Logie JanJAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to take a short call on behalf of the Greens on the Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill. Although recognising that this is a personal vote the Green Party members I understand will all be voting against this bill. The reasons I think have been outlined fairly consistently across the Opposition members in this House: this bill is bad for children it is bad for families it is bad for workers and it is bad for local government. Although some of us may see shopping as a religion—I suspect the previous speaker seemed to elevate shopping to the status of a religion—actually some of us believe that there is a value in taking a break sometimes. Maybe 3½ days in a year is not too excessive in terms of taking a break from shopping and focusing on family and guaranteeing that there is an opportunity to spend that time together. I have heard some other members saying that yes the Opposition says that it is about family bonding but what if your family wants to bond by doing the gardening together or doing some DIY? Strange my family; I do not know—we have the ability to plan ahead and go shopping the day before. I do not know whether that is too extreme a suggestion but it seems possible to me that you could plan ahead and shop the day before and be able to engage in those same activities together as a family on Easter Sunday. As the local government spokesperson for the Greens I think it would be a bit remiss for me not to talk about some of those specifics and why we oppose this bill. It does seem to me that there have been so many attempts to get this legislation through that have been unsuccessful. I guess there has been lobbying and discussions that have been happening within the National Party caucus with those who are proponents of this bill to see what they may be able to get past the consciences of their members to be able to pass this bill to liberalise this trade. My understanding is that similar legislation in this House has failed nine times. It seems that the point that the National Party has got to is this: This House will not make the decision. We'll give the decision to local government so that your consciences"—the consciences of those MPs on that side opposed to Sunday trading—"can be free." You can just say that it is a local government decision even though the end result in many of the areas that you live in or have connections to may well be the same as what you would have opposed initially. You will be putting further financial and responsibility burdens on local councils which time and time again tell central government that they are sick of being given further responsibilities without having an increase to their funding base—that already the burden of responsibility and regulation versus funding is out of whack and they are overburdened. It does not make sense to put employment legislation or shop trading hours on to local governments. They would be required to initiate a consultation process hear submissions institute hearings and deliberate in the same way that Parliament does. That is a costly exercise. It is not cost free. So many of our councils are struggling to be able to fulfil their regulatory legal obligations as it is. I do not think it makes sense to add another burden on to those councils particularly the smaller councils.Although the members there seem to reference the businesses and the tourists coming in what about the local members of that community? If you are going to say "Well they'll be keen on this." then there needs to be a consultation and a rigorous one to make sure that they are keen and that is going to be costly. Every time we have heard the legislation discussed at national level that has not been the mood of the public. The public has not been telling us they want to shop more—that they cannot have this day free of shopping; that it will just completely destroy their lives to have more time to spend with their families away from retail work. The Green Party believes that the least we can do for our families is let them keep this time together. Thank you."