Mallard Trevor: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMallard Trevor: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 28 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5343. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): Ngā mihi o te rā. I never thought that I would see another select committee process as bad as the one that was run by Todd McClay when he chaired the Finance and Expenditure Committee but under Jacqui Dean the process for this bill has been an absolute disgrace. I want to name the members Jacqui Dean Jono Naylor Chris Bishop Alfred Ngaro and the Hon Louise Upston. They were the National Government members on this committee who decided that 747 people who had asked to be heard by the committee would be denied the right to be heard. Those members voted to give submitters 5 minutes to speak. They were the members who gave the very few submitters whom they allowed to come to the committee 5 minutes to speak. To be fair there was an exception. The New Zealand RSA—the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services’ Association—was allowed 10 minutes. The representatives of the returned soldiers—people who had fought under the flag—were allowed only 10 minutes before the committee to express the views of their tens of thousands of returned members.This Parliament has enough trouble with its public relations that when submitters to committees are treated in such a disgraceful manner by members of the National Government who acted as if they knew everything and did not want to listen this Parliament’s reputation will be diminished further. I want to say that Jacqui Dean Chris Bishop Jono Naylor Alfred Ngaro and Louise Upston were too damn lazy to sit the select committee during the 3 weeks of adjournment. They were too lazy to sit the select committee during the 3 weeks of adjournment in order to hear the people who wanted to be heard. When that occurs and when 747 people who ask to be heard are not then this Parliament’s reputation will be in tatters.The main point that the RSA representatives wanted to make and that the people whom they had emailed and who had emailed submissions back wanted to make was that they thought that the timing was appalling. They thought that having both referenda during the period that we are commemorating the First World War was inappropriate. In April 1916 the entire Massey Cabinet went to the Pētone railway station for the first annual official Government commemoration of Anzac Day. The entire Cabinet was there. And what is going to happen in the couple of weeks before the centenary of that and with the flag that was raised along with the Australian flag at the Pētone railway station? What is going to happen? This Government is promoting that that is when a decision on the flag should be made. The timing is wrong. The timing is wrong for lots and lots of reasons.On the yes/no question on the that day it was considered by the advisory group by the cross-party group there was only one dissenting voice—and it was one of doubt—as to whether this should be a yes/no vote. The dissenting voice—and it was a bit of a wobble—belonged to Jonathan Young. He was not sure whether he had checked with Bill English he said. Every other party that was present on the day said thatthere should be a yes/no vote as there was with the MMP referendum. Even those toadies who rely on the National Government to deliver their seats—Mr Seymour and Mr Dunne—even those two members said: “Of course this should be a yes/no vote. New Zealanders should have their say early in the process and if we can save money then we should.” But the National Government has decided to bulldoze its approach through the House and to not trust New Zealanders as it trusted New Zealanders when we brought in MMP to say as part of the first referendum process whether they want to consider a change or not.I think it is fair to say that Labour went into the first reading of this bill opposing it but with the hope that the bill could be improved through the process to the point that we could support it going further. There are a number of us myself included who think that we should change our flageventually—eventually we should.Hon Ruth Dyson: Proper process.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: We want a proper process we want the timing to be right and we do not want the referenda to be rorted. We do not want it to be biased in the way that John Key wants for his vanity project. When we are being told that there is not enough money for food in schools that there is not enough money for rape crisis centres and that there is not enough money to fix up State houses that have gaping holes in them we think that this spending on a vanity project for the Prime Minister is something that is inappropriate. We believe that the referenda are poorly worded.I just want to ask the members opposite whether they really think that spending on hall hire meeting fees and advertising for meetings—$2300 for every person who turned up to those meetings—is good value for money. What sort of efficiency—Hon Ruth Dyson: That’s a lot of kids’ lunches.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well the member says that that is a lot of kids’ lunches. It is a lot of insulation. It would fix the holes in the State flats in Pētone—the total amount that was set there—that have been waiting for 5 years. Members opposite are so arrogant notwithstanding that and notwithstanding the shift. My understanding is that about 5 years ago when Lloyd Morrison was leading a campaign there was a majority in New Zealand in favour of changing the flag. A couple of years later it went from about 50 percent in favour down to about 30 percent in favour. My understanding is that we have now got to the point that it has gone below 10 percent. It has gone below 10 percent in favour of changing the flag. So the question I have got is: why are we continuing with this?One of the important things for Governments is to work out at some point when they have got it wrong. It is important to work out when they have got it wrong and when it is the time to beat a strategic retreat to say that we have listened. We have listened to the select committee process. We have listened to the former soldiers. We have listened to the people who said that there is a higher priority for the money and we will send this bill on we will leave it on the Order Paper and we will leave it there for 5 years. We will leave it there until after the commemoration of the First World War and we will bring it—well the National Government will not of course—bring it back up at that stage for further consideration. That I think would be an honest approach it would be a fair approach and it would be acknowledging what is happening.At the end of my speech I do want to acknowledge that right back at the beginning of the process the Rt Hon Winston Peters was right and I was wrong. I believed the National Government—I believed Bill English and I believed John Key—when they said that they were open and would take into account what the cross-party committee said. What they did was they did not take this into account as far as the membership of the advisory group was concerned. Most of the advisory group are good people but it was balanced out with National Government hacks who were not recommended by the cross-party committee. The other question is that no one else in the committee with only the dithering of Jonathan Young supported this shape of referendum but because it is John Key’s vanity project they have decided to rort the process. They have decided to spend the money. As a result of that all over New Zealand people are saying: “Generally I trust John but on this one he’s just got it wrong.”