my Rangitikei electorate has walked through one of my three electorate office doors, or used email, phone, or fax to say that he or she really wants to change the electoral system for school boards. I am afraid there is just no interest in the wider school communities for this legislation to proceed.

I was a little astounded to hear Mr Donald say—and I think I have this right—that if a party chose not to support the bill, its opposition was to fair electoral democracy, or words to that effect.

Rod Donald: Words to that effect.

SIMON POWER: Well, I say to Mr Donald that a couple of things trouble me about that comment and, through the chair, I would like to address those to him. When the Electoral Options Referenda Bill came before this House to give the public another say on the electoral system, the Green Party voted against it. I say to Mr Donald that if he is talking about fair electoral democracy, then that concept has to apply well beyond school boards of trustees elections, and should also apply to the wider electoral system throughout New Zealand.

I also have to say that despite the New Zealand public voting overwhelmingly to look at this system again, in the case of reducing the number of MPs to 99 the Greens chose to vote against that particular move at the select committee. So all that we in the National Party ask for is a thread of consistency from the Green Party on matters of electoral reform. When the Green Party co-leader stands in the House and says that opposition to this bill is opposition to fair electoral democracy, I am afraid I have to say to him that he needs to go back and look at his party’s voting records, when it comes to issues of electoral reform. That party has not listened to the public when they have given very clear messages about their expectations on electoral reform.

I, for one, truly believe that Mr Donald’s intentions in respect of this legislation are pure. He has never made any secret of the fact that he and his colleagues feel very strongly about the single transferable vote as an electoral option. As I said earlier, that is the option I voted for during the referenda.

However, I conclude my very short 5 minutes by saying that there is no demand for change whatsoever in the education sector, or amongst parents, caregivers, and those who wish to run for school boards. I have seen no evidence of it in my electorate, at all. National will not be supporting this bill in going to its next stage through Parliament.

Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Minister for the Environment) : I want to ask whether this bill is about enhancing democracy in schools or, as I suspect, about promoting an electoral system, regardless of the context. I am speaking as a former school principal, and I am very much aware of the kinds of scenes I always experienced. When we had a parent teacher association meeting we were lucky to have a quorum, and when we desperately tried to form a committee, we were lucky if we got enough people to nominate themselves to be on the committee. The same often goes for a board of trustees, because this is more about volunteering and social service than about politics.

There is a difference between local body elections and school board elections. I support the single transferable vote (STV) in local body elections, but when we have elections in schools—and it is hard enough to get an election, with not enough people standing—we know they are apolitical, and we know they are more about service. They are not about policy planks. I do not think I have ever experienced a board of trustees election at which someone has arisen and said: “I think our school needs to spend more money on the maths curriculum.”, or: “Our school needs tennis courts, and that’s what I’m on the board of trustees for.” I have never ever heard a policy plank put up at a board of trustees election. Instead, I have seen people stand up and say: “This is me. I’ve got ‘this sort of’ experience, and I’d like to serve.”

Will STV improve the composition of boards? I want to remind the member, Mr Donald, that school boards at the moment have a variety of mechanisms to ensure that we have a good representation on them, and a good level of skills. There are things like staggered elections. Boards can hold elections every 18 months for 50 percent of the trustees. Most important, boards can co-opt up to four trustees. I know that in Christchurch where it was very difficult to get representatives from within small ethnic communities, that is exactly what I did. I would go to NgāiTahu or to the Māori parents, and sit and work with them—it was the same with the Somalis and with the Chinese—in an effort to get their representation on the board. If I was unfortunate enough to have a board that had no one with treasury skills or financial skills, I would also go out to seek those people. It was not just about representation of the kinds of parents; it was also about representation of skills. So I do not think that STV will improve the composition.

What are the problems with this model? First up is the cost. I heard Mr Donald ask: “What price democracy?”. I think that we do have democracy in our boards of trustees, in terms of their composition and representation. Therefore I must make a choice of what I spend my money on. I know I would want it spent on special education more than anything else, if I were thinking in my own portfolio as Associate Minister of Education. I would much rather spend any extra small amount of money there than I would on a strange and wonderful voting system—which is good, but in its own place.

We can talk about complexity. God save us! If we have staggered elections and STV, that could be highly exciting. We can talk about inappropriateness, because STV is about representation of different kinds of parties or policies—but not so inside schools. If we are looking for a good spread, then let me tell members what the spread is in our schools now. At the national level, school elections elect male and female trustees in equal numbers. In terms of ethnicity, the 2001 boards of trustees election figures show that 16 percent of elected trustees were Māori, compared to 13 percent of the adult population. On the other hand—and I will accept it—Pasifika and Asia are under-represented, but there we have the ability to co-opt. So I do not believe that STV is the way to go.

If I go back to my original argument, I ask whether this bill is because we want a method of election popularised and understood by the community, or because we want improved boards of trustees. I have to say that I do not accept either. I want to remind members of something. In 2001, 34 percent of schools did not hold elections, and another third of schools had only one or two surplus candidates. So if we have no surplus candidates or only a few candidates, STV would not be the thing that made the difference. I am sorry, but I truly suspect that this bill is more about trying to use boards of trustees elections and schools to educate the public about STV, than about ensuring representative boards of trustees.

JIM PETERS (NZ First) : I personally find it difficult to say, on behalf of New Zealand First, that this is not a bill that deserves our support. I say that because I was one of those members, like others in the House, who professed to being an ardent supporter of the single transferable vote (STV). But when I look at the issue that is before us in this bill, I find a number of contentions. The first one is in the explanatory note. When I see the words and phrases “superior voting system”, “fairer”, “tactical voting”, “reduces the level of wasted votes”, “this encourages positive voting”, and “it gives the ability to vote for a more preferred candidate”, I see a number of selective comments about any electoral system. They could apply equally well in the minds of those who support first past the post as they do in the minds of those who support MMP, and, I would say, as a supporter of STV, apply equally well to the system I support.

But I look now at the issue before us, namely school boards. The first port of call in this issue is the boards of trustees, which have a School Trustees Association. So I sought an opinion from them, as other members would have, as to whether there was any call for it. The answer was no. Had there been any indication from individual schools that STV should be encouraged? The answer was no. If the member who is proposing this bill went to the list published last week, and on the Internet as well, of the annual statements of all schools in this country, he would see the size of rolls in the year 2000 and as at 1 March 2003. The overwhelming impression he would have had, if he had done so, is that there are hundreds and hundreds of schools in this country that have very small rolls.

In the district where I come from, numerous schools have rolls of 19, 23, 28, 30, 35, and so on. When I looked carefully at the Northern Advocate, and at the local press, the Northland Age and the Northern News in the course of the school boards of trustees elections, I saw that the number of voting parents was very, very small indeed. We spoke about STV to the directors of Fonterra, who budgeted for that for the first vote and for the last vote, and the extra cost, above normal voting procedures, is quite high. To suggest that small schools with a parent roll of 25 to 35 should go to this trouble in order to achieve what the bill sets out to be a more desirable outcome is, I believe, false and invalid.

Although within our party there are those who would support STV as a preferred system, when we look at the particular and special example of boards of trustees, I do not think this is a valid one. It is more costly, and, in the end, who says that if 15 parents are voting for a four or five person board, STV will give any better indication of choice? In my book if one votes for the first five, one votes for the first five. If one votes for the first four, then one votes for the first four. If there is a substantial number on the electoral roll, that is a different matter. Therefore the examples of large schools, which were used by Mr Donald, would pertain mostly to secondary schools. I know there are two or three intermediate schools in this country that have rolls of 1,000 pupils. Most primary schools have rolls of fewer than 300 or so, even in our large centres, but the average primary school with a large roll just would not merit a costly vote of this type, and it would not give any better indication of parental support for the school.

DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) : I am sorry to disappoint Mr Donald but ACT will not be supporting this bill. It is rare that I find myself agreeing with Marian Hobbs but elections for school boards of trustees are not appropriate for single transferable vote (STV). They are not same as local body elections or health board elections. People do not stand for boards of trustees as a political statement. Marian Hobbs is right. She said parents stand up and say: “These are the skills that I think I have to offer.” They do not align themselves with any particular political party or even stand as an independent. Local body and district health board elections are often used as a staging post for people who want to go further on in politics.

There are a lot of things wrong with school boards of trustees, but the voting system is not one of them. One of the biggest problems is apathy. Some boards like to put a positive spin on it as they did when I was on the board of trustees for a very large girls school. We took it that the parents were pretty satisfied with what we were doing. Be that as it may, there were 1,800 to 2,000 girls at that school, and when we had a “meet the candidates” meeting just 12 parents turned up. So whether one has a small school or a big school, there is still a problem with parents putting their names forward and being involved in the board of trustees. At Epsom Girls Grammar School, which was in a very tightly zoned area, the only time we had packed halls was when we announced that we might be thinking of changing the uniform or changing the zoning. It was interesting that the people who turned up to the zoning meeting were those whose children went to King’s College, St Cuthbert’s, or Diocesan School for Girls and were very worried that their property prices might drop if they were suddenly zoned out of the tight zoning area.

The problem with apathy is often that parents do not feel that they have too much say in what goes on in the school. They think that by being on the board of trustees they will have some say in the governance or the curriculum, but increasingly that is not the case. They find that they have to comply with all the regulations and edicts that come out of the Ministry of Education and the Education Review Office, and with a number of Acts, the Occupational Safety and Health Service, and the Holidays Act. All of these things keep them away from the reason they decided to stand for the board of trustees in the first place. So they get disillusioned with their role as a parent representative.

Marian Hobbs also pointed out that boards of trustees have the power to co-opt other parents on to the board if they do not have fair representation. In fact, if there is not Māori representation on the board, then they are required to have a Māori representative or consultant in the school’s community who can contribute. Boards and schools go out of their way to co-opt other parents and other members of the community who will provide that balance. There will very rarely be enough people standing for a board of trustees for an STV voting system to proceed smoothly. Other members have stood up today and said they support STV. I do not even support MMP. I would vote against it tomorrow, even though it would put me out of Parliament. Contrary to what people say, it does not increase democracy. All MMP does is increase the number of backroomdeals that are done, so people can stay in power or in support of the Government.

The other big problem with boards of trustees is that they are under threat. The Minister has commissioned research that shows the optimum is one board of trustees for 200 schools—ram all the schools together and have as little parent representation and as little parent involvement as possible. The last thing that this Government ever wants to do is to give power back to parents and give parents the right to choose.

PAUL ADAMS (United Future) : United Future also opposes this bill. Many of our members also agree that the single transferable vote (STV) system can be good in certain situations, but definitely not in this situation.

The main reason we oppose the bill is that the school trustees themselves do not support it. There are 13,500 trustees throughout New Zealand, and every 3 years over 2,500 new trustees are appointed. According to the School Trustees Association, not one school to date has asked that its board be elected by STV rather than first past the post. As Jim Peters has said, the School Trustees Association has confirmed that the Green members did not even take the time to consult it to see whether it was open to, or even required, this type of—[Interruption] According to our sources the Green members did not do so; Rod Donald interrupts and says that the Greens did, but our sources say that they did not. Our attitude is that if something is not broken, we should not try to fix it. Let things that are running well run well.

STV is lauded as a system that would help to elect minority candidates on to school boards, but is there any evidence that the current system does not achieve that? It is not a pure first-past-the-post system, in which the focus is on finding one winning candidate, and voters have only one vote. The correct description for the current electoral system for boards of trustees is a block vote, because multiple officers are elected, and electors have the same number of votes as the number of vacancies. Voters give their preferred candidates one vote each, and the candidates with the highest number of votes win. Because block voting allows for multiple votes in a way that first past the post for constituency seats in a general election does not, it does not discriminate against minority candidates in the same way. In most cases the outcome would be similar to that of an STV election. Once again I say that if it is not broken, why fix it?

The other aspect is that running an STV election is more complicated, as we have heard. If it is more complicated, it is more time consuming and it is more costly. Therefore, why should the school boards have to face extra time constraints and extra costs for their elections? Under this bill, those schools choosing to adopt STV would be responsible for educating eligible voters and training returning officers—all extra demands on resources that boards could better spend on our children’s education.

However, I am glad that this bill is being dealt with today. I have noticed that the Greens have kept delaying their members’ bills recently, with the result that we get to members’ day and there is very little legislation to debate. I do not know whether that is part of a cunning master plan to hold back all of their bills until election year, but the effect has been to bung up the system and to deny members from parties like ours—I have a wonderful member’s bill on the drinking age—the chance to have our bills balloted and debated. Given the Greens’ supposed concern for democratic rights, as expressed in their intentions regarding this bill, I find those tactics very questionable indeed. United Future will not be supporting this bill.

JILL PETTIS (Labour—Whanganui) : I endorse the comments that Mr Adams has just made about members’ bills being repeatedly deferred, and I am sure the Green Party will take note of that. The more members’ bills we get through, the better.

In regard to this bill, I too will not be supporting it, and Government members have already indicated our position. I speak from personal experience of having been, for many, many years, a member of parent teacher associations, school committees, and boards of trustees. In fact, I was still a member of a board of trustees when my children were at university and long out of the State school system. I continued to serve on the board because I had a great deal of interest in school governance. That really is the crux of the issue for parents who get involved in their children’s schools or in schools near where they live: they do want to serve.

But we also have to acknowledge that the number of parents who stand for election, and the number of schools that are required to hold an election because there is a contest to fill the positions, are decreasing. That can be attributed to the increasingly busy lives that people lead and, sometimes, to people not feeling confident enough to stand for election to a school board of trustees. One of the aspects that the single transferable vote system could introduce to the equation is to make standing for election even more intimidating and more off-putting for those parents whom we most want to stand for the boards.

Overarching all of that, I think the most important aspect is that the School Trustees Association, which is the authority on matters of school governance, does not support this bill. I believe that it is incumbent upon the members in the House to take note of that organisation. It represents all the school boards of trustees, and we would be wise to follow its advice.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : Some members have been putting across that the Greens are trying to force this voting system on schools, whereas the bill clearly states that it will be available to schools. Even if the national school trustees body is not at this point pushing for the system, there are schools that would enjoy it and benefit from it.

To me, the compliance cost argument does not carry much weight. We live in a computer society, and all that is needed is a little bit of software that can run the vote count. An initial cost might be incurred in getting the software into those schools that want to take up this system, but once that software is installed the vote counting will be as easy as in any other system. Alternatively, an agency may come in under contract to do the vote counting. As my colleague Rod Donald said, such agencies have the software in their computers, so there is no significant compliance cost there.

This procedure will give minorities in schools better representation, be they ethnic minorities or people with minority views about where their school should go. Some of the other speeches have reinforced that point, in some ways. Deborah Coddington commented that only a few parents turn up to meet-the-candidates meetings. Often, particularly in big schools, parents who are confronted with having to vote for a certain number of candidates know only a couple of them—whom they will vote for—and wonder who else to vote for. They often end up exercising a less-informed vote in that they just tick the names of people who sound good, in order to make up the number on their list. It is unfortunately true, if we go by the evidence of the Auckland local body results—and I am not saying those elections are entirely identical to school boards of trustees elections—that people with “foreign-sounding” names miss out when that less-informed category of voting is exercised by people who are just filling up their lists. It has been indicated here that there is a lower level of Asian and other minority representation on school boards of trustees. There are fewer people from these groups on them than their presence in the population indicates there should be. So there can be a certain cultural conservatism in the voting that puts candidates of minority nationalities out of the picture.

Other members have said that people vote just for the person. Well, we can see from the situation at Cambridge High School recently that disputes can occur over the direction a school should take. We therefore want different views, in terms of the direction the school should take, to be represented on the board, as well. Once again, using the parallel of local body elections, STV allows not only for broader representation but also for more positive voting. The reality is that in elections, be they local body or school boards of trustees elections, a number of similar candidates can be competing for the same spot—for example, a number of candidates of a particular ethnicity. In the case of the Auckland mayoralty contest that is going on at the moment—which I am familiar with as an MP from Auckland—the incumbent had two challengers, Christine Fletcher and Bruce Hucker, then Dick Hubbard came into the ring, making three challengers with overlapping constituencies, one could say. Bruce Hucker thought it was wise for him to pull out at that point. Under an STV system he could have stayed in the race, because, even if he lost, his preference votes would have tended to go to the dominant challenger to Mr Banks.

I think an STV system benefits us all. One of the things about STV that has not been talked about enough is that through the preference system one gets to the quota. If there is a multi-member situation, the quota can be relatively low, so people from a minority ethnic group in a school can get representation, and a block of the dominant ethnic group cannot out-vote all the minority candidates. The system is much fairer in that respect.

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Defence) : I have listened with interest to this debate, and I would have to say that it is one of those times in Parliament when it is quite refreshing to listen to a debate where every contribution is measured and where a considered response is given to what I acknowledge to Mr Donald is a genuine and sincere attempt to introduce a measure that is consistent with what he has long pursued in terms of electoral reform. But I have to say that I and members on this side of the House—and, indeed, as we have heard, members from around the House—are not convinced that this is the right tool for the job in question. In the end, with all legislation, we have to ask ourselves what the ill is that we are trying to remedy. Frankly, as members have systematically said around the House, we are not convinced that there is an ill to remedy with this legislation. So I commend the member for his intent and for his attempt. It is always good to have a go and pursue those things that one comes here to pursue, but I think on this occasion it is fair to say the Government remains firm in its view that this measure is not required and would not assist the good governance of our schools.

ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) : School boards of trustees elections are the largest democratic event in this country. All 2,580 New Zealand schools are involved. More than 13,000 people are needed to become trustees. These trustees make important decisions on behalf of the pupils, parents, and communities they represent. They have overall responsibility for the governance of their school. They are responsible for the school’s vision and the planning required to achieve that vision. They must ensure the school complies with the law and is a responsible employer, and they are expected to ensure that students are achieving.

The Government gives enormous discretion to boards of trustees to choose how they want their schools to develop, but this Government will not let boards of trustees choose the electoral system they believe will encourage participation in the election process, and will ensure that the make-up of the board reflects the diversity of the school community. This is Mr Mallard’s chance to let schools make one of the most crucial decisions they should be allowed to make—that is, how to recruit and elect trustees who have a mix of skills and experience, talents, and backgrounds to ensure that schools function well.

Minister Maharey said that this bill is not supported by the School Trustees Association. I have a letter from that association that states: “The association’s view is that the association has no view.” So the Minister’s comment is not true. The Minister asked whether we would get different outcomes. I would say that almost certainly we would and, what is more, they would be better outcomes. The Minister claimed that schools hand count votes now. I am afraid he is desperately out of touch. The reality is that most schools contract out their elections. They already use the likes of Canterbury Education Services and elections.com to run their elections and count their votes. The latter already runs 19 of the 21 district health board single transferable vote (STV) elections in most of the 10 STV council elections. It has assured me that it can run STV elections for schools just as well as the first-past-the-post elections it already runs for schools, and for very little more cost.

Marian Hobbs and Deborah Coddington implied that STV was inappropriate for schools because it is a political electoral system. That view could not be further from the truth. The fact is that STV is used more by non-political bodies in New Zealand, such as Fonterra, the Victoria University of Wellington Council, the Anglican Church, trade unions, and even kennel clubs. In Britain and Ireland, STV is widely used by a vast range of organisations that simply want to elect their committees by a system that is clearly superior and fairer than first past the post.

As former associate professor of political studies at Auckland University, Graham Bush, said: “If there’s one voting system worse than single member first past the post, it is multi-member first past the post.” He concluded the article I am quoting from: “There is no better time than now to ground our modernised local government system on a democratised method of voting.” He wrote that article in 1994, and it has taken a decade to bring about the necessary changes to the way we elect our councils.

I hope that it will not take a decade to make STV an option for school board elections. I hope that the Government will belatedly appreciate the merits of STV, and recognise that schools such as Wellington College, Auckland Grammar, Onslow College, Burnside High School, and Shirley Boys High School should have the option of using STV if they want to. However, after today’s debate I fully appreciate that there is limited understanding of the flaws of first past the post, so I will table some of the results from the last election shortly.

Over the next year, or maybe decade, in Parliament, I will endeavour to encourage members, parents, and existing trustees of the merits of a change. I hope it will not take as long as it took Sir John Hall to get STV introduced for elections in New Zealand as it may take to get STV an option for school board elections. He first promoted STV for parliamentary elections in 1877, and never succeeded. Meanwhile, STV was in use in 1917 when Christchurch City elected Ada Wells, its first woman councillor. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of councillor Elizabeth McCombs, who later became New Zealand’s first woman member of Parliament, STV disappeared from local elections in 1933.

In conclusion, I celebrate STV’s restoration 71 years later for this year’s local body elections, and I look forward to my colleagues in this House allowing school boards to be able to choose it for their elections, as well.

ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) : I seek leave to table a sample of results from the 2004 school board elections that highlight the levels of wasted votes and effective votes.

• Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

• Sitting suspended from 5.56 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

PETER BROWN (NZ First), on behalf of Doug Woolerton (NZ First): I move, That the Shop Trading Hours (Easter Trading Local Exemption) Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee, and that it be requested to report back to the House before Parliament rises at the end of the year. The reason for doing that is in order to give the bill the best possible chance of becoming enacted by Easter 2005.

This bill has as its primary thrust—and I want to make this clear—the shifting of responsibility from central government to local government, after consultation with their community, for determining if and when shops may open on Easter Sunday. That is the primary thrust. It is a fairly innocuous piece of legislation that simply devolves a bit of extra responsibility to the local communities.

Already a vast array of shops, almost everywhere in New Zealand, are able to open their doors on Easter Sunday. These include retailing in food, drinks, personal items, auto parts, fuel, duty-free goods, and those shops catering to the needs of the travelling public in passenger terminals, selling books, magazines, newspapers, and whatever. We already have trading on days such as Easter Sunday, but it is restricted and very limited in scope. Several communities throughout New Zealand have already been granted exemption to open shops on Easter Sunday. They have been given exemption from the existing shop trading hours provisions, and provide an excellent and worthwhile service, in particular to the thousands of international tourists, and local and domestic tourists, who gather in places as diverse as Queenstown, the Kapiti coast, Picton, if there is a cruise ship in port, Parnell in Auckland, Taupō, Paihia, and Nelson, to give but a few examples. Tourist patterns have changed, and a good number of other areas are equally deserving of this consideration. This bill simply provides for that to occur.

Over recent years New Zealand has become more tourist focused—and we have; we have to develop tourism in this country, and I do not think any member will disagree with that—especially so towards attracting international tourists, but the needs and wants of those travelling have not kept pace with the demands of the market’s customer base. In other words, we are not providing what the tourists basically want on this particular day. No longer do we see evidence of the practice we once saw, of our cities and towns looking like ghost towns on Easter Sunday. We now see bustling activity, and increasingly in places that are largely tourist-oriented, such as Tauranga. Tourists are out and about, seeking to enjoy their time and to purchase the things that tourists spend so much on whilst on holiday. In Tauranga, and in Rotorua—the city next door—shops are closed on Easter Sunday, despite market demand and despite people going to those places and wanting to shop, and those tourists move on to places such as Taupō.

This bill provides the opportunity for local communities to determine what is best for them, and how they wish to treat their visitors. This bill makes it incumbent upon local councils to seek the views of their community if they believe it is to be in anyone’s best interest to have shops open on Easter Sunday. This bill does not allow shops to open on Easter Sunday per se, it simply tells the local council that it has the opportunity to decide whether shops can open. It is totally voluntary. There is nothing forced, and nothing is imposed. This bill does not provide any automatic right for a shop owner to open; neither does it give the right to local councils to determine what is to occur with regard to the opening of shops on Easter Sunday.

The bill can be described as being permissive only. It does not prescribe anything at all other than a very democratic process at a community level for local shop owners to seek exemption from the current centrally imposed restrictions on being open on Easter Sunday. I heard in the previous debate the Greens talk about democracy, in terms of their Education (School Boards of Trustees Single Transferable Vote Option) Amendment Bill. This is democratic. This bill allows the local people to make the choice for themselves. It stops central government—anybody in this place—from imposing restrictions or imposing the ability for shops to open. It simply says: “Mr and Mrs Mayor, you and your council decide whether you want shops to open on Easter Sunday.” It does not seem right and proper to us in New Zealand First to allow that right in places such as Queenstown, Taupō, the Kapiti coast, and Picton when a cruise ship is in, yet prohibit that same right in places such as Tauranga and Rotorua.

I know there will be some counterarguments that say: “What about the workers?”, and all that sort of thing—

Hon David Benson-Pope: What about the workers?

PETER BROWN: I thank Mr Benson-Pope for that. I hoped he would have said that before now. Let me talk about the workers. This will be voluntary. Nobody will be compelled to work if they do not want to. This will be totally voluntary. I can tell members now, from my experiences in Tauranga, in particular, and I am certain the member for Rotorua will back this up, that there will be thousands of people who will want to work, of their own accord.

To deny this is to deny the local bodies in New Zealand the chance to make their own decisions—to do what is best for their communities. It is not our job to impose restrictions. Equally so, it is not our job to make it compulsory—“thou shalt be open”. Our job is to set laws that are fair and square throughout the whole of this land. I say to members, and I say it sincerely; if it is good enough for shops in Queenstown to open, why is it not good enough for Rotorua shops to open? If it is good enough for the Kapiti coast shops to open, why is it not good enough for Tauranga shops to open? This bill will not compel any shop owner, as I have said quite a few times now, to open if he or she desires not to. This simply gives shop owners the opportunity to open their shops during a long weekend and provide service to their customers and tourists.

Tourists come from far and wide now to visit this country because of our clean, green image, and I hasten to say, the friendly attitude that New Zealanders display towards people who come to this country. Tourists expect the shops to be open, to some reasonable degree. Gone are the days when I think it was a chap called Sir Clement Freud from Britain came here and said: “I visited New Zealand on Easter Sunday”—or some such day—“but it was closed.” Those days are over. We are now in the 21st century, and this bill, in a very small way, brings us further into this century. People expect the shops to open, tourists expect the shops to open, and international tourists, most certainly, expect to get some service from shops.

For tourists to arrive on a cruise ship at the port of Mount Maunganui and walk down the streets and see all the shops closed on Easter Sunday is rather naive. It is absolutely insulting to the people of Tauranga that tourists would have to get into a minibus or taxi and drive for 2 hours to Taupō to go shopping. How does that make sense? I have to be honest with members. I think that Tauranga shops would open, but this bill does not compel them to open. I urge members to think positively and at least send the bill to select committee where it can be more widely discussed and receive submissions.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): If the House would bear with me for a minute. Mr Brown, it is normal to set a date in the referral to send this bill to a committee. Your time frame was a bit uncertain. Would you prefer to put a date on it? I will allow you to do it in your right of reply. It needs a date, so we can have certainty.

MARK PECK (Labour—Invercargill) : I tell the member who preceded me that I will vote for the bill. I must say that his explanation of what is in the bill is not right. For instance, there is no protection for those workers who do not wish to work; neither is there any protection for those leaseholders who do not wish to open on the day to have the protection of not opening. The third thing I want to say to the member before I go on with the issues in the bill is that I do believe he has selected the wrong select committee. The Commerce Committee dealt with the previous shop trading hours legislation, and despite my assessment that the majority of the select committee were opposed to the legislation, reported back a bill that subsequently was defeated in the House at its second reading, but the committee reported it back with significant amendments that tidied up those particular matters.

I congratulate Doug Woolerton on the work that he has done in putting the bill together, because it is a debate that we need to have. I do know that New Zealand First was particularly keen on this matter, because it was raised by the New Zealand First member on the Commerce Committee at the time we dealt with the previous legislation. We were unable to include in that bill the possibility that if the House was unhappy with there being a blanket opening of shops on Easter Sunday, local authorities could have the say, simply because it was not within the scope of the bill to do so. Rodney Hide who was the sponsor of that particular bill knows the debate that we had in some detail. This is a perfect fall-back position to give the House an opportunity to have some further discussion and some say as to whether there should be trading on Easter Sunday.

Maybe I could highlight what I think is the anomaly, and it has been raised with me by the member for Rotorua on many occasions, and it is that Taupō shops can open on Easter Sunday and Rotorua shops cannot. If one is a shop owner in Rotorua and one wishes to open, then one misses out. That simply defies logic.

Rodney Hide: The member sounds more and more like a libertarian.

MARK PECK: The member cannot assume that I subscribe to that form of politics. However, I do accept the inevitable, that this particular issue will eventually get a positive hearing by the House. It may take some time. But one of the things I know, having been a shop assistant—and I happen to be one of the last shop assistants who went on strike to stop shops opening on a Saturday—is that when the tide is coming in, we cannot stop it. I visited a place on the south coast of England—a place called Botham, or something like that—where King Canute put the chair in the sand and said to the tide: “Come in no further.” Anybody who has been there will know that the tide rises about six metres there. Indeed, there is a road just above the beach, and when the tide really comes in it goes across the road, so poor old King Canute got a right royal dunking.

I know that on this particular issue people will eventually reach the stage where they will simply refuse to observe the law. If we as a Parliament allow that to happen, without building in the necessary protections for employees who do not want to work on the day, or for those people who run businesses who do not want to open on the day, who do not particularly worry about the competition, or have religious objection to opening on the day, then I think we do people a disservice. What will occur is that by custom and practice this will happen around the country. Then nobody will have a say as to whether they have any protections in those situations. It is much better that we deal with it.

I say to the member who preceded me in this particular debate that the Commerce Committee is the place to send this legislation, not only from the point of view that the Commerce Committee dealt with the previous shop trading hours legislation, but that it can deal with it quickly. I do not think that there is much of a need to have a round of submissions on this occasion. There has been a ministerial inquiry. There were copious submissions on the previous bill moved by Rodney Hide, and also on the issue of local authorities being able to have their own say on whether shops would open. We have the evidence in front of us that would allow the select committee to do a quick job on tidying up this legislation and getting it back to the House. If it is the member’s wish that this particular matter is dealt with in time to come into force before Easter 2005, then I suggest to him that the Commerce Committee is the logical committee to send this legislation to.

Having said all that, and having said I will vote for the bill, I also do not want to belittle the argument of those who are concerned about the thin end of the wedge. There are certain days within the calendar year that certainly are sacrosanct. One thing I can never see this House doing is agreeing to shops opening on Christmas Day. I can never see this House agreeing to shops opening on Anzac Day, the half day on which we remember our service personnel. Neither can I see the House making any significant progress if it does not honour the wishes of those who would seek not to work or not to open their shops on Easter Sunday. And that will be the attention. Many employers who will want to open on that day, will want to be able to say to their workers to come to work. I am sorry, but if those employers want the luxury of being able to open their shops, if the local authority decides it is useful for this to happen in their particular area, then they will have to accept some checks and balances as to what they can or cannot require employees to do.

I am sure that they will find the staff who will be prepared to work. I am sure that the vast majority of those employed in an enterprise will work. But that genuine opportunity not to work has to be offered to the employees, and protections need to be built around that. Some of us would say that some penalty rates should probably be built in, to make it a disincentive to employ workers other than the ones who are needed to work on the day to supply the services that tourists demand.

I hear the member chortling in the aisles opposite. This is probably the one point that he and I do not agree on. Having said that, it works as a reasonable disincentive and means that sufficient staff are there to do the work that is necessary to service the tourists, but also makes sure that those who are prepared to work on the day get adequately compensated. Those are all issues that I am sure the select committee can get its head around reasonably quickly.

The member, having moved his resolution, is in a bit of a dilemma. I know that the member cannot change his resolution once he has moved it. It may well take an amendment, or the leave of the House; I do not know. I found myself in this particular dilemma when I moved legislation recently. I moved that it be referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. It took quite a little bit of fancy footwork to work it out. I suggest to the member that if he is serious about progressing the legislation, and if he agrees with the point I have raised, he take some advice now as to how he can tidy up his resolution. I am certain that if there is a willingness to give this bill a first reading it would probably be in the House’s best interests to refer it to the Commerce Committee, which is not overly taxed with work at the moment. The Local Government and Environment Committee has a heck of a lot of business on its agenda just now. But it is not just that. The Commerce Committee has the expertise in the area and it is a committee that can consider the bill quickly, and probably do so without needing to go to any significant round of seeking submissions. I will certainly be voting for the bill. I know many of my colleagues will not be, but that is the nature of a personal vote. I look forward to the debate on this bill as it develops in the House.

PETER BROWN (Senior Whip—NZ First) : I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I will take both your advice and the advice of the honourable member. I remind the House that I have not moved a formal motion as yet, and when I do, in my right of reply, I advise members now—so that if they wish to refer to it as part of their contribution to the debate, they may do so—that I will be seeking the report back to the House to be on or before 16 December 2004. In the intervening time I will be giving consideration to Mr Peck’s suggestion of referring to the bill to the Commerce Committee. I will move the motion formally, as you suggested, Mr Assistant Speaker, in my right of reply.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) : I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is that the position Mr Brown is in? He can now move that the bill be referred to the Commerce Committee?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Putting a date in the referral motion is quite acceptable but he will need to seek leave to change the committee, which I believe he will do in his second address.

BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) : I start by offering my support to some of the comments made by Mr Peck. I thought they were constructive, and I add my considered opinion that the bill would be better dealt with in the Commerce Committee, primarily because I think it is a committee that has its head around the issues and would move it through the select committee process expeditiously. I also add—because I am sure Mr Peck meant to—that the only reason the Commerce Committee does not have a lot of work on at the moment is because it puts through its work very quickly.

Rodney Hide: It’s got a good chairman.

BRIAN CONNELL: I understand it has one of the best chairmen in Parliament. It will be a pity to lose someone of that calibre.

I reluctantly support this bill. I want to explain why I say “reluctantly”. I have a great deal of sympathy with the position Mr Woolerton finds himself in, and I say to the House that we continually miss the opportunity to resolve this issue. As Mr Peck has already noted, just before Easter this year there was a bill before the House that sought Easter Sunday trading right across the country. I was a member of the select committee that considered it. I know Mr Hide was, and he made a significant contribution to it, as others did.

Rodney Hide: My bill!

BRIAN CONNELL: I am sorry, I cannot hear the member! I worked on that select committee, and I believe that it made a very considered recommendation to the House. It was a difficult position to arrive at. The submitters were divided roughly fifty-fifty against and for, but, on balance, I believe that the committee decided that the only way to progress this rather vexed situation was to ask the House to pass legislation that would allow Easter Sunday trading.

I pick up Mr Peck’s concerns here on the bill as it stands at the moment. The select committee I worked on, when Mr Hide’s bill was before it, put in place some safeguards for workers who did not want to work on Easter Sunday. The bill was very specific. It would have allowed employers to employ people on a part-time basis for that day only, and it was clear that those employees who did not wish to work would suffer no disadvantage whatsoever. That safeguard was built into the bill. Shoppers would have been able to exercise their own consciences by choosing either to shop or not to shop, and shop owners had the same ability—they could simply make a decision either to open their shops or not to open them. Unfortunately, that bill was rejected.

The bill we have now, I believe, has been born out of sheer frustration. There is a ridiculous situation across the country whereby some areas can have shops open and some cannot. It is a head-in-the-sand attitude. The reality is that the genie is out of the bottle. We will never stop Easter Sunday trading from happening across the country. It is a matter of time before everyone does it. A progressive Parliament would have got hold of the issue when it had the opportunity some months ago, and said that we should embrace Easter Sunday trading and put in place some quality legislation. We are now getting a reaction to that being rejected, and a reaction to some places across the country that can open shops and some that cannot. A couple of examples have been quoted, and I will repeat them: we have Taupō and Queenstown, which can open their shops, and places like Rotorua and Tauranga, which simply cannot. There is a patchwork approach to where shops can or cannot open, and that will send confusing signals, both to the people who live in this country and to the people who visit it. It will do our tourist trade an immense amount of harm.

We need to face up to the reality of what is coming down the tunnel. People now work on public holidays, when once upon a time that was a no-no. There are now shops that are open 24 hours a day and shops that open 7 days a week. The reality is that Easter Sunday trading will come, whether or not we like it. The situation is doing immense damage to our wine industry, because people come to this country specifically to go around some of those vineyards and to experience some of the things New Zealand has to offer, and we are not embracing it. I support this bill.

MIKE WARD (Green) : This House often speaks about the importance of families. It takes time to be a family and it takes time to be a parent. I was a retailer for many years. Occasionally I go and sit on my corner and sell jewellery still. I can recall when Saturday shopping was introduced, and I campaigned against it, as well. When the Americans came and decided that New Zealand was closed on Saturdays, they might have decided that, in fact, New Zealanders were doing other things. They were watching their kids play rugby. They were playing rugby. They were out in their gardens. They were enjoying a weekend. New Zealanders knew what to do with a weekend. They knew what to do with leisure. Yes, there were people who worked every day of the week, and worked nights. They worked those hours because there are jobs that have to be done 24 hours a day. People have to be looked after in hospitals 24 hours a day. People need to be looked after when they get old and cannot look after themselves 24 hours a day. But we are not talking about that; we are talking about people going out and selling stuff.

There is no shortage of opportunity in this country to buy stuff. There is, though, very much a shortage of time for people to be a family—to spend time with their children. I enjoyed watching my daughters play sport on a Saturday morning. It was one of those lovely times. I would sleep in a little, then we would get up and have breakfast together, then we would go down and watch the kids play netball, and then we would come home, I would go to Harriers and my friends would be there.

When Saturday trading was introduced, we were told that we would have a choice and that it was not compulsory. My retailing friends said: “You’ll not get me selling on a Saturday. I enjoy my leisure too much.” Yeah, right. It was not by demand. The shops were empty. It was pushed by a few very large chains. The shops in those large chains were not full of customers. They had to do a very hard sell. They had to advertise and advertise and advertise. Slowly, it took off, and then the smaller shops decided that they were missing out and they would do it too. Eventually I had no choice. They destroyed my livelihood. I had to sell on a Saturday like everybody else. I never saw my son play sport on a Saturday. When one goes overseas, one expects to behave the way people overseas behave—“When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. It may seem like a rearguard action, and I admit it is.

I think Mark Peck said earlier that we would never see the shops open on Christmas Day. I would not be so sure, because I can remember when it was said that we would never see shops open on a Sunday, and it happened. Not being able to shop is not the end of the world. Somebody spoke about having to travel for 2 hours to go shopping. That is not the only choice. People could take their families out fishing. Parents might play with their children, or stay home and talk with them. People might go out into the garden. Members can say that people have choices. It appals me that, in a society like ours, when we have never had so much stuff and we so desperately need time, we decide to open the shops again.

I believe in the principle of appropriate decision-making. I think local communities should make those decisions. But sometimes there needs to be a higher law, and that is what we are here for—to give a direction to the community. Life will not fall apart if Easter Sunday trading happens, but it will not get any better. People say to me: “Mike, do you remember when you campaigned against Saturday shopping? The world has not fallen apart.” I tell them to have a look around for a while. Families are under extreme stress. We have a lack of purpose and a lack of reason for being. When shopping is people’s main source of recreation, I say we have lost our way. We will be opposing this bill.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) : That was the Green spokesman Mike Ward. We have a situation here where the Green’s health spokesman, Nandor Tanczos, expects to be able to buy his cannabis 24/7 on 365 days of the year, yet the Greens will not let us open our shops for the tourists who are going past the door. But it is OK for the Greens to be smoking dope—which is against the law—promoting it, and doing it every day of the year as a religious experience.

The ACT party rises to support this bill—

Hon David Benson-Pope: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I understand what the point of order will be and I was going to bring it to the member’s notice. You may not suggest any illegality on the part of any member of Parliament.

RODNEY HIDE: I am not suggesting it; I am stating it.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): The act of doing what you were talking about is illegal and that must not be suggested in respect of any member or any group of members.

RODNEY HIDE: It is one of those things. If I was suggesting that Nandor Tanczos smokes cannabis, I take it back. I am now misleading the House, but at least I am within the rules.

We rise to support this bill and we commend Mr Peter Brown for bringing it to the House’s attention. I hope that he will take up Mr Peck’s suggestion and that the House will agree to send it to the Commerce Committee because there is no doubt that it will be treated expeditiously by a committee that is well chaired and has some very wise heads that have spent years and years and years considering shop trading hours legislation. I say that we can process the bill expeditiously.

I will pick up on a couple of points. Why is it that we cannot just trust the people? Why is it that in this House we have to decide which shops can open when? Do we have some divine inspiration here this night that means we can decide that it is not OK for shops in Rotorua, Tauranga, and Mount Maunganui to open, but it is OK for shops in Taupō and Queenstown to open? No one in this House can defend that decision on any rational grounds. This bill comes along and we are asked to make an exception for Easter Sunday. That is interesting. So can a shop now open on an Easter Sunday if it chooses to? Oh, no. It still has to have the agreement of the local authority. I ask Mr Brown whether we do that for any other day.

Peter Brown: No.

RODNEY HIDE: No. So suddenly we have councils deciding for 1 day out of 365 whether shops can open in their district.

Brian Connell: Elect the shoppers.

RODNEY HIDE: Yes! Why can we not just leave it up to the business people and save all that hassle? Why could we not just say that shops can open on Easter Sunday? What does it actually have to do with the local authority?

Peter Brown: The member’s got a point.

RODNEY HIDE: I thank Mr Brown. I know he has supported our bill. Whose shop is it? It does not belong to those of us in this House. It does not belong to the local authority. It belongs to the business owner. Mike Ward says that they do not really want to open. They do not have to open. No one is forcing us to go shopping.

Brian Connell: The Green member spoke about choice.

RODNEY HIDE: Yes. The Greens speak about choice for some things, but I cannot refer to that because of the Standing Orders. They even decide which rules they will follow. They sit in this House passing laws and then decide which ones they will follow and which ones they will not. That is what Green MPs do.

I say to members of this House that this bill is a move towards liberalisation. I know that my friend Mr Tim Barnett agrees with that. He will be saying that people should be able to trade on Easter Sunday in all manner of things, subject to getting approval from the local council.

Peter Brown: I bet the brothels are open.

RODNEY HIDE: That is a good point. I bet they are, too. Tourist trades and all the brothels will be open. So what about the garden centres? How come the people of New Zealand can go out and buy their marijuana and go to the local brothel but law-abiding citizens cannot go to the garden centre and buy some soil, a few plants that they can legitimately grow, and a spade?

Brian Connell: They can do it in Taupō.

RODNEY HIDE: They can do it in Taupō. Let us send this bill to the Commerce Committee, let us pass it, and let us get going.

MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) : I rise as a member of United Future to talk about the Shop Trading Hours (Easter Trading Local Exemption) Bill. I am sorry to say that we are not all in agreement over this bill, but two of us will certainly be voting in favour of it. Personally, I wonder why it has taken so long for this bill to look as if it will go to the next stage. I think that this bill has been a long time coming. We have had other bills that have tried to do the same sort of thing, and every time there has been a strange stumbling block about why shops should or should not open. What really amazes me is that we are even having this discussion at all. Surely it is the right of employers and employees to decide when, where, and what they will open and for whom. They make the decisions; they make the money. There is no risk for the Government or for anybody, other than satisfying the needs of members of a local population who choose with their wallets to come and visit the premises. It seems to me that we are really encountering a certain geographic discrimination.

It is all right, as Rodney Hide has pointed out, for shops to be open in certain parts of the country and not in other parts. That is geographic discrimination. Quite frankly, every business should be allowed to open any damn day it chooses, whether that is Easter, Christmas, or the middle of the night. I could not care less. It is the business owners’ business, it is their right to open, and it is the public’s right to decide whether they will go in and spend their money.

We listened to an extraordinary contribution from the Green member who talked about some higher principle. It seems to me that the only higher principle that he likes is his own. He wants to ban the opportunity for people to choose to go to a shop on Easter Sunday and spend their money. So it is a higher principle that he adheres to, but he denies the opportunity for everybody else to have their higher principles that might conflict with his.

One of the things that really strikes me as being absurd is, why do we not allow employers and employees to be able to have freedom of choice on when they want to work, and also to choose when and how to be a family, if that is the flipside of the coin? We do not always have to decide that Saturdays and Sundays are times for family and that the rest of the time is a time for work. Different families have different requirements and different needs.

I had shift work for many, many years, and I chose not to take Saturday and Sunday off, because I did not want to be off work when everybody else was. I wanted to have a clear run when going to the shops, or to the theatre or cinema, and so it was very, very valuable for me to be able to choose the time I wanted to have off. So why discriminate against that freedom of choice? And why discriminate between one group of employees and another? The police are still working, hospitals are working, and the hospitality industry is still running. So not only is there geographic discrimination, but also the type of business that one is in becomes discriminated against—but for what reason? Hospitality is not an essential item. People can buy food the day before, and cook at home, but we think there should be an exemption for the hospitality industry. Why should there not be an exemption for every other thing? We sometimes want to buy books on a Sunday, Saturday, or any other day, and it seems ridiculous to have a mandate that says we cannot.

Besides, this Government should be in favour of more wealth creation, if for no reason other than its predatory desire to keep plundering the wealth of those who create it in the first place. So I would assume that Labour is in favour of this bill.

This bill also touches only the tip of the iceberg, because there are other days in the year, too, that should be left up to both employers and employees to decide for themselves how, when, and where they choose to open for business. Let the public choose with their wallets, and let us not have an edict from on high, based on the prejudices and ideologies of the few.

JIM PETERS (NZ First) : I rise to speak on this Shop Trading Hours (Easter Trading Local Exemption) Bill, and I wish to preface my remarks by going back in time. When I did that by looking at the Hansard, I saw the interesting issue, which has arisen almost decade by decade, in that we finally realised that there needed to be change. That need for change was recognised first of all in 1980, when, for the first time in New Zealand, Saturday trading became legal. Then in March 1990, there was a very unusual situation in this country, whereby Sunday trading became legal under the legislation at the time, but that was after the extraordinary decision made by the Government of the day, by Order in Council, to move in late 1989 to Sunday trading. The decision to allow it to proceed was made by Cabinet, not by the people or by Parliament. So in March 1990, the very issues that are before members today were debated in this House.

The interesting thing about that debate is that the very kinds of submissions that were made and talked about in the select committee then, are the ones that have already been advanced here. The major body of submissions was made—160 of them—by people who were concerned about their Sunday. Those people were concerned about Sunday trading and its effect and impact upon family life. In the course of their submissions, they ranged all over, saying that it would cause divorce, family breakdown, and a whole number of irretrievable aspects of family life that would not be seen again. Of course, the reality now is that Sunday trading has been established. It was established by law in the legislation that members are looking at as being a part of the legislation that needs changing today, and it has waited until now for Parliament to once again look at the issues that are before the House and that have been debated tonight.

The people took no part, and had no real voice in that earlier decision. The issue I want to bring to the House’s attention is that this bill provides for the local community and local people to have their part in regard to Easter Sunday. Why Easter Sunday? Why not Christmas Day or Anzac Day? It is because in the fabric of our lives and in our tradition and our history, there is something about that day that still deserves separate recognition. I would commend those who think that way. Therefore, when I heard Mr Ward speak about family life, that is something that I commend, although it is a choice and an aspect that is not pleasing to all people.

But if this bill is passed and goes to its final form, the local community will have every opportunity to express its mind. After consultation, members of the local community will be able to pick up the concerns of the employer groups and employees that have already been enunciated in this House. Those family groups will be able to have their say about how the legislation impacts upon, say, Kaikohe—a wonderful little town in the mid-north. Those people who are affected by the implications of industrial legislation on being able to open or not, and its impact upon their employees, such as at The Warehouse, for example, will be able to express opinions before the local council.

The local council would determine, as the representative local body on behalf of its people, what the attitude to this 1 day—Easter Sunday—should be. I say again that this is not about Christmas Day or Anzac Day; it is Easter Sunday, which is of equal significance to a considerable number of people in our community.

So I stand to support the bill. I know that in places like Paihia and Parnell, people enjoy this option at present for all sorts of excellent commercial reasons, and there is no sound reason why on a case by case basis, deliberately, and in response to local needs, the local community, which in this case would be the council, cannot make a choice about its Easter Sunday. So to that degree, despite the fact that I know that in my home district, many will oppose this bill for excellent reasons, I want to emphasise again that this bill is about a choice—a deliberate choice, made locally—that affects only those who wish take up the offer that this bill may make to them in the commercial or family sense.

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) : I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. In my opening speech, I foreshadowed that I would move that this bill go to the Local Government and Environment Committee. I have now taken the advice of many members in the House, and I seek leave to move the bill to the Commerce Committee.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Leave has been sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) : I will try to briefly address the issues that have been raised by many members in the House. First of all, I want to make it absolutely, categorically clear that there is no intention to apply the regulations of this bill to Christmas Day or Anzac Day.

Sue Kedgley: Not yet.

PETER BROWN: The member says “Not yet”, but I would say that there is no mood or spirit in this House—and certainly there is no mood in my party—for Christmas Day to be included in this sort of legislation. Second, I recognise the point that Mark Peck made that this bill does not put any restrictions on working people or put pressure on people to work. I tried to imply that that issue would be addressed by the local bodies when they considered whether shops should open. I believe that that is where it is best addressed, because the local councils know intimately the people who make up their communities.

In terms of Tauranga and Rotorua, I have to say that it is the concerns of Tauranga and Rotorua in particular that have driven us to push this bill. They are both rapidly growing cities—Tauranga is probably the fastest-growing city in New Zealand—and they want to be able to open their shops on Easter Sunday. Rotorua is an equally fast-growing city, and it is very largely dependent on tourism. For it to have its shops closed and the people to come in, bypass Rotorua, and then go on to Taupō, is really hard to take, and that is putting it bluntly.

Members of Parliament must respect local people—people who live and work in their own regions. They must respect them to the degree that those people are allowed to make their own choices on certain issues.

This is a very good issue whereby local people can say whether they want shops to open on Easter Sunday. In Mount Maunganui we had a vicar called Geoff Cranshaw—he is no longer there; he has moved on to greener pastures—who was totally in favour of shops opening on Easter Sunday. He said that as a result of the shops opening, he would get more and more people into his church. He was very confident that family people, and people who were out doing their shopping, would come into his church. I think that that is a view shared by many in the church community.

I was disappointed by the Green members’ contribution. It appears they know better than anybody else. They have been elected to Parliament and sit in some of these fine, green, leather seats, and then they think they know better than the average guy outside. They do not. A member comes to Parliament as a representative of the people.

Rodney Hide: They wouldn’t let you eat a chicken.

PETER BROWN: Would they not? They would not eat a chicken? I do not know about that. The point I am making is that when we come to Parliament, we are no better or worse than the people we represent. This bill is about allowing local communities the ability to make a decision. It is absolutely ridiculous that the communities of Queenstown, Taupō, Nelson, and some of the others I listed earlier, can have their shops open with no problems whatsoever, but the rest of the country’s shops are closed. I really resent the Green members implying that they know better than others.

I thought Marc Alexander made a very good point when he highlighted the fact that many people in New Zealand now work shifts and unusual hours. I thank the member for raising that. I thought of my own son and his wife when he raised that point. My son is an airline pilot. I want members to imagine how it would be if he did not work on Easter Sunday, or on any Sunday or particular day. He works as required by the community and the public. His wife, Karen—a tall, slim lady—is a police officer. She is at the beck and call of the whole community when things go wrong, not just on Easter Sunday, but on any day of the week and at any time of the day or night.

I conclude by moving that the Shop Trading Hours (Easter Trading Local Exemption) Bill be considered by the Commerce Committee and that the committee be directed to report back to the House on or before 16 December 2004.

LINDSAY TISCH (Junior Whip—National) : I raise a point of order, Mr Assistant Speaker. I seek leave on the Shop Trading Hours (Easter Trading Local Exemption) Bill for a party to cast votes for the Ayes and the Noes, and to record abstentions, notwithstanding Standing Order 144(1)(b).

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister of Fisheries) : My understanding was that this was to be a normal personal vote. It certainly is the expectation of the Labour Party that those for whom I am not, as whip, holding proxies will expect the ringing of the bells and will, as normal, progress to the Chamber.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Leave has been sought by Mr Tisch for a split party vote. The remedy to the member’s question lies in that. Leave has been sought by Mr Tisch for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is. Therefore, a personal vote will be held. Before we get to that point, the question is that the motion be agreed to. Those who are of that opinion will say “Aye”, of the contrary opinion will say “No”. The Ayes have it.

LINDSAY TISCH (Junior Whip—National) : I raise a point of order, Mr Assistant Speaker. If we are going to have a personal vote and there is going to be the ringing of the bells—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): We will just go back a step. I think some members were confused as to what the question was. The question was that the bill be read a first time. I will put that question again, because I do not think it was clear to any members. That will decide the issue. The question is that the motion be agreed to, and the motion was that the bill be read a first time. Those who are of that opinion will say “Aye”, of the contrary opinion will say “No”. The Noes have it. The Ayes have it.

LINDSAY TISCH (Junior Whip—National) : I raise a point of order, Mr Assistant Speaker—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Is a personal vote called for? That is the point.

LINDSAY TISCH: The confusion is that people think this is just a normal vote. The point Mr Benson-Pope mentioned before is that although I sought leave to have a split vote, that was denied. We are now moving into a personal vote. That is the process we should be going for. Green members have to vote against it. Some are voting for it. We are calling now for a personal vote.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I agree with that. But for the Green Party’s “No” vote, the motion would have been agreed to and that would have been the end of the matter. We can be grateful in many ways for the “No” vote. Does any member call for a personal vote? That is fine, we shall have a personal vote on this issue.