Roche Denise; Mallard TrevorDENISE ROCHE (Green): I rise to take the call for this the second reading of the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill for the Greens. I had the privilege of sitting on the Commerce Committee replacing my colleague Gareth Hughes for the submission process of this bill. I want to thank the chair and the permanent members for having me there. As you are aware the committee was unable to reach a decision a majority decision about this bill which I think actually reflects just how vexed the whole issue is about retail trading on Easter Sunday. From my reading of the pages on the website this is I think about the 10th bill on Easter Sunday trading that has come before the House since 1996. So it is about every 2 years that a bill like this appears. Actually it is probably the reason why we have got bits and pieces and little amendments and exemptions all over the country with some places allowed to open and some places not which I think quite frankly is a bit of a dog's breakfast. This bill—this is the original bill—gives councils territorial authorities the ability to make a by-law to allow shops to open in their areas. To quote the Bills Digest there are three parts of it: limit power to create by-laws give shop workers the ability to refuse work on Easter Sunday without giving a reason and enable shop employees to take a personal grievance if they were compelled to work on Easter Sunday or their employer treated them adversely as a result of their refusal to work on Easter Sunday. I am going to address a couple of those parts in turn. The first part which is about the councils—they cannot actually make a by-law. That is what we found out during the process but they can however make a policy. That was the recommendation that that members on that side of the House were keen to put in as an amendment if the bill had been passed at the select committee which it was not. Regardless of whether it is a policy or a by-law there is still a special consultative procedure that has to occur. We heard from councils and from Local Government New Zealand that this is actually quite an expensive process because what it involves is consultation calling for submissions hearings and deliberations—exactly what happens with a select committee basically but on a more regional scale. All the councils that we heard from were concerned about the cost for the process: all that plus the cost of the staff who have to support that process. If we think about it Parliament has got a lot more money sloshing around than our local councils do. So with the exception of a couple of councils—there were a couple like Rotorua—they expressed a clear preference for the Government to make decisions about whether shops should be open or not on Easter Sunday so that the ratepayers did not have to foot the bill and at least there would be some consistency across the country. I agree with my colleague from Labour Iain Lees-Galloway that this bill is badly drafted law in the first instance but it is also I believe the only way it could get past National's caucus. My Green colleagues and I are all opposed to this bill because we do not actually believe that retail workers will be protected. They will not be able to tell their employer that they do not want to work on Easter Sunday. Their ability to take a personal grievance is extremely limited particularly since just taking a personal grievance generally occurs only when the employment relationship is in breakdown and if it was not in breakdown before the personal grievance was taken it is certainly going to be in breakdown after the personal grievance is taken so what is the point? There is also the issue of whether retail staff actually can take a personal grievance. Maybe if they are in a union—FIRST Union which is the union for retail workers—they would be able to take a personal grievance and would have some protection. But in the retail sector there are an enormous number of shops that are small businesses the worker is working alongside the employer and they are not covered. They are not members of a union. In that case they are unlikely to feel empowered to take a personal grievance. Given the low wages in the sector it is unlikely they will be able to afford a lawyer. Our opposition also stems from the fact that there are only 3½ days a year when shops are closed. In the submission from FIRST Union which represents retail staff they refer to a Unicef report from 2007 which actually states that here in New Zealand our workforce has one of the lowest rates of family time in the world. Since that report in 2007 it has also been shown that we have some of the longest working hours in the world. I will just quote. They said: Removing one of the few remaining protected family days will certainly not increase the quality of living of New Zealand families." I think we need to recognise that families are under stress huge stress. Today's data from Statistics New Zealand's net worth survey shows that the top 10 percent of New Zealand households own half our country's wealth while the bottom 40 percent of the households in this country own just 3 percent of the wealth. As our co-leader Metiria Turei said today "When wealth inequality is this stark it's clear that the economy is broken." I would wager—and I am not a betting person; I am the gambling spokesperson—that retail staff are not in that top 10 percent. They are more likely to be some of the 300000 working people in this country today earning the minimum wage or close to the minimum wage. They are ordinary mums and dads who are spending longer and longer and longer hours at work to make ends meet. So if we take away one of their guaranteed days off then their families will suffer. This bill will be a personal vote. I think it is about recognising that Easter Sunday is a religious holiday and some MPs hold very strong views about the Christian sacred days. Last time a bill like this was voted on Todd McClay's member's bill in 2009 National Party MPs Bill English Chester Borrows Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga Tim Macindoe and Jonathan Young all voted against that bill. We are certainly hoping that tonight the members on that side of the House will not be whipped and that they will be able to vote with their consciences. We are asking that MPs choose what is right for families and for the communities because the economy works best when it is working for everyone. This bill does not help everyone. I just want to reiterate that this is bad law and we really do need to kick it to touch. It is bad for councils they do not like it; it is bad for retail staff; and it is bad for their families. I would urge MPs on that side of the House to use their personal votes to dump this bill. Thank you. I seek leave to table an online petition that was organised by the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions with 4581 signatures calling on MPs Peter Dunne and Te Ururoa Flavell to vote against the bill.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Is there any objection to that process? There is objection."