Alexander Marc: Shop Trading Hours (Easter Trading Local Exemption) Bill — First Reading 
Alexander Marc: Shop Trading Hours (Easter Trading Local Exemption) Bill — First Reading 
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MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
: 
 I rise as a member of United Future to talk about the Shop Trading Hours (Easter Trading Local Exemption) Bill. I am sorry to say that we are not all in agreement over this bill but two of us will certainly be voting in favour of it. Personally I wonder why it has taken so long for this bill to look as if it will go to the next stage. I think that this bill has been a long time coming. We have had other bills that have tried to do the same sort of thing and every time there has been a strange stumbling block about why shops should or should not open. What really amazes me is that we are even having this discussion at all. Surely it is the right of employers and employees to decide when where and what they will open and for whom. They make the decisions; they make the money. There is no risk for the Government or for anybody other than satisfying the needs of members of a local population who choose with their wallets to come and visit the premises. It seems to me that we are really encountering a certain geographic discrimination. 
It is all right as Rodney Hide has pointed out for shops to be open in certain parts of the country and not in other parts. That is geographic discrimination. Quite frankly every business should be allowed to open any damn day it chooses whether that is Easter Christmas or the middle of the night. I could not care less. It is the business owners’ business it is their right to open and it is the public’s right to decide whether they will go in and spend their money. 
We listened to an extraordinary contribution from the Green member who talked about some higher principle. It seems to me that the only higher principle that he likes is his own. He wants to ban the opportunity for people to choose to go to a shop on Easter Sunday and spend their money. So it is a higher principle that he adheres to but he denies the opportunity for everybody else to have their higher principles that might conflict with his. 
 One of the things that really strikes me as being absurd is why do we not allow employers and employees to be able to have freedom of choice on when they want to work and also to choose when and how to be a family if that is the flipside of the coin? We do not always have to decide that Saturdays and Sundays are times for family and that the rest of the time is a time for work. Different families have different requirements and different needs. 
I had shift work for many many years and I chose not to take Saturday and Sunday off because I did not want to be off work when everybody else was. I wanted to have a clear run when going to the shops or to the theatre or cinema and so it was very very valuable for me to be able to choose the time I wanted to have off. So why discriminate against that freedom of choice? And why discriminate between one group of employees and another? The police are still working hospitals are working and the hospitality industry is still running. So not only is there geographic discrimination but also the type of business that one is in becomes discriminated against—but for what reason? Hospitality is not an essential item. People can buy food the day before and cook at home but we think there should be an exemption for the hospitality industry. Why should there not be an exemption for every other thing? We sometimes want to buy books on a Sunday Saturday or any other day and it seems ridiculous to have a mandate that says we cannot. 
Besides this Government should be in favour of more wealth creation if for no reason other than its predatory desire to keep plundering the wealth of those who create it in the first place. So I would assume that Labour is in favour of this bill. 
This bill also touches only the tip of the iceberg because there are other days in the year too that should be left up to both employers and employees to decide for themselves how when and where they choose to open for business. Let the public choose with their wallets and let us not have an edict from on high based on the prejudices and ideologies of the few.