Davis Kelvin: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavis Kelvin: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 29 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5491. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): I would like to talk to clause 37 which is “Procedure after close of voting period”. It says: “As soon as practicable after 7 pm on the last day of the voting period the Returning Officer must—(a) in the case of the first flag referendum count in the manner described in Schedule 4 the votes received for each option …”.Before I turn to schedule 4 I would just like to ponder the incredible contribution from Jacqui Dean—an incredibly ridiculous contribution I believe from Jacqui Dean—who said that we should not have five options in schedule 1 the fifth option being the New Zealand flag because we may get it confused with other flags. She does not think New Zealanders are intelligent enough to look and think: “Option A—oh that is an alternative design; option B is an alternative design; option C is an alternative design; option D is an alternative design; option E—oh that is the New Zealand flag.” It is too hard to recognise that there.So let us turn to schedule 4 instead and the method of counting votes. If she thinks New Zealanders are too simple to recognise the New Zealand flag out of five options let us turn to the method of counting votes in schedule 4. It says: “Votes are counted by recognising preferences as provided for in Part 2 of this schedule and by performing the steps in clause 3 to 9 until an option is successful.” Here is step 1: “Determine the absolute majority of votes using the following formula: m = (v – vnt) ÷ 2”. Look if New Zealanders are incapable of recognising the New Zealand flag out of five options put to us how on earth are we going to be able to understand step 1 in the method of counting votes?Let me explain a bit further. The key states: “m is the absolute majority of votes and if m is not a whole number it is rounded up to the next whole number”. How can we have a number of votes that is not a whole number? Are we going to have 1365000.2 votes cast? It is absolute nonsense that we will not have a whole number in terms of the numbers of people voting. Also “v is the number of voting papers” and “vnt is the total number of non-transferable votes.” Clause 4 states: “An option is successful if the number of first preference votes equals or exceeds the absolute majority of votes.” I am glad that is really clear for all of New Zealand to understand. As a former teacher I say that it goes to prove the rule that you do not actually have to know what you are teaching you just have to teach it because I certainly do not understand that formula there. That was step 1 that we went through.Step 2 states: “If no option is successful the option with the fewest first preference votes is excluded.” OK that means that the one with the least votes is discounted. That is fine. Clause 6 states: “For each voting paper on which the option excluded under clause 5 is the first preference redistribute that vote to the option that is the next preference on that voting paper.” I am sure the people of Tai Tokerau really understand this! They are really going to understand the process that we are going to go through to select the flag how they are going to vote and how the counting is done with the clarity of these instructions bearing in mind the extraordinary contribution from Jacqui Dean that New Zealanders are incapable of distinguishing the New Zealand flag from a list of five flags.Where is she the MP for? I did not realise we had an electorate called la-la land but she is certainly the MP for la-la land if she does not trust New Zealanders to be able to distinguish the New Zealand flag out of a list of five flags. I mean it is not like they have to read the description of the flags; pictures are going to be there. She is probably talking about herself—that she will not be able to recognise the New Zealand flag out of five pictures.