O'Rourke Denis: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 28 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5349. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): The Government should be withdrawing this unpopular bill. The submissions to the Justice and Electoral Committee showed the magnitude of the degree of unpopularity of the bill. There were literally hundreds of submissions against it. However only a few were actually heard because of the arrogance of the National members on the select committee. The consultation process was no better. It showed very little public pressure for any change at all and the truth is that this Government is pushing this bill through against public opinion not following it. The roadshow that accompanied the public consultation process was an absolute farce and you would have got more people turning out to a snake oil auction than went to that particular farce. There was also only modest response to the internet-based facility for comment—only very modest response.Many submitters have also properly been concerned about the total cost—$25.7 million—being spent on this farcical process. Those people said that it was a waste of taxpayers’ money for no gain. They said to spend the money elsewhere. They said to spend it on new homes on education and on better health services. Of course there will be many many other costs if this process to change the flag actually succeeds. It will include a large number of official publications and emblems—even including driver’s licences for example—not to mention the millions needed to run the referendums and for the advertising of them. Passports will have the wrong flag on them and all of those will have to change. And there are many many other costs that are almost impossible to quantify for businesses and other organisations that will need to change the flags on their promotional material. Those costs have been estimated by some as likely to exceed $100 million. That is the true cost of this exercise—that is the true cost.Many submitters were also opposed to the process of holding the two referendums. Using preferential voting the first referendum will determine from only four alternatives to be prescribed which alternative flag design is preferred. The second will determine whether the alternative flag or the current flag should be the one that is accepted. Only if voters decide in the second referendum that the New Zealand flag is to change will that then lead to further legislation to actually do away with the current flag. The point is that there could have been one referendumonly. If there is going to be a referendum one would be enough simply by adding the current New Zealand flag to the four that are going to be put up in the first referendum. So this is a deeply flawed process and the Government has got it totally the wrong way round. Before spending millions of dollars on the two planned referendums and before appointing any panels or incurring any other expenses there should have been one referendumonly. That referendum should have asked the simple question: “Do you want a new national flag to replace the current one?”. Simply that question alone would have been enough and only if the answer had been yes by a majority would it have been justifiable to spend any money taking the matter any further.The process set out in this bill appears to be a way for the Government to rig the result—nothing less than that. It is rigging the result getting what it wants—a new flag—by having only four options decided first. That pre-empts the primary question which is simply: “Does anyone want a new flag at all?”. Instead we have this ludicrous back to front process as a blatant means of trying to influence the result. New Zealand people will see through it and will tell this Government in no uncertain terms where to put its new flag proposal.Many submitters have asked validly why we would even consider a new flag. The current one is not out of date. It is as appropriate today as it was in 1908 when it was officially adopted. In fact it is actually a young flag when compared with many others. It represents through having the Union Jack the British heritage of New Zealand. The English language legal system and culture and the Westminster system of government are just as much Kiwi as they are British. The flag represents thatperfectly and it also represents our Pacific and Māori culture. The Southern Cross on a blue background represents the Māori navigators who resulted in the Māori settlement of New Zealand all those hundreds of years ago. No flag could better reflect the Treaty of Waitangi partnership. No flag could better represent that partnership.By contrast John Key originally wanted a black flag but he then realised the connection that that would have with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and he suddenly went quiet about that. And in any event a black flag is much too funereal. He also wanted a silver fern but that confuses a sports symbol—as Jono Naylor did in his speech—with the needs of a national flag. They are two totally different things. The flag needs to represent the partnership between the two cultures: the British heritage and the Pacific and Māori culture. That is New Zealand that represents New Zealand and that is the way it should stay. John Key wants to sell out all of that and the current flag without thinking it through without any genuine public support and without regard to the damage that it will do to New Zealand’s interests and heritage.On that matter the current flag has a good reputation where it matters in the world: in the UK in the Commonwealth in sporting events in the United Nations and so on. We benefit from the prestige that that flag gives us of having a British and a Pacific and Māori culture and it could not represent that better. We will gain little or nothing by having an unknown new flag which would take decades even to be recognised in overseas places—or even in New Zealand for that matter.There is also another very important reason for us to oppose this bill for a new flag and it is that it will betray the men who fought and died under that flag in many world wars and in other wars. The respect that the current flag generates from having flown everywhere where our men have fought should never be disregarded in the cavalier way that the National Government is doing with this awful bill. Why would we want to lose that heritage that history and that connection? And make no mistake they will be lost if a new flag is adopted. They will be lost—that is the truth. In clause 69 the bill purports to preserve the current flag as depicted in new schedule 1A but only as a flag of “historical significance”. What a terrible way to treat our New Zealand flag. It will not really be preserved at all. It would actually be relegated to history and as such that would be something of an insult I believe to all of the people who fell defending that flag and this country in two world wars.This is not an honest or a respectful way to treat that flag. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for a new flag and nobody has yet described to me in a way that I can understand or appreciate why the flag has to be changed at all. Some members opposite have talked about the future and about having a progressive nation. Are they saying that the current New Zealand flag cannot represent a forward-looking and progressive nation? It has so far—it has so far. Why would it not in the future? There is no genuine or significant public pressure for a change of the flag. There is public pressure for genuine constitutional reform—Māori seats a written constitution the size of Parliament the length of the parliamentary term the Māori electorate option and participation the role of the Treaty of Waitangi and so on. So what do we do? We have a referendum on one thingonly—the least important thing of the lot: the flag. What about all of those other things? Why are they not part of this referendum? Why are the things that will actually make a difference not being referred to the New Zealand public by way of a referendum? For all of these reasons New Zealand First will continue to lead the campaign against this bad legislation its flawed process and any suggestion that this country needs a new flag.