Mahuta Nanaia: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMahuta Nanaia: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 13 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5831. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato): If this was a vote based purely on choosing a symbol I think it would be quite easy but it is not. Symbols do matter. Flags of a country and nation matter. What Labour is saying is that what sits behind the flag—the constitutional arrangements—is so important. Yet this particular bill has reduced the debate down to process not principles and priorities.My colleagues have been absolutely right in pointing out the inefficiencies of this particular process. The Government is treating Kiwis with contempt about significant questions affecting them. It is not simply good enough to say “Let’s choose a flag.” and then the issue of the national anthem will come up and then: “Let’s discuss that and then maybe the Governor-General.” That is constitutional creep; it is not constitutional reform with a purpose that takes New Zealand confidently into the future. The Prime Minister is treating Kiwis with contempt because those significant issues are not being put in front of this very important issue which is the question of what symbol should best represent us as a nation.I heard the impassioned contribution made by the Māori Party. In part there are lots of members in this House who would agree with that sentiment. However I think that choosing a symbol before the very legitimate debate about what our constitutional arrangements and the place of the Treaty should be is in advance of a very important type of consideration. I predict that the New Zealand flag will be changed but I also predict that should this bill go ahead in the way that the Government is promoting very soon we will see in pockets of New Zealand a number of communities that affiliate with a particular flag flying their own flag. Is that thesymbolfor the country? I think not. Is that the type of New Zealand we want to see—where people will have an affinity with different types of flagand fly them because they cannot have an attachment to the outcome of this referendum? I think that is the worst outcome of all.What I am really fearful of is that because of the way that this particular referendum is constructed it will be a flagfor the 1 percent—$25.7 million spent on a process to deliver a flag for 1 percent is not good enough.Out in simple communities where people want to make a living they are saying: a flag or feed children; a flag or warm homes; a flag or provide houses in our community for people who need them. That is the type of consideration that people are weighing up when they are listening to this particular debate—$25.7 million on this exercise.Asking a question in advance of some significant weighty issues around what the constitution of this country represents and what the symbol of identity represents is I think a farce in itself. People who know me know that I have no particular affinity with the New Zealand flag but I will defend it for what it represents for this country. The history of my own particular area is that we have a particular flagfor our iwi but we will defend the New Zealand flag because we understand that it represents an evolving sense of identity that we can hold on to that holds the Crown accountable for its commitment to tangata whenua to Māori.The member Alfred Ngaroraised the issue of Mat Rata. Mat said a number of things in his history. When he made that particular comment it was just before the fisheries settlement. The fisheries settlement was the first pan-Māori settlement where the Government attempted to do something in I believe a quite progressive way. Underpinning his comments I believe was his understanding that the Treaty had a place in the future of New Zealand. He established the Waitangi Tribunal. He led the challenge for this pan-Māori settlement which could transform the nation. Just on Wednesday we had numerous debates about how Treaty of Waitangi settlements have transformed the national identity of our nation.Well the world has moved on and New Zealand has moved on. Our national identity is progressing; however underpinning the choice of a flagmust be the constitutional arrangements of this country. That is why I stand in support of my colleagues in the Labour Party who are opposing this based on process but more fundamentally based on principle. Any symbol of this country must give all Kiwis confidence that it is something that we can all hold on to. This one does not.