O'Rourke Denis: New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 23 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:6965. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First will definitely vote against this shonky legislation. I want to talk first of all about the Electoral Commission and the requirements of the New Zealand Flag Referendums Act because this bill violates that process which is actually already under way. The commission—and the Government I might say—has a duty to uphold it but under this shonky Government it has no chance of doing so. Everybody else of course does have to obey the law but John Key—with the tame compliance of the Greens and Labour I am sad to say—simply overrides all that for his own convenience.John Key and his assistants have already been in breach of the requirements of the regulatory period many times. That period began on 16 August and soon after that the Prime Minister and his assistants began contacting the media to provide information to support flag alternatives. They have been responding to media for the same purpose they have been arranging meetings and opportunities for the Prime Minister to promote the flag alternatives and they have certainly been writing material for the Prime Minister to use. And yes oh yes they will say that it is the Prime Minister’s own words—yeah right! His own words—only the gullible would believe that so why has the Electoral Commission not already acted against the Prime Minister and those people? You could not imagine a worse-policed process.This bill makes a mockery of the parliamentary system. We are passing a bill with a Government majority in one month and then using urgency to override it in the next while the process is already in train not because it is in the best interests of good government or in the best interests of New Zealand—nor is it a sound democratic process—but solely for the National Government’s political interests. The New Zealand Flag Referendums Act as we know and the process is deeply unpopular so this is nothing more than a backside-saving measure without peer by this Government.This bill will throw away the $8 million already spent to date. In John Key’s view this is “not a lot of money” but the prudent people of New Zealand will not agree because they expect good government with careful spending of public money not this kind of waste. That money as we know could have been better spent on many things: better health services more State houses and so on. Not only is this process now a gross farce but John Key wants to pay the piper and play the tune. He employed a very expensive panel to choose the final four designs for the first referendum but now he says that he knows better.And where will it stop? Will there be another bill next week the week after or the week after that to add another poll-driven alternative? John Key wants to second-guess his own expert panel and add his new favourite the so-called Red Peak. He has said much about the expertise of the Flag Consideration Panel but now that is cast aside. He has said much about the two-referendum process being the best for Kiwis to participate in and to suggest designs but he also now treats that with disdain. He originally said much about this being a non-political process not dictated by politicians but it is now utterly controlled by the Key Government and sadly with the collusion of both the Greens and the Labour Party which are going to actually vote for this bill which I cannot understand. Labour and the Greens usually favour good government and democracy so I think that it is a shame that they have decided to vote for this bill.This is a completely media-driven bill. It has been carefully designed so that it will attract public attention to take attention away from a failing economy and gross social economic and environmental mismanagement by one of the worst Governments in the country’s history. With this bill the whole sorry process has become a poll-driven farce—a five-flag farce. John Key knows he is on a hiding to nothing with the flag referendum clearly going against him. The vast majority hates the white feather of cowardice designs put up so far—some call it a silver fern but it clearly is not—and nothing can save this referendum process now. The Red Peak has been touted by some as that saviour but the online poll upon which it is based has absolutely no integrity. New Zealand First has already had one person who said to us point-blank that they have so far voted three times in that poll on the internet and goodness knows how many people have voted goodness knows how many times. So people who call that a groundswell are deluding themselves—that it is not.This is the shonky way we are now expected to choose a new flag for this country. It could not be a worse process. It will become the laughing stock of the Western World and we will become new prime material for television and for the stand-up comedians with our grinning Prime Minister being parodied far and wide. And he will deserve it but New Zealand does not. John Key is now grasping at straws—or perhaps red peaks—to save his pet flag project and in the process has so compromised that process that it will now go down as his worst failure. The new flag idea has become not legacy but legless and is a prelude to the loss by the National Government of the 2017 election. But the Prime Minister does not care any more for his preferred logo which was a black flag with what I think is a white feather on it. It was parodied as being far too close to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria flag by comedian John Oliver on worldwide television.John Key has never cared about the dignity of the current flag. He does not care about its history he does not care about its heritage and he does not care about the fact that it truly represents the fundamental bicultural nature of Kiwi nationalism through the Union flag in one corner along with the Southern Cross on the Pacific blue of Polynesia on the other side.The introduction of this bill will bring disgrace on this Parliament for the very bad process and very bad governance that the bill represents. One could not imagine how to actually set up a worse process than this. First of all we criticised the original legislation because of the bad process in it. This addition to it makes it five times 10 times or 100 times worse because what it shows is that the process set out in the original legislation can be disregarded and a Government with enough votes can simply add whatever flag it wants irrespective of the judgment of the expert panel and of the hundreds of people who suggested designs and the hundreds of people who wanted their designs considered. But this Government is going to choose only one of those with little or no justification and add it to the current four. And that is not good enough. This process will bring shame on the most arrogant Government this nation has ever seen for the way it is behaving in the whole referendum process.The Government is now in a blind panic over the misfiring of what is supposed to be John Key’s legacy project and it is a Government that will stop at nothing to save its burnt bacon—a Government that is prepared to play games with New Zealand’s democracy. I think the people of New Zealand will give only one answer to all of that. That answer will be a resounding no and it is a no that this process and this Government deeply deserve.