New Brighton Shopping Hours

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29226, 9 June 1960, Page 14

New Brighton Shopping Hours

The poll of shop assistants organised by the Avon branch of the Social Credit League has given useful information on the question of New Brighton’s shopping hours. Opponents of Saturday opening in New Brighton have often contended that it is unfair to shop assistants. The poll taken on Saturday was admittedly incomplete, for unavoidable reasons; but the 147 who voted were a good proportion of New Brighton shop assistants. With 128 votes in favour of Saturday shopping and 19 against, the decision appears to demolish any suggestion that those who ■work in New Brighton do not approve of the present shopping hours.

This expression of opinion is timely because it seems that in the coming session Parliament must either amend the Shops and Offices Act or allow Saturday shopping in New Brighton to end. The present difficulty arises from the Government’s action in setting up a one-man tribunal to obtain uniformity throughout the country in exemptions granted under the act. The tribunal can override decisions made earlier by other magistrates if they conflict with the tribunal’s interpretation of the law, and there is no appeal against such a decision. At a hearing of applications for exemptions in Christchurch in February the tribunal (Mr H. J. Thompson), though not giving actual decisions on any applications for revoking New Brighton exemptions, made it plain what his decision would be. He would not -egard New Brighton as a seaside resort but as a suburb of Christchurch, and shop-closing hours would be the same in New Brighton as in other suburbs throughout the country. If Mr Thompson has interpreted correctly what the law says, the law does not say what the Legislature intended it to say. The New Brighton shopping privilege was granted freely after full consideration in 1941 and 1945 (under a Labour Government), in 1955 (under the Holland Government), and, by implication, last year (again under a Labour Government).

When an attempt was made by some Labour members of the Christchurch City Council in 1955 to close New Brighton shops on Saturday it was defeated because the then Labour Mayor (Mr Macfarlane), the present Minister of Transport (Mr Mathison), and the Minister of Social Security (Miss Howard) voted against it. Said Mr Mathison, member of Parliament for the electorate that includes New Brighton: “An undertaking was given “ [by the late Mr D. G. Sullivan “when the borough was amal“gamated with the city]. There “was no time limit, and it was “ implemented by the Labour “ Government’s amending act in “ 1945. ... A solemn under- “ taking had been given without “tags”. When the National Party Government gave the law more general application in 1955 Mr Mathison said: “I am “grateful for clause 44, which “... is designed, as I under- “ stand it, to retain the concession [for New Brighton]. “. . . I say it is more of a “ seaside resort than it ever “ was ”. This understanding may have been responsible for the fact that Mr Mathison did not intervene in the debate last year when Parliament was discussing with the Minister in charge of the amending bill (Mr Hackett) possible effects of the establishment of the one-man tribunal, for on that occasion Mr Hackett said: “In the main “we are dealing with shops at “beaches and pleasure resorts “. . . the Government has no “idea of depriving the people “at beaches and pleasure “ resorts of the opportunity to “ shop ”. Mr Thompson cannot take judicial notice of this and other remarks; he must interpret the act as it is written. But as the public see it, the intention of the Legislature was clear; and the public would regard it as reprehensible if Parliament did not make this intention legally effective. Mr Mathison, who is sure to be in the forefront of any fight—in Parliament or within the Labour Party—to retain New Brighton’s privilege, must be grateful for the additional strength the shop assistants’ poll gives to his case.