Peters Winston: Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading)Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Peters Winston: Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading)Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:639;Page:9310] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Could I just say that we know where Rotorua is and we know where Taupo is. We have a translator who is being paid to sit up there to tell us what the correct pronunciation is and if he is not there to do that then we are not usefully using the taxpayers’ money. We did not object to that leave with any sense of malice but to make the point that if we are going to employ someone here to give the correct pronunciation and he is meant to be a trusted officer of Parliament without any political regional or iwi—and there can be variations—bias then maybe we should trust him. That is my point. I just want to say in respect of this bill— 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Speaking to the point of order Madam Speaker— 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: My speech is not a point of order I am speaking. Could I just say that the bill before the House the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading) Amendment Bill is a bill that bears a remarkable similarity to a bill put up by New Zealand First where we said that the deciding factor should be what the local government thinks not what Parliament thinks. Local government—with its retail outlets its people and its ratepayers—should decide what is appropriate for them because they can best determine what is the best form of law on the question of retail outlets being opened on any given day in New Zealand where their region or their town is concerned. 
 I say to the promoter of this bill that we support the legislation and thank heavens we have finally got around to promoting common sense. It takes a long time sometimes in Parliament; our bill has been on the ballot paper for 13 years and that is a fact—13 long years. During that time Max Bradford from the National Party totally screwed this issue up. Those members over there have not been around here long enough to remember who Max Bradford is but the National Party utterly screwed this issue up. If that was not bad enough the ACT party took the extreme view that shops and retail outlets should be open 24/7 365 days a year. 
Hon Member 
: That was Rodney. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: That was Rodney. As a consequence down went the legislation which sought to give places like Tauranga and Rotorua the same right that those privileged townships of Taupo and Queenstown have had to open their shops. Really the law has made no sense whatsoever. 
Although I say that I do support some of the safeguards that the member Steve Chadwick has in her legislation. By that I mean that in places like France there is no shopping on Sundays. France is a country where the visiting population of tourists—in Paris in particular—would be as high as anywhere in the world. Can they go shopping in that country? No. Some of the southern states in the United States have no Sunday shopping at all; neither is any liquor sold. 
Some of the proponents of the type of view held by Rodney Hide have argued that shopping restrictions have been a terrible impediment to retail sales in this country. Well there are some things more important than that and they are family life and community life. These cannot occur unless people have the time to make their contribution. It is a fact that some of the decay in our society today is best explained by the way we have allowed so much of New Zealand’s former family and community life to be attacked in the name of the Mammon of the golden dollar and commercialism—it has not advanced this country at all. 
But there is and should be the right for towns to decide in concert with their retailers their people and their ratepayers whether they want Easter Sunday shopping and what have you. I just make that point in case anyone should get the view that this is not something we have supported for a long long time—with safeguards as well. I thank my colleague Peter Brown for giving me a chance to speak for 5 minutes. I thought we should make that point. As someone who has been here a little while I saw the way this issue has been screwed up time and time again by intemperate extremist members of Parliament. Thank you very much.