Henare Peeni: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHenare Peeni: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 29 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5469. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe e te Heamana mō tō mātauranga te tohu nei tēnei mema kia tū ki te tuku atu i ōku whakaaro mō tēnei take.[Thank you Mr Chair for your wisdom to give this member the call to stand and express my views on this matter.]As a Māori speaker and it being Māori Language Week I thought the Committee might be interested in knowing that the word “haki” is flag but the word “hakihaki” is a festering sore and that is actually what the New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill is. That is exactly what it is and no matter what band-aid you put over it no matter what medicine you rub on it it is just going to keep on festering.Members across the Chamber also mentioned polls. They were talking about public opinion and how they do not have just a knee-jerk reaction to whatever poll might come out. Well as far as I understood it you needed a pole to fly a flag and what is happening here is that—Chris Bishop: Ha ha!PEENI HENARE: Mr Bishop might laugh but it was actually he who said it. But you need a pole to fly that flag and what our polls are telling us—and it is not just the Labour Party polls it is not just the New Zealand First polls; I am sure everybody in this Chamber has heard of the New Zealand Herald which is telling us—is that there is definitely not an appetite for us to change the flag.I am also reminded of a sense of ceremony. Mr Bishop in previous exchanges in this Chamber has always mentioned how important ceremony is and how it cannot be lost when we are looking at processes moving forward. I make particular reference to the actual ceremonial process of voting. Well the same thing applies to this. When I think about some of the contributions this evening around the ceremony of our flag and what it means to our defence force it has already been highlighted and I do not want to draw the point out. However that ceremony is important to our people and certainly to the people who speak to me in my electorate.This morning I sat on the plane returning from Tāmaki Makarau—the great electorate of Tāmaki Makarau. Last night I attended a funeral and at that funeral in fact we flew the New Zealand flag. Everybody rose and acknowledged it. This morning on the plane down I sat next to a member of the defence force and he too had a flag on his sleeve.The importance of our flag cannot be understated. It might cause a few members in the Chamber to scratch their head but I also want to echo the words of the Hon Trevor Mallard. It is not that I am against changing the flag; I will be honest with you here. In a discussion with my son who is 19 years old he actually said to me: “Dad I don’t think the flag best reflects us moving forward.” And I take that point. However I still consider myself pretty young and I got to see my grandfather raise that flag every morning and every evening take that flag down. It means something to me. So I am a little bit torn on that.However what I am not torn on is the actual process. It has been stated—“referendums” or “referenda”—that the New Zealand public are not quite as smart as we think we are. Well the Government will tell us that there is confusion. When you see our flag and the Australian flag together people are often confused. Well let me talk a little bit about ceremony. When the Olympic Games happen we know that the first country out is Greece. From there it goes through an alphabetical process and Australia is far far far away ahead in terms of the alphabetical process than New Zealand. Secondly overseas in the State Department building—you are talking about confusion; actually it is not that confusing. Overseas when we went to the State Department—not last week—it was the same thing. All the flags were lined up in alphabetical order and there was certainly no confusion from the National members who were part of the delegation as well as the Labour members.Another Māori word for us in the vocab today is “tohutohu”. “Tohutohu” is to direct and that is exactly what these referendums will do. What it will not do is allow our country the first question which is whether we want to change the flag. What it is actually doing is it is directing us it is channelling us it is funnelling us—Ron Mark: Manipulating.PEENI HENARE: —and manipulating us into making a forced decision and I do not think that is fair. I think our people deserve more.What it also does is it talks about how many young people have engaged—and my esteemed colleague here Sue Moroney mentioned how kids were instructed to make this a project in their schools. I am concerned that as a result—