Gosche Mark: Easter Sunday Shop Trading Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Gosche Mark: Easter Sunday Shop Trading Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 21 February 2007. Volume:637;Page:7601. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 I am pleased to be taking part in this debate on a day when we have heard many speeches in an earlier debate about the importance of family. Quite frankly if there is a bill that deals with that—in terms of knocking that very important aspect of our society—it is the Easter Sunday Shop Trading Amendment Bill. 
I will read from the letter sent to all members of Parliament by the Catholic bishops who represent a view held by many New Zealanders—not only those of the Christian faith but also many people who are interested in and concerned about families and the effect of work on them. What the bishops said in the letter was this: “Much has been written and spoken lately about the disintegration of family life with financial pressure being an important contributing factor. When parents are forced to work long hours at the expense of time spent with each other and with their children we see children and young people who are left without the comfort and security of traditional family interaction. We don’t need to spell out the dire consequences that often result when young people look elsewhere for their support and for ways to spend their time. New Zealanders work some of the longest hours in the OECD countries. We believe the government should do more to promote a work/life balance. Extended shopping hours will not achieve it but the few days when shop trading is restricted provide some opportunity to strengthen and develop this balance.” 
 Well I will spell out the dire consequences that I believe come from the massive changes to the labour market and the rules we work under in this country over the last 15 to 20 years. I will do so by quoting from another report. This one is entitled  
From Wannabes to Youth Offenders: Youth Gangs in Counties Manukau 
. This is the research report that was done over about 6 or 7 months of last year as a response to several young people being killed in my community. If people do not want to take this issue seriously then they need to read this report to see why I take it extremely seriously. This is not a simple matter of some tourists on a boat being deprived of the right to shop on 2 or 3 days a year; it is about the disintegration of families as talked about by the Catholic bishops and many other social commentators. 
The report notes: “Parental disengagement: It was common for youth gang members to come from families with working parents many of whom have multiple jobs. The majority of participants drew attention to extreme work-life imbalances experienced by parents who in an effort to financially provide for their families are under stress through long work hours and as a result are not able to engage with their children.” The report talks about the financial pressures that many of these families are under and the indebtedness of them to the loan sharks who operate in our community. 
Simple questions are raised by this legislation such as where these shops that will be open will be. Under Jacqui Dean’s bill they will be everywhere. They will not be just in the tourism areas; they will be everywhere. I noticed in the  
East Coast and Bays Courier 
 recently an article about the Remuera shops. Some of the owners had just decided to open on Sundays. But I tell members that in the part of Auckland I live in the shops have been opening 7 days a week for 24 hours a day except for these 3½ days for as long as the law has allowed them. 
Who works in these shops? It is these low-paid workers—low-paid parents—whom I am talking about and whom the Catholic bishops and the researchers into gang violence are talking about. They are the ones forced to work and be out there instead of at home with their family. They are the ones who get the finger pointed at them by the judges who say the law is wrong when it is enforced and say: “I’m not going to fine this fellow because I think shops should be open.” That same judge probably gets some young guy in front of him the next day whacks him round the ears and gives him a severe penalty for breaking the law which he did because he has not had the parental guidance that people say he should have. 
That is the sort of nonsense that in my view backs up this shallow bill. It says we can just keep on liberalising and there will be no consequences. We have the consequences right now in my community and it is spreading throughout this country. We get crocodile tears from people on that side of the House who talk about an underclass and families that are dysfunctional. Why do we have dysfunctional families in this country? Does it not coincide with the fact that we have liberalised our labour market so much that there are only 3½ days of the year that low-paid workers in the retail sector can have off to spend with their family? 
Members should look at who most retail workers are. They are women. Yet under this bill will childcare facilities be required to open up to look after their kids? They are closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. In fact they are closed most weekends. I am ashamed to think we are now having to look at the idea of children’s hotels where people can drop off their kids 24/7 so that they can work. 
I do not want to live in a society that thinks that is a positive because I do not think it is a positive. I grew up in this country in the fortunate days when one parent went out to work and the other stayed at home and brought up the seven kids in our family. We were not wealthy; our father worked in low-paid jobs because he came from the Pacific Islands without an education. As a result of that upbringing my generation came through with a support that today’s generation—my grandchild and many like him—do not get because those kids are shoved into early childhood education at a very early stage. 
This bill is just one more nail in the coffin for families for the rights of workers and for the ability of families to engage with each other. Members should read the research into the youth gang problem in South Auckland. They should not put their head in the sand and say it is the parents’ fault and the parents’ problem when bosses are lining up at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to tell us they do not need flexible working hours legislation in this country because they already have flexible working hours and that if the workers do not like the flexible working hours in this job then they can go down the road and get another job. That is what people in the hospitality industry told us. They will not be paid any more as a result of this bill. There will be a restaurant next door to a supermarket and there will be two different sets of conditions for two different sets of low-paid workers under this bill and under Stevie Chadwick’s bill. I oppose both of them. 
I think it is a good time for this country to be entering into this debate about what is really pulling families apart in low-income areas to start thinking about the consequences and to do some serious thinking about what we do to resolve it. Keeping shops closed on these 3½ days is not a hardship for people; they can go out and buy things the very next day and still survive—still be alive. In many countries in this world that we go and visit happily as tourists the shops are not open at all on Sundays. Do all of those people who go to the Pacific and enjoy their lovely holidays there question the culture and say they will not go there again because the shops were not open on Sundays? We actually enjoy it because of the relaxed nature of those societies. 
I am deadly serious about this. I challenge members who say this bill is about the right to shop to think about the right for families to spend time together. If they say there should be no such right then they had better start facing up to the problems that are confronting us in South Auckland Hamilton Hastings Porirua and just about every province of this country where people are forced into 24/7 jobs—sometimes multiple low-paid jobs—and more and more of their conditions are being stripped away. 
I have been given an employee contract of a large employer coming into being in Auckland soon—the labs that lab testing is going to be contracted out to—and the contract makes it compulsory to work on a public holiday. That is the sort of thing that employers up and down this country now expect as a norm. 
I say it is time to turn back the clock and get some understanding of the impact of such things on the labour market. That member over there David Bennett shakes his head because he would not have a clue. He should start facing up to the consequences of the massive changes to this society and what is causing it and not just blame the parents. He should start to look for the real causes—as the researchers Catholic bishops and so many thinking people in this country have done—then we will have a proper debate about this sort of bill. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker.