Coddington Deborah: Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Act (Abolition of Restrictions) Amendment Bill — Consideration of Report of Commerce Committee 
Coddington Deborah: Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Act (Abolition of Restrictions) Amendment Bill — Consideration of Report of Commerce Committee 
[Volume:616;Page:11986] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 I rise to support this bill. It is a tribute to a former ACT MP Patricia Schnauer who worked very hard and had great success in getting this to the House. The bill is not as she originally introduced it; it has come a long way since then. I am pleased that we will at least be getting Easter Sunday trading and removing the ridiculous exemptions for tourist areas. We often hear members—even members on the Government side of the House—proudly stand up and say that the whole of New Zealand is a tourist area now. It is simply archaic to have some areas designated as tourist areas and some areas not. 
I have been sitting listening to this debate and I have been astounded at what some people think constitutes compulsion. It is not compulsory to open one’s retail business just because other people do. One does not have to. Compulsion means that there is legislation making it mandatory or that someone is holding a gun to one’s head. We heard the member from the Green Party saying that he was forced to open his little retail business and did not get to see his children playing sport. Opening the retail business was his choice. Nobody made him do it. 
We have heard a lot of talk about family values and how Sunday trading—at Easter only—will lead to the breakdown of the family and the destruction of family life. I have several things to say about that as a mother myself. Sometimes mothers actually like to get away from their families. Sometimes they like to go to work. Work is not a chore. Some people enjoy their work whether it be working in a retail shop waitressing working in a bookshop or whatever. They do not see it as demeaning but as something they can take pride in do well and contribute to their family life by passing on certain values that go with turning up for work and holding down a responsible job. Those are mores and values that people should pass on to their children not leave—as is the state now—to teachers and schools to try to instil those sorts of social values that make up a civil society. There are all sorts of aspects of family life and it is up to families to choose for themselves what constitutes a good family life. 
We have a situation in this country right now where parents are working at three jobs—not just one income as they used to be able to live on and not two but three. Mothers are working fathers are working and they are both working to bring up their families full time. Why is that? They are working to support not just their families but somebody else’s family as well—because they are being taxed far too much. If they were on a flat tax they would have so much more of their own income to take home and spend how they liked. If they choose to support other families then so be it. But the crucial issue in New Zealand at the moment is the tax on working families. That is why some members talk about being forced to go out and work. The only thing that is forcing them to go out and work is having to pay the high taxes that this Government has taken off them and used to build up a huge surplus. Why? Because it is ideologically opposed to people who earn $60000 or more—they are considered rich. It is “all aboard the Labour Government gravy train” and that is what is killing family life in this country—not Easter Sunday trading. 
As someone who has huge respect for Christian values I do not see that this legislation is an insult to those values at all. People will still be free to go to church on Easter Sunday if they want to. This bill does not bring trading in for Good Friday or Christmas Day. It is not denigrating Christian values at all. I see it as a boon for people who are on low incomes and who want to earn a bit more money and for students who want to supplement their income. I support this bill.