STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) Link to this
I move, That the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. The retailers in Rotorua who were prosecuted when they supported a Jambalaya Festival in 2005 may have to wait until next Easter for the choice to trade. The passing of this bill this year will require a herculean effort of goodwill across the House and may take yet another year to get right. If we had passed this bill prior to Easter, 1 month ago today, some districts would still not have been able to trade under the provisions of this bill, due to the need to consult their communities.
Although this is annoying for us in Rotorua as we feel so frustratingly close to achieving an even playing field, what does one more year mean to us when we have been technically locked out as a community for 17 years? The current muddled legislation has resulted in both unjust and unnecessary constraints on all but 15 geographical locations that have been granted an exemption since 1990 to trade in a mix and muddle of days, locations, and the sorts of products that can be sold. This created an uneven playing field for areas omitted from the schedule of exemptions and froze the ability for locations such as ourselves wishing to trade to apply, because the Shop Trading Hours Commission was disbanded on the passing of the 1990 Act.
As legislators it is our responsibility to ensure that laws are just and necessary. The irregularities created by the geographic exemptions simply mean that some areas can make the most of Easter Sunday trading while others must close their doors. Exclusion of Rotorua continues to irk us. Figures show that guest nights during the Easter period peak in the Rotorua region and, almost without exception, accommodation providers in Rotorua will say that it is their busiest weekend throughout the year. Some will not even accept a booking of less than 3 nights, and in some instances they put a premium price on rooms because demand is so high. Many will be booked 100 percent 3 weeks out from Easter, and 100 percent are completely booked out by the Thursday afternoon before Easter weekend. The visitor numbers increase by 10,000 in commercial accommodation alone and the population of our community swells from 70,000 to 90,000. It is common for there to be no accommodation in Rotorua and many are turned away as far as Hamilton.
Easter in Rotorua is particularly popular for domestic visitors on short breaks visiting friends and family. Event organisers like to hold events in Rotorua on Easter weekend because there are so many people around. No doubt these events draw even more people to the city than there are otherwise. We did not bother to hold an event this year after the 2005 experience. Lincoln University research shows that tourism contributes more than $830 million annually to the Rotorua economy and that one in six of our locals are employed in tourism.
This bill has been endorsed by Local Government New Zealand, the New Zealand Chamber of Commerce, and the Retailers Association. The bill was drafted by the district council after much consideration. I am slightly frustrated to sponsor yet another attempt to fix up the current messy law, which even judges have said is difficult to interpret. The current Act is odd. There are no restrictions on gambling or selling alcohol in cafes or restaurants on Easter Sunday. It is outdated. Petrol stations can open, and now they can sell a far wider range of products than in the 1990s—books, CDs, food, fishing tackle—but other retailers cannot open. It is also patently unfair.
There have been many attempts to amend the anomalies in Easter trading since Katherine O’Regan introduced a bill to fix Easter Sunday trading in 1996. Here we are, 11 years later. I attempted to address Easter Sunday trading in 2003. That bill fixed up trading for Rotorua only, so it was rather parochial, and it was lost by 10 votes.