Naylor Jono: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNaylor Jono: New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 29 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5484. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONO NAYLOR (National): It has been a really interesting debate as we have got into Part 2. I was actually quite amazed that the members opposite wanted to shut down any mention of the Labour Party policy. I thought that they would have been really keen for their policy to be out there in the public domain but anyway I will not go there because I know that for whatever reason they do not want their policy out there.I do just want to get into Supplementary Order Paper 102 which has been put forward with a new clause 10A which talks about there needing to be a 50 percent return of valid votes. I have a bit of an issue with that. The previous speaker Stuart Nash talked a little bit about local government elections. If you were going to go with the 50 percent rule almost every council in New Zealand would be invalid. I know that some people do not particularly like local government. I know that a lot of people do not necessarily like local government and they might want to get rid of local government but what you are saying is in fact that no council in New Zealand would be valid unless 50 percent of the population turned out to vote. I was fortunate enough in that I did get over 50 percent of the votes cast when I was in local government and so that was an important part.I think this hang-up with a specific number is quite dangerous territory for us to get into. It would be setting a constitutional precedent because at the moment it is in none of our elections—none of our elections. Whether it be local government or central government whenever elections are held in New Zealand we do not have this minimum threshold for participation. So I think that if we were to put something like this in place it is changing something that is quite significant.What we are saying is that not everybody must participate. We actually do not have compulsory participation in voting in New Zealand. If we want to change the rules and make things compulsory well we can go into that debate at another time. But at the moment we do not have that so we cannot compel people to vote. So if people choose not to participate that is their right. That is a choice that people can choose to make which is not to participate.There has been a little bit of concern I think and people have asked whether if people do not participate in the first vote because they just want to vote No they will be excluded from participating. Well there will be a second referendum and they can participate at that point. But my advice to those people is absolutely to vote in the first referendum because if the way that things turn out is that there is a vote for change in the second referendum I would advise anybody who has got a view about any of the alternatives to actually make that view known.When Mr O’Rourke was talking he said that there was a presumption in the first referendum that there will be a change because I think the wording says “if”—“If the New Zealand flag changes which flag would you prefer?”. The last time that I ever heard anyone use the word “if” there was no presumption that it would occur. So asking “If the New Zealand flag changes which flag would you prefer?” does not exclude anybody. It is not presumptive that it will change; it is simply asking: “If”—if—“in the second referendum there is a vote for change which one of these four would you prefer?”. It is pretty simple it is pretty clear and it is pretty concise.Here we go. In clause 10 we are talking about the subject of the referendums. We have got these two referendums in sequence. I know that I mentioned this when we discussed the last part but it seems that people are still not that clear on how it is that people might be excluded. Everyone will get a vote in both referendums and in the second one anyone who wants to reject it will simply be able to reject it and anyone who just wants to change for whatever reason can vote for it. But if you have a yes/no vote first you will exclude those people who are open to the idea of change but it will depend on what the option is. That is the important reason. That is why we are doing two referendums. That is why we are doing them in this order—so that it includes everybody not just those people who have already made up their minds about what they think about the flag.I just want to touch on a few of the other clauses as we go through Part 2. I have mentioned the need for us to have the alternatives in there. I have mentioned that it is in fact simply a very clear choice.