SpeechMARJA LUBECK (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'm pleased to be taking a call on this bill. Kia orana I should say. So we're talking about the Repeal of Good Friday and Easter Sunday as Restricted Trading Days (Shop Trading and Sale of Alcohol) Amendment Bill by my colleague Chris Baillie.First up I would like to congratulate Chris Baillie on his good fortune of getting this bill drawn out of the ballot. But like my Labour colleague before me Jamie Strange has already said we will not be able to support this bill. As has been said already this bill is aimed at removing the restriction on selling alcohol on the two statutory holidays around Easter time. Parliament has in fact dealt with this particular issue several times already. I did a little bit of digging into this issue and I believe that in the last 20 years this is roughly the 12th time that this kind of bill considering Easter trading has come before the House.Now my colleague Jamie Strange spoke about Saturday trading commencing in I believe was it 1980 and when I first came to New Zealand in 1989 I remember that most shops could not trade on Sundays. They were actually closed nine out of the 11 public holidays at the time. Now of course they can trade 51 out of 52 Sundays and restricted shop trading applies to only 3½ days in the year—that's all that there's left. My colleague Jamie Strange already mentioned those days so I won't go over those again. Also of course some shops can open with some conditions attached if they have an area exemption or an Easter Sunday local policy.Now the explanatory note of the member's bill reads The bill retains the existing employee protections under the Shop Trading Hours Act 1990 that apply in respect of Easter Sunday and extends these protections to Good Friday."I also remember the member in charge of this bill stating that employees should be allowed to work. Now if anything that shows a total lack of understanding of the real world. Many workers in these retail shops are young they're in their first job they're on casualised jobs they're on minimum wage and they're often required to work seven days in any given week days or nights weekends public holidays. It's open slather.These young casualised workers often don't have the knowledge about their employee rights. They will not know that they could say no to the boss for working on an Easter weekend. Even if they did many of them would not feel empowered to do so. So in reality a vulnerable worker in these industries would fear potentially repercussions for their employment relationships if they were not to agree to work on any of these days.Now my colleague mentioned it before: Easter remains a significant holiday in New Zealand and some workers would prefer not to work on these days. Since its origins Easter has been a time of celebrating of feasting traditional Easter games egg colouring egg hunting—I'm sure all of us have participated in it with our whānau. Also of course many sporting events and social events take place over the Easter weekend. It is an opportunity for many of the workers to get together with the whānau and enjoy a bit of time off; take time out.Apart from all of that the employee's right to refuse to work on Easter Sunday in the Shop Trading Hours Act—and that this bill would extend to Good Friday—creates also an inconsistency in the Holidays Act. I see I'm running out of time so perhaps someone else can pick up that thread and explain a little bit more about that.But the effects of this bill on our society are that it takes time away from our families it takes time away from people to spend time with their children and it takes time away from our communities. It does all that in the name of choice self-determination; it basically places sales before any of the other important values in our communities.I will be voting against this bill and will be standing with workers employed in the approximately 2500 off-licence holders in New Zealand who no doubt don't want their guaranteed days off during Easter taken away. So I do not support this bill. Thank you."