Hughes Gareth: New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHughes Gareth: New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 23 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:6996. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Chair. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to speak on Part 1. I know there are a great deal of other debates this House should be having tonight that are far far more important than the cloth on the flag but just because there are more important things we should be discussing just because we are trying to fix up a bit of a political mess that Parliament has got itself into does not mean we have to resort to absolute silliness in the debate. In this contribution I would like to address some of the conspiracy theories that we have heard in dealing with Part 1. The first conspiracy by the member Denis O’Rourke is that somehow this Red Peak flag is a Nazi symbol which I find scurrilous and disgraceful. It is quite incredible that within the second reading of the bill New Zealand First descended to Godwin’s law. In only the second reading it descended to Godwin’s law which we all know is the marker of not having a particularly good argument.The second conspiracy theory we have heard tonight is from the Hon Trevor Mallard. We have had this debate. I have raised this point in previous contributions that the Red Peak is not specifically mentioned in I believe clauses 4 and 5 because of the constitutional arrangement. We sought expert advice on this and it is improper for this Parliament to instruct the Governor-General on what to do. This is why it is mentioned in the explanatory note. This is the conspiracy theory. Does the honourable member in his assertions believe that somehow the Governor-General is going to pick a different flag? Is he going to pick “Laser Kiwi”? Is he going to pick something else? If this is the message that the honourable member is putting out there he should just say it.The honourable member also made some other points. I have got a lot of time for Mr Mallard. He has got an esteemed history in this House in our political history. Mr Mallard who I believe was somewhat patronising described me as naive silly and inexperienced in relation to the drafting of this bill. I will admit that this bill was drafted yesterday after our caucus meeting in the morning. It did receive some oversight from the Parliamentary Counsel Office.I would like to address the three allegations: I am naive I am silly and I am inexperienced. It is true I am naive of the old politics that we see from that member—the politics that saw two parties dig themselves into a political deadlock that has seen the Green Party try to fix it but not by scoring points. Sure I may be naive when it comes to scoring political points but I am not naive when finding constructive solutions to try to break the deadlock. The member called me silly and it may be true but perhaps a different definition of “silly” is railing against a bill the dirty deals that are behind it and then voting for it.Thirdly I might be inexperienced. I am not experienced in the old first-past-the-post politics where deals should be done between only the two big parties. I am not experienced in that and I am proud of it. We were talking that first-past-the-post politics. The honourable member also talked about the twitterati deprecating the social media campaign that we have heard about in other contributions on this debate.What this bill does is add a fifth option. This is not because five is a better number than four. We all know exactly why we are here. The fifth option is because of the absolutely phenomenal groundswell of support which all parties bar one has acknowledged. That is why we are here. We should not be deprecating those people for getting involved in politics be it on Facebook be it on Instagram or be it on Twitter. It is entirely appropriate entirely legitimate and I do not think that we should be somehow saying that because it is done in one particular forum it does not have the equal merit of others. In fact I think in hindsight we would not be in this situation. How did the Flag Consideration Panel incorporate new technology? Why on earth could not the public up-vote or down-vote the flags based on their preference? Why on earth could they not comment on the more than 10000 submissions so that perhaps we could have seen a more informed process? This is what alternative flag consideration projects have done at considerably less cost.So let us not knock those people for engaging in politics and democracy just because they did it on a phone. Let us give them a choice. Let us make sure that this Parliament acts constructively. Kia ora.