Yet another attempt to extend shop trading hours was introduced in the House today. Todd McLay put forward the Shop Trading Hours Act 1990 Repeal (Easter Sunday Local Choice) Amendment Bill. The Bill sought to provide for Council by- laws allowing trading on Easter Sunday in their area. And of course it was only for areas where people want shops to open (which people?) and of course it was a matter of choice for all – workers, shop owners and local areas. Yeah right!
We already have one of the most liberal shop trading regimes in the world. We can shop 361 and half days a year. Since 1990 that means we can shop 24 hours a day including on 51 out of 52 Sundays and every public holiday except Good Friday, Christmas Day and the morning of Anzac Day. But that is not enough! Tourists going to Rotorua on Easter weekend are of course wanting to shop on Easter Sunday and their whole experience of the wonderful cultural and natural environment are spoiled currently by being unable to do so.
Easter is a very significant time for New Zealanders. It has religious significance, family significance and community significance. Think here of all the reunions and tournaments that take place at Easter. Retail workers are not an insignificant group of workers – 270,000 people who also want to share in the events that take place over Easter. Supposedly they would have a choice whether they will work on Easter Sunday under this legislation because it says workers cannot be required to work on Easter Sunday. Well as Lynne Pillay said and as many retail workers know it is not an equal relationship between retail workers and their employers. There are many reasons why workers will feel pressured to work if their shop is open. Most shops have very tight staffing levels, often work is highly casualised with people seeking to get more permanent hours, there are many young workers (65% of workers under 18 years of age work in retail) who often don’t know their rights or are not particularly confident in asserting their rights. Those who don’t agree know they will be told they aren’t team players and of course many workers feel pressured to work because they know if they don’t that they are putting pressure on their workmates. Despite what many people think Easter Sunday is not a public holiday so there is not the same reward for working on Easter Sunday.
And 5 minutes ago it was voted down 59 for and 62 against. A victory!
I completely agree, people can shop anytime why should the retailers have to disappoint their kids just so that Joe Bored can go and buy some crap?
And a good result. I hate to see the erosion of family holiday time by the retail greed that seems to have become too common. Sorry shopkeepers, but the opportunity for families to spend time together is too valuable to be stolen in the name of extra shopping days. That is not what community is about.
Darn you Spud!! I thought I had won.
LOL
We must have been typing at the same time 
Good to see that we agree on this too.
And from different sides of the political spectrum I gather!!
Yes, I dare say we are.
When I was traveling through Europe I did not feel deprived by not being able to engage in commerce on Sunday. I was instead obliged to investigate some of the non commercial aspects of the place, resulting in a unique experience. It was nice and quiet; you got the feeling that people were with their families. This amendment is capitalism gone mad.
Was it a conscience vote or did ACT vote nay?
@Gooner. Conscience, I believe. Garrett in his speech said perhaps jovially that he had proxies for his fellows who had made up their mind individually and were all voting for the bill
Great result! The very concept seems to have nothing going for it apart from the chance to throw a bit of capo weight around. Even shop owners who don’t want to work on that day feel pressured to open if “everybody else is” and tourists don’t come here primarily for the shopping, but for the natural beauty and the adventure.
As a snotty wee reporter back in the seventies, I wrote a story using my local corner hardware shop owner. We stacked up the stuff you could buy on a weekday and which you were not allowed to buy on a weekend. For example, on a Saturday morning (shops shut at midday, by law), you could buy a hammer but not nails, a paint brush but not paint, a small can of baked beans but not a large one and so on. I recall Muldoon saying around that time, as agitation grew for sane retail law, that if people wanted to buy hardware on a Saturday morning they should have thought of that during the preceding week and planned accordingly.
I remember thinking, what a dork. Why the hell does a politician bother to dictate shop opening hours? Customers, surely, should be able to shop or not to shop. I spent 25 years working rostered weekends and nights and weekdays. I feel in no way diminished.
Politicians dictating my shopping habits? 30 years after the Muldoon stupidity, I still don’t get it.
I think they should go one step further. Why should shops decide whether they open, it should be criminal offence to shop at the stores that open then in breach of the laws.
@John LOL
Now those laws sound retarded.
@john .. I remember those days as well, you are too young spud. I think there may have been a rule about vegies as well .. oh, and the 6 O’clock swill.
There will be workers out there deprived of earning extra earnings .. mmm?
@ j, abba – yep I’m too young
I’ve heard about some time in the past, not quite sure when, the pubs would close early so men had to chuck back as much liquor as they could before they left, is that the swill?
sure is bud spud .. i used to get left in the Austin7 outside getting 1, and if lucky 2, raspberry and lemonades.
LOL