Bradford Sue: Rotorua District (Easter Sunday Shop Trading) Bill — Second Reading 
Bradford Sue: Rotorua District (Easter Sunday Shop Trading) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:4446] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 Even though a conscience vote will be taken this afternoon all nine Green Party MPs will be voting against the bill today. All of us support the position taken by some members of the Commerce Committee that although the law in this area is anomalous and in urgent need of review this bill is not the way to deal with it. Like those committee members the National Distribution Union the Council of Trade Unions and the New Zealand Retailers Association we believe that the most sensible thing to do now is to allow the working-group that has been set up to address anomalies in shop trading law to get on with the job and complete its work. The point at which the working-group’s work is finished will be the time for new legislation—which we will look at again of course. It is simply jumping the gun and somewhat silly to pass a law now that will only add to the inconsistencies and discrepancies inherent in the existing situation. 
The current legislation on shop trading is inequitable anomalous and outdated. If this bill is passed it will continue those inequities by extending an exemption from shop trading regulations on Easter Sunday to the Rotorua District. There is neither rhyme nor reason for the list of localities that have historically been allowed to open on Easter Sunday; and perpetuating the happenstance patchwork of exemptions is not the way to go. As well as the process issues involved there are also the feelings of the affected workers church people and businesses to take into consideration. In March 2002 the National Distribution Union undertook a survey of non - food shop trading patterns on a particular Sunday—not of course on Easter Sunday—in Rotorua to see how many shops were open. Of the shops surveyed 61 percent were closed and 39 percent were open giving the lie to the contention that the majority of retailers in Rotorua actually want to be open all Easter. 
An article in the  
Rotorua Review 
 in the same period cites the representative of a local retailers group as saying that although some shops are quite keen to open on Easter Sunday “others don’t want to as they won’t open on Sunday anyway.” The same article goes on to cite a survey carried out by the Rotorua Chamber of Commerce which showed only limited support for Easter Sunday trading. The executive officer of the chamber Mark Watson is quoted as saying that 44 percent of businesses that responded to the survey actually disagreed with the concept. Rotorua church leaders were also canvassed for their opinion and all spoke of the need for workers to have time off and for families to have time together at times like Easter and Christmas. Of course they also stressed the significance of those particular days being two of the most important festivals in the Christian calendar. Although many people in our society these days are not Christian I think we should still respect those major days. But above all and beyond the feelings of Christian churches and local businesses the Green Party believes that it is the voice of affected workers that must be heard in this debate. 
The union that represents shop workers does not want this bill to go through. The broader union movement as represented by the Council of Trade Unions does not want this bill to go through. There are very few days left on which workers can count on being entitled to a day off and Easter Sunday is one of them. I would hope that every Labour and pro-union member in this House would support the union call for greater work-life balance. The last 2 decades have stripped away many of the former protections that employed workers had. It is worth making a stand on the few that are left. All workers including retail workers must have some guaranteed days off so that they can spend time with their families for recreational reasons and of course for religious reasons if they are that way inclined. 
The Green Party continues to resist any further erosion of workers’ hours of work and statutory holidays and patterns of work that are disrupting people’s ability to participate in family social sporting religious and cultural life. The Green Party will be voting against this bill. The matters it contains should be dealt with more properly by the shop trading hours working-group so that in the end we have workable consistent law that will be supported by both retailers and unions and not another haphazard piece of legislation that will only add to the manifest inconsistencies already so apparent in this area.