Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): I am very pleased to make a few opening remarks in what I know will be a robust debate on this legislation the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill. I will pick up on the previous speaker's comments and also some of the comments that were made in the second reading speeches subsequent to my moving that the bill be read a second time. I want to start with the issue of the mess of the bill that Ms Curran described.Clare Curran: Shambles.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: OK so let us talk about shambles. Shambles is the status quo. Shambles is the fact that in my home city and her home city of Dunedin there can be no shop trading on Easter Sunday except and unless one is a retailer in the Carnegie Centre but only on the mezzanine floor and only to sell things like—I cannot remember; I think it is second-hand goods and children's toys—and only if there is entertainment going on at that time. That is a mess. That is the worst excess of the mess that I have seen in the present legislation. The most popular—Dr David Clark: There's no problem because it's not being used.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The member says that it is not being used. That is quite right and the reason is—and this shows what a mess of an Act it is right now—that there is no trading at the Carnegie Centre. It has long since stopped being a retail outlet. But there are many other retail outlets in Dunedin. I know that the member who is interjecting knows that. Most popularly we have the well-known anomalies of trading being allowed in Queenstown but not in Wānaka. Actually Pembroke Mall stage one in Wānaka can trade; stage two and anywhere else in Wānaka cannot. Taupō can; Rotorua cannot. The mess is the status quo. I am not portraying this bill as the gold standard of improvements. There is no question that it is not. But there is no doubt that the Act that regulates shop trading hours at Easter will be significantly improved because of this bill and this is the point the Opposition hates. Those members hate giving choice. They hate giving choice to their own colleagues to have the bill brought back to the House in the best form. If Ms Curran believes it is an embarrassment it is an embarrassment to the Opposition members of the Commerce Committee who were not prepared to say: This is a personal vote a conscience vote as it always is. Let's make the bill in the best shape that it can be to give the best information to enable colleagues to choose." They could not even do that. If they thought the bill was so bad they should have portrayed it as such put up the amendments that they themselves were told were going to improve the bill and enable the House to choose—there is that word again. They do not think we are smart enough to work that out. They do not think union members are smart enough to recognise that this bill creates greater protections for workers not fewer protections. And this is most important of all they do not want to give the public the choice to shop on Easter Sunday—the choice to go to their local communities and say: "We think this should happen." I know that the people of Rotorua and on the Coromandel and in Wānaka want it and they should have it.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am slightly reluctant to interrupt the Minister in his first call but I do want to remind him that we are talking now to Part 1 of the bill as it has emerged from the select committee. What we are trying to decide is whether the detail we are discussing in the bill and in the Minister's amendments fulfils the wishes of the House at the second reading. Because I am going to be relatively tight on other members it would be good to start with this Minister.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Certainly Mr Chairman. I want to continue to address in order the comments that were made by the previous speaker around the question of choice. I think this is at the heart of the bill including Part 1. Part 1 provides for the process that a local council would follow if its citizens its ratepayers want to make that choice. It is a technical change that I am proposing in my Supplementary Order Paper 179 on Part 1 of the bill to make sure that rather than being done by a by-law it can be done by a policy. But it comes back to choice. It comes back to the choice that the ratepayers of those communities can make. It may well be that they do not want to make that choice in my home city. That is absolutely fine. I will probably be at the Warbirds over Wānaka International Air Show anyway. I might want to exercise that choice. There is another matter about the question of process and that is the fact that this is a personal vote and the National caucus has agreed unanimously that it will exercise its discretion to vote in favour of these amendments. It takes away the questions of worker protection of whether or not there should be trading on what is for a great number of New Zealanders still a very holy day—that is Easter Sunday—and staying away from Good Friday which theologically is even more important and saying as one caucus that this is about letting the public choose. Yes individual members may have their own consciences about what that is and they will exercise those consciences about whether to go to church on Easter Sunday or whether to go shopping on Easter Sunday. But to a person in this caucus they have said that that should be a choice that can be made by ratepayers through their local councils. It is as simple as that. The councils and Local Government New Zealand did say "Actually we don't think this is the right way to go." and so did the retailers. Here is why: because they wanted the Government and this Parliament to go even further and just simply lift any prohibitions on trading over this period. That would have left us back where we are now which is at a personal vote which would not engender the unanimous support of the National Party caucus and therefore any changes would fail. So let the great not be the enemy of the good. This is a good bill. It progresses and tidies up what has been a muddle for years. It is not perfect but it is as good as this Parliament at this time will get. I am prepared to put it up and vote for it use my conscience to support it so that the people of New Zealand in those communities can make that choice."