Curran ClareCLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Every time in this Parliament in this House that there is a personal vote a conscience vote it is really incumbent on every member in this Chamber—every member of Parliament—to really examine their consciences because otherwise why do we have conscience votes? We are trifling with that as being a mechanism to make law. In my view that is not happening with regard to this bill that is passing through the House. On the other side of the Chamber the individual consciences of MPs are not being engaged in this bill. What my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway has just described tonight as have other members—Mojo Mathers being one of them—is not so much about an issue to do with religion. It is about an issue to do with culture and what Kiwi culture is how we express that how we value it and treasure it and make sure that it is valued and that each of us as parliamentarians value it. What is happening with this piece of legislation is that it is being devalued and trivialised and I think that is a serious matter. I would hope that any of the National MPs listening to the debate tonight will reflect upon that and think that next time there is a conscience vote they really should insist on being able to exercise their consciences. I want to address my remarks to all of the clauses in this bill relating to local policy—the replacement of a by-law replacing it with a local policy mechanism—and to highlight why that is so flawed and how it has created a catch-22 situation for local government. It is fundamentally one of the reasons I think why I am opposing this bill because I think it is bad law—really bad law. I think that there were other ways if the Government did want to bring this law forward that it could have done it. It could have done it in a way that applied to the whole country rather than requiring local government to use a mechanism that ultimately is not going to result in true consultation for local communities and if it does is going to cost them the amount of money that they opposed en masse in the first place. I want to refer to some advice that was given to the select committee by the ministry during the tortured process of this bill through the Commerce Committee on which I sit. The committee was asked whether a judicial review applied equally to both a local policy and a by-law mechanism process. The committee's advice was that from a constitutional perspective the use of local policies to allow shop trading would be the same as using by-laws provided the empowering provision was the same the consultation process was the same and the ability to review remained. I want to just refer to two submissions. One from the Wellington City Council said that the Wellington City Council believes that a consistent nationwide approach would be preferable to the proposed approach—and this was the by-law—as it would ensure greater consistency and clarity for the public. It said that the nationwide approach removes the need to know where the invisible boundaries lie between territorial authorities. This would be an issue not only for residents of a particular area but also for the many people travelling over holiday weekends." etc. They say there are "other instances where differences in approach between territorial authorities have been criticised for the inconsistency created and uncertainty caused. A nationwide approach would avoid this."I also want to refer to the Christchurch City Council which gave an extensive submission that said that it considered that the issue of Easter Sunday trading was a matter that should be decided at a national level. A clear decision is needed that would apply through the whole country. The council submits that the bill would not reduce red tape; it would reinforce the loopy rule problems that were proposed by Paula Bennett—so that is a contradiction—and that it was going to cost a lot of money. [Bell rung] Thank you. That was a very long bell ring Mr Chair. The arguments used by these city councils including the Auckland Council and other city councils were that the imposition of a by-law and using a by-law mechanism was going to ultimately result in huge amounts of money being spent. In fact they gave a submission to the committee on how much that was going to be and the amounts ranged between $40000 and $80000 per territorial authority as a standard. Some of them said it was going to be more. Then the committee came back and there was advice that came back to the committee that said "We won't use the by-law mechanism; we'll use the local policy mechanism." which was going to somehow reduce the amount of cost to the local authorities—the 67 local authorities across the country. But I want to go back to that advice that was given about the constitutional issues and that was that in order to remove any constitutional issues to using a local policy mechanism versus a by-law then they would have to do the same amount of consultation and there would still be the same ability for a judicial review to occur. So ultimately local authorities are left in the same position that if they are going to apply that mechanism of a local policy then they are open to the same risks that they opposed en masse in the first place. Ultimately what this bill does is use another mechanism that appears to be less onerous on local authorities but ultimately unless they use it in the same way then they are acting unconstitutionally. That is the catch-22 situation of this bill. That is why it is fundamentally flawed. It is a bad piece of legislation. It is a piece of legislation that is being imposed on the House because of a policy decision that has been made by the National Government requiring all its members to vote on a conscience issue using a flawed mechanism that local authorities do not want and ultimately being anti - Kiwi culture and taking away something sacred—for some it is for religious reasons; for some it is for cultural reasons—and that is the ability to spend more time with your families. So if they were going to do it sensibly they would have imposed it as a national requirement across the country where local authorities did not have to make the decisions themselves using a flawed mechanism. Ultimately this is a very very poor piece of legislation. It is shambolic. The Minister is having to introduce a major Supplementary Order Paper on the floor of the Committee of the whole House to enable it to go ahead. Most city councils do not want it in the form that it was and that it is and ultimately it is anti-Kiwi and anti - Kiwi culture."