O'Rourke Denis: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 13 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5822. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): There should be I think at least three categories of consideration for a flag change. The first is that there needs to be an appropriate context for it. Such a context could be for example a proposal for a republic or at least a debate on a wide range of real constitutional questions such as Māori seats a written constitution the size of Parliament the size and number of electorates the length of the parliamentary term Māori electoral options and participation and the role of the Treaty of Waitangi. But there is no such context for this bill. That context is missing altogether. Therefore there is little or nothing to inform the reason for the change of a flag on this occasion which might in turn have informed the kind of flag that could be needed if indeed there was to be any change at all. Of course New Zealand First denies that.Secondly the process for this kind of change needs to be driven from the bottom-up not the top-down. This proposal is out of the blue from John Key—just his latest big idea and as usual his bad idea. It risks as it has done already in this case undue politicisation and therefore divisiveness when we really need efforts to encourage unity in this country. But Mr Key is not interested in that. No doubt the PM has his own agenda. We are all expected to dance to his tune. But the consultation process has shown no public pressure for change. The roadshow that toured the country has been extremely poorly supported with a very modest response online as well. The third category is that the process needs to be fair understandable and uncomplicated but this process is none of those things. The process is not fair because the first flag referendum effectively disenfranchises people who want the current 1902 flag. But they cannot express those feelings in the first referendum; therefore the turnout is bound to be pretty low. I predict it will be lower than 25 percent. And there will also be many spoilt votes because the process is essentially undemocratic for the reason I just gave.Also the process is not understandable. Some may well think that the first referendum is the only referendum on the flag and that they must choose a new flag because the current one of course is not there at all. They will think that the current one is to be dumped whatever they want. This lack of understandability is caused by the unnecessary complexity of the two-referendum system one of which is totally back to front. One referendum would have been enough either by asking first whether a flag change is wanted at all—which a normal common-sense person would have done but not this Government—or at least adding the current flag to the first referendum as one of the choices thereby making the second referendum completely redundant.It is now perfectly clear that the vast majority of New Zealanders are asking why we would even consider a new flag especially now in a year when we are remembering those who fought under the current flag at Gallipoli 100 years ago. One hundred years ago this month was the battle of Chunuk Bair. It is the efforts of brave Kiwis at that battle that have defined New Zealand as a truly independent nation. I want to read some excerpts from a recent newspaper article about that. The first says this: “The commander of the Wellington battalion Colonel William Malone never received the acknowledgment he was owed for his role. He cared deeply for his men and when his British commanders ordered him to attack Chunuk Bair in daylight he defied them saying: ‘We are not taking orders from you people. My men are not going to commit suicide.’ ” Further on in another article it is stated: “Chunuk Bair is also seen as [key to] … the development of a distinct New Zealand identity not least because of the perception that Kiwis and Australians were treated as cannon fodder by bumbling British officers.” Later in the same articles it says: “And when it comes to Gallipoli there’s the added significance that this was the first time New Zealanders had been deployed … [as] distinct from Britain … ‘It was foundational in the development of our national identity.’ ”This very month is the moment that John Key the ever-silent Prime Minister on this issue and in this debate and his worn-out National Government have chosen to push a new flag on New Zealanders. This is the moment he chooses to do that. How grossly insensitive to the men who died at Chunuk Bair. How deeply disrespectful to the flag they fought under. How totally badly timed in terms of context to be parading the incredibly awful long list of new flag designs we have seen recently—those gaudy ugly dull designs most of which look more like logos for a pound of butter than they do a flag of the stature of New Zealand. One of them—the one with a white fern on a black flag which I understand the Prime Minister favours—looks more like the Jolly Roger from a pirate ship. It is totally totally inappropriate and out of touch with our rich Māori Pacific and British heritage.The current flag is not out of date as those members opposite would have us believe. It is as appropriate today as it was in 1902 when officially adopted. It represents through the Union Jack in the corner the British heritage of New Zealand—the Scottish the Irish and the English heritage—the English language legal system and culture and the Westminster system of Government. All of those things are our heritage and are just as much the Kiwi heritage as they are the British heritage and that is why that flag should stay in the corner of the New Zealand flag. But the flag also represents our Pacific and Māori heritage through the Southern Cross which tells of the amazing feats of navigation and resilience by ancient Māori people finding their way across the vast Pacific Ocean and settling Aotearoa and who are now the tāngata whenua of the land.There is in New Zealand First’s view only one appropriate response to the first flag referendum for anyone who respects the current flag and who wants to keep the current flag. Either those people and they are going to be the majority should not vote at all—they should stay away. Or alternatively they may draw a vote but not choose any of the four alternatives shown and return a blank vote. That would be proper. Or if they wish they could write “I want the current flag.” across the ballot paper choose none of the alternatives and put that in the ballot box. That would be appropriate as well. Given the gerrymandered and inappropriate nature of this non-referendum this failed and flawed process New Zealand First calls on Kiwis to do any one of those things to show their disgust not just at the timing and the process for this referendum but the gerrymandered nature of it. The fact is that they want to keep the current flag just as New Zealand First wants to.