Sio William: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSio William: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 29 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5471. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): I want to follow my colleague Peeni Henare in this particular debate and say that I agree with him. The first question in clause 6 should have been “Do you want to change the flag?”. That would have saved us going on to clause 7. You see in the Pacific community although we agree that there is a need for us to debate and discuss the future of this country the future does not belong to a flag or symbol. It belongs to the people first. And that discussion has not happened first.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Su’a WILLIAM SIO: Kia ora tātou katoa. Before the dinner break I had made mention that my colleague Peeni Henare the member of Parliament for Tāmaki Makaurau had made a very strong point before this Committee as to why it is that the Government wants to have two referendums in clause 6 and clause 7 when this matter could be resolved by asking the right question. The right question is: do New Zealanders want to change the flag? I would say based on the polls that we have seen that the resounding answer from many New Zealanders would be no. In fact I understand that one particular poll run by a newspaper had 70 percent of respondents say that they did not want to change the flag.The reason that is important is if you look at clause 6 it talks about the first referendum being conducted under a preferential voting electoral system. Therefore the community is going to be asked to choose between one two three four maybe five maybe six flags. Instead of just choosing one they are asked to choose based on this preferential vote one two three and four.Why is it that we are spending the time to undertake this long process when it could be resolved simply by the question that my colleague asked earlier—that we ask the right question of the New Zealand public in one referendum: do New Zealanders want to change the flag? If the answer is a resounding no then there is no need for a second referendum. That is the first point.New Zealanders will be quite suspicious as to why we are spending $26 million over the next while trying to determine whether we change the flag or not. I heard Minister Nikki Kaye say that this is about nationhood. Although I agree that when we talk about nationhood symbols are important I will tell you what this old man from the Māngere market said to me about the flag debate: E le mafai ona ai se fu’a. We cannot eat the flag.E le mafai ona totogi e le fu’a le pili o le matou moli ma le fale. A flag does not pay for my rent; it does not pay for my electricity bill. The point I make there is that the people are right. When we talk about nationhood we talk about laying the foundations that are important going forward building a society where everyone has some common principles and common values by which we live and not the symbols. We do not live by the symbols. We live by the means by which this country is able to share its wealth.I want to make another point: the flag has had symbolic importance to many who fought and died for this flag. Simply presenting other alternatives is really a disgrace on this Government because it is showing immense disrespect to those to whom this symbol means so much. It is not just Pākehā; it also includes Māori and Pacific people who fought and died. Therefore the issue is why it is that this Government wants to prolong the process by introducing clause 6 and clause 7 two separate and distinct voting patterns when the issue could be resolved simply by asking the question that Peeni Henare had asked earlier: do New Zealanders want to change the flag? I would say that the answer is no.We need to begin the discussion about the future of New Zealand. We have got the flag first instead of laying the foundation for how to share the wealth of this country. That is why $26 million—