Mallard Trevor: New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMallard Trevor: New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 23 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:6970. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): That was an interesting little speech from the junior whip from the National Party and it followed I think a number of speeches some of which bordered on the sanctimonious. I think we need to look really carefully at the options that we are putting before New Zealanders. We see a Prime Minister who is prepared to move on the basis of a petition of 50000-odd people and a Green Party that is prepared to support him in that to support a flag that many of my colleagues like but I actually think is rubbish. Many of us like it but I think it is rubbish. But apparently National is not prepared to follow the petition of more than 50000 or the people who submitted to the select committee. There were 14000 people who submitted to the select committee that there should be a yes/no vote; 700 of them asked to be heard and there was a whole pile of RSA-based separate points. The Green Party members are so much up on process but they were not prepared in the Justice and Electoral Committee or in this House to follow the democratic process and to let New Zealanders have a yes/no vote.I want to point out to the Green Party members that not one of their members of Parliament would be in this House—and many National Party members would not be in this House—if there had not been an MMP referendum with a yes/no vote. From memory 85 percent of New Zealanders said that they wanted to vote for change. But what I understand is that the Green Party is going to join the National Party and John Key who said that New Zealanders are not bright enough and could not understand and that the process would be too complicated if they were asked yes or no. Well that was the process that brought us MMP. It is a process that I think generally has worked pretty well but unfortunately the main beneficiaries of that process are rejecting it with some sanctimonious non-constitutional claptrap that we are hearing now.Kennedy Graham knows full well that the Prime Minister has had all the power ever since the legislation was passed to include Red Peak if he wished to. It is a matter of an Order in Council. It is very very simple for him to do that if he wanted to. Ever since he pretended that he wanted to have Red Peak on the ballot he has had the ability to bring a bill to this Parliament and right through the process we have said that we will support it. What we have also said is that we will add to that—and we want to be added and we will vote for and we will debate and we will push for—the right of New Zealanders to say at the beginning of the process “No we don’t want a change.” and thereby save $7 million. I know it is not much to Green Party members and it is not much to National Party members but Labour Party members say that $7 million spent on food for children or houses or decent insulation for people who need it is a much better use of $7 million than a referendum that 70 percent of New Zealanders say that they do not want. I say shame on the Green Party.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Kia ora mai tātou tēnā tātou katoa. Members when we adjourned for the dinner break we were debating the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill. The Hon Trevor Mallard was speaking and he has 6 minutes remaining to speak should he wish to avail himself of that opportunity.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Six minutes—that is so generous of you Mr Deputy Speaker. I think as I completed my speech I was making some comments about the Greens and their approach to it and I will go back to that but I do want to note how the Government is treating this legislation with contempt. The major promoter of the flag change did not speak once on any stage of the substantive legislation when it went through the House. He has not so far spoken on this bill and without pushing too hard at the conventions he has not even deigned to listen to any of the speeches in this House. I think that that is a disgrace.We had chaos at the introduction of the bill. Gerry Brownlee the Leader of the House was not here to move the urgency motion. The member in charge of the bill the Hon Bill English was not here to make his speech. There were no notes provided for Mr Brownlee to speak and frankly the National Party approach to this has been lacking.Hon Member: Woeful.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Lacking woeful—woeful I think is an understatement. I do want to go back to the Greens from whom we had a combination of the high and mighty “We are between all of you and we can sort out the problems of the world.” from Gareth Hughes and an approach that I think might be best described as a pretty poor constitutional bush lawyer approach from Kennedy Graham. I want to ask them why they were not straight with the House. They did a deal with the National Party to not support the yes/no vote—to not support the Labour Party on it. That is the party that pretends to be transparent that pretends to be straightforward but its members could not stand up in the House and say: “We have made an agreement with the National Party not to support the Labour Party amendments.” We would have disagreed with them it would have been wrong but it would have been honest and straightforward. That is something that the Greens pride themselves on. They tell themselves that they always take that approach but in this particular instance the principles have fallen away to the pragmatism.I do want to specifically address the bill. I know we will get into it at the Committee stage but I see that the member in charge of the bill is here now and he can if he wishes take a call. I want to ask him: why five options? Why five and not six? John Key clearly prefers the Rugby Union’s silver fern flag. Why can the Prime Minister not have the intestinal fortitude to stand up for the design that he believes is the appropriate design and the one that he would like to have on the ballot paper? Why do we not have six? In fact we are going to help the Prime Minister. We are going to move an amendment during the Committee stage to have the ability if the Government changes its mind yet again to have six options and not five.The next question I want to ask is: who drafted this rubbish—who drafted this rubbish? We have got an explanatory note on this bill that frankly if it went before anyone who looked at misleading advertising would be found guilty of being misleading because what it says is it puts Red Peak in or may put Red Peak in. Well actually it does not. All it does is increase the number of options from five to four. The note says that the bill adds another one to the ones that came from the panel. It does not. Actually the way the bill is drafted you could have five completely different designs coming out of the Order in Council process that this bill allows.Clayton Mitchell: Order in Council.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: In this case I say to the member there there is an Order in Council process here without reverting to a previous bit of legislation. There is a difference between a ministerial statement and an Order in Council. After the member has been here for a little time he will understand the difference. He will understand.But I do want to get back to the essential point that the Government has agreed on the basis of a petition of 40000 to 50000 people to have another flag go in. It had a petition and a submission process that had far more Kiwis than that who wanted to have a yes/no vote. We have the unfortunate situation of a group of members of Parliament who are only here because of a yes/no vote—I think 85 percent of New Zealanders voted at the first ballot to move towards MMP—and they are agreeing with the Prime Minister when the Prime Minister said that it is too confusing for New Zealanders to make the decision as to whether they want a change. It is a pack of nonsense and although we will support the voting on this bill we will put up lots of alternatives to make it better.