Lee MelissaMELISSA LEE (National): Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill in its second reading. Before I start talking about the bill I just want to respond to David Clark the member who has just taken his seat. He mentioned the letter from Caritas and I just want to tell that member that I did in fact reply to that letter. I was in fact working on part of that holiday and I was not able to travel down to Wellington but I was in Wellington and I did invite those people and said that if they were in Auckland I would be very happy to meet with them. So the member is quite wrong if he thinks that somebody did not actually respond to them—just correcting that fact.This bill amends the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Act of 1990 to grant territorial authorities the limited power to create by-laws and if the select committee had had its way there would have been a local policy surrounding shop trading hours trading on Easter Sunday to ensure the right of shop workers to refuse work on that day as well. It was the main agenda item in the Commerce Committee over the last few months and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my colleagues and also the committee secretariat who have actually put a lot of hours into this bill for their support during the submissions and hearings process. I believe it was a comprehensive discussion for the committee and I thank the members of the committee even though we did not come to an agreement to support the bill. We had disagreements and that has to be respected. It is after all a democracy in this country.The current rules around shop trading on Easter Sunday are in fact outdated I believe and need to reflect the changing requirements of New Zealand. Tourism in New Zealand is affected by uneven requirements—actually uneven benefits—that have been grandfathered to certain townships and districts. Complex trading rules are hard for small businesses to work out as they are confusing and the trading rules are in fact confusing. For example Rotorua could not trade on Easter Sunday but its neighbouring town could; Queenstown could but its neighbouring districts could not. That was one of the main discussions we have had. As a committee we read over one hundred written submissions and listened to a number of oral submissions. These submissions were wide ranging. They were from businesses and organisations small and large as well as from members of the public and I thank those who made submissions for participating in our parliamentary processes.The submissions were actually quite clear in wanting to maintain the significance of Easter Sunday as an important day in the New Zealand cultural calendar and they were clear in wanting clarity in the law for New Zealand trading. I know that the member opposite who just took his seat also mentioned the fact that Easter is in fact a day for families and I do agree. Those people who celebrate Easter and mark the date for Easter actually think of it as a day that they need to spend time with family but there are other communities that do not actually look upon Easter as such.I am pleased with the recommendations that my National Party colleagues have made in the committee and I wish to bring some of those recommendations to the House as they are important for the discussion of this bill I believe. These recommendations will ensure that employees' rights are in fact protected and that local policy is implemented rather than a series of by-laws which local districts actually said might be a little too expensive and difficult to implement. At the moment the law is unclear as to whether employees can actually refuse to do non-trading work on Easter Sunday such as stocktaking or even maintenance work which is actually not trading work. This recommendation by my colleagues would see the rights of the worker put first to ensure that they can in fact have their day of significance without interference or prejudice and they can actually refuse to work. A worker must have an option to refuse work on Easter Sunday without the repercussion of their employment relationship falling through. One of the key ways that we can do this is to clarify the meaning of treat[ing] an employee adversely" to be defined the same way as section 67F of the Employment Relations Act 2000. This would ensure that benefits such as skills promotion or training opportunities are not denied to them and that they are not dismissed or unduly treated for choosing to refuse to work on Easter Sunday.One of the things that was quite apparent during the submission process was that many people are led to believe that Easter Sunday is in fact a public holiday. It is not a public holiday. Good Friday and Easter Monday are in fact public holidays but Easter Sunday is not a public holiday. It is a restricted trading day. A lot of people—Sue Moroney: Was a restricted trading day.MELISSA LEE: Ha ha! The Easter holiday is a significant day for many people. This is important to remember because some people will be expected to work on that day but will have no time in lieu or extra pay when they work. I think it is the right of the workers to say to their employers: "Actually those are the days that I find very significant for my religion for my family and if I want to refuse to work I should not be prejudiced as a result of refusing to work." I think that extra protection that we could have provided through this bill we could not actually agree on during the Commerce Committee process.The tourism industry needs this law change I believe. To paraphrase the Deputy Mayor of Queenstown Lakes District Council people come from all around the world and they expect certain levels of service. The current law is damaging to our reputation as a great place to visit. As long as we have a nation forbidding local communities to make a call about how they want to operate during Easter Sunday this will be an ongoing debate and an ongoing problem for the tourism market in our great country. The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment recently released some data about tourism numbers and the international visitor tourism spend increase actually went up by 10 percent which is helping to grow our economy and helping to employ more New Zealanders in the tourism sector. It is important for members of this House and the local communities to understand that businesses should not expect any additional cost as a result of the passage of this bill. The bill if anything will help them grow their businesses during the period where thousands of expats come home for the holidays—even local New Zealanders travel between cities to have a family holiday.One of the key arguments against letting communities decide for themselves as to whether they should have Easter Sunday off or not is that it is supposed to be a family day and that they should have a family holiday. My response to them is to ask why a day with the family cannot involve the shops. Often Easter Sunday is a day a lot of families actually do DIY projects as a family—I know that whenever there is a public holiday my mum drags me to the garden centre to get plants so we can take it back and plant the garden or change over the plants that she had that have died or something. It is a family time that we do actually spend together and I think it is important.In summary I believe that this bill is important and it is in fact important for New Zealand. It will also provide the means for local businesses and communities to work out whether they actually want to trade on Easter Sunday and I think empowering the local communities to decide for themselves is important. I think we have provided that through this bill and it is only a shame that we as a select committee could not actually agree on that. Hopefully during the Committee stage we might have more debates on this. I commend this bill."