It's open all hours for some shops

By JOHN ARMSTRONG political editor

Shop doors could soon be allowed to open on Christmas Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Anzac Day morning in tourist towns and holiday resorts as the Government grapples with anomalies in present shop trading laws.

But retailers will have to satisfy strict criteria before being granted an exemption to trade on those days.

They will have to show that an exemption is necessary to meet public demand.

The power to grant exemptions will rest solely with the Minister of Labour, rather than with departmental officials.

The law change, being promoted by Labour Minister Margaret Wilson, is expected to be in place by next Easter, presuming parliamentary support for the legislation which has Labour and Alliance backing.

The move follows last-minute efforts in Parliament this year that allowed garden centres to open at Easter.

Although the latest change may seem the thin end of the wedge allowing widespread trading on public holidays, the Alliance said last night that it had ensured the new law would be tight enough to ensure exemptions were the exception not the rule.

"The Alliance were not cheerleaders for liberalising shop trading hours," Alliance MP and Associate Labour Minister Laila Harre told the Herald.

"But having been advised in no uncertain terms by Labour that they intended to prepare legislation, we took the approach that we would rather they engage with us on the detail so that we could narrow the scope of the liberalisation."

She said that if the Government had been forced to engage with National and Act, wider liberalisation was likely.

"Shops or shopping areas will have to show they are disproportionately disadvantaged by not being able to open on a particular day."

Margaret Wilson agreed Auckland would probably have some difficulty "as a city" in meeting the criteria, as it was not seen as a holiday resort.

She said the law change was necessary to address inconsistencies in the present law.

Under the Shop Trading Hours Act 1990, it is illegal for retailers to open on Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Christmas Day and before 1 pm on Anzac Day unless they are dairies, petrol stations or chemists.

Some exemptions for those restricted days granted under the previous 1977 law were frozen under the 1990 legislation and this means some tourist areas, such as Queenstown and Taupo are allowed to open and others, like Mt Maunganui and Rotorua, are not.

There is no mechanism in the present law to allow those resorts to trade.

In determining exemptions, the minister will also consider:

* Whether the retailer's business is disproportionately affected by restrictions on trading due to a heavy reliance on holiday trade

* The nature of the area in which the shop or shops are situated

* Public demand

* Any effect the granting of the exemption might have on family and other social patterns

* The interests of the occupiers of other shops

* The interests of employees.

Employees will have the right to refuse to work on any of the days for which exemptions are granted.

Act's finance spokesman Rodney Hide, who is promoting his own shop trading hours bill, said Margaret Wilson's scheme reeked of Muldoonism and cronyism.

National Distribution Union spokesman Peter Monteith said the union favoured a blanket ban on shops opening on the days in question.

He said the proposed changes threatened the right of retail staff to enjoy traditional family holidays.

"The best protection for retail workers is for shops not to open."

Confusion over defining tourist areas could lead to more and more shops opening, he said.

"The whole of New Zealand is a tourist destination, so what does that mean?

"Downtown Auckland has the highest concentration of tourists at any one time - does that mean downtown should be open on Christmas Day?"