Sepuloni Carmel: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSepuloni Carmel: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5592. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I think that we have had some great alternative options offered today for the title of this bill. I do have some other alternative options but I will discuss those later in my speech. I just want to talk about Part 3 of this bill in relation to the title and commencement clauses. I think that that is allowed at the Committee stage. In Part 3 what we have is two clauses that give quite wide powers to amend the process by Order in Council. These may be standard but they read as the Government being able to correct errors in the legislation without coming back to the House.So I want to talk about that part in relation to this because if the Government is going to have power because of Part 3 to correct errors in the legislation without having to come back to the House I want an answer from the Minister about what errors it is anticipating in this bill and about whether or not there are any anticipated problems or potential errors that may come out of the title or commencement provisions of the bill. In the commencement clause for example could there be an error in relation to say clause 2(2) which says: “If in the second flag referendum the alternative flag design gains a greater number of votes than the current New Zealand Flag then sections 69 70 and 71 commence on whichever of the following dates is earlier: (a) a date set by the Governor-General by Order in Council: (b) the day that is 6 months after the date on which the result of the second flag referendum is declared.”With that in mind—and we are talking about the date here and also we are looking at the amendment put up by my colleague Trevor Mallard who has asked to remove “on the day” and replace it with “5 years”—does that mean that the Government could actually decide that that is an error and change the time framewithout bringing the legislation back to the House? We are hoping actually that it will support the amendment in the Committee here today and that it will remove the wording “on the day” and replace it with the words “5 years”. That is the amendment put up by Trevor Mallard. Does that mean that if the Government does not support this amendment in the Committee it could still do so later on once it discovers the error of its ways and that it has in fact got it wrong in terms of the time frames that it has put around implementing this bill? If the Minister could respond to that it would be good.In terms of what it says in Part 3 about the Government being able to correct errors without bringing the legislation back to the House I wonder whether or not—when the Government members leave the Chamber and if this does manage to happen in terms of a change of flag and if we proceed with the resulting Act in terms of the rest of it—the Government could then change the actual title of the bill later on without bringing it back to the House. Is that what it means in terms of Part 3 and how it applies to the title and commencement clauses of this bill? I have those questions for the Minister and if he could respond it would be greatly appreciated.