Every day is a holiday with this government in charge
CLERK: Public Holidays Amendment Bill in the name of the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern.
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): I have the honour of introducing this Bill which reflects intense reaction to this Government’s recent announcement that Matariki or the Maori New Year will become a public holiday from 2022, just before the next election. I am pleased to tell the House that more than a dozen petitions praying for more public holidays have been lodged. In a nationwide campaign the South Canterbury Irish Society alone have gathered 230,000 signatures, many of them illegible or simply an x, calling for St Patrick’s Day to be a public holiday. Monserrat is the only country apart from Ireland to have a day off on St Patrick’s Day and our stated policy has always been to stay ahead of Montserrat.
INTERJECTION: Where?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Montserrat. Which as the honourable member should know is in the Caribbean Sea, at least it will be until it succumbs to global warming. A problem the National Party is ignoring.
INTERJECTION: Shame!
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Honourable members know our Asian population is almost as large as our Maori population and thus I have scheduled the Chinese New Year as a public holiday. It will start on February 1 next year, the Year of the Tiger. And I don’t have to remind honourable members just how important the tiger is to our national identity.
Naturally, there has been strong support for St Andrew’s Day and St David’s Day to be added to the list and I am happy to do so. My own name has English connections and I have, on behalf of Mum and Dad, nominated St George’s Day as a public holiday.
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition): Point of order, Mr Speaker. How can the prime minister justify such an extravagant increase in public holidays when, as is well known, her government is leading the country into financial disaster with policies which do nothing to increase productivity and also cripple the business sector with high taxes and unnecessary paperwork?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: If the honourable member will restrain herself for just a moment, I can assure the House that the proposed public holidays will be welcomed by business leaders, many of whom are embarrassed by their exorbitant profits and are clamouring for some way of relieving the burden on their hardworking labour force.
INTERJECTION: Rubbish!
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Well may that honourable member, who has never done a day’s work in his life, interrupt with ‘‘Rubbish!’’, but I can tell that member that what I am saying is exactly what I’m told when ordinary people, our people, come up to me in the street. If honourable members turn to the First Schedule of the Bill, they will find the full list of 22 new public holidays, all of which recognise the great contribution made to New Zealand by our people in our multicultural society. Every New Zealander deserves a special day, and I am sure this House will support this Bill wholeheartedly.
DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader — Act): Mr Speaker, I rise to partly support the measures proposed in this Bill. That I have not risen to my full height is because I wonder if it goes far enough. I have read the First Schedule and find at least one serious omission. In my own electorate there are deserving Kiwis who will miss out.
INTERJECTION: Name one!
DAVID SEYMOUR: Very well. Mrs Sahiba Asadov, of Disraeli St, Epsom, has been in this country for more than a month and will be devastated to know that the International
Solidarity Day of Azerbaijanis has not been included.
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I can assure the honourable member that Mrs Asadov and the other 14 Azerbaijanis in New Zealand have not been ignored. The day he mentions falls on December 31 and the number of public holidays at that time is quite enough to be going on with. As well, that day is the birth date of Bonnie Prince Charlie and he must take precedence.
SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the prime minster, but the time has come for me to leave the chair. The House will resume the day after tomorrow at 2.30. Members will note that tomorrow is a public holiday to mark the Feast of St Fiacre, the Patron Saint of Sexually Transmitted Diseases.