Goff Phil: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5575. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): I want to speak to clause 69(4) in Part 3 and in particular its reference to section 5 because this in many senses is the most important part of the bill. It is the part of the bill that actually describes what our national flag does. What it says in section 5(2) is: “The New Zealand Flag is the symbol of the Realm Government and people of New Zealand.”I do not think there is anybody in this debate who does not think that the flag is an important symbol of our country. I know that for my father’s generation it was the flag that they fought under and that their mates died under. For many contemporary New Zealanders it is the flag that is flown—I saw it fly sadly on Saturday night at the Bledisloe Cup and much more happily in terms of the Silver Ferns—and it is a symbol of a country that people are really proud of.If it is the symbol of the people of the nation it makes sense that the people of the nation should have the power to change the flag and not 121 elected representatives. So in one sense I support the process that not Parliament but the people make the decision but there are things in the way that this is being done that have undermined the consensus that is necessary in order to maintain a flag that is widely agreed to by the people of this country as representing their independence their sovereignty and their pride in the nation.I think that what the purpose of the flag is as set out in section 5(2) is undermined by the process that we have actually taken. The first thing that any Government that was contemplating changing the flag should have done was try to work across parties so there was a consensus around the process by all the parties in this country and clearly that has not happened. That has undermined the credibility of what we are trying to do in the Committee today. It is the Government’s failure in that regard that disappoints many of us who would contemplate a change in our flag. I do not think I have any more right than any other New Zealander to determine what the symbol of our people should be but I personally would like to see a change in the flag. But what the Government has done has undermined the consensus by which an appropriate way of changing the flag might have been adopted.You see by holding two referenda that are outside an election you are likely on best estimates to get maybe a 30 or 40 percent turnout. You cannot change the symbol of the realm and the symbol of the people on a turnout in a postal referendum that maybe only a third of the people will vote in. So my question to the Minister is: why not hold this referendum at the time of a general election when you will get an 80 percent turnout and then the result will have some credibility about what New Zealanders want as the symbol of the realm and a symbol of us as New Zealanders? That is the way that this process should have been followed.The other thing when you are talking about the symbol of the realm—and the bill goes on to talk about the symbol of us overseas. The last thing surely that a Government wanting to follow proper process would do is introduce a bill to change the flag on the eve of the centenary of the start of World War I when so many of our surviving veterans not from the First World War but the second one are focused on the flag that they fought under. You would almost think that the Government has deliberately undermined its own intent of wanting a change of the flag and wanting New Zealanders as a whole to accept an alternative as the symbol of our country.So the timing was awful the process was appalling and the lack of bipartisanship or cross-party support has been appalling. One of the reasons for this I have got to say is that the Prime Minister has talked about this change not as a change by New Zealanders of their flag but as a matter of his pride and his project. During the question time we have just had he quoted Mike Hosking. He said—