Moroney Sue: Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 03 November 2015. Volume:709;Page:7621. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. But here is the really interesting thing. Tim Macindoe is the senior Government whip and he has voted against these measures to take Easter Sunday from working people on two occasions since he has been in Parliament and yet he is now going to be the whip requiring all of those other MPs I just talked about to vote against their conscience. How ironic is that? I think that the churchgoing people of Hamilton will have some questions for their local MP Tim Macindoe if he exercises the role of whip in a way that forces him and other MPs who do not agree with this piece of legislation to actually vote for it. Now Chris Bishop is looking really confused. He is not sure whether it is a conscience vote or whether it is not so can we have some clarification please from the whip in the House at the moment Joanne Hayes? Is it a conscience vote or not for the National members? They are really unclear about that—there is no answer. I would like that to be clarified by the end of this debate.I want to put on record my conscience vote. It will be recorded in opposition to this legislation. What both my Catholic upbringing and my trade union principles tell me is that the economy is here to work for people—the economy is here to work for people not the other way round. That is where the National Government has got this so badly wrong.We are debating this on Melbourne Cup day. The reason I refer to that is not just that I like to say “Melbourne Cup day” rather a lot. The reason I refer to it is that actually it is the race that stops a nation. Why do they call it the race that stops a nation? Because it is a public holiday in Victoria and there they celebrate that. They do not quiver in their boots about it and get frightened about it and run and hide from it. They proudly say “This is the race that stops a nation.” because people have the day off. They have the day off to celebrate and go to events together.Minister Woodhouse talked before about the events that happen over Easter. He talked about them as if they are reasons why we have to have shops open. Actually those events are the reason why we should not have shops open. They are the reason why those workers should be free to go to the Easter tournaments. Those workers should be free to go with their families to family gatherings. Those workers should be free if they choose to go and celebrate Mass on Easter Sunday. These are the events that happen on Easter that make it important that working people have the right to actually go and participate in those events. What is it that this National Government has got against families? This is another piece of legislation where those members are voting I think in a whipped manner—Melissa Lee seemed a bit confused about that—against families having this time off. And what is the harm? What is the harm of families being able to actually get together over Easter?In my family traditionally because my children are involved in basketball it has become the weekend that we do the basketball Easter tournament because it is always at Easter. The Easter tournament is a big thing in my family and the ability for me as a parent—and for me as a parent if I happened to be working in a shop—to accompany my children and be courtside while they play their Easter tournament in basketball every year is something that I want other families to have the ability to do also. Those are the sorts of things that happen over Easter.There are not many of these days. In fact I think there are about 3 of them.Denise Roche: 3½.SUE MORONEY: There are 3½ days every year when shops are not able to open. Is that too much to ask? This is the green space—the time that is put aside for family time. And yes there is for many people a religious component to this. This is about prioritising the things that are important to New Zealanders but that National Government cannot stand it. It cannot stand for people to be able to prioritise their families or their religious events. Whatever occasion they choose to celebrate together over a long weekend that National Government has got to take it away from them.Melissa Lee in her contribution—which I think was a confused contribution; almost as confused as this legislation is—talked about wanting to stop certain voting behaviours over Easter Sunday trading. Well what are those voting behaviours that she wants to stop? Are they the voting behaviours of Bill English; Gerry Brownlee; Nick Smith; Chester Borrows; Chris Finlayson on the odd occasion; Michael Woodhouse the Minister himself; Alfred Ngaro; Tim Macindoe; and Sam Lotu-Iiga? Are those the strange voting behaviours she wants to stop? They are National MPs who if left to their own conscience—when allowed to actually exercise that—would vote against this bill and I would encourage them to do so.I would particularly put the challenge out to Tim Macindoe. I particularly put the challenge out to him to stand on his principles and not allow his colleagues to require him to force everyone else into voting for a piece of legislation he does not even agree with—going by his former voting record if that means anything at all.I am proud to be standing here to say that I will use my conscience to vote against this bill. It is anti-worker. It is anti-family. It is all those things that the National Government is known for and it does not take New Zealand forward. It certainly does not fix the 150000 jobs that the Government is losing in the economy as we speak. It does not address any of those issues. What it does is make a shambles out of industrial legislation and it puts it on to local government—and local government does not want this responsibility.