O'Rourke Denis: Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Waitaki Easter Trading) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Rourke Denis: Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Waitaki Easter Trading) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 27 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3478. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First MPs have discussed and will oppose this particular bill the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Waitaki Easter Trading) Amendment Bill for two fundamental reasons. The first is that it is a piecemeal approach to this issue of shop trading hours on these particular holidays. The purpose of this bill is to allow the retailers within the districts covered by the Waitaki electorate to trade on Good Friday and on Easter Sunday so it is specific to those areas and that is a piecemeal approach and that is really not good lawmaking. The second fundamental reason is that New Zealand First MPs believe that this uses an undemocratic process and that there are better options for that. You see these issues might be dealt with either on a nationwide basis through Parliament covering all of New Zealand or locally by local government if empowered to do so. If it is done nationally you will get consistency through the whole country but you will not reflect local circumstances or attitudes. If it is done locally you would get a piecemeal approach and that is inconsistent with other areas but does allow for local circumstances to be taken notice of. 
The attitude in large urban areas tends to be that because there is something of an exodus at Easter and Christmas for holiday purposes there is a need to give all staff holidays on those days because there is after all in those areas plenty of opportunity to shop on other days. The attitude tends to be different in smaller areas—smaller centres rural areas and holiday centres—where the circumstances are very different because there is an influx of people and a need for access to all shopping needs even on those holidays. Local attitudes are to take economic advantage of this. So there is a significant difference in attitudes between these various areas. 
Therefore our conclusion is that there needs to be a horses for courses approach not a nationwide one. But the method should not be for Government legislation on a piecemeal basis as in this bill. Government should simply empower local people to decide shop opening hours for their holidays in their areas taking account of their circumstances. But councils themselves should not make those decisions. New Zealand First believes that they should be required to either conduct a comprehensive consultation process or actually conduct a referendum and that is the democratic approach. 
Therefore for those reasons New Zealand First MPs could not support this particular bill. But New Zealand First MPs would support another bill to ensure that local government addresses this issue democratically so that it takes account of local circumstances and gives everybody in the district a say—and that can be done only by referendum or by very wide consultation. And if local areas decide that in their circumstances for their reasons that they want these extended shopping hours on these holidays then New Zealand First would support that. That would be different as I have said between urban areas large urban centres rural areas and holiday centres. The circumstances are so different that a New Zealand - wide approach is not appropriate but a democratic decision-making approach by referendum or by consultation is appropriate. So New Zealand First could not support this current bill for those reasons but would support an alternative such as that I have explained.