Councillor Efeso Collins is 100% right on Easter Trading

I back my good friend and hopefully future leader of NZ one day, Councillor Efeso Collins, in his righteous smack down of Easter trading laws in Auckland on The AM Show this morning.

The moaning from retailers that they can’t open the cash registers and worship the consumer culture of consumption over Easter bores me immensely because I’ve always believed that public holidays should be mandatory.

It’s not that I really care about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, it’s that I care deeply about the need for us all to put down tools as citizens on specific days and all of us venture out into our amazing public spaces and be friendly with one another.

The importance of our civility in public towards one another, the importance of being tolerant of each other while sharing the same space and the importance to actually stop working and enjoy doing nothing but spend time with our family, friends and whanau would do more to building that sense of nationhood than any other policy could.

As citizens, we have earned the right to have days off, and we need to hold onto this right and understand it is the universal application that is so important. It’s the need to share our beaches and out door spaces together on these days that builds bonds between families and groups of people who would never otherwise meet in their busy 9-5, 5-9 lives.

For those public servants forced to work while the rest of us play, the media should be full of ‘spare a thought for’ type stories so that our public servants who must continue to staff essential services while the rest of us relax are given the respect and admiration they deserve for their selfless functions.

That sense of self identity and nationhood that we always whine about not being present during Waitangi Day takes effort and can’t simply be left up to the ‘free market’. The space where that national identity can take shape has to be universally applied in the form of mandatory public holidays and not left to be traded in by unscrupulous employers who if given half a chance would make ‘Hi Ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go’ the new National anthem.

The thousands of different interactions generated by us all respectfully sharing the same space together on set days would do more for our understanding of each other than a million cartoons by Al Nisbet ever could.

What is the point of being a citizen in a democracy if we can’t enjoy the leisure of spending time outside in this glorious country? Are we really all wage slaves? Is that what a modern democracy has been denigrated too?

‘I-have-a-dream-to-work-every-hour-of-the-day-by-a-boss-who-is-screwing-me-over’ isn’t particularly inspirational is it?

All power to Efeso and the other Auckland Councillors who saw a value in taking time off with family rather than trying to make an extra buck for the soulless retail industry.