Brown Peter: Shop Trading Hours (Easter Trading Local Exemption) Bill — First Reading 
Brown Peter: Shop Trading Hours (Easter Trading Local Exemption) Bill — First Reading 
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PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I will try to briefly address the issues that have been raised by many members in the House. First of all I want to make it absolutely categorically clear that there is no intention to apply the regulations of this bill to Christmas Day or Anzac Day. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Not yet. 
PETER BROWN 
: The member says “Not yet” but I would say that there is no mood or spirit in this House—and certainly there is no mood in my party—for Christmas Day to be included in this sort of legislation. Second I recognise the point that Mark Peck made that this bill does not put any restrictions on working people or put pressure on people to work. I tried to imply that that issue would be addressed by the local bodies when they considered whether shops should open. I believe that that is where it is best addressed because the local councils know intimately the people who make up their communities. 
In terms of Tauranga and Rotorua I have to say that it is the concerns of Tauranga and Rotorua in particular that have driven us to push this bill. They are both rapidly growing cities—Tauranga is probably the fastest-growing city in New Zealand—and they want to be able to open their shops on Easter Sunday. Rotorua is an equally fast-growing city and it is very largely dependent on tourism. For it to have its shops closed and the people to come in bypass Rotorua and then go on to Taupo is really hard to take and that is putting it bluntly. 
Members of Parliament must respect local people—people who live and work in their own regions. They must respect them to the degree that those people are allowed to make their own choices on certain issues. 
 This is a very good issue whereby local people can say whether they want shops to open on Easter Sunday. In Mount Maunganui we had a vicar called Geoff Cranshaw—he is no longer there; he has moved on to greener pastures—who was totally in favour of shops opening on Easter Sunday. He said that as a result of the shops opening he would get more and more people into his church. He was very confident that family people and people who were out doing their shopping would come into his church. I think that that is a view shared by many in the church community. 
I was disappointed by the Green members’ contribution. It appears they know better than anybody else. They have been elected to Parliament and sit in some of these fine green leather seats and then they think they know better than the average guy outside. They do not. A member comes to Parliament as a representative of the people. 
Rodney Hide 
: They wouldn’t let you eat a chicken. 
PETER BROWN 
: Would they not? They would not eat a chicken? I do not know about that. The point I am making is that when we come to Parliament we are no better or worse than the people we represent. This bill is about allowing local communities the ability to make a decision. It is absolutely ridiculous that the communities of Queenstown Taupo Nelson and some of the others I listed earlier can have their shops open with no problems whatsoever but the rest of the country’s shops are closed. I really resent the Green members implying that they know better than others. 
I thought Marc Alexander made a very good point when he highlighted the fact that many people in New Zealand now work shifts and unusual hours. I thank the member for raising that. I thought of my own son and his wife when he raised that point. My son is an airline pilot. I want members to imagine how it would be if he did not work on Easter Sunday or on any Sunday or particular day. He works as required by the community and the public. His wife Karen—a tall slim lady—is a police officer. She is at the beck and call of the whole community when things go wrong not just on Easter Sunday but on any day of the week and at any time of the day or night. 
I conclude by moving that the Shop Trading Hours (Easter Trading Local Exemption) Bill be considered by the Commerce Committee and that the committee be directed to report back to the House on or before 16 December 2004.