Smith Nick: New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSmith Nick: New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 23 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:7024. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) on behalf of theDeputy Prime Minister: I move That the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This is a very straightforward bill that simply adds to the referendum which New Zealand is to have in November a fifth choice of flag in the form of the Red Peak option. There have been all sorts of claims by members in the House as to who is acting in good faith with the electorate and the general public of New Zealand. Let me set the record very clear. Prime Minister John Key announced in January 2014 9 months before the general election that if National were the Government we would hold a referendum on what flag New Zealand might take into the future.Furthermore when National was re-elected at the election last year with the largest vote that any party has had in the history of MMP—Denis O’Rourke: And then lost Northland.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —the Government then set about delivering—I know this is unique for members opposite—on what we said we would do. A cross-party committee was formed. There was an independent panel appointed. There was the option for every New Zealander to put forward a flag option to that panel. There was legislation passed quite properly through this Parliament providing for a referendum to decide people’s preferred choice and a second referendum to be held next year in which people will be able to make a choice as to whether they want to keep the current New Zealand flag or vote for that preferred alternative. For any fair-minded New Zealander you could not have a more open straightforward process.I want to contrast that approach with that of the Labour Opposition because the first thing that seems to have been lost on members opposite is that they stood at the last election saying they wanted to change the New Zealand flag and they wanted to have a referendum on that issue. In fact I would point out to this Parliament that actually 83 percent of the New Zealand public voted for political parties promising to have a referendum on the flag—83 percent of the public voted for parties that promised a referendum on a flag during this term of Parliament.Hon Trevor Mallard: Let the member out more. Release him. Let him go. Why is the National Party hiding him away? Let him knock on doors.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The part that I find so disingenuous and that has really got all the fingerprints of the wrecker Trevor Mallard on it is that despite that policy position Labour has twisted and turned and has disingenuously tried to do everything it can to disown its policy at the last election. It reminds me—and I would remind some of the younger members of the Labour Party—as to how dangerous it is on these sorts of issues to change what you said. People will remember in history that in the 1987 election Labour promised a referendum on MMP and then in that term ratted on that very promise and was appropriately punished at the 1990 election. In contrast National does what it says. It promised a referendum on MMP and delivered that and that is a heritage that I am very proud ofas a National MP.Let me just inspect some of the arguments that members opposite have put against this bill.They say this bill is not needed to add the Red Peak flag to the referendum in November because we could simply dump one of the four flags that have been recommended by the Flag Consideration Panel. Let me place a bet: if the Cabinet had overruled the independent panel and had taken one of the four flags that it had selected and put the Red Peak flag in the members opposite would be the first to cry blue murder and to say that we had overridden the independent panel and that is where that suggestion is so disingenuous. Can I also come to the point that has been put forward that what we should do is in the first referendum simply give people the choice as to whether they want to change the flag. The reason that is simply disingenuous is that so many New Zealanders—frankly including myself—cannot make a choice as to whether the flag should be changed unless we are clear about what the alternative is and that is what the process we have set out does.Can I now come to New Zealand First because I do find its position even more extraordinary. In every single period that I have been in this Parliament—for the last 25 years—I could list over 100 occasions in which the New Zealand First Party and its leader have said: “Let the public decide. The public should be able to make these decisions.” I have heard it on gay marriage I have heard it on electoral reform I have heard it on State assets and in fact I struggle to think of a single issue on which members of the New Zealand First Party have not argued “Trust the public; let them decide.” That is why the position of the New Zealand First Party is again just so disingenuous that on a genuine question over the flag that party suddenly says: “No the New Zealand public cannot be trusted to make a decision on what is the right ensign for our country.”I plead that I am a humble engineer. I have very little creative talent and I certainly am not going to make the choice as to what is the right ensign and flag for New Zealand. But what I do say is as compared with quite complex issues this is an issue that the New Zealand public should be given the choice on and it should be given that choice because that is what our party promised the New Zealand people when we were re-elected in 2014.I emphasise again that this is a very simple bill that simply extends the number of options for flags from four to five. It has come about as a consequence of a number of parties including the Leader of the Opposition and parties like the Greens and the ACT Party wanting the Red Peak choice to be in that referendum and this Government has shown flexibility and good faith in simply allowing that choice to be added. The last point I would make to the Green Party is that at least you are consistent with what you said. You are not here to play games.You want to see the flag changed you want Red Peak to be included on the referendum and I compliment the way in which you have allowed that to be done constructively through the parliamentary process without some of the in my view unnecessary games around a difficult choice for our country and what the flag is that best represents the character of our nation to take into the next century. This is a good sensible bill and I commend it to the House.