Woods Megan: New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 23 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:7017. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): I do want to take a brief call on Part 2 of this legislation and raise some questions that we on this side of the Chamber would like asked around this part of the legislation. We had the Minister in the chair Nick Smith indicating that it was not possible for the Government to make a change without resorting to this legislation. So I urge the Minister to take a call and to set out exactly why that was not possible and why the Government could not have decided to change one of the four prescribed flags that were in—to take out one of the three silver ferns and substitute an altered design—and why it is that we have to be in this Chamber.We do have to remember that the leader of the Labour Party did make the offer to the Prime Minister to sit down and talk about these very things. So I am very eager to hear from the Minister why it is that we could not still have had four flags but one could have been taken out and an alternative put in.I am very keen to hear that because what we are doing now under Part 2 of this legislation is taking out the four prescribed flags. The revoking of clause 5 of the New Zealand Flag Referendums (First Flag Referendum) Order does that. Instead what we are doing is inserting five non-prescribed flags that will be considered. As my colleagues have pointed out they could be anything. The amount of movement and flip-flopping from the Government on this could see us considering anything. There are no guarantees for anyone who wants to see Red Peak put to the population that they are going to see this as an option that will be put to the New Zealand public. Although under the initial legislation there were four prescribed flag options that were going to be put to the New Zealand public in the referendum now there are five non-prescribed options.So I am also keen to hear from the Minister what guarantees are written into this legislation that this is going to bring into effect what everyone here today thinks they are doing—that is taking Red Peak to the masses. I do not want to hear hyperbole; I want to hear what clause of the legislation guarantees that that will be the case and that it will be.When I look through Part 2 of this legislation what I see is clause 9 which revokes clause 5 of the initial legislation which did give those guarantees around what flags were going to be taken to the public in the legislation. But what I see here are very permissive clauses that in effect—in reality—could allow the Government to do anything.Do we think it is going to do that? Probably not. Probably not even the Prime Minister who has made such a shambles of his vanity project would stoop to that level but I think the fact that we are putting through such sloppy amending legislation just shows the shemozzle we have got ourselves into here with this legislation.It is a mess. It has been a sloppy and messy process from the beginning and I want to know what clauses in Part 2 of this legislation actually guarantee to the New Zealand public that the Government is going to get that flag out for consultation at the referendum. So I am very much looking forward to listening to the Minister’s contribution on that.The previous speakers have talked about this lost opportunity. This should be a nation-defining process for us. This should be a time when we stop and think about who we are as a nation. This is something that I care deeply about as a New Zealand historian. This is something that we should be thinking about and taking a very considered approach to—not passing sloppy legislation under urgency that in effect actually makes the process more shoddy and more shambolic than what was also a shambolic and shoddy process to begin with.So Minister I am very much looking forward to hearing your contribution around why it is that the Prime Minister and the Government could not have just made the decision to insert the Red Peak flag as one of the four prescribed flags under the initial legislation and to say why it is that we are—and the Minister is gesturing to me so I can see he is warming up to get to his feet and give a contribution on this.So I am looking forward to a contribution on that Minister and I am also looking forward to a contribution from you on what guarantees we do have—sorry not you Mr Chair; that would be inappropriate—from the Minister on—