Lees-Galloway Iain: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5590. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): We have had a bit of conversation about the title and my last contribution was on the title. I would like to move now to clause 2 the commencement. Actually the commencement of this bill when it becomes an Act is probably one of the areas of most contention. This is all to do with the timing of the referendums.My colleague the Hon Trevor Mallard has offered an amendment that would amend clause 2(1) so that it reads: “This Act (except sections 69 70 and 71) comes into force five years after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.” I guess 5 years is somewhat arbitrary because you cannot put things in a commencement clause like “when the Government can run a surplus” or “when we do not have $101 billion worth of debt” or “when we can get the cost of running these referendums down”. So I guess what Mr Mallard is attempting to do here is to project into the future and make a couple of assumptions. One and I think it is an important one is that we will have a Labour Government because that leads to the second one which is that we will actually have some decent economic management and we will have a fair chance of the Government heading back towards being in the black again and being in a position where people might see holding a referendum or two referendums on changing the flag as something that is more relevant and a more appropriate use of the money that is needed to run those referendums.These things do cost money. Democracy costs money. I appreciate that the Government has proposed a democratic approach to this. We have some questions over the order of the referendums but at least it is being done by referendum not by fiat and that costs money. But we really do question whether this Act should be commencing should be coming into force on the day after it receives the Royal assent which is what clause 2(1) provides for or whether it should be put off to a date in the future when the Government’s books might be in a better state and in a state where this could be more of a priority. This is what a lot of the opposition to the Government’s process comes down to: when exactly the legislation should come into force. I do not actually think most members of the public would be too concerned about the fact that we are debating this legislation now. They might have a view that there are other more pressing issues to be debating in public but the debate now is not as big a problem as holding the referendums this year and next year. So I support Trevor Mallard’s amendment to clause 2(1) because I think arbitrary as it is 5 years from now is probably a more appropriate point in time for us to have those referendums and the expenditure that comes with them.There are some other aspects to the commencement clause that are certainly appropriate for this legislation but they are somewhat unusual. There are various sections of the legislation that may or may not commence and of course this relates to what the result may be of the second referendum. Obviously the first referendum has no bearing on the commencement of any of the clauses in this legislation because whatever happens there will be two referendums with all the costs that come with that. But the second referendum does have a bearing on whether or not certain parts of this legislation do actually commence and those parts are clauses 69 70 and 71. Of course those clauses would not need to commence in the event that the public voted to retain the current flag. Another interesting matter with the commencement of clauses 69 70 and 71 is that there are two triggers for the commencement of those clauses which is a little bit unusual in legislation as well. The first trigger—