Copeland Gordon: Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading)  Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Copeland Gordon: Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading)  Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 Thank you Madam Speaker. Let me begin by saying that the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading) Amendment Bill in the name of Steve Chadwick will be a conscience vote for United Future so the remarks that I will be sharing with the House tonight are according to my conscience and they are mine alone. 
This bill once again has led me to search my conscience as to my convictions about what it really means to be a human being. Humanity I believe is born to be free. Women and men are not slaves and work is not the sole or indeed necessarily the most important end of our lives. We are not designed to be slaves in the sense of slavery nor are we built to be slaves to the economy. Indeed the Greek root of the word “economy” or “economics” relates to the management of the household and therefore of the family. If we go from that Greek root of the word we realise economics and the economy therefore exist to serve families—exist to serve the needs of human beings—and not the other way around. 
My second conviction coalesces strongly with the first—namely the ability of families to spend time together. We know the purpose of having holidays when we think of it is to set time aside to be together and to be families. What do I mean by that? I mean mums and dads with their children I mean grandparents with their children and grandchildren and I mean the ability to have uncles and aunts and other family members together on important holiday occasions. It is the opportunity for example to bring an elderly member of the family—a parent or grandparent—home from a retirement home to spend an afternoon or a day with his or her family. Those are the moments that give us joy in living and New Zealand now has only 3½ days on which that remains possible for many many families. 
New Zealanders now rank in the OECD as second only to the Japanese in working the longest hours. We are already a work-saturated society and I for one believe that we already have the work-life balance wrong. I believe that this bill will simply make that situation worse. I am not prepared to see those precious 3½ days further eroded. It is bad enough when we get together as a family and someone is not there. Every one of us in this House has had the experience of asking: “Where’s Jim today?” or “Where’s Mary today?” and being told they are working. That is acceptable when they happen to be working in a hospital in a restaurant in a pharmacy or even in a service station—because people need gasoline—or working for any of the essential services: the police force or the fire service. Those essential services are necessary 365 days a year. There is no argument with that. But I want to ask people to examine their own consciences as to whether it is necessary for them to shop 365 days a year. It is not for me. I like to have a day when we can get as many members of the family together as possible. I simply see this proposal as the thin edge of the wedge. 
One of the logics advanced in this House is that we already allow trading in some towns on those days so we should give everybody that opportunity. I bring it to the attention of the House that it is possible to look at it the other way around. The fact is that we have only 3½ trading-free days. By the way one of those is Anzac Day and that is not a day on which families can get together because all the shops are open at lunchtime. Last year in Lower Hutt for example all the big shops had sales starting the moment the half-day observed for Anzac Day ended. Anzac Day instead of being a day to commemorate our war heroes and those who have gone before us in that cause and a day for time with our families has actually become a great selling day for the shops. I regret that. I think that is negative for family life and negative for who we are as human beings. 
Quite frankly I can get by with shopping on 361½ days a year. That is more than enough. I have no desire to buy a car on Easter Sunday; I have no desire to do many things on Easter Sunday. I have a strong desire to see our nation preserve some time when we can get together with our families when we can relax together and when we can be together with as many family members as possible. Everything that reduces that opportunity I strongly oppose and therefore I will be voting against this bill. Thank you.