Lees-Galloway IainIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I would like to start this contribution around clause 10. I wish to do that to respond primarily to the comments made by Melissa Lee earlier on during this Committee stage. Clause 10 amends section 3 of the principal legislation. Section 3 is about what days shops may not open and they are Anzac Day morning Good Friday Easter Sunday and Christmas Day. The reason I refer to clause 10 which amends section 3 of the principal Act is that Melissa Lee said that New Zealand is increasingly made up of people of a diverse range of religions not just Christian. Indeed I would add that a lot of people are of no practising faith whatsoever. Personally I am thoroughly out of practice with the religion that I was brought up in.Carmel Sepuloni: I'm not.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Carmel Sepuloni is not actually and that is a good point. Carmel Sepuloni a good friend of mine I know is not out of practice as a woman of faith. If Simon O'Connor wants to back up that incredibly sanctimonious interjection he made earlier on he should get to his feet and make a contribution. Melissa Lee made a good point. We are an increasingly diverse society so that is an interesting context through which to look at this bill. I refer to clause 10 because out of the days that we have set aside as the days that shops should not open—Good Friday Easter Sunday Christmas Day and Anzac Day morning—three of those are Christian festivals. I asked Melissa Lee: if the reason to vote in favour of this legislation and to vote in favour of this particular clause is that New Zealand is increasingly diverse then why not allow shop trading on Good Friday and Christmas Day? They are Christian festivals as much as Easter Sunday is. So by that logic surely we should be actually expanding this legislation beyond Easter Sunday and allowing shop trading on those other days as well. That would be a step too far for most New Zealanders I think. That is not because they are Christian festivals but because we have decided as a nation to set aside some days that are for families and for communities—some days that working people can be assured that they do not have to go to work. That is why I am opposing this legislation; not from any religious perspective but because I believe that as a country we should set aside some days where working people know for certain that they are not going to be required to work and they can spend that time with their family and they can spend that time with their community—and actually having shared days when everybody has the day off work is really important for building communities. A lot of organisations—yes Christian organisations but other community organisations—rely on those days to bring their community together. I know this view is different from others such as Simon O'Connor's but to me it has little to do with religion. It is about families and about communities and about setting aside some days. If this Committee was prepared to have a debate about setting aside different days I would be interested in engaging with that debate. But that is not a debate that we ever have. We only ever have a debate about reducing the number of days that are set aside for families and communities. The National Government has not proposed anything to expand the number of days that are available to families and communities—no. This bill proposes to reduce the number of days that are available to family and community. It is important that workers have that ability to say This is a day that I am not going to work." I know that Government members and members opposite would say that this legislation allows workers to refuse to work on those days but we have heard from other members about the power imbalance between the employer and the employee—about the fact that most people working in shops are on low wages their hours are insecure and they basically need to keep in the manager's good books to make sure that they keep getting the hours that they need to make ends meet. So even though to the letter of the law they are allowed to turn down those hours on Easter Sunday the truth is that they will feel compelled to work on those days that are currently set aside for them to spend time with their families. I want to refer particularly to new section 5JA inserted by clause 15 in Supplementary Order Paper 179 which falls under Subpart 2—"Shop employee rights". New section 5JA I am opposing because it assumes that there is no power imbalance between the employer and the employee. It appears to have been written in by the Minister as a counterbalance to the fact that the employer must make the employee aware of the fact that they have the right not to work on Easter Sunday. It seems as though the Minister has said: "Well no that's not right that the employee has that right; we have to confer some rights on to the employer as well." So what 5JA does is it makes it a requirement that employees inform their employer in writing no more than 14 days after their employer has made them aware of the fact that they are able to refuse work on Easter Sunday. They have to tell them in writing that they intend to refuse work on Easter Sunday. It has to be delivered in person to the employer or sent by email or if a manner of giving notice is specified in that specified manner of giving notices. That is incredibly prescriptive and should an employee fail to do that and is then in some way coerced into working on an Easter Sunday that gives the employer an out. That is incredibly inappropriate. It absolutely ignores something that is written into our employment legislation—that there is an inherent imbalance between the employer and the employee. So even though National members say that this legislation assures workers of their rights and assures workers of their right to refuse to work on Easter Sunday they have still managed to find a way to write in an opportunity to trip up workers and to make them vulnerable to unscrupulous or coercive employers. But that is the National Party way. It is the kind of thing that we expect from it. This is why it is so important that we do set aside days where workers know they are not required to go to work. I do not care whether they are Christian festivals whether they are Hindu festivals whether they are Muslim festivals or any other kind of religious festival. I would prefer them to be Matariki Waitangi Day and other days that are more relevant to New Zealand but I do not care how we come to choose what those days are. I just believe that we need to set aside some dates to recognise that family is important and that community is important. As Grant Robertson said we hear many many lectures from members opposite about the importance of strong families and how you build strong families. Well you build strong families and strong communities by spending time together. Surely as a nation we can see the benefit of actually giving people some legislated rights to spend time with their families and their communities."