O'Rourke Denis: New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 23 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:7019. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): The title of the bill in clause 1 is a matter of quite a lot of importance because it actually addresses—or should address—what the bill is about and this one does not. The current title is bland. It is not descriptive and it needs additional words to say what it is about because really this Red Peak design—and that is what this bill is about—is so much like just another corporate logo that that is actually what should be stated in the title. So after the word “Referendum” we should have “(Another Boring Corporate Logo)” as part of the title.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I do not know whether the member is aware but all your amendments on these clauses have been withdrawn and the one that you have just mentioned was one of those that you had an amendment on.DENIS O’ROURKE: No.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Well you had 13 amendments to the title. They have all been withdrawn so I am just cautioning the member. If you were speaking to an amendment that has now been withdrawn from the Table then I am just cautioning the member.DENIS O’ROURKE: I agree. We have quite deliberately withdrawn those amendments and I have not said in my speech so far that I was talking about any amendment. I am just criticising—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No sure. I realise that. That is why I am saying that if you were going to refer to them they have been withdrawn.DENIS O’ROURKE: Thank you for that but I did not have any intention of referring to them because they have been withdrawn. But that does not mean that this particular description for a title to the bill is satisfactory because it is not. It does not as I have said actually describe what the bill is about at all. Red Peak is a flag design that looks much more like a corporate logo than it does a national flag and all I am saying is that that should be reflected in the title.What we in New Zealand First have already said is that this whole process is a sell-out for the New Zealand flag so again that is something that I would have preferred to see in the title—a reference to selling out the New Zealand flag—because that in fact is what the entire process has been from beginning to end. I am supported in that by the vast majority of New Zealanders who do not want to see a flag change and who do see this as a sell-out. So that is another point that is not covered in the description which is the title to the bill.But most of all most New Zealanders say—and we all know this; it is not a secret—that this bill is an incredible waste of taxpayers’ money. The fact is that this bill actually wastes $8 million on process that has already taken place and never has there been such an utter and complete waste of money or indeed time of this House because of the introduction of this particular unnecessary bill. That is not reflected in the title either and it should be. There should be some words in the title to reflect that this is a waste of money and that has not been done.Another very important point is this. I have already made this point in my first speech but it needs to be said again because the title of this bill does not do justice to what is going to happen as a result of this bill. As a result of this bill what we are going to see is the New Zealand flag referendum process parodied and made fun of across the world. You can imagine what people like John Oliver in the US will make of this particular bill. We know what he has said about the process already even before this bill got going.So if I were to give a title to this bill I would call it the “New Zealand Flags Referendum (But Wait Till What John Oliver Says About It) Amendment Bill” because if we did that it would be the truth. The truth is that this bill will do nothing more in fact than show New Zealand up as a nation that cannot handle its legislative process and cannot handle a flag referendums process either. So that is a great shame.But another point I could make is this—and I will make it—and it is that future generations—