Dean Jacqui: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDean Jacqui: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 13 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5820. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Labour members have found themselves in an invidious position over the consideration of this bill because they actually want to change the flag. And that is a problem for them because they campaigned on wanting to change the flag—in fact they campaigned on having a referendum to change the flag—and they have found themselves wrong-footed somewhat by the fact that this Government which also campaigned on changing the flag has actually done what it said it would do. Having found themselves wrong-footed over the process they are having to cast around for reasons to oppose the bill. It has been a little bit like dancing on the head of a pin because you raise one foot and you just about topple off. It has been like that the whole way through this process. It seems to me that when the Labour Opposition finds itself trying to advance an argument that it does not actually believe in it then starts attacking the process. That has been very apparent also throughout this consideration of the flag bill.I want to dwell a little bit on the select committee stage of this bill and talk about how the Justice and Electoral Committee made certain decisions about the hearing of submissions. Those of us who are backbenchers and who spend a lot of time in committee rooms will know that a committee will have a discussion at the start of the process in order to decide those mundane things like time frames—how long we are going to invite people to speak for; what the conditions are that they come in. When committees are faced with some pragmatic decisions which is what this committee did we make—Hon Trevor Mallard: The member went on holiday. She didn’t sit during the recess week. It’s an outrage. She voted not to sit during the recess week.JACQUI DEAN: They make those decisions as a committee. And so what happened in the consideration of this bill—and for those people sitting at home or listening on the radio they will hear a bit of noise in the background. That is Trevor Mallard. That is Trevor Mallard losing the argument yet again because Trevor Mallard has got no argument to make and so in the absence of any argument he is making a lot of noise. [Interruption]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!JACQUI DEAN: Some of the decisions that the committee made were about how long we were going to invite people to speak for and about how many people we were going to hear. It was a committee decision; it was not a National Government decision. In fact was it not the Green Party that voted with the Government on this? Yes it did. So the majority of the committee voted that it would consider as form submissions a number of submissions coming into the committee.Form submissions are a normal part of select committee practice and it does surprise me that the Assistant Speaker of the House who is also the person making the most noise over this and who should know his Standing Orders does not know his Standing Orders or does not purport to know his Standing Orders in this case. Normal select committee practice is that the committee can decide to group as form submissions a number of similar or identical submissions treat them as if they were a petition and consider them in that way. That is what the committee decided to do.Hon Trevor Mallard: The member never read them.JACQUI DEAN: Trevor Mallard is making that noise again because he is losing the argument again.I just want to go into those form submissions a little bit more because the question then becomes: “How did those submissions come to the committee?”. Well it might surprise some members of the public to know that those submissions came to the committee via the Labour Party website. Those form submissions came to the committee via the Labour Party website where submitters clicked on to the Labour Party website and were given a tick box to tick. So all that people had to do—and they were having their say absolutely—was say: “No I disagree.” Well that is fine but when you get a whole lot of those submissions with the same people making absolutely the same point—and it would have been a sizable pile—I would contend that grouping them together with a sample on the top that reflects everything that lay beneath should be treated as a form submission.So when Trevor Mallard gets to this House—and every time he does he loses the argument just a little bit more—what he is doing is he is wilfully ignoring what he should know about parliamentary process. I will tell the House about the select committee—and at this point I want to thank the members for their consideration of this bill—it was a lively debate as a select committee debate should be. We heard very carefully the submissions that were made to the committee and we made a couple of changes as a result of our select committee consideration.I am not going to make a terribly long contribution to this debate. I think that this bill is relatively simple. It sets out the framework by which New Zealanders can have a say on whether or not they wish to change the flag. The final point that I want to make about the process and about some of the Opposition contributions—mostly in the name of Trevor Mallard—as they lose the debate is that this is not about the select committee process actually. This is not about what the Prime Minister may or may not have had in his heart when he generated this debate although we are pretty sure that it was in the best interests of New Zealand. It is not about that actually. What this is about is enabling New Zealanders to have their say on what represents them by way of a flag.