Mark Ron: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMark Ron: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 29 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5466. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): It is a pleasure actually to be able to speak to this appalling bill for the purpose of actually putting a couple of things on the record. I think that we need to understand what the purpose of this bill is—it is to enable two referendums. It is to enable John Key his backbench members who want to be Ministers in the next Government and his Ministers who want to be Ministers again to change our flag. I listened in my office to the speech by the former Mayor of Palmerston North who is now a backbench MP in the National Government and I am going to say that we will post that speech. When one says that they are not scared of the public’s reaction that they are not scared of what people are saying and that they proudly stand by what they are doing then good. In 2017 the member will proudly stand by what he said.So what are people saying? I have heard comments before in the House that we are an online nation and that people may not have turned up to express their views but they can give them online. Well actually we have some information from offline. New Zealand First actually put out a call to all New Zealanders who are against the referendum to write “Keep our flag” on the ballot paper. That way the vote will be ruled informal. If there are more informal votes than votes on the design then there can be no credibility in the process and a second referendum cannot surely go ahead and that hopefully will save us millions of dollars. When we look at what people are saying I have got to say that on the Facebook page of the Rt Hon Winston Peters we have had 19849 likes and 11347 shares. The Minister is right: we are an online nation.And what are they saying online? Well let us go to a couple of things that people are saying online. D Berry said: “It doesn’t matter what we say this National Government will do what they want regardless of the rest of us.” And as for the people who turned up to the meetings—you know I have heard numbers quoted for how many people have turned up at meetings. What was it? Collectively 130 people nationwide turned up for the select committee hearings—round that number. Well understand this: last Friday we held a public meeting in Palmerston North. I spoke on Iraq and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. We packed out the hall. We had to go and get more chairs and bring them in. So there were 120-odd people seated in the hall in the Globe in Palmerston North to hear me speak about Iraq—Chris Bishop: 120? Don’t exaggerate.RON MARK: —and nationwide $7 million later Chris Berry $7 million later how many people turned up?Chris Bishop: Who’s Chris Berry?RON MARK: And the vast majority of those people turned up to tell the member Chris Berry that they did not want a flag change.What else are they saying online? Online they are saying things like: “Yes I agree. Leave the flag alone. I’m 61 and I’m proud of the one I have and I’ve known for that long. A waste of money. Spend it on the homeless.” Spend it on the homeless. What else are people saying online? “Leave the flag alone and spend the money on special needs kids educational purposes like more hours for teacher aides.” Do you want to hear what people are saying online? Rochelle Anderson: “Keep our flag. Don’t fix what’s not broken.” So why are we fixing what is not broken? It is because it is a personal little agenda.I hear the Minister saying that we need to understand who we are where our place is in the world and what we stand for. Well it seems from all of the feedback that there is only one political party that has no idea who it is or what it stands for. We have had all the banners before—“A decent society” “A better future” “A brighter future”. We know what the National Party thinks it stood for in each successive election. If it has a problem understanding what it stands for and who it is now the National Party should go back to one of those focus groups and go and do an analysis. Talk to your own people National because the public in New Zealand know clearly who they are. They are proud New Zealanders. And it is interesting as we head up to 8 August when we will commemorate the battle of Chunuk Bair that nobody out there whom I speak to in the RSAs nobody whom I speak to in the Defence Force nobody whom I speak to in rural provincial New Zealand has a problem understanding who they are where their place is in this world and what they stand for.No this is what it is and this is what people online are saying it is: it is a particular desire of the Prime Minister to leave a legacy issue and all of his MPs are falling in behind him to give him that because they want to be Ministers in the next Government. Do you know what the irony is? On Radio Live—was it today—94 percent of people polled were against the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement; against the signing. Keep this up and the members will guarantee that they are not in Government and it will not be anybody else’s doing; it will be their own.