Street Maryan: Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Waitaki Easter Trading) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Street Maryan: Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Waitaki Easter Trading) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 27 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3479. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak to Jacqui Dean’s bill the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Waitaki Easter Trading) Amendment Bill. I want to acknowledge the contribution of the member for Taupo Louise Upston earlier. It was a respectful contribution and respectful contributions will always be greeted respectfully. I do understand the issues that Louise Upston raised in respect of tourism areas and they have been raised frequently in the context of the shop trading hours bills that have been put forward from time to time. 
Jacqui Dean and I came into Parliament in the same year and we served on the Commerce Committee for the first couple of years of our first term. This issue was raised not only by her but also by Steve Chadwick on behalf of the people in Rotorua as well. We tried under the chairpersonship of Katherine Rich at that time to make some sense of the legislation because if anything is a dog’s breakfast in our legislative statutes the shop trading hours legislation is a dog’s breakfast. As the Green member mentioned a moment ago there are a range of things that are available and a range of things that are not available on any particular public holiday. 
We struggled for some time on that select committee in 2006 and 2007 to get some consistency. And one of the ways that we thought of getting some consistency which members of Parliament could then according to their own consciences vote up or down was by adding to the new schedule every single territorial authority in the country so that every territorial authority could then decide whether it was in the interests of their people and their businesses whether or not they opened on public holidays. I thought that was quite an elegant solution and it put it back to local authorities so that they could then determine how things would work best in their area. 
But unfortunately this bill does not advance us anywhere with shop trading hours and the mishmash that it currently is. I want to give one example. I am familiar with the countryside that the member represents. I am not familiar with exactly the streets that the boundary goes down but if I give the example of Nelson the Nelson City Council and the Tasman District Council sit side by side. In fact they sit so side by side that their boundary is the middle of Champion Road. On the one side of Champion Road is Nelson City Council; on the other side of Champion Road is Tasman District Council. Is there anywhere in the member’s electorate where on one side of the electorate boundary part of the Central Otago District Council will have shops and businesses and on the other side of the member’s electorate boundary the Central Otago District Council will have shops and businesses? On one side they will be allowed to open and on the other side they will not. 
So confining this to the boundary of the electorate which is what the general policy statement at the front of the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Waitaki Easter Trading) Amendment Bill says does not help the situation. It says: “The purpose of the Bill is to allow all retailers within districts covered by the Waitaki Electorate to trade on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.” I suspect—although I do not know for sure and I would be interested if the member would address this point—that there would be shops on different sides of roads that are separated by the electorate boundary. That is one of the difficulties that we face in trying to get some consistency in this area around shop trading. 
There are all sorts of other objections which my colleagues have raised also. Whether it is worker protections family time or religious observances all of those are quite legitimate reasons for people to choose to vote for or against the bill. But I have to say to the member who has brought this bill to the House in good faith—trying to represent issues of concern within her electorate—that it does not help improve the dog’s breakfast that is the shop trading hours regulations and laws. It makes it a dog’s breakfast plus one. For that reason and because I am inherently very pragmatic about these things I will vote against it. Thank you.