New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNew Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 23 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:6956. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment BillFirst ReadingHon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) on behalf of theDeputy Prime Minister: I move That the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I want to begin my contribution to this particular bill this afternoon by congratulating the Labour Party on getting out of sleepy hollow for the first time in 7 years and actually doing something this afternoon that looked a little bit interesting. Might I say that it is no surprise to me that when some people who would normally be calling the shots around these matters are not available the Labour Opposition left in the hands of the Hon Trevor Mallard the old tusker himself manages to pull one out of the bag and almost—almost—gets what it was after.I return now to the bill. This is a bill introduced to the House by the Government but significantly it was constructed by Gareth Hughes and a team from the Green Party. They have recognised that a large number of New Zealanders would like to have the fifth option on the referendum panel that asks people to put a preference from one to five now for a flag should there be a vote in favour of a change.The Government considers that that is not an unreasonable position but we do want to express our huge confidence in the design panel which was put together for the consideration of the flag. That panel has been in some places criticised and not least of those criticisms has been that there was no designer on the panel. Well it was not a group of designers who put up the hundreds and hundreds of options that could have been considered; it was largely ordinary New Zealanders who have a patriotic view of their country and were wanting a view along those lines expressed on the flag. The panel behaved in I think a thoroughly professional manner and undertook a very good public consultation process. Remember they were faced with 10000 different flag options—10000 different flag options expressed by various New Zealanders. So it was a challenging job for that panel to do as the law required of them and to whittle that number down to some four options.One of the things it did was ask for public opinion about the 40 options that it thought may be of interest to New Zealanders. It is worth noting that the Red Peak came in 37th out of those 40. That being said there has been considerable activity and on a matter like this you would expect New Zealanders to become a little bit passionate. So we have an option today to put another flag in the referendum.Hon Annette King: It’s not in here.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Well Opposition members are waving bits of paper around in anticipation that it may be that particular flag that is included. Perhaps they should just have a little bit of a sleep overnight and see what comes of it in the next day or so. I think accepting the way that we are moving forward and completing the aspects of the bill—that is the first reading the second reading the Committee stage and the third reading—all in one day so that instruction can be given to the people responsible for the referendum is the appropriate thing to do.I want to tell the House that by doing this we will not affect the planned referendum dates the preferential voting system does not change and the approach to regulating the referendum advertising etc. is also unchanged. I think it will be interesting to see how New Zealanders react to this over the next couple of days.Changing a flag should create reaction but it should not create the sorts of descriptions that we are getting from people across the other side of the House who are actually violently opposed to this approach now but actually went into the 2014 election saying that if they were in Government—the same position that we are in today—they would be promoting a change to the New Zealand flag. The one thing this House can be certain of and all New Zealanders can be certain of is that had it been in Government Labour would have changed the flag and not one New Zealander would have had a say in that other than those members of its Government. What we are seeing over the other side is crocodile tears the wringing of hands at the disappointment at not being able to do this and now after a 30-second read of the bill all sorts of claims that it will not do what it set out to do.Well I think it does not happen every day that a member can come to the House and propose a bill have that bill defeated by a leave motion and then have the Government pick it up particularly when that member is a member of an Opposition party. So I think it is a day that I am sure Gareth Hughes will remember for a very long time. It does indicate that when there is a good idea put forward then the Government is not opposed to listening to that idea.The biggest surprise to us is that the Labour Party did not think of doing something like this. The Labour Party had not the wit it would seem to be able to come up with something that the Green Party has done this afternoon. So what we are seeing really is a lot of bitterness—and we will hear it over the next few hours—from a party that has been totally snookered by a smaller party in this House but a smaller party that is increasingly listening to the voices of New Zealanders and representing their aspirations—Grant Robertson: It’s just politics Gerry. That’s all it is—just politics.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: —although Mr Robertson over there says “It’s just politics.” I take him at his word but I know that deep down inside past the politics he really does want to see a change to the flag and most definitely wants to see the process for it. [Interruption] Well now we have got the contest between Mr Robertson and Ms Ardern—a contest that apparently is not on because Ms Ardern is way out in front on this one—yelling across the best option they have got Mrs King and I think we are going to see that little scenario play out over the next couple of days as well.This is a bill that reflects the fact that New Zealanders who have spoken have been listened to. It is a tribute to the ability of our Government to work with other parties to ensure that where there is a fair case that should be dealt with we are prepared to move in that direction. Thank you.ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): Well that speech from the Leader of the House pretty much sums up the National Government’s approach to a very serious issue for the country and that is the consideration of whether or not we change our flag. For that member as it is for the Prime Minister it is just a game. It is about who has got what and it is just about manipulating and pussyfooting and carrying on as if it is all just a big game.You see the National Government could have done this weeks ago. The National Government could have done this weeks ago. It could have done it last week when we sought the leave of the House to introduce legislation to add another option and to give New Zealanders a choice. We will support this bill because we support giving New Zealanders a choice—a real choice. The reality about the flag referendum process so far—and the whole flag-changing process—is that it has just under John Key become an absolute and utter shambles. He could not manage a flag referendum process to save himself which now it turns out is what he is going to have to do.New Zealanders are disillusioned. They are beyond disappointed. They are disillusioned and frustrated and disappointed that they will not be listened to by the most senior elected politician in the country. This is the Prime Minister who goes around to every meeting he can with anywhere between two people and 200 people and insists that they hear his case for change demands that they raise their hands in answer to his question and then when they do not give him an answer he likes he berates them. That is where this has now come to.Let us go back to the start of this process. This has always been John Key’s pet project. He said to the people of New Zealand “We must change the flag. We must have a flag change.” and then he said it must be black and he said it must have a silver fern on it. When nobody liked the idea of it being black he said: “Oh as long as it’s got a silver fern on it.” He pumped that up and he talked it up and he selected a Flag Consideration Panel of his own. This was a consideration panel that was tasked with coming up with a new design for a new flag. Do you think it had a designer on it? Do you think for the biggest design project for the nation—a design that is meant to reflect the nation—the Government would put a professional designer on the panel? Not one—not one which gave the lie to the Prime Minister’s claim that this was about us forging a new identity. It was about his project and his appalling taste in aesthetics for another thing.So we went off with a Flag Consideration Panel that had no design expertise. Then when the Prime Minister was called out on it after it had toured the country getting an average of 29 people at its meetings and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on that exercise it then thought: “Gee we’d better get a designer to come in and have a look.” A designer came and had a look for 2 hours and that was it. That was the input. But it was too late by that time because everybody was dancing to the Prime Minister’s tune.Then the Flag Consideration Panel came up with its recommendations. The Prime Minister set up a personally selected panel having told the world at large: “We must have a flag with a silver fern on it.” The Flag Consideration Panel was told it had to come up with four options. What do three of the four options have on them mysteriously?Hon Ruth Dyson: A silver fern.ANDREW LITTLE: Oh a silver fern. How unusual. What a coincidence—just what the Prime Minister wanted and one other. The panel overlooked some other obvious contenders. That is how shambolic it has been.It does not stop there of course. They had a cross-party group of this House. Only one party was not on it but every other party was. Every other party bar National said that we ought to ask New Zealanders—not only because we are a democracy but because we as politicians respect the electorate—whether they want to change the flag or not. There was objection from one party only—the party opposite; the Government party. And even though the recommendation went to Cabinet what did Cabinet do? It just dumped it. It pushed it aside and said it was not relevant. The Government said it was not going to give people that choice because who knows—people might not want to change the flag. Uh oh! That is democracy under the National Party in New Zealand today.This has been an utter shambles. It is John Key’s utter shambles and every attempt to try to get some responsiveness some democracy since has fallen on deaf ears. We tried last week. I offered to work with the Prime Minister. I said: “Let’s at least have a talk about it.” It is not good. We saw the public reaction. We know the public is terrified that they are going to get to the end of the second referendum after we have spent $26 million and we will still have the same flag.We offered to work with the Government on it. John Key publicly said: “Yeah I’ll meet with Andrew Little. We’ll have a talk about it.” I wrote to him and said: “Here are some issues. Let’s have a talk about it. No conditions—let’s have a talk about it.” Then he wrote back and said: “No you put conditions on it. We can’t meet.” So I wrote back to him and I corrected him. I said: “No no Prime Minister you seem to have got this wrong.” I said: “Let’s meet with no conditions. Let’s at least have a talk about this because this is about public confidence in this process.” It is not about political gain. It is not like Gerry Brownlee’s speech which was about calling out who has outmanoeuvred whom who has got this or that point up and who has scored a particular point.This is far too important. National Party members might think this is all a big game. They might think it is all about their egos or the Prime Minister’s ego but this is way more important than that. There are New Zealanders who are deeply concerned about this. There are those who do not want to change because they consider that the current flag is the flag that they identify with as they have gone into conflicts around the world. They are concerned about it and they must be entitled to have a voice. They should not be rubbished or talked down or “outmanoeuvred” as the Government might have it.We will take this opportunity to ensure that New Zealanders have more choice but we will also take the opportunity with the passage of this bill to ensure that New Zealanders have a real choice. We are not going to overlook the thousands and thousands of New Zealanders who are concerned that they are not being afforded the dignity of being asked the very basic question: “Do you want to change the flag?”. That is the first question New Zealanders should be asked. They should be shown some respect by the Government. They should be shown some respect by this Parliament. We will argue for it and we will put that up in the Supplementary Order Paper during the course of the debate. Then we should let New Zealanders decide. Let New Zealanders make a real choice and a real decision.This is not about game playing. This is an important exercise that reflects the flavour of New Zealand to the world—our sense of our own identity. It may well be if the polls are anything to go by that most New Zealanders are thinking that this is not the time—this is not the time. If that is the sentiment of a large number of New Zealanders and if we are to go through with a referendum and give people the democratic choice then they should be given a real choice. They should be allowed to answer that question.Personally I think it is time we reconsidered our flag. I am prepared to support that change given that now a referendum is inevitable but let New Zealanders speak. Let them have their choice. This is not the plaything of 121 politicians. It is not for them to score points and work out who might be smarter than whom. That would be an abomination for such an important issue.As I have said we will support this bill. We will argue it all the way though. We will argue for the rights of New Zealanders on such an important issue. It goes to their sense of identity our identity what we show around the world and what we show to ourselves on our occasions of national significance. This is not a matter where anything other than the maximum choice should be given to voters who decide and give us the responsibility to do what we do. So we will do that. We will hold our heads up high and proud that we have stuck to our principled position which is that New Zealanders must be given a choice on this issue and must be given their voice. We will argue and take every opportunity to make sure that the ballot papers for this referendum truly reflect that.If we get to the end of the referendum process and there is no change in the flag and this Government has seen $26 million spent that will sit firmly at the feet of the Prime Minister and of every single member of the National Party. They have led this country on a silly foolish folly a merry dance and it is an absolute and utter shambles. They cannot sort it out themselves. They are terrified of the electorate of New Zealand.GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Today I introduced and tried to seek leave for a bill that would include the flag design known as Red Peak in the official referendum happening in about 6 weeks’ time. One party blocked it and did not let New Zealanders have that choice. I respect its opinion and the thousands of New Zealanders who also share its opinion but I genuinely believe that Kiwis simply want more of a choice. So I would like to thank the Government. I welcome its decision to adopt my bill as a Government bill the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill. I would like to thank all parties for their support. It is good that we can work together.Watching politicians over the last couple of weeks despite the massive groundswell of public support what we saw during the official consultation process was a handful of people engaged and joke flags uploaded. [Interruption] Yet what we saw over the course of a single week—a single week Mr O’Rourke—were 50000 people engaged with a single flag. The fact is that we have seen those people. They have voted with their feet online on the petition and in emails to parliamentarians and it is good that those people get a choice. If those members think those people should not get a choice they can stand up and say it in their speeches. I am standing up today so that Kiwis get more of a choice. No matter what that party says and no matter what the pundits the columnists the people on Twitter have said it is pretty clear that Red Peak has not peaked yet. My bill which has been adopted by the Government is about giving Kiwis a choice in the referendum. What we saw was a phenomenal public reaction.I would like to explain my personal relationship with Red Peak. I will admit that I was incredibly lukewarm on this particular flag at first—incredibly lukewarm. I do not think I would have picked it out of that 10000. I think my favourite pick was probably the “Laser Kiwi” which had garnered so much international attention and was such a symbol of the entire process and the seriousness with which the Kiwi public was taking it. But what I saw in respect of the background explanation of this particular flag design Red Peak were the words of the designer—the different symbolic interpretations such as the meeting house over the mountain. What we saw was that it actually built a connection. What many New Zealanders told me is that it actually looked like a flag unlike maybe some of the marketing-type associations people felt with the four official flag choices. What we saw was an incredible 50000 people in a single week engaged. What we have seen is the public print their own flags and run them up mountains. Garage Project one of my favourite microbreweries in the entire country a Wellington-based company has even made its own Red Peak brew which I am looking forward to trying if this bill passes and I am hopeful and optimistic that it will.My message to the people who may not support Red Peak is that regardless of where you stand whether you support keeping the existing flag whether you support having a silver fern or whether you support Red Peak or something else this is simply about choice. It is about this House listening to the public and listening to the groundswell of support. What we do know is that a huge percentage of the population do not want to change the flag. We saw that TV3 poll with 70 percent against and I respect that opinion. A flag is simply a bit of cloth up a pole but it is also something a bit more than that. It is a symbolic representation on behalf of all of us and in multicultural modern New Zealand in 2015 we need to make sure we get this right because our existing flag is more than 100 years old.What we know is that this referendum process is going ahead. Despite my misgivings—and I do not think that this is the most appropriate use of the Government’s time or the most appropriate use of $26 million—the fact is that this referendum process is going ahead. That law was passed. My party voted against it; we thought that there were more important priorities. But the referendum process is going ahead and what I wanted to make sure of was that it was not the farce that it looked like it was turning into that it was not ignoring those tens of thousands of Kiwis who wanted a say. So regardless of where you stand Kiwis will get a say and as this law passes they will get more of a choice which is a good thing.When it comes to the $26 million being expended I think that there are more important things to be spending it on. We should be spending it on feeding every kid a healthy lunch in our schools. There are so many more things that are so much more important. The process was incredibly flawed. We saw 10000 entries but many of them were jokes and a handful of people turned up to the meetings. What we saw was a process that did not truly engage or capture the interest of New Zealanders. An interesting juxtaposition I think is Massey University’s Design and Democracy Project Flagpost. For the cost of tens of thousands of dollars a website was built that genuinely engaged New Zealanders. It gave New Zealanders the ability to actually comment on the flag entries. It gave New Zealanders the ability to vote on the flag entries. In 2015 in modern digital New Zealand I am astounded that the flag process did not allow New Zealanders to take advantage of some of these digital technologies and the ability to instantaneously provide feedback which ultimately would have delivered a better decision than what we saw in the 4 hours of consideration from the group without a designer.I would also like to point out that Parliament did not have to take this step of going into urgency to pass this today. I am not talking about New Zealand First blocking leave; I am talking about the Government through Order in Council amending some of the options which was always a live option. What we know is that Kiwis care about the flag. They are engaging with it. Many people do not think that it is right to change it and I am looking forward to hearing their opinions loud and clear through the referenda process. But why the Green Party acted today is because we wanted to break that political deadlock. We wanted to offer a constructive positive solution because we did not want to just be sitting around watching a political deadlock emerge when we know we could work together. This is what people at home on Twitter reading the newspapers watching the telly wanted to see: they wanted to see parties working together in the common interest. What Parliament is doing tonight is simply about working together to give Kiwis more choice.In purely practical terms the bill essentially does three things. We drafted it incredibly simply. I wanted a simple bill that dealt only with this single issue. I know that other parties feel incredibly strongly about other issues; I respect that. I think that there is great merit in their opinions and I am disappointed that there is not an ability to include them in this bill—because ultimately I was looking for a pragmatic solution so that we were not just sitting around playing politics so that we were not just sitting around talking about it but were actually getting on and giving Kiwis choice. So this bill does three things. It adds a fifth option in clause 4. It is not prejudicing the Governor-General’s ultimate decision-making so in clause 5 it makes this clear but the bill has reference to Red Peak in the explanatory statement so that no one can be confused in thinking that the Governor-General could pick the “Laser Kiwi” flag if he chose. Lastly in amending schedule 4 as set out in clause 7 the bill amends some of the mathematical formulas for the fifth option’s inclusion.In summary I would like to say how it is important that this Parliament can work together that our parties can come together across party lines—and this is something that the Green Party has had as its mission ever since we entered Parliament in 1996. We have worked successfully with Labour when it was in Government. We worked successfully with the current Government through the home insulation legislation and the national cycleway. We have worked with the ACT Party. We are proud of some of the wins we have had with New Zealand First. Our place in this Parliament literally right in the middle of this debating chamber is to work with parties. I am proud that my party’s bill was picked up by the Government. I am proud that we could act constructively positively—that we could maybe put politics aside for a little while so that Kiwis could have the choice that they so clearly desired. Thank you.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I have to concede that I find it utterly bizarre that we find ourselves in this situation today. I just want to traverse what has happened over the past couple of weeks because I would not want any member of the public to be left in any confusion that it was always within the power of the Prime Minister John Key to bring about the resolution that we are debating now. In fact we are debating it only because the Government has finally put it forward as a bill something that it could have done 2 weeks ago if it had chosen to do so.Here is my first question: why did the Government not introduce this bill immediately after the post-Cabinet press conference at which the Prime Minister said that it was something they could support? Why did the Government not introduce this bill then? That is a genuine question we would like to ask. Why then did John Key say that he wanted cross-party agreement in order to introduce a fifth option? A cross-party agreement but minus New Zealand First I have to say. Apparently it was OK if one party did not agree but it was not OK if anyone else did. And what was Labour’s response? What was Labour’s response? We said: “Fine.” We said: “Fine give New Zealanders that extra option. There’s a groundswell pushing for it; let’s do it. But while we’re there why don’t we also give that huge number of New Zealanders who want to be asked first if they want change that chance too?”. In order to be constructive we drafted a bill that would do that—both things: it would add a fifth option and it would put in a yes/no question. We tabled it in Parliament.At that point it would have been very easy for the Government to say: “Oh I see there is agreement from Labour on the fifth option. We don’t agree on the yes/no question so we won’t vote for that but we’ll vote for the Red Peak option.” It could have done that. What did it do? It denied leave for that bill to be debated. It said no. We said: “Fine. Well why don’t we have a meeting and sit down and constructively discuss whether we can make progress on this?”. No preconditions—we wrote it down in a letter to John Key. Let us talk about this—no preconditions. What did the Prime Minister say? No. We were so exasperated at that point by the games that the Prime Minister seemed to be playing that we wrote to him and said: “Fine if you don’t want to change the law as we’ve suggested and as you suggested then why don’t you send it back to the flag consideration panel to trade an option? We’ll support you to do that.” What did he say? No. So do not tell me that Labour has not tried to be constructive in this debate. We have tried multiple times to engage the National Party and the Prime Minister on this issue and we have been denied at every opportunity. That has been enormously frustrating. No preconditions—I want to restate that there were none whatsoever.So let us be absolutely clear about the debate that we are having today in this House: the Prime Minister could have instigated it a week ago but he chose not to. He never ever needed permission from any party to put this bill before the House. What better proof is there of that than the fact that the entire New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill which set out this whole process was passed without Labour’s support? He passed the New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill in the beginning without Labour’s support and yet suddenly to make an amendment to it he then claimed that he needed us. I am not sure if John Key has suddenly forgotten but sadly he does still hold a majority in this House. He could have done anything he wanted. Oddly we actually supported him to make this change and he still said that he was not going to do it. If anyone else out there is as confused as I am it is for good reason because ultimately you cannot explain political game-playing. Yet that is what we have seen. This has been a game.The reason that Labour has been so disappointed in this is that ultimately we have been driven by one factor: to give New Zealanders a say—a proper say. Let me be absolutely clear: from the very beginning I supported having a debate about the flag. I wanted to hear what New Zealanders thought about one of our national symbols. I wanted a debate about who we are as New Zealanders how we wanted to display ourselves to the world and where we were going. I would not have minded that debate being part of a much wider constitutional debate; that seemed to be a more appropriate order of things for me. The Prime Minister did not want to do it that way—so be it—but that is what I hoped for. I also hoped that we would have a debate that was done in such a way that was fiscally prudent and that we kept in mind that in amongst this conversation we have some very demanding challenges to address and that includes child poverty. So let us not be silly about the way we conduct this. Yes I had a problem with $26 million being spent on it—a big problem.The other thing that I wanted to see in this debate was for it to be genuinely open. Now I have a view and my view was coloured by the idea of having change. But am I scared to ask New Zealanders the question first of whether they want change? No because I genuinely believe that people should have a voice and have a say regardless of what I think. Does the Prime Minister think that? Clearly not. If he genuinely believed that he could convince people that change was the right thing to do he would not have been afraid to ask the question: “Do you want change?”. He put up the argument that you could not ask that question without putting the options forward. We agreed—in fact we always argued that. At the first meeting of parliamentarians that he brought together on this question we always argued that the first ballot should be laid out like this: “Do you want change: yes or no? If there were to be change which flag options would you prefer?”. That is ballot No. 1. You get to decide whether you want change within the context of the options. Then we counted it up. If 50 percent say “No. Regardless I don’t care what it looks like; I do not want change.” then you do not run round 2. If enough people say yes then round 2 runs and it includes the top polling alternative run off against the status quo.If for instance you liked one option but you were not happy with any of the others then you would get a second say in round 2—that was what Labour advocated. It is also an option that the Ministry of Justice put forward. The Prime Minister keeps saying that he listened to the experts. The experts said that this was a valid option. In fact almost every party in this House argued for that layout of the referendum but it was National that said no—it was National that did not want to ask yes or no. As someone who likes the design of Red Peak I say that I still want to ask people yes or no first. Yes I want choice but I want all New Zealanders to have choice. That has always been the position of the Labour Party. So when the Prime Minister said “OK let’s open up the potential of a fifth option.” was it unfair of us to say “Yes let’s do it but let’s add something else.”? I do not think so. If the Prime Minister disagreed he could have done that. We still would have voted in favour of Red Peak being an option which is exactly what we are doing today. What we saw instead was a game.I am disappointed that this happened because ultimately if we want a genuine debate that carries all New Zealanders surely we should be inclusive of all of their views. The fact that we have come to this point today demonstrates to me that we have a Prime Minister who did not think about choice but instead sat back in his office a week ago and faced the genuine reality that he might have no change in flag. He sat there and decided that at least Red Peak represented change. So he is hedging his bets. I wish it was not so cynical but I think that is exactly what has happened. I am disappointed that it has happened this way. Yes I supported Red Peak. Labour has supported choice from the very very beginning. We have done it I think in the right way by New Zealanders. We wanted everyone to have choice and that continues to be our position today. Thank you.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): You know you have to hand it to the Green Party which has played this amendment with a very straight bat. It has listened to public opinion which has been running pretty red hot around Red Peak. There has been an awful lot of discussion online and there has been discussion through all sorts of the media and it really has set this process even more alight than it already was. So in this instance I want to congratulate the member in charge the member who attempted to introduce this bill which was regrettably blocked by New Zealand First but which has the support of the rest of the House. I want to say congratulations to the Green Party because it was prepared to have an open mind in this debate. It was prepared to listen to what was happening out in New Zealand about this debate and so too has this Government. We have been prepared to listen to what the people have had to say about this flag debate we have been prepared to support this bill this simple little bill that previously was brought to the House by Gareth Hughes the Green member and we are prepared to add another option on to the referendum paper.It seems like such a simple thing to do and it is a simple thing to do because what we have done is said: “Yes OK.” Under the consideration process the panel has put up four alternatives which is what was prescribed in the first referendums Act. What the people of New Zealand have said is: “Yeah OK all right. There are probably some quite good options in there and we all have our favourites—or not.” But what the people of New Zealand have then said is “Well actually there is another one that we really like.” and they have been prepared to get out there and to support that choice. So let us do it. Let us give the people of New Zealand an extra choice in the second referendum. All we really need to look at is the schedule which has added another option. Option A option E—who knows—it will be one of those. I think it is an elegant solution I think it is a simple solution and I do congratulate the Greens on bringing that to the House.I also want to congratulate the other members of this Parliament who are supporting this initiative because this is about what we think about ourselves as New Zealanders. What says “New Zealand” to the rest of the world? That is what we should be arguing about today. That is where the debate is at: it is about where we see ourselves as New Zealand.Finally in this first contribution I just want to talk about the yes/no argument that has crippled Labour so badly throughout this process. It has had this argument; it has lost this argument. It did not have the support of the House. The House has moved on. The people of New Zealand have well and truly moved on from Labour’s position. Regrettably Labour has not and it will show that again and again and again throughout the course of this debate. What I say to Labour and what I say to the people of New Zealand is yes you do get the yes/no option but guess what? It is an informed choice and that is a good thing.JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Can I say that listening to Gareth Hughes’ speech actually underlined some very important components of what this referendum is about. Gareth Hughes started by saying that the flag that appealed to him most of all was the “Laser Kiwi”. I can appreciate Mr Hughes liking that flag but as he thought about it and progressed or engaged in the process he said that the flag that he now supports—evident by the motion that he brought to the House today—is Red Peak.I believe that what is important in this referendum process is exactly what Gareth has shown: that there is an engagement process of New Zealanders being invited to think to engage to discuss to debate to disagree and then to choose. The reason why I did not and do not today support the yes/no vote proposal is simply because it is the process of least engagement—it is the least engagement.A yes/no vote is “Do you want to change the flag without ever considering what the opportunities or possibilities are and going through the process?”—because that is what is being purported. I think that having a choice means a choice between alternatives and the referendum process promotes alternatives for people to consider. So many people whom I talk to say: “It will depend on what the alternative is whether I am going to choose between the present New Zealand flag or a future New Zealand flag.” I think that is important.I also believe that this is a chance where New Zealanders can engage in this process and not just looking at an emblem of the past but consider what sort of emblem and what icons bring us together as a modern New Zealand that represents nationalities ethnicities and age ranges right through this country which is considerably different from what it was 10 years ago. This is a very exciting proposal.You know we have been attacked left and right for having a public process that costs money. The public of New Zealand may not know that it costs $1472 per minute to run this Parliament and that is $2 million a day. Democracy is expensive but what we value are the thoughts the ideas the imagination the goodwill and the engagement of New Zealanders right through this country about this process—the young and old.Is it not amazing that schools are engaged in this process? We know that the schoolchildren do not have a chance to vote but they do have a chance to influence their parents. So I think that that is a great thing.Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on this bill. I think that what we are doing right now is that we are increasing engagement and I think in a democracy in a free country where we value everybody’s ideas that is a good thing.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First will definitely vote against this shonky legislation. I want to talk first of all about the Electoral Commission and the requirements of the New Zealand Flag Referendums Act because this bill violates that process which is actually already under way. The commission—and the Government I might say—has a duty to uphold it but under this shonky Government it has no chance of doing so. Everybody else of course does have to obey the law but John Key—with the tame compliance of the Greens and Labour I am sad to say—simply overrides all that for his own convenience.John Key and his assistants have already been in breach of the requirements of the regulatory period many times. That period began on 16 August and soon after that the Prime Minister and his assistants began contacting the media to provide information to support flag alternatives. They have been responding to media for the same purpose they have been arranging meetings and opportunities for the Prime Minister to promote the flag alternatives and they have certainly been writing material for the Prime Minister to use. And yes oh yes they will say that it is the Prime Minister’s own words—yeah right! His own words—only the gullible would believe that so why has the Electoral Commission not already acted against the Prime Minister and those people? You could not imagine a worse-policed process.This bill makes a mockery of the parliamentary system. We are passing a bill with a Government majority in one month and then using urgency to override it in the next while the process is already in train not because it is in the best interests of good government or in the best interests of New Zealand—nor is it a sound democratic process—but solely for the National Government’s political interests. The New Zealand Flag Referendums Act as we know and the process is deeply unpopular so this is nothing more than a backside-saving measure without peer by this Government.This bill will throw away the $8 million already spent to date. In John Key’s view this is “not a lot of money” but the prudent people of New Zealand will not agree because they expect good government with careful spending of public money not this kind of waste. That money as we know could have been better spent on many things: better health services more State houses and so on. Not only is this process now a gross farce but John Key wants to pay the piper and play the tune. He employed a very expensive panel to choose the final four designs for the first referendum but now he says that he knows better.And where will it stop? Will there be another bill next week the week after or the week after that to add another poll-driven alternative? John Key wants to second-guess his own expert panel and add his new favourite the so-called Red Peak. He has said much about the expertise of the Flag Consideration Panel but now that is cast aside. He has said much about the two-referendum process being the best for Kiwis to participate in and to suggest designs but he also now treats that with disdain. He originally said much about this being a non-political process not dictated by politicians but it is now utterly controlled by the Key Government and sadly with the collusion of both the Greens and the Labour Party which are going to actually vote for this bill which I cannot understand. Labour and the Greens usually favour good government and democracy so I think that it is a shame that they have decided to vote for this bill.This is a completely media-driven bill. It has been carefully designed so that it will attract public attention to take attention away from a failing economy and gross social economic and environmental mismanagement by one of the worst Governments in the country’s history. With this bill the whole sorry process has become a poll-driven farce—a five-flag farce. John Key knows he is on a hiding to nothing with the flag referendum clearly going against him. The vast majority hates the white feather of cowardice designs put up so far—some call it a silver fern but it clearly is not—and nothing can save this referendum process now. The Red Peak has been touted by some as that saviour but the online poll upon which it is based has absolutely no integrity. New Zealand First has already had one person who said to us point-blank that they have so far voted three times in that poll on the internet and goodness knows how many people have voted goodness knows how many times. So people who call that a groundswell are deluding themselves—that it is not.This is the shonky way we are now expected to choose a new flag for this country. It could not be a worse process. It will become the laughing stock of the Western World and we will become new prime material for television and for the stand-up comedians with our grinning Prime Minister being parodied far and wide. And he will deserve it but New Zealand does not. John Key is now grasping at straws—or perhaps red peaks—to save his pet flag project and in the process has so compromised that process that it will now go down as his worst failure. The new flag idea has become not legacy but legless and is a prelude to the loss by the National Government of the 2017 election. But the Prime Minister does not care any more for his preferred logo which was a black flag with what I think is a white feather on it. It was parodied as being far too close to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria flag by comedian John Oliver on worldwide television.John Key has never cared about the dignity of the current flag. He does not care about its history he does not care about its heritage and he does not care about the fact that it truly represents the fundamental bicultural nature of Kiwi nationalism through the Union flag in one corner along with the Southern Cross on the Pacific blue of Polynesia on the other side.The introduction of this bill will bring disgrace on this Parliament for the very bad process and very bad governance that the bill represents. One could not imagine how to actually set up a worse process than this. First of all we criticised the original legislation because of the bad process in it. This addition to it makes it five times 10 times or 100 times worse because what it shows is that the process set out in the original legislation can be disregarded and a Government with enough votes can simply add whatever flag it wants irrespective of the judgment of the expert panel and of the hundreds of people who suggested designs and the hundreds of people who wanted their designs considered. But this Government is going to choose only one of those with little or no justification and add it to the current four. And that is not good enough. This process will bring shame on the most arrogant Government this nation has ever seen for the way it is behaving in the whole referendum process.The Government is now in a blind panic over the misfiring of what is supposed to be John Key’s legacy project and it is a Government that will stop at nothing to save its burnt bacon—a Government that is prepared to play games with New Zealand’s democracy. I think the people of New Zealand will give only one answer to all of that. That answer will be a resounding no and it is a no that this process and this Government deeply deserve.MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): It is interesting that this is marking 1 year since the recent election—1 year since the people have spoken and this House listened. The people have spoken that they wanted five alternatives and not four very similar to 1 year ago when the people spoke and said they wanted this National Government. The reason they wanted this National Government is that this National Government listens to the people and this bill this New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill is an example of this Government listening to the people. It is an example of this Government working collaboratively with other parties and I commend Gareth Hughes for putting this bill forward.This bill shows that we will put politics aside to listen to what the people want and that is exactly what we have done. When you talk about this process—this logical process—it makes sense to first identify the alternative flag and that is exactly the process this will take. We will identify the alternative flag—now we have five alternatives; I must say there will be many Cantabrians excited that they will have an option that is now red and black—and from the alternatives selected we can go to the next referendum and put it up head-to-head against our current flag.What this bill does is it gives the people of New Zealand choice. This is about democracy. This is a once-in-a-generation once-in-a-lifetime chance for the people of New Zealand to choose. When I go out into my electorate of Waimakariri and I listen to my constituents there are people saying yes and there are people saying no and that is fantastic because what this will give them is an opportunity to get out there and vote and choose what flag best represents New Zealand.That is why it is fantastic to see this Government working with the Green Party—the start of a blue-green movement—to think about how we can better listen to the people of New Zealand. [Interruption] You would think that that party opposite would have listened last time when it had its second-worst electoral loss because the people did not think it had listened to them and that is why I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. Dr Kennedy Graham—5 minutes.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): This is an unusual moment for the Parliament of New Zealand. It is a rare thing for a country to consider a change of national flag and it is rarer still for it to change course in the midst of the process by which it chose to do so. But this is what we have been forced to do. By a twist of fate we find ourselves obliged to have Parliament intervene in the process just 8 weeks ahead of the first referendum to increase the number of new flags the public can choose from.How did we come to this strange situation? In initiating the debate in the first reading the Deputy Prime Minister as Minister in charge of the process advanced a few high-sounding phrases. He said: “it is now an appropriate time for the debate about the New Zealand flag to be resolved through a careful and considered process”. A cross-party group would advise on the legislation and recommend a panel to choose the flags. The panel would be independent because as he put it “the process here is as important as the result.” The choice of flag he said “is not a matter for Parliament and it is not a matter for Cabinet; it is a matter for the panel.” That was on 12 March; 6 months later Parliament sees fit to intervene to add a fifth flag to the four that the panel exercising its best judgment had already chosen from more than 10000 designs.So why is Parliament intervening at this late stage? For two reasons: because it can and because it should. Parliament can intervene because it is the sovereign body of this country. Parliament is the ultimate authority elected by the people and from which the Government is chosen. It decided on a process for choosing the flag and if it judges it to be sufficiently important it can alter that process even mid-course. It can change the legislation by which the process was launched provided the process has not terminated. There will be those who criticise Parliament if it decides to do this but there is no one who can accurately say that the Parliament lacks the right to do so. The process we are considering today therefore is constitutionally proper.So to the second question: is the process politically sound? Should Parliament be moving to amend the legislation at this late stage? In the second reading the Minister called for a continuation of “a formal careful and respectful process”. Is the vision of Parliament intervening in the decision of how many flags to choose from part of a formal careful and consistent process or is it informal careless and inconsistent? Is it impugning the integrity of the panel? In our view Parliament should intervene. This is not to criticise the panel or any of its members who have in our view done a sound job. Their integrity is not brought into question by adding a fifth flag. The fact that 4.4 million citizens have 4.4 million views on the choice of the four flags was always a given.What has changed is that an unexpected phenomenon has occurred. Unexpectedly a groundswell of opinion has emerged in favour of one flag which was among the 40 but not among the final four. Over 50000 signed a petition for Red Peak. Should Parliament heed the views of 50000 people and alter the legislation to add Red Peak? Yes it should. Democratic life is about choice. Democratic life is about leaders listening to and responding to the people. An unexpected phenomenon has occurred and Parliament has a right to respond. So in circumstances as rare as this we have the rare phenomenon of the Green and National parties collaborating to respond to the will of the people. So be it.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The Hon Annette King—5 minutes.Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): I have to say today that I am ashamed of the way that this Government and this House are going about making a change to the flag of New Zealand. This is the worst example of political posturing that I have seen in this House in many many years. We are told that we are responding to the wants and needs of New Zealanders. What hogwash—what hogwash. New Zealanders have not said that they want to change the flag and that is the fundamental question that should have been asked first. Do New Zealanders want to change the flag? That is where you start from in any argument. So when we are told that we are responding to what New Zealanders want I do not believe it. When Kennedy Graham said that Parliament has been forced to intervene in the process he is right because the process has been an unprecedented shambles. It has been poorly thought through. It has been poll-driven fruitcakes over there thinking that they need to make changes—just like they do on everything—based not on principles or ideals but on what the polls tell them.The polls if they had been listening were telling them two things but one more strongly than the other. Yes people wanted more choice. They wanted another option—one that arose out of the fact that they did not like the four that had been put up. So they then looked around at the 40 or so designs and said “We like that one better.” and then a groundswell of over 50000 people signed a petition. But what Government members have not listened to are the more than 50000 people who have said: “We don’t want change at all. We haven’t been asked if we want change but actually we don’t.” What was interesting to me was that in question time today the Prime Minister went on about how wonderful National riding high in the TV3 poll was. He quoted the TV3 poll did henot? But did he then quote the part of the poll that asked New Zealanders whether they wanted to change the flag? Did he believe that part of the poll? In that part 70 percent said no they did not—70 percent said no they did not.Tim Macindoe: The vote was 70-plus percent who voted for it last year.Hon ANNETTE KING: I say to the member for Hamilton West: they did not want to change the flag. So I think that Denis O’Rourke was actually right when he said that this is a backside-saving bill. But I do not think it will because the Prime Minister’s arrogant high-handed way of handling this has been seen by many New Zealanders as bullying dismissive arrogant and dressed up as what New Zealanders want. Well I see it as shabby shonky and a shambles. We have seen U-turns we have seen twists we have seen deceit and we have seen political conniving from the panel that was set up right through to the legislation that has been brought here.So Labour will vote for the Greens-inspired bill but I say to the Greens that if they are listening to what New Zealanders want they will vote for Labour’s Supplementary Order Paper because that also says: “Ask the question whether people want to change the flag.” I say to all parties—we will not get support from the National Party members; they have already turned it down but every other party: Peter Dunne the ACT Party the Māori Party and every other party—if you really want to give New Zealanders choice you will vote for the Supplementary Order Paper that we have put up. It is very simple. It says: “Should New Zealand keep its current flag or should New Zealand change to another flag.” You could not get more simple than that.So I say to members: let us give New Zealanders choice. We want choice and they want choice but they want the choice of that question as well. If the National Party members do not want to vote for it there are enough votes in this Parliament with every other party to pass this bill. Then we will be giving New Zealanders a real choice—what they are saying to us. Some of us have listened to our constituents but I suspect that many members over there have been hoodwinked by the man who walks on water in their eyes—their Prime Minister. If they listened to their constituents more of them—and certainly Mr Young in your electorate I bet you have not been near the RSA lately because if you went there they would say: “Give us the choice of whether we change it or not.” I urge members to vote for this bill and also to vote for Labour’s Supplementary Order Paper.JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): Annette King I think knows a lot better than that because it was not that long ago that Andrew Little was standing up and seeking leave to introduce his own bill to do exactly what we are trying to do here which is to give New Zealanders the fifth option the Red Peak design in which through social media—and the media have been campaigning on it—a strong interest has been shown. We will find out just exactly how strong that interest is once New Zealanders get the opportunity to vote not too long in the future.New Zealanders should have that opportunity to vote. For Labour members to be opposing this bill crying crocodile tears and saying everything is a disaster when they were trying to do something very similar not that long ago is I think quite deplorable. This bill which we are debating today under urgency is all about giving New Zealanders that opportunity to vote. We have an established process. We have a process whereby there will be a two-stage referendum. That has been debated in this Parliament and has been voted on. It has been communicated to the public for many many months and that is exactly what is going to happen.In fact having the option to vote on the flag has been debated for well over a year. The Prime Minister raised this before the election. Labour members say that we are going against the wishes of New Zealanders. Well I point out firstly that that is something we will find out for sure in a few months’ time and secondly that we had an election campaign. Labour members continue to stand up in this House and complain about things that we are doing as a Government when we said before the election we would be doing exactly that. Do elections not mean anything to the Opposition members anymore? Do they not care about the outcome of election campaigns? Do they not think that statements made before election campaigns should have any credibility? We do. We said that we would be doing this and that is exactly what we are doing. I have to say I am not a fan of Red Peak myself. I think it is an unusual collection of coloured triangles that I will certainly not be voting for but if there is strong interest in it—and this has been demonstrated—then that is what New Zealanders should have an opportunity to vote on and they will get that opportunity.Before I sit down I want to say that the Green Party should be congratulated on playing this with a straight bat. They have done that on this occasion. We cannot say the same for all of the parties sitting on that side. Well New Zealand First has been consistent the whole way through and the Greens have been playing this one with a straight bat. But the Labour Party is flip-floppingagain. It is saying one thing but a few weeks ago it was doing something completely different. There are parties on that side that have integrity and I congratulate them on that. We believe that New Zealanders should have the choice and that is what we are giving them here.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): That was an interesting little speech from the junior whip from the National Party and it followed I think a number of speeches some of which bordered on the sanctimonious. I think we need to look really carefully at the options that we are putting before New Zealanders. We see a Prime Minister who is prepared to move on the basis of a petition of 50000-odd people and a Green Party that is prepared to support him in that to support a flag that many of my colleagues like but I actually think is rubbish. Many of us like it but I think it is rubbish. But apparently National is not prepared to follow the petition of more than 50000 or the people who submitted to the select committee. There were 14000 people who submitted to the select committee that there should be a yes/no vote; 700 of them asked to be heard and there was a whole pile of RSA-based separate points. The Green Party members are so much up on process but they were not prepared in the Justice and Electoral Committee or in this House to follow the democratic process and to let New Zealanders have a yes/no vote.I want to point out to the Green Party members that not one of their members of Parliament would be in this House—and many National Party members would not be in this House—if there had not been an MMP referendum with a yes/no vote. From memory 85 percent of New Zealanders said that they wanted to vote for change. But what I understand is that the Green Party is going to join the National Party and John Key who said that New Zealanders are not bright enough and could not understand and that the process would be too complicated if they were asked yes or no. Well that was the process that brought us MMP. It is a process that I think generally has worked pretty well but unfortunately the main beneficiaries of that process are rejecting it with some sanctimonious non-constitutional claptrap that we are hearing now.Kennedy Graham knows full well that the Prime Minister has had all the power ever since the legislation was passed to include Red Peak if he wished to. It is a matter of an Order in Council. It is very very simple for him to do that if he wanted to. Ever since he pretended that he wanted to have Red Peak on the ballot he has had the ability to bring a bill to this Parliament and right through the process we have said that we will support it. What we have also said is that we will add to that—and we want to be added and we will vote for and we will debate and we will push for—the right of New Zealanders to say at the beginning of the process “No we don’t want a change.” and thereby save $7 million. I know it is not much to Green Party members and it is not much to National Party members but Labour Party members say that $7 million spent on food for children or houses or decent insulation for people who need it is a much better use of $7 million than a referendum that 70 percent of New Zealanders say that they do not want. I say shame on the Green Party.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Kia ora mai tātou tēnā tātou katoa. Members when we adjourned for the dinner break we were debating the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill. The Hon Trevor Mallard was speaking and he has 6 minutes remaining to speak should he wish to avail himself of that opportunity.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Six minutes—that is so generous of you Mr Deputy Speaker. I think as I completed my speech I was making some comments about the Greens and their approach to it and I will go back to that but I do want to note how the Government is treating this legislation with contempt. The major promoter of the flag change did not speak once on any stage of the substantive legislation when it went through the House. He has not so far spoken on this bill and without pushing too hard at the conventions he has not even deigned to listen to any of the speeches in this House. I think that that is a disgrace.We had chaos at the introduction of the bill. Gerry Brownlee the Leader of the House was not here to move the urgency motion. The member in charge of the bill the Hon Bill English was not here to make his speech. There were no notes provided for Mr Brownlee to speak and frankly the National Party approach to this has been lacking.Hon Member: Woeful.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Lacking woeful—woeful I think is an understatement. I do want to go back to the Greens from whom we had a combination of the high and mighty “We are between all of you and we can sort out the problems of the world.” from Gareth Hughes and an approach that I think might be best described as a pretty poor constitutional bush lawyer approach from Kennedy Graham. I want to ask them why they were not straight with the House. They did a deal with the National Party to not support the yes/no vote—to not support the Labour Party on it. That is the party that pretends to be transparent that pretends to be straightforward but its members could not stand up in the House and say: “We have made an agreement with the National Party not to support the Labour Party amendments.” We would have disagreed with them it would have been wrong but it would have been honest and straightforward. That is something that the Greens pride themselves on. They tell themselves that they always take that approach but in this particular instance the principles have fallen away to the pragmatism.I do want to specifically address the bill. I know we will get into it at the Committee stage but I see that the member in charge of the bill is here now and he can if he wishes take a call. I want to ask him: why five options? Why five and not six? John Key clearly prefers the Rugby Union’s silver fern flag. Why can the Prime Minister not have the intestinal fortitude to stand up for the design that he believes is the appropriate design and the one that he would like to have on the ballot paper? Why do we not have six? In fact we are going to help the Prime Minister. We are going to move an amendment during the Committee stage to have the ability if the Government changes its mind yet again to have six options and not five.The next question I want to ask is: who drafted this rubbish—who drafted this rubbish? We have got an explanatory note on this bill that frankly if it went before anyone who looked at misleading advertising would be found guilty of being misleading because what it says is it puts Red Peak in or may put Red Peak in. Well actually it does not. All it does is increase the number of options from five to four. The note says that the bill adds another one to the ones that came from the panel. It does not. Actually the way the bill is drafted you could have five completely different designs coming out of the Order in Council process that this bill allows.Clayton Mitchell: Order in Council.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: In this case I say to the member there there is an Order in Council process here without reverting to a previous bit of legislation. There is a difference between a ministerial statement and an Order in Council. After the member has been here for a little time he will understand the difference. He will understand.But I do want to get back to the essential point that the Government has agreed on the basis of a petition of 40000 to 50000 people to have another flag go in. It had a petition and a submission process that had far more Kiwis than that who wanted to have a yes/no vote. We have the unfortunate situation of a group of members of Parliament who are only here because of a yes/no vote—I think 85 percent of New Zealanders voted at the first ballot to move towards MMP—and they are agreeing with the Prime Minister when the Prime Minister said that it is too confusing for New Zealanders to make the decision as to whether they want a change. It is a pack of nonsense and although we will support the voting on this bill we will put up lots of alternatives to make it better.TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): There has been a great deal in the contribution of Hon Trevor Mallard that I would like to refute but I am going to start by saying that the process we are following here is on the basis of the best advice provided by officials who are independent of the Government. That is a very important process.The second thing that I would like to put on record is the fact that just before and in fact after the dinner adjournment Mr Mallard attacked the Green Party. Well could I simply say to the Green Party that tonight I salute you for the fact that I think you have been both constructive and pragmatic in trying to find a very sensible way forward to ensure that the vast majority of people in New Zealand can feel positive about this process—particularly Gareth Hughes whom I know has worked hard and under some time pressure. I want to acknowledge him and thank him for that constructive approach.Mr Mallard made the point or rather he suggested that 70 percent of New Zealanders do not want this option. I can only assume he did that on the basis of the poll that showed 69 percent would retain the current flag. But what he of course was quite disingenuously ignoring is the fact that his party and our National Party went to the election last year with a policy that we would have exactly the process that we are now having and three out of four New Zealanders voted for this process so in fact more than 70 percent supported exactly what we are doing here. That is far more important because that is the people of New Zealand having their say in a general election.Could I say how disappointed I was this afternoon to hear the contribution of Ron Mark in the general debate. When a member of this House suggests that the Red Peak flag is a Nazi symbol I think he is hitting a new low. There is absolutely no one in this House not one member who has any Nazi sympathies whatsoever. To suggest that is an argument is so intellectually and morally bereft that frankly that member should not be here at all. To resort to that sort of argument shows that he really had no argument at all.I have also been very disappointed to hear Labour and some New Zealand First members attack the integrity of the Flag Consideration Panel. When you have people of the high standing and enormous contribution to our country of Professor John Burrows Sir Brian Lochore Beatrice Faumuina the former Chief of Defence Force Rhys Jones and all the other fine New Zealanders on the very representative panel of New Zealanders who served with them being attacked by Opposition members I think it is a very sad day indeed.I want to thank them for the terrific service they have given to our nation across a whole range of activities but particularly in this particular exercise which I think they have approached with diligence and integrity. They deserve to be respected and thanked not chastised and demeaned in this House.There are other things that I would like to say. Let me just finish tonight by pointing out that I am wearing a badge that is 113 years old. Underneath the stylised poppy that we all now know—and that intriguingly has the silver fern on it which recognises that it is the silver fern on the graves of New Zealanders who have served and died in battle—I am also wearing a badge that belonged to my grandfather Charles Grierson Macindoe. He as a very young man went to the Boer War. It will not surprise members to hear that I never met my grandfather; he died long before I was born. But at the end of his service he was given this silver fern and along with his Boer War medals which I wore proudly on Anzac Day for the first time this year this Boer War badge has a silver fern with “South Africa” written across it. It must be at least 113 years old. That is why I personally am so strongly in favour of seeing the silver fern on our flag.But tonight we are acknowledging the fact that there is a significant number of New Zealanders who have said they want a bit more variety in the choice in the referendum process. The Greens have picked that up and worked constructively with the Government. I am delighted to support this measure and I thank them for their good work.A party vote was called for on the question That the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill be now read a first time.Ayes 107New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 12New Zealand First 12.Bill read a first time.Second ReadingHon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister): I move That the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill be now read a second time. It has been interesting to hear some of the strongly expressed views in the House including some of the deranged views referred to by my colleague Tim Macindoe in his last speech.I just want to comment briefly on how this bill has come about. We have found the Greens disruptive and ungrateful to deal with. We have found that it does not really matter what you do with them and whether it is successful or not the effort is ultimately greeted with personal invective and the grabbing of all the credit and attacks on the National Party. That is our experience. That is why we took seriously the one constructive thing I can think of that they have come up with in the last 5 or 6 years. Because as difficult disruptive and ungrateful as they are—and occasionally dangerous—it turns out that they are less so than the Labour Party.Jonathan Young: It’s the new Greens.Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well the Labour Party has managed to make—it is not that we have managed to make the Greens look constructive; it is that the Labour Party has managed to make the Greens look statesmanlike. Labour members have managed to make the Greens look like they care about how New Zealand is represented to the world. They have managed to make the Greens almost look like they can see something larger than this week’s political point-scoring to be rated by the twitterati which is the world that the Labour Party is caught up in.The leader of the Labour Party was presented by the Prime Minister in his generous way—sometimes too generous—with an opportunity. He could have grasped it. He could have said that the Prime Minister has indicated that the Government is a bit flexible about what is on the ballot and there is a surge of unexpected but clearly strong popular support for the Red Peak flag. He could have said in the interests of making sure New Zealanders have a wider range of choice reflecting the fact that most of them paid no attention to this process until it was almost too late that Labour would work with the Government to ensure that Red Peak goes on the ballot but Labour did not do it. It could not do it because Grant Robertson keeps dragging that leader down.From the opportunity to show a larger view about the country a bigger view above politics which any Prime Minister has to do—the rest of us do not but a Prime Minister occasionally has to look like his main concern is the nation not his caucus. His main concern is how New Zealand is represented not whether the Women’s Weekly is going to decide who is the deputy of the Labour Party.So Mr Little listened unfortunately—I think probably against his better nature actually—to his advisers and decided to play politics. Why? Because in the Labour Party caucus there are—I do not know how many of them are; there is a lot fewer than there used to be—35 votes or something but if Trevor Mallard is against it that decides what happens. Mr Mallard was obsessed about whether there is a yes/no vote upfront and the advisers whose instincts are still those of student politics—that is let us score some political point and try to keep this thing going about how the flag is all about John Key—the Labour members then all of sudden found themselves irrelevant because of all those internal forces that prevent them dealing with any issue in a sensible way let alone something that was a bit demanding—that is the flag issue.All I can say from our experience of dealing with a range of parties across this Parliament is you really have to mess it up to make the Greens look constructive. You really do. I mean with New Zealand First you do not expect anything positive. You know not to because it does not follow the same kind of logic that every other political party does so you just put it to one side.To make the Greens look constructive and positive you really have to mess it up. That is what is telling about this debate because this is meant to be the future Government actually. It is meant to be—and I know this is not the time to debate that Mr Deputy Speaker. You are probably going to stop me.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well read.Hon BILL ENGLISH: But all I want to say is that it has worked out pretty well in the practical way that New Zealand can work these things out.I have overseen the flag consideration process.Grant Robertson: Well now we know why it’s been such a shambles.Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well I am very happy. I stood at the press conference to launch it as I did with the constitutional process. It is actually run by the same person Professor John Burrows.The flag consideration process was set up to depoliticise it. That was the whole point. The whole point was to have a process that the politicians do not stand over with all their manipulations and manoeuvring. I mean we can handle a political process well but clearly the Opposition and left-wing parties cannot because they do not know how to do anything without being threatening manipulative and telling only half the story. So that is why we did it that way.It is a difficult task and I know there are people saying: “This designer has an opinion and they got it wrong this way and that one says they got it wrong that way.” Well you know all of them are right of course. Of course the panel did not get it right in the sense that everyone is happy with what they chose but that is what they chose and we have followed the process. Cabinet accepted its recommendations and those four flags have gone on the ballot.I am sure actually from the preponderance of the fern that the panel—or pretty sure—must have been influenced by some expression of public opinion and now there has been another expression of public opinion. We have had the choice of sticking with the completely independent objective process—which at least will have the satisfaction of irritating the member for Hutt South if nothing else—and just sticking with it. But actually there has been this strong expression of opinion and the Prime Minister has indicated—and now Parliament actually—that Red Peak is going to go on the ballot.I think this is an important point. Gradually the public are taking this issue off Parliament and I think that it is a very good thing. As long as it has been considered and has been part of the to and fro the Opposition is going to insist that it is all about John Key and so on. The fact is that Parliament has voted for a referendum. It has voted the referendum process in. There will be votes. It does not matter what Grant Robertson thinks. There will be two votes. They are going to happen. More and more of the public are starting to understand what a historic opportunity it is to make a choice.Actually none of us will decide because in the referendum we get one vote each. That is it—one vote. I want to acknowledge the fact that the Greens understand that. The Labour Party does not understand and possibly never will under the current leadership team that it has. The Greens wanted to give the public more choice and actually a radically different one.I never thought of Red Peak being a good flag. I do not think the Flag Consideration Panel did. This is how you can do it in a small country. But it is just a shame that the Labour Party remains as it will right through this process incurably political about it.Who knows what would happen—how New Zealanders would vote—if there was a future Labour Government? Given Labour members’ vindictive politicised manipulative DNA it is quite possible they will try to overturn the result of a process like this whereas I know the Greens would not. I know the Greens would not.Grant Robertson: For goodness’ sake! Grow up.Hon BILL ENGLISH: Oh so Labour would not overturn it? OK so let us just get this. It is for changing the flag but against actually having a vote to do it. It does not like any of the flags that are there because everyone is against change but if it does change it will not overturn it. Well at least that is a positive result out of that contorted logic.So I am pleased that Parliament has this opportunity. I think the public will be pleased. I want to acknowledge the unexpected role that the Greens have played and the way that it has shown up the limitations of the Labour Party.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I think if anyone watching wanted an illustration of just who it is who is playing political games with this process they would have learnt that from the nasty patronising graceless speech that the Deputy Prime Minister has just given. The Green Party might choose to reflect on the tone of the speech that Mr English just gave in this House and just what it is that it has created through this position today—the bill being here today. I do not think I have heard in this House from someone in the position of being the Deputy Prime Minister a more graceless speech than the one that I have just heard. It was disgraceful.As other speakers have noted Labour is supporting the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill. We are doing that because it does give more choice to people in the referendum process. The public want more choice in this process. As members of the House know Labour attempted to introduce a piece of legislation to do exactly this—to add Red Peak into the referendum process. Along with that as we have done consistently through this flag referendum process we have asked for a yes/no vote to be added first. We proposed that piece of legislation; it was rejected. We have played and attempted to play a constructive role in this process from day one. There was a cross-party—Tim Macindoe: Nothing your party has done is constructive.GRANT ROBERTSON: Mr Macindoe wants to deny this but there was a cross-party group that with the exception of one political party in this House attempted to make a significant constitutional process one that all parties in Parliament were part of. That group with the exception of the National Party members wanted a yes/no vote but other parties wanted a yes/no vote first. We continue to believe that that is what will give New Zealanders the choice that they are looking for. This piece of legislation contributes to having more choice in this process but the real choice that New Zealanders wanted—the choice that more people signed a petition for than signed for Red Peak—was to have a yes/no question and that has been denied. It is of great disappointment to the Labour Party members that as part of striking a deal to get this legislation introduced other parties in Parliament—and the Green Party in particular—will not support our amendment to have that yes/no vote. We find that extremely disappointing.I want to take us back to how it is we find ourselves in urgency doing this legislation because it has been within the power of the Government to move legislation exactly as it has done tonight at any point in the last few weeks. The Government commands a majority in this House. At any point it could have done that but instead John Key has chosen to play political games. Bear in mind it is less than a week ago that John Key said he could not possibly introduce exactly this legislation unless Labour supported him. He said that. He said there was no way it could be done—that it was impossible. That is complete nonsense and political rhetoric but that is what John Key was saying less than a week ago. He said he could not move unless Labour supported him. There is no history of that in this process. When the original legislation went through it did so without Labour voting for it and without the Green Party voting for it in fact. So some notion that Labour had to be on board with including Red Peak in the referendum is completely ridiculous.This is the track record of the Prime Minister. Here I am watching 3 News tonight and there they go replaying from The Paul Henry Show on 7 September the Prime Minister ruling out Red Peak entering the referendum. He stated: “We’re not going back to Parliament to change the law.” That is what he said. So if anyone is playing politics here tonight it is National. The Government could have used an Order in Council to put in Red Peak—it could have done that. It chose not to do that. The Government could have come to this House with legislation exactly like this to include a fifth flag which apparently will become Red Peak although that is not actually what the law says. But it did not. The Government chose not to because the Prime Minister was playing political games with this issue. That is the truth of it. It has been the truth of it all the way through.Tim Macindoe: It’s the Labour Party playing political games and you know it.GRANT ROBERTSON: Tim Macindoe says that we are playing political games. We have had the consistent position of a yes/no referendum have we not Mr Macindoe? We have had the consistent position of a yes/no referendum—yes we have. We have had a consistent position of a yes/no referendum. The political game is that John Key now needs to rescue his referendum.The truth is that the four flags that were chosen by the Flag Consideration Panel are not going to work. He knows that. There was a TV3 poll and 70 percent of New Zealanders do not want to change the flag. So he has now had to come up with a way of saving his referendum. To do that he is adopting Red Peak. My personal view is that Red Peak is far and away a better flag than any of the others that are in the referendum mix. Trevor Mallard disagrees with me but Red Peak is far and away a better flag. I still think the Prime Minister is going to struggle to get it through a second referendum but at least now there will be a half - decent-looking flag up against the New Zealand flag in the final referendum.I want now to refer to another matter—and it is also in Labour’s amendment—and that is the question of mandate. What mandate—whether or not we will actually have a decent level of participation—is created out of the first referendum? This is a significant and important decision. In my view it is a decision that we are taking in complete isolation from the broader constitutional debate that we should be having as a country. Bill English in his ungracious response earlier on mentioned the fact that John Burrows had also chaired the Constitutional Advisory Panel. Well the Government completely ignored that piece of work—it completely ignored that piece of work. If the Government were genuinely interested in having a conversation about New Zealand’s future identity then we would be talking more broadly than just on the flag but the flag has become the vanity project of John Key which we now have to put up with. Well we are proposing that there does need to be more than 50 percent of electors returning a valid vote in Part A of the first referendum. We think that is a reasonable request because that means that there will be a mandate from the public. We would rather see the yes/no vote as the easy way of dealing with that. We have got that in our amendment as well but the Government could today accept that in order to make a significant change like this there needs to be a decent mandate.I am very very sad that we have ended up in the position that we have ended up in tonight. The use of urgency to do this is totally unnecessary. If the Government had stopped playing political games accepted that it wanted to put Red Peak or a fifth option in and simply gone about the process of doing that it could have been done in the normal course of events in the last few weeks. It chose not to do that. It chose to make this a political game. Tonight to have the Deputy Prime Minister stand up to move the second reading of this and spend 10 minutes deciding that he was going to make this about the Labour Party he was going to make personal insults and he was going to insult the party that has given him the piece of legislation that is now before the House says everything New Zealanders need to know about this National Government its attitude its arrogance and how out of touch it is and it says everything they need to know about this flag referendum process. This should be a process that New Zealanders are proud of and are proud to participate in. It is not. It is a shambles. It has been a shambles—Jacqui Dean: Ha ha! Awesome.GRANT ROBERTSON: Jacqui Dean thinks it is hilarious. It is a shambles because New Zealanders have not been treated with respect. They have not been given the opportunity to actually decide whether they want to change the flag. New Zealanders feel manipulated and it is one of the reasons why 70 percent of New Zealanders are opposing a flag change. They feel like they are being manipulated by the Prime Minister who has got his vanity project under way.At least this piece of legislation will give New Zealanders more choice. They should have real choice. They are not getting that from this Government.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): You have got to feel a little bit sorry for Labour do you not? There it is each time one of them has to get up—they have to; they do not want to—to make a 10-minute speech on this bill all they have is to fight old battles. It is a bit like every day as usual in the House with Labour. All it has to resort to is the old battles that it has already lost time and time and time again. And here we are yet again in the House with Labour yet again fighting a battle it lost and yet it cannot let it go. Why can it not let it go? Because it has not got anything else. So we will get more speeches in this debate tonight and we will get more speeches tomorrow morning if that is where we go with this bill and Labour has only the one point to make. The one point Labour wants to make is that gee shucks it did not get its own way and now it is really really sore about it.Well here is the news for Labour: we have moved on and in step so has the marvellous Green Party which has played this issue with an absolutely straight bat. In the Justice and Electoral Committee when we first put the New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill through the select committee the Greens played an absolutely straight game with us unlike Labour which did everything it could to stall and to muddy the waters and it never quite knew where it stood. It was consistent on one point it lost that point and it will not let it go but we have moved on. New Zealand has moved on and Parliament has moved on and now Labour is in an invidious position.It must have been wonderful in those members’ caucus room this afternoon: “What do we do? What do we do? We opposed the bill but no no hang on. We opposed the bill but we’re supporting the Red Peak. So we’re opposing the bill but we’re supporting the Red Peak”. They must have said: “Hang on we campaigned on having a referendum. What do we do now?” “I know we’ll support the bill.” and “We can’t support the bill; we opposed the bill.” Who would know where Labour was on this because quite frankly it does not know?Meanwhile back in the real world this Government and the Green Party are listening to the folk out there who have a view. And guess what? This piece of legislation allows the people of New Zealand to have a say on what flag they choose to have as their new flag or not. The public of New Zealand will get a yes/no choice they will do it at the second referendum and good on them. Thank you.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I am sorry that the member Jacqui Dean could not go for more than about 3 minutes but it was an entertaining 3 minutes and it was an entertaining 3 minutes that I am sure will get clipped put on YouTube and shared by the Facebooks of the RSAs around the country. That is the sort of brains trust approach from the National Government that we have seen throughout this legislation. It unfortunately let that member chair a select committee. It does not trust her to do it again on this particular bill—in fact it does not trust anyone to take this to a select committee and hear what the public think about it.I think it is fair to say that the process on this bill has been appalling. The Prime Minister has taken a very unusual approach. I am not going to say that the Prime Minister misled the House—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Good. You know the rule.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: —because the comments that he made were outside the House. What I am going to say is that he misled the public. On 6 September he said—we are talking about the addition of Red Peak. What did he say? He said: “To change that now we literally”—I do not know why he said “literally” but he adds a few extra words every now and then—“have to change the law. We can’t go and change that.” And what is he doing? What is he doing today? On 7 September when asked whether he could guarantee that Red Peak would not be an option he said: “I can because this is the issue: there was a well set out process. The committee decided the four sent them to the Cabinet Cabinet had the right to overrule them but chose not to they accepted the recommendations … To accept any other flag—the All Blacks one with the silver fern any other one—we would have to change the law and we’re not going back to Parliament to change the law.” If he had said it in here he would have been misleading the House and it could well have been a breach of privilege.Hon Ruth Dyson: So he’s misleading the country instead.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: But apparently it is all right for the Prime Minister to mislead the country.My colleague Grant Robertson in response said that he thinks this is the best of the designs. I disagree with him. I think that the ones with the fern in are probably slightly better. I will take a wager with anyone that the Red Peak one ends up at No. 3. It will be the second to last one to drop out of the process. It is better than the thing that is apparently a koru—but it is subject to a lot of interpretation that one.Hon Ruth Dyson: It’s a pig’s tail.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The fern—I do not think we are allowed to mention pigs and Tory leaders at the moment. We are allowed to mention ponytails but not pigs’ parts at this particular time.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Come—Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Getting back to the bill my view is that the fern that is an awfully drawn fern and the koru will drop out and the Red Peak will be the one that follows that. Frankly it does not mean anything to a lot of New Zealanders. It is just not there.But Labour is the party of opportunity. It is the party for New Zealanders to take a chance. There is an opportunity that is before us now. We have had a lot of discussion about the yes/no vote. As Jonathan Young knows well every party other than the National Party that was present at the select committee supported having a yes/no vote. We were overruled but today gives us yet another opportunity. I actually like a straight silver fern—something pretty much like the All Blacks’ silver fern. I have used that flag in Athens at the Olympics. I have held it up. I was there at the end of the triathlon when we got the quinella. I was holding that flag. It is something that means a lot to Kiwis much more than any of the alternatives that we are currently looking at. I agree with the Prime Minister that it would be a better approach. So what the Labour Party is going to do is it is going to give the Prime Minister a chance to actually live up to what he says and get his preference on to the ballot paper.I do not want to undermine what the Green Party is doing with its liberal Red Peak in the coffee bars and wine bars and the other places where ordinary people do not really go. There is no big demand for Red Peak in my electorate other than from a few people in Eastbourne I think it is fair to say. But there is a lot of demand for the silver fern a straight silver fern which the Prime Minister appears to be running away from.So what the Labour Party will do during the Committee stage is put up an amendment. Seeing that we are shifting from four to five designs we will put up another amendment to be used only if Cabinet wants to. It could be done as a matter of late change. It will have to be done pretty soon although my understanding is that Cabinet will have about another 2 weeks to decide. The amendment means that Cabinet can add a sixth flag design if it wants to. My challenge to the Prime Minister when he is in Cabinet and in the Executive Council is to do what he said he wanted to do around the country for months and months—that is have the silver fern as the flag of New Zealand.Stand up Prime Minister for your principles stand up for your beliefs and give Kiwis who I believe would much prefer to have the silver fern the chance to put it at the top. I would put it at the top given the choice. I think it is the best option. I would then vote against it later on because I think we should keep the current flag especially during the commemorations of the First World War.But if we are looking at the best alternative option then my view is that the panel—and I want to absolutely deny what Tim Macindoe said earlier. Most of the panel are people of absolute integrity. There are a couple of people on it who are not people of integrity and who are late additions on the part of the National Party to the original group which was recommended by a cross-party group of MPs. Whether they over-influenced the panel I am not going to say that. But people like John Burrows Brian Lochore and Rod Drury are people whom I believe have an enormous amount of integrity. I have got a lot of respect for them. But they made a big mistake in not getting decent design advice and as a result of that good people made an error and we have got four and now five flags that are frankly dogs. They are awful flags. They are not flags that most New Zealanders want. They have had a look at them and 70 percent of New Zealanders say that given that field they are not interested. They are not interested in a change.If the Prime Minister is not prepared to get a decent flag a decent alternative on to the ballot paper it is our view that New Zealanders should be given the option of saying: “No we don’t want any of them. We’re going to save $7 million. We’re going to build some houses for people who need them. We’re going to feed some kids who are hungry. We’re going to give early childhood education to kids who are not getting it.” All of us—all of us—have priorities of getting more jobs and having better social services which are more important than holding a second referendum when we know that most Kiwis do not want to change the flag. Thank you.TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): It seems to be my lot to follow the former member for Hamilton West in this debate tonight. May I say how disappointed I am to hear him again attacking the integrity of some members of the Flag Consideration Panel. I stand by the comments I made before—I believe they are a very fine group of people. They are a representative cross-section of New Zealanders and they have served our country well.Mr Mallard and before him Mr Robertson have again lamented the absence of a simple yes/no vote in the referendum process but there are two fundamental flaws in the argument that they and some others are putting forward. The first is that the construction of this two-stage referendum process is based on the very best independent advice that was made available to the Government. The Government listened to that and has acted upon it.The second point which I think is even more important is that the two main parties went to the 2014 general election promising to hold a referendum on this particular issue. Three out of four New Zealanders or slightly more than that cast their vote in favour of one of those two main parties so they have already had their yes/no option and now we are moving to the next stage in the process which is to say we will give people a range of things to choose from they can make a choice and we will put it up against the current New Zealand flag—which I acknowledge is an attractive flag in its own right—and we will let New Zealanders decide which one they want to have. That is a very democratic and appropriate process and it is one that I am very proud to support.I have been particularly disappointed to hear Mr Robertson suggesting that the National Party has been playing political games over this issue. We campaigned on this. We have been up front about it for a very long period of time. We have gone to the public and we are having the discussion with the public. We are listening to the public and we are listening to the public tonight by saying we will offer a little bit more choice than the Flag Consideration Panel has put forward. That to my mind is responsible and sensible government.I have to say to Mr Robertson that the gamesmanship here is from the party that wants to change the flag and that campaigned last year to give New Zealanders the chance to change the flag but cannot bear the fact that the flag might change while the National Party is in Government. So solely for that reason it is opposing it. That to my mind is the ultimate in political cynicism and gamesmanship and shame on the Labour Party for that.In the first reading of this bill Mr Mallard attacked the current Prime Minister and he has just repeated it with words to the effect that the Prime Minister should stand up for his principles and beliefs on this issue. He has attacked the Prime Minister for not having spoken in the debate on the bill. Well is there a single New Zealander who is unaware of where the Rt Hon John Key stands on this issue? I do not think so. The Prime Minister not only outlined his views very clearly in the Address in Reply debate this year but he has answered questions from the Opposition day after day after day in this House and has given his views very forcefully and clearly on this issue. He has attended numerous public meetings. I have been at some meetings where he has articulated his vision and he has listened to the public. The Rt Hon John Key is leading in a very honourable and responsible way and I am proud to support him in that. To suggest that he has in some manner kept his views to himself is absolutely ridiculous.I want to again state that I am proud that we in the National Party are delivering on our manifesto and in particular for the first time in this nation’s history we are giving the public of New Zealand the chance to have a say as to which flag they feel would best represent them. They have never had this opportunity before. If we vote for change the new flag would be the fourth flag in the history of this nation. So it is hardly credible to suggest that somehow the current flag should be respected and kept in perpetuity when we have already previously had three flags.I have to say I am not a supporter of Red Peak. On that I do agree with Mr Mallard. But I recognise that there are many who have indicated that they would like more choice and that they would like to consider that option. For that reason as I said before I am proud that our Government is listening to those people. I want again to acknowledge Gareth Hughes in particular and the members of the Green Party. We are not always natural political bedfellows but I think they are playing a very honourable and clearly constructive role in this process. I thank them for that. I think that the effect of the Green Party’s involvement in this particular issue tonight will be to ensure that it is more widely supported than it has been to date and that is a good thing. I genuinely thank the Green Party for what I think is a very helpful contribution.I am more than happy to see the fifth option go into the process but more important I am more than happy to respect the democratic will of the people. If they vote to retain the current flag so be it but I am proud that we are giving every New Zealander a chance to have a say. I believe it is the right thing and I am therefore very strongly in support of this bill.GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I do not want to sound naive by coming to this debating chamber and bemoaning all the politics that we are hearing in the parliamentary debating chamber but we sure are hearing an awful lot of politics. As my colleague Dr Kennedy Graham said maybe some of it is a bit more heat than light. But politics is the problem; this is why we find ourselves in this Chamber today. I am not trying to sound sanctimonious as the Hon Trevor Mallard alleged that I was. I am just trying to reflect the fact that it is politics that sees us here today because of the political point-scoring the games and the eventual political deadlock that Parliament had found itself in.I also want to say on the flip side that despite this debate—and it is pretty robust; I think that it would win some points in some of the debating clubs around the country—the fact is that we are working together. There are six political parties coming together tonight to listen to the people to include their choice and I think that that is fantastic because on the one hand we can see all of the political rhetoric and hear all of the debate and on the other hand we can actually see some of the practical tangible benefits of working together. I believe that this is what the public decided in one of those seminal referenda in our history—that is when we decided to move to MMP. I would like to acknowledge the debate acknowledge the opinions and most of all acknowledge political parties working together.Why we sought leave to table and introduce this bill today was because we wanted to break that political deadlock. We are not trying to play games. We are not trying to score points. We are not trying to get one over anyone. We do not care whose name is on the bill or what happens. What we care about is offering a constructive pragmatic practical solution that can get the votes in this House. As we saw at the first reading vote an overwhelming majority supported listening to the people and supported a fifth flag being included in the referenda. In this contribution I would like to touch on some of the criticism and respond to some of the debate I would like to reiterate some of the Green Party’s position points and also issue some thanks.Let us start off with some of the debate that we have heard tonight. I would like to acknowledge Trevor Mallard in particular for some of the things he said. He raised a question that I think needs to be addressed. Mr Mallard said that because Red Peak was not explicitly mentioned in the clauses of the legislation somehow we were going to get some odd option—maybe “Laser Kiwi” which I think was maybe the second-most popular choice amongst New Zealanders. It staggers me to think that Mr Mallard has been in Parliament I believe for almost as long as I am old and no doubt he has seen his own bills pass through Parliament and become Acts and he has worked in ministries.This legislation is quite a precedent in New Zealand for this Parliament. As part of our relationship with the Governor-General—as part of our Crown relationship; the executive to the Governor-General—Parliament cannot instruct the Governor-General to do anything. That is our constitutional framework and actually despite being a card-carrying republican it would be obscene I believe for this Parliament under our current conventions to be ordering the Governor-General what to do. But that is why the protections are in the explanatory note of the bill. Obviously the debate is in the Hansard for this House. So before this turns into some myth—if this is some sort of myth or otherwise that Labour is trying to share—the fact is that this bill is about Red Peak and this bill implements only that.From New Zealand First members we have heard allegations of there being Nazi symbolism in Red Peak. I would like to address this because what they are referring to are some of the pillboxes that were used in Germany which used alternating coloured lines. I think this is outrageous I think it is ridiculous I think it is scurrilous and I think it is despicable that they should be drawing this sort of link particularly when we know the horrors that occurred under that regime.I would like to address the issue of why we are here in urgency. I talked about politics being the reason that we are here. Politics was the problem and I am sure that more political games are definitely not the answer. We are here under urgency and I acknowledge that that is not ideal. We are here under urgency because the clock is ticking—because we are less than 6 weeks away from the referendum. No doubt the Electoral Commission is about to be printing millions of pieces of paper so that Kiwis can have their democratic say. There was literally an urgent reason for Parliament to move in haste.For more than a week the country has watched the two parties as they have talked and as they have traded letters allegations and spin through the media. For more than a week we have sat here and waited. There was real urgency; the clock was ticking. It was time for someone to act. Of course ideally this would not have happened under urgency. I believe that in an ideal world Cabinet through an Order in Council would have simply listened to the public and included the fifth option which was Red Peak. The reason we have put the bill to Parliament today is that time was running out and also to test the Prime Minister’s proposition. The Prime Minister made a challenge to parties in New Zealand. He said that if there could be political support amongst the parties—excluding New Zealand First whose position was clearly known—the National Government would support it. That proposition has been tested and it has been found true and I would like to welcome the support of all the political parties for the Government adopting my bill.Fourthly and lastly on the issue of the yes/no vote I believe that there are legitimate and logical arguments on both sides. I believe that both sides can make a case. I understand it. I am sympathetic to the Labour members’ position. I believe that a lot of New Zealand is behind them but I would like to point out that our position in choosing this bill is not to relitigate the entire process. Our position is not trying to score any points over anyone. Our position is trying simply to listen to the will of the people to make sure that we get that fifth option before the clock counts down and it is too late.I would like to reiterate some of our position and the reason that we are doing this is that there was a phenomenal groundswell of support. This was not the case for any other bill in this process. In the space of only a week we saw 50000 people support this bill. We saw I believe only around 7000 people engage with the official consultation process. We saw a massive overwhelming groundswell of support—in only a single week I would remind the House. That is why we are trying to make sure those people’s voices are heard.Secondly I do not believe that this is the most important thing that should be taking up Parliament’s time. Maybe Denis O’Rourke and I agree on that. When it comes to $26 million of taxpayers’ money I would rather that money be spent on feeding kids school lunches. If we are talking about $26 million I would rather that money were spent on installing solar panels in every school in this country so that the kids can save the money and spend it on musical instruments and sports equipment rather than on rising power bills. There are a host of things that we could do with this money and I believe that it is a legitimate and right question to ask whether this is the right time to be changing the flag. Are we actually having that genuine public conversation about what the flag represents who we are as a people and where we are going as a nation in 2015? Should we also be looking at some of the constitutional arrangements? Despite being a card-carrying republican I believe that the most important constitutional question we should be asking ourselves is: how do we enshrine Te Tiriti o Waitangi in our constitutional framework?So this issue is not the most important thing. It was an incredibly flawed process but the fact is that it is happening. We voted against the Government’s bill but it passed. It became an Act. The referendum is going to happen in less than 6 weeks’ time and if it were to continue down the track with the political deadlock and parties trading letters and sitting in their respective offices nothing would have changed. It was not going to be improved. Those tens of thousands of Kiwis who wanted a fifth option would not have been listened to. So this was simply about improving the legislation.I would like to thank a number of people. I would like to thank the big team actually behind the drafting of the legislation. I would like to acknowledge our spokesperson Dr Kennedy Graham who I know has been acknowledged in this debate as playing with a straight bat throughout the select committee process and the other parts of this process. I would like to thank the other parties for their support. I know that some of the kind words from the National members to the Greens have been genuine which we thank them for; some of them have been damning with faint praise which of course we reject. But it is good that we can work together on this as we have worked together on home insulation and the national cycleway—just like we worked with Labour on some pioneering climate policies in the last Labour Government.In summary I do not know whether this is going to be the flag that we are going to get. I do not even know whether the flag is going to change. It does not matter. Regardless of what your opinion is—silver fern Red Peak keep the flag or whatever—at least we have a choice. I genuinely believe that it is up to Kiwis and they will express their will in the two referenda. But most important I think—as a young member I really want to reflect on this—many of the supporters of Red Peak are younger Kiwis. If they had just been disregarded by this House if they had been ignored and if politics had got in the way of that choice I fear that we would have disillusioned a whole new cohort—tens of thousands of New Zealanders who literally wanted a choice. So I am glad that we can work together. I am glad that we can put politics aside for a wee bit. I look forward to the progress of this bill.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First is very proud to be the only party left that is willing to defend the current New Zealand flag in this whole process. We are actually pretty surprised to be in that position because I happen to know that there are members of the National Party who disagree with their own party on this. I could name some of them but I will have the grace not to do so on this occasion.I am very disappointed that both Labour and the Greens have chosen to support the Government on this bill albeit under a degree of protest when John Key himself has never actually had the guts to come to this House—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member does not refer to a member in those terms using that unparliamentary language.Tracey Martin: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Just to clarify what you are saying is that it was the words “had the guts” even though the Prime Minister has used them to the Leader of the Opposition in this House previously?Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member should not be speaking in that way. It does not add to the debate.DENIS O’ROURKE: I am happy to use a different word which I am sure will be acceptable. I will say that John Key has never had the courage to speak—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Don’t say that either.DENIS O’ROURKE: I beg your pardon?Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You should not be referring in that way either.DENIS O’ROURKE: Courage?Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just move away from questions of intestinal fortitude courage guts and all those things. Stick to the debate.DENIS O’ROURKE: In that case I will simply say this: John Key has never taken part—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: That’s well done. Thank you.DENIS O’ROURKE: —in a debate in this House on this flag debate. He has never taken part in this flag debate and he should have because he is the one in fact who is said to be leading the whole process.But New Zealand First is not alone in its opposition to this because 70 percent of the people in New Zealand actually agree with us. That has been shown in poll after poll. Those are scientific polls and so we humbly take on the role of defender of the current flag on their behalf.Some people have claimed a groundswell of support for the Red Peak monstrosity. In actual fact it is said that 50000 people took part in this petition but we happen to know—because people have actually emailed us and told us with one person saying that he had actually voted three times and he said that he knows many others who have done the same. So it really is not a groundswell; it is actually more of a molehill of support and that is the truth of that. The truth is that in that scientifically run poll fewer than 20 percent support any change to the flag at all and 70 percent are against it. That is the truth; that is the groundswell—that is not a molehill.John Key is embarrassed and he is running scared—scared of a low turnout in the first referendum which will be less than 25 percent I believe. He is scared that so few will vote that they will vote informally by saying: “Keep our flag.” or like me will stick a sticker on every one of those alternatives whether they be four or five and tick them but only them and not the alternatives—or by whatever means people will use to show their opposition. That is what the Government is running scared about in this whole mismanaged process. It will show that the second flag referendum will be a complete and utter waste of time and money.The process in the Act as it now is was in fact misconceived in not first asking anyone whether they wanted a referendum to change the flag at all. That is the fundamental fault. Now John Key agrees that he was wrong because he did not give himself the power in the original legislation to add more flags and that is ridiculous I believe. That is what I saw him say on TV this evening. He had originally put his faith in an expert panel to choose alternatives but now he disagrees with that panel and seeks in this bill to gerrymander his way out of the requirements of his own legislation. What a farce and what arrogance.As to the detail of the bill—what on earth is the rationale for suddenly adding another flag to the four chosen by the expert panel after of course much acclaimed public consultation? In fact there is no reason or rationale for it whatsoever. I have already mentioned the molehill of claimed public support for the horrible Red Peak flag in this so-called petition which is really just media-driven unscientific nonsense. We all know the truth. The fact is that John Key needs to save his backside and the Red Peak flag is his way of avoiding the electoral spanking and the political red backside that he so richly deserves.I suspect that John Key would have taken any excuse to add any old thing—any alternative—that he could find as a way of getting himself out of the hole that he has dug himself into. Of course he will be rubbing his hands in glee as Labour and the Greens fall into his political trap to support his gerrymandering bill despite their inadequate protests.So let us look at this peculiar alternative called Red Peak. It is angular gaudy and in no way representative of New Zealand or our culture. It is suitable as a road danger sign and it looks very much like a commercial logo. It is virtually the same as that of a Canadian commercial log-hauling company.More worrying is its similarity to the design of Nazi sentry boxes during the Second World War. Look at this photograph of a sentry box. This is actually a photograph taken from the Atlantic Wall Open Air Museum in Ostend Belgium and in it that is a Nazi sentry box. Look at it. Look at the design on the side of it. Look at the fact that it begins with a red peak with a white peak on top of that which is also identical to the Red Peak flag. Then there is a black peak on top of that also identical to the Red Peak flag. Only that little bit of blue in one corner is missing. There is an uncanny resemblance. The sad fact is that the Nazi colours were red white and black as the Red Peak flag is and those are the colours that dominate the Red Peak flag.Those who doubt have a look at this photograph because this is that same sentry box in full colour. The similarity is absolutely stunning—absolutely stunning. Let us look at that design that I have just shown you and the Red Peak side by side. Look at the similarity. Could it be much closer? It could not—it could not be much closer. That is how close the Red Peak design is to a Nazi sentry box design from the Second World War. I would like Gareth Hughes to have a good look at it but he does not want to because he does not want to know the truth. But people will make mischief of it.This picture of another design was obtained tonight from the internet. It is not by New Zealand First—not encouraged by New Zealand First—but by somebody already going on to the internet to say that. That is what people will do with that design because it has absolutely nothing to do with New Zealand’s culture or New Zealand’s people.We would be ridiculed overseas in exactly this sort of way if New Zealand were to adopt that kind of awful monstrosity of a design for the New Zealand flag. Imagine what the Aussies would say not to mention the Yanks. What about the British tabloids? They would have an absolute field day if we were to adopt a flag like that and I would not blame them.The national flag of New Zealand must engender respect for our country not provide a means of ridicule. New Zealand First rejects the original process which was back to front; this bill which is gerrymandering; and all of the alternatives which are utterly awful as New Zealand flags. But we would not have stood in the way had there been the genuine bottom-up referendum required by the New Zealand people with a proper process. This referendum is not that and this bill should be rejected for all of those reasons.GARETH HUGHES (Green): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek a ruling from you. It would be unparliamentary I believe and out of order in this House to raise Nazi slogans and I wondered whether it is appropriate and parliamentary to bring in Nazi symbols as part of a ridiculous conspiracy theory.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think—[Interruption] I do not need any assistance in respect of this. I think that the context in which the member very carefully used that symbol and the fact that it was acknowledged that the Red Peak flag had been altered by somebody else and he had downloaded it from the media he has danced sufficiently on the head of a pin to get away with it this time. But he should be careful because he knows what is at the other end of the pin from the head.JONO NAYLOR (National): I will limit my contribution to a few main points this evening. It has been interesting watching the debate as it has unfolded this evening—seeing another little turn round the mulberry bush if you like—on the flag referendums legislation. I just want to address a few things that have been raised. Earlier Mr Mallard accused the Prime Minister and the Government of misleading the public and that is a pretty bold sort of an assertion to make. I think Mr Mallard probably needs to understand the difference between that and making a statement and then listening to the concerns of the public responding to those concerns and those issues that have been raised and then perhaps altering the course of what is occurring. If one is to have an idea about what is going to happen and then listens in response that is not the same as misleading and I think that that was completely wrong and out of order.The other thing that I think is interesting about this amendment bill that has been brought forth is that it is talking about increasing the number of options from four to five in the first referendum. I find it somewhat ironic actually. I have to wonder whether if we had had five in the first place Red Peak would have actually made it into the top five. My guess is probably not—I think it would be safe to assume that it probably would not have.However what we have seen from the people who are the supporters of Red Peak—of which I have to say I am not necessarily one—is a very good campaign to engage the public. We have seen 22000 Facebook likes we have seen 50000 people sign a petition and engage with us we have seen the #redpeak really take off on Twitter and I have even got a few “Red Peak-inese” in my own family who actually like the idea of this design being in. So we have seen a groundswell of public opinion. We have seen the Red Peak movement achieve something that actually the supporters of a lot of other flag designs have not. So it is beholden on Parliament now to decide whether or not we think that is a sufficient enough public voice for us to change our process and allow a fifth flag in. By and large if we go by the voting results of the first reading of this bill it seems that right across the House apart from one particular party there is wide support and we would agree that those people have done enough to warrant getting their Red Peak flag into the first referendum.The other thing that I want to visit this evening is the hoary old chestnut that the Labour Party keeps bringing up which is that we should bring in a yes/no vote. You know those members could not accept defeat the first time around on having a yes/no vote so they are going to come back and have another crack at that. There has not been the same groundswell of public opinion about a yes/no vote—there has not been the 50000 likes on Facebook for “Can we please have a yes/no vote in the first referendum?” in the way that the “Red Peak-inese” have brought that forward—and there has not been the same number of petitions brought forward to ask for a yes/no vote so there is not really any point in our revisiting that. But when we get to the Committee of the whole House those members’ wee bill will be brought forward as a Supplementary Order Paper and we will be moving from there.You see the thing about the yes/no vote being introduced is that it is a little bit of a “to-may-to”/“to-mar-to” thing I guess in some respects. Mr Hughes indicated earlier that he had some sympathy for bringing it in but actually we fundamentally believe that having the yes/no vote second rather than first is the way to proceed. And you know I left my piece of paper here with my notes on it before and someone else came along and wrote “Don’t change the flag.” on it. Someone in this House does not want to change the flag—there are actually one or two of them in fact who do not want to change the flag. Those people will get a vote. Despite the protests of Mr O’Rourke and the people in New Zealand First those people who fundamentally do not want to change the flag will get a vote. That vote might not be in the first referendum but it will be in the second referendum. They will get that choice. It will go through.That brings me to my final point. This referendum process is all about the people of New Zealand having a choice in the flag that is going to represent them. They may well choose the current flag and if that is what they want to do they can get out there and they can campaign for that. They can promote that and I say all power to them. And do you know what? It will be the first time ever that the people of New Zealand will have chosen that flag or in fact any flag. So I commend this amendment bill to this House.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Dr Kennedy Graham—5 minutes.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): I thought that the first reading in this debate on the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill was fairly constructive but I am not convinced that the same can be said of the second reading. I think that after dinner we have tended to demean ourselves a little in our excessive rhetoric. The choice of flag one might have hoped might allow us to transcend party politics and think about the national interest as a whole. Instead we have tended to descend into rather small-minded party squabbling and the occasional exhibition of personal invective and I think that is a shame. I think the choice of flag deserves more and I think the people of New Zealand are hoping for more. I do want to acknowledge and thank a number of members of the House for their constructive comments from National as well—Jono Naylor and Tim Macindoe particularly and Jacqui Dean Jo Goodhew and not least Jonathan Young who chaired the cross-party group with such skill and I thank you for that as well. The same cannot be said of your leader of the evening the Minister—the Hon Bill English—who turned himself into a small creature this evening with his comments.Denis O’Rourke: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member referred to another member as a “small creature”. Previously I was reprimanded for using the word “courage”. Surely “small creature” is not parliamentary—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Oh look—Denis O’Rourke: —and not acceptable.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I have been referred to as that many times—since I can remember.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I am happy to take the reprimand from Denis O’Rourke—and do we conclude that Denis O’Rourke will not in fact be voting for Red Peak or is he? Perhaps we cannot put too much money on that. No let me rephrase it. The comments from the Hon Bill English for whom I have had a high regard in the past are characteristic of a small creature. His comments were difficult disruptive and occasionally dangerous to a constructive interpretation of a second reading and I think he caused his party and this House some shame this evening. I want to acknowledge the comments of the Hon Annette King and Grant Robertson which I think were constructive. We disagree with the points that Labour is putting across but we do respect the points made and we understand where Labour is coming from in that respect. The same cannot be said of the Hon Trevor Mallard but it is not worth my bothering to comment any further. While we are covering the field on individuals let me just pay tribute to my colleague Gareth Hughes who has taken the initiative on this bill and conducted himself with dignity and I think integrity. Looking at the Hon Bill English the Hon Trevor Mallard and myself I think Gareth Hughes has a bit of a lesson to teach us in this respect tonight.Just one substantive point: we were trying to get across—and still are—tonight two things. This Parliament is acting with constitutional propriety in changing the legislation that changes the process to choose this flag. It has the power to do it it has the right to do it and it is constitutionally proper. The second point is that whether the Parliament should do so or not is a political judgment and in our view the Green Party’s view it is a sound and wise political move to reflect the increasing will of the people. Not of everybody Mr O’Rourke and there may have been a few people who voted more than once but that does not diminish the fact that there were about 50000 people who moved for this flag and that is overwhelming Mr O’Rourke. Let us see which way it goes when the time comes. So in our view it is up to this House all MPs as leaders elected by the people to reflect the will of the people bring in the fifth flag and move on to the referendum and then we will choose the flag from then on. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Iain Lees-Galloway—5 minutes.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): From the outset this process around changing the flag has been a complete and utter farce. This debate tonight is just another layer of farce added upon layer upon layer upon layer. The reason we are here tonight having this debate is that there was a poll on Sunday night that demonstrated once and for all that the options that had been put in front of people were roundly rejected by the New Zealand public.Hon Trevor Mallard: He should have believed Farrar. He should have believed Farrar when he said it.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: My colleague Trevor Mallard says that the Prime Minister should have believed his pollster David Farrar much earlier rather than waiting until the 3 News poll came out on Sunday night. Still despite that if the Prime Minister realised that he was on the wrong side of public opinion if he was going to continue this poll-driven insanity that has been on the increase over the last few weeks we still did not need this legislation tonight because actually all the previous legislation did was require a referendum with four flag options. So the Prime Minister and the Government could simply have taken out one of the options—we have got three that look almost the same anyway—and replace it with Red Peak.Actually the thing that appals me the most is that tonight we are wasting Parliament’s time on this issue rather than getting on with the large number of substantive bills that are sitting on the Order Paper that could actually progress the economy the society and our nation. This is completely unnecessary. It is a continuation of this ludicrous sideshow that the Prime Minister initiated to divert attention away from the various car wrecks that have become the litany of this Government.I do not intend to waste too much more of Parliament’s time on this. I simply want to be on record as saying that this is a continuation of the utter farce that this flag-change process has become. It is a waste of the Government’s time. It is a sideshow from the real issues that that Government and this Parliament should be addressing. I think we are much better than this and the politics should have been taken out of it. The Government could have dealt with this in any number of ways but instead it chose the most political route and it chose the route that would divert attention away from its various failures.JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I am very happy to make a few points here in the second reading of this bill. When I saw the Red Peak flag initially it had no appeal. It probably still does not. It is probably not going to be my choice if it ends up being in the referendum. But I did see an artist’s rendition of it that showed a meeting house in front of a mountain and the mountain looked like Mount Taranaki and the meeting house looked like Te Ikaroa-a-Māui on Manukōrihi Pā in Waitara. So I thought that was quite a stunning depiction of that flag—far far better than what New Zealand First sees in that flag. It talks about part of our heritage that is not reflected in the current flag.When this whole debate started this conversation and prior Prime Ministers talked about a different flag for New Zealand—this is not something new and I would never say of Norman Kirk that it was a vanity project. I think that people see a new flag as something that can bring the people of New Zealand together in a new way. I cannot say that I am dissatisfied with our present flag but what this referendum does for me is it offers an aspirational opportunity for our future together as the people of Aotearoa New Zealand. I think that this process of bringing amendment to this legislation is responding to a large number of people—it sounds like primarily younger people—who are responding and engaging in a process.I think that this process of a referendum is full of promise full of aspiration and full of opportunity for us to have an emblem and an icon that we can all appreciate and in time to come celebrate under. So I am very happy to support this amendment bill. I look forward to the progress of the referendum in the future and I do trust that we will come to a great result for this nation. Thank you.Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato): I am a bit concerned following that speech because it might have sounded quite genuine in intent were it not for the fact that the Government is happy to give New Zealanders a say on the New Zealand flag but not happy to let them know what is in the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement.There is kind of a lack of prioritisation about what is important to New Zealanders. The Government is happy to let New Zealanders have a say on which flag represents the symbols that are important to New Zealanders but it fails to recognise that family poverty is rising under its policies. Where are the priorities?I am a bit concerned about the way in which this matter has proceeded through the House but we have to come back to the bill which seeks to insert the Red Peak option as a legitimate option within the context of the referendum that will be had. I listened very carefully to the debate and I think people who are trying to make up their minds will consider all the options with some very fundamental questions. Does the flag represent just a symbol of our identity or is there something more meaningful to those symbols that we can hang our hat on and that we can say truly represents the future of New Zealand and that New Zealanders can say actually defines the type of country and nation that we belong in? I think not.The simple reason is that no matter what option is put in front of New Zealanders they have not been given the fundamental choice of whether or not they want this question to proceed. Labour has continually highlighted that the legitimate approach to putting a referendum that would give New Zealanders a true sense of control over the type of debate we are having as a country is to ask whether we should have this referendum around the change of flag at this time—yes or no?The thing that I am more concerned about is that Labour has an amendment sitting on the Table because we are really worried about low turnout on a question so fundamental as one about a flag which is a symbol of our identity. I hesitate to quite a high degree on the basis that postal referendums generally have a low turnout. On a matter of such significance one would expect surely that a 50 percent turnout would be the bare minimum to have a convincing mandate to proceed with such a significant issue.Here is the thing: in the 8 years of the National Government it has been happy to start a constitutional debate but not end it. If it were going to finish it or continue it in a genuine way with a constitutional debate that forms the pillars of what this nation stands for we would have had that and then be debating the issue of which flag should be representing our identity as a country—our proud identity as a country.I have no personal affinity to any of the choices on option. In fact as a Māori as Waikato as Maniopoto with heritage in Ngāpuhi I am very proud of our navigating history. I have some leaning towards the Southern Cross Māhutonga as the zenith star for New Zealand but again what would underpin any legitimate choice in my frame of mind about who we are as a country and where we are in the Pacific would certainly actually have a constitutional foundation underpinning it.We should be debating the increasing level of family poverty in our country. We should be debating the high levels of domestic violence and the high rates of incarceration of young people. But instead we are having this debate about adding another flag albeit it is a win for the Green Party. But this is more than just choosing a flag; this is about the symbols of our identity: what we stand for what we value as a country and what the legitimate priority of a Government that cares for the future of New Zealand is. I think the priorities are wrong. I think the priorities are wrong.The way in which the referendum will be put to New Zealanders is in the wrong order. We have already raised those issues in previous debates but importantly if the Government is absolutely assured of its conviction to continue down this path there is one simple measure: will it have a convincing mandate with which to proceed with the choice of a new flag? I think not—and here is the thing. The Rugby World Cup is on at the moment and I rather think that when the Prime Minister watches that final—hoping that New Zealand is in that final—and when those fans hold up the silver fern he will take it as a mandate to change the flag of New Zealand and he should not. He should not.There are much deeper more pervading matters that should lead a Government to say why it is changing a flag what it represents what the values are but more important what the constitutional pillars are that form a sense of purpose around the motivation for change. It is simply not there. It is a façade it is a love-fest with a symbol that will represent very little and it will lead to a confused outcome.There will be a lack of mandate for the choice of something so important. I only need to point to the country that met some of these deep challenges with some conviction—and that is South Africa. Prior to the changing of its flag it looked at its constitution very seriously. It dealt with some of the most difficult issues of apartheid and urged the nation to look forward beyond tribalism. But it hung the choice of a change of a flag in its constitution and that was why South Africans can stand and hold on to their flag and say: “This is what it means for a new South Africa. This is the country we belong to where we can look beyond apartheid and the negative parts of our history to a future of opportunity.” This Government cannot do that for New Zealand.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I say to the member Richard Prosser that that flag is not part of business attire and I will ask the member either to go out into the lobby or to take it off.Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker otirā tēnā tātou i tēnei pō.[Greetings Mr Assistant Speaker but at the same time acknowledgments to us this evening.]I want to take the opportunity of this debate in the House to go unequivocally on record that I am absolutely in favour of a change for our flag. Moreover I consider that the process that has been comprehensively put before New Zealanders is a process that is actually modelling the principles of modern democracy. We are one of the few countries in the world where a flag change has occurred where New Zealanders in our case have the opportunity not only to say which flag they want but to get choices before a final decision is made. Many other countries have actually arbitrarily decided for their citizens what the symbols are that should represent them but our Government with the support of Parliament invested in an independent process that sets up the opportunity for New Zealanders not only to say what they chose but also to submit their own examples of what they think are the symbols and the colours that represent and resonate with New Zealanders today.I am proud to be in a Government that values democracy so much. Of course the Labour Opposition members naturally have an embedded heritage of ever finely slicing and redistributing so the argument about whether or not there should be two votes rather than one is just slicing and dicing. We are not afraid to give the opportunity for New Zealanders to make a choice. We are not afraid of that. In the same way the bill tonight is a responsive—Hon Trevor Mallard: Kindergarten teachers are being fired all over Wellington and this member wants to talk about the flag.Hon HEKIA PARATA: Please we are talking about the flag. In the same way the bill tonight is responsive to the will of the people that a further flag be included. Of course democracy does allow for fools to shout across the House rather than listen to the discussion. I think it is time for a change. I think that 150 years ago—Hon Trevor Mallard: Well the people don’t. The vast majority of people don’t want to change it.Hon HEKIA PARATA: Well we do not know whether people think that or not until they have the opportunity. Taihoa kia mārama taku whakamāratanga ki a koe. [Hold on and I will make my explanation clear to you.]Clayton Mitchell: That is arrogance right there because you want a say.Hon HEKIA PARATA: No I want every New Zealander to have the opportunity to have a change—not to be shouted down by people who have a particular position. They are likely to have a variety of views and they—[Interruption]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I will ask the member to tone down those comments. Those interjections are unreasonable and unparliamentary so you calm them down.Hon HEKIA PARATA: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. That is exactly the point—that New Zealanders should have the opportunity to say what it is that they do or do not want. I am taking that opportunity as a New Zealander to say what I do want.I think that we have moved on significantly. We are a modern nation. We are small we are smart and we are sassy. We should take the opportunity to choose the symbols that represent who we are today and looking forward into the future. We should take the opportunity to think about what those symbols are. I am in favour of the fern being included. My husband who himself has been a professional soldier has written extensively about the history of the symbolism of the fern in New Zealand’s military history. It is on our Commonwealth graves. Last weekend I was down in Dunedin visiting my father’s grave—himself a returned serviceman—and the ferns are on his plaque. My husband tells me that he did not fight for the flag; he fought for the soldiers in his platoon and he fought for his country and he fought for values the very ones that underpin the modern democracy that New Zealand is.I think that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity and as Minister of Education I absolutely encourage schools to be debating this. I absolutely encourage this because the New Zealand curriculum talks about the importance of symbol and text talks about our place in the world talks about what the Kiwi values are that distinguish us from other countries and talks about our membership of the Commonwealth but distinguishes us as independent players ourselves. New Zealand deserves to have a flag that is resonant of who we are today and into the future. That does not mean we get amnesia about what our his and her stories have been but rather we carry them forward proudly into the future and we take with that the symbols that we think today represent New Zealand. Future generations may make a different decision but today now this year and early next year we have the opportunity to make this decision for ourselves. By the way it is not an either/or debate—that we either debate the other big issues that confront us or we debate the flag. We are a plural democracy. We are capable of debates on many things at once and this is one of them.Again in education we deliver the national curriculum. Each school delivers it in their own particular way but they do it in the context of identity language and culture. After all is that not what a flag is a symbol of—our identity language and culture and who we are in all our colourful diversity? Would we not want in the panoply of flags for New Zealand’s to stand out which it does not at present? This bill is the opportunity for us to have a flag that speaks forthrightly of who we are but more important it is the opportunity to make a choice. Kia ora tātou.A party vote was called for on the question That the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill be now read a second time.Ayes 109New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 12New Zealand First 12.Bill read a second time.In CommitteeThe question was raised by the Hon Trevor Mallard that a Minister was not present in the Chamber. The Chairperson declared that a Minister was present.Part 1 Amendments to the New Zealand Flag Referendums Act 2015Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):I want to start in my first speech in the Committee stage—and I think there will end up being a number of them—focusing on how badly this particular part of the bill is drafted and how embarrassed the Government and the Green Party if it originally drafted it should be at how misleading the explanatory note is when compared with what is actually in the bill.We were told by the Prime Minister and we were told by Gareth Hughes that the effect of this legislation was to take the current four designs and add one to them. That is not what happens in this legislation.What happens in the bill as drafted is that the Order in Council that approved the current four that had been selected and endorsed by the Prime Minister is rescinded and there is an opportunity for any old five to be included. We are being asked to vote for that today—any old five. The Labour Party later on in the debate will be providing the opportunity for there in fact to be six options.There is a lot of debate going on at the moment about ways of taking the opportunity to improve this bill—not to do what Mr O’Rourke wants to do and put the current flag in there as one of the early options although that would make a bit of a nonsense of the second referendum on whether you want this one or that one. But the Tino Rangatiratanga flag and the silver fern flag are two that the twitterati think are better options for New Zealand than the Red Peak one.Can I ask the Minister in the chair Jo Goodhew or by way of interjection Gareth Hughes whether this is the Green bill just relabelled?[Interruption] It is the Green bill relabelled. Well I think we will forgive the Greens to a certain extent for their lack of expertise and their lack of constitutional understanding. But all they had to do was to add one. In fact if they really wanted Red Peak to be included they should have said so in the body of the bill. But the Green Party in doing its drafting—I will be generous and say it is inexperience; I know my colleagues might say something a little bit stronger than that but we will say it is inexperience. If it wanted to get it right and if it had consulted with anyone and really just wanted the Red Peak flag added then what it would have done is give us a bill that added Red Peak. Instead what the Greens do is they once again scrap the current four and hand over to John Key the power to pick any five that he wants. I just say that it is a degree of naivety a degree of silliness and a degree of lack of maturity on the part of the Green Party that I think is causing some problems.The other important point and I think it is a pretty vital point and one on which there has been almost no focus is what the bill does in clause 5(1) amending section 13(1) of the current Act.What that does is replace the 60-day limit for the Order in Council with a 40-day limit.My understanding is that what that does is give the—and before the referendum so there is about another 2 weeks. There is about another 2 weeks that the country has got to express its opinion as to which five flags should be put before the country. It is a quite important point. The legislation is not adding Red Peak; it is scrapping the four and saying that any old five that Cabinet decides—but then more important it says that we have a period of another couple of weeks to decide which five those should be.I know that the National Party does not like it. I know that the Green Party does not like it that much.But in the original cross-party group—I will give credit to New Zealand First members because they saw the con job that John Key was pulling on the country before we did.I want to apologise to my colleagues. Someone of my experience should know that these cross-party groups in this sort of approach are subject to Cabinet coming right over the top ignoring what was agreed by the group imposing a panel different from the one that the group wanted and not—in this particular case the specific amendment I am referring to is the one in my leader’s name in the name of Andrew Little—taking the view of every single party present at the group when it was discussed. I include the Green Party the ACT Party and—what is Peter Dunne’s party called these days?Hon Ruth Dyson: United.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I include the United Future party. All of those parties and the Labour Party agreed. All of those parties and the Labour Party agreed that there should be a yes/no vote as there was with the MMP referendum—a yes/no vote. I think that was passed by 85 percent. John Key said: “You know if people do not know which option it is going to be people will not vote. They will not know what they are doing.” Well he was just wrong.So what we have before the Committee is an amendment on this part of the bill that is in the name of Andrew Little which would add to the ballot a yes/no question.I do understand from the Green Party that it has done a dirty deal with the National Party and it will not stay with its principles—it had been indicated at earlier stages of the bill and it supports that and I think that is sad. But I do want to say that the current polling has over 80 percent of New Zealanders wanting to have a yes/no—yes it does. I cannot tell if he is wobbling or if he is shaking his head. Paul Foster-Bell the man who has got the Union Jack on his tie seems not to accept the polling that has been run including by the New Zealand Heraldshowing that about 80 percent of New Zealanders think it is appropriate to have a yes/no vote at the beginning of the process.All we are saying is that the Labour Party has listened to those people. We talked to them. We did quite a lot of doorknocking on it. We did some surveying on it. It does not matter which part of Hutt South you go to people say: “Is it not logical”—[Interruption] Sorry?Brett Hudson: They want Chris Bishop. What they say is they want Chris Bishop.Paul Foster-Bell: They want a new member that’s what they say. They want a new member.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: No no. In fact the member over there is chipping in—both members are chipping in while Chris Bishop is up in Ōhāriu knocking on doors because those members both know that as soon as Peter Dunne indicates he is going to retire then Chris Bishop wants to be the candidate for Ōhāriu. Sorry Mr Chair I probably should not have responded to the interjection from Paul Foster-Bell.What people can see on the second page on the back page of the amendment in the name of Andrew Little is a new schedule—a relatively simple schedule. It is one that is not at all complicated and I want to say frankly that it is not that original. I do not want to criticise my leader in terms of his amendment but the format of it was taken from the MMP referendum. The format of it was taken from the MMP referendum. It is a bit different because under the MMP referendum the ballot in that case was a first-past-the-post ballot. As we know with MMP it did not really matter whether it was preferential or first post the post because MMP won it. It would have won the preferential vote on the first ballot because it got more than 50 percent anyway. So in Andrew Little’s amendment on the schedule which I understand we are referring to because it is—CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): It is a great honour and a great pleasure to stand up and take a call on behalf of New Zealand First the only party in real opposition to the debacle of a flag debate that is going on in front of us—here in front of all New Zealanders of whom 70 percent are now coming out strongly in opposition to the process that is taking place right here in front of us today.If it took a few people on Facebook to tick a like and to get in behind something—and there are 20000-odd people in support of it—then surely the groundswell the tsunami of support against what is taking place here should be enough for this Government to listen and actually bring this bill back to the House and say: “Let’s scrap this flag referendum altogether.”? I can see the Minister in the chair the Hon Jo Goodhew shaking her head like this is some sort of daft idea but I have to say that this here in Part 1 is all about the interpretation of this bill.When I look at the opposition that we have had all year long—in fact for about the last 7 years that this Government has been in Government—there has been opposition to just about everything that the Greens have come out and said yet today we have heard this remarkable change of opinion this replacement because this Government knows that this referendum is in some severe trouble. It is trying to force it down New Zealanders’ throats to somehow change what we have grown up with understood loved and been supportive of—that is the New Zealand flag that we are very proud of which I for one am 100 percent supportive of keeping and so too are all of our New Zealand First members and the New Zealand First Party. It is a crying shame that the support out there to can this referendum—or at least to conduct it in a democratic fashion—has been overwhelmingly flipped on its head because this Government understands that with the way it sits this change has got absolutely no chance of going through.The Greens have been the patsy of this Government—to be able to pull off their idea of throwing in Red Peak. We have seen some ghastly sorts of alternatives out there in the media and on Google pages already showing what this Red Peak flag nonsense is going to look like on the world stage. I have to say that Gareth Hughes’s amendment to bring this bill forward to the House and have it absorbed by the Government has some serious concerns because I can see that ultimately the Government members are going to use the Greens to fall on their sword for it because this referendum will go nowhere. The absolute vast majority of rank and file New Zealanders see this for what it is and we are not happy with it. Denis O’Rourke an honourable member from New Zealand First has got a number of amendments in—some amendments that we will certainly be supporting—and when the debate gets to clauses 1 and 2 we will certainly be speaking to those this evening.It defies belief really that we have got ourselves into this situation and we keep using the word “democracy”. From the changing of opinions of the Prime Minister himself who has been caught on TV3 and TV1 news talking about there being absolutely zero chance of the Red Peak flag being brought in we have this flip. This complete and utter change at the eleventh hour because of the uncertainty that this flag referendum is going to create creates some concern because it just goes to show that we cannot trust what is being said out there—that at the toss of a coin or at the flip of a hat we can actually have a Government turn round and go against something that it had emphatically made clear to the entire country would not come into play.What is going to stop the Government turning round at the eleventh hour after the first referendum and saying: “Actually we have made our decision. We are not even going to have the second referendum.”? It would not surprise me or the rest of New Zealand that this was the sort of behaviour of a Government that is not following an open and transparent line. It is not following democracy and this is just another point that proves that very fact. Thank you I will be taking more calls as the evening goes on.GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Chair. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to speak on Part 1. I know there are a great deal of other debates this House should be having tonight that are far far more important than the cloth on the flag but just because there are more important things we should be discussing just because we are trying to fix up a bit of a political mess that Parliament has got itself into does not mean we have to resort to absolute silliness in the debate. In this contribution I would like to address some of the conspiracy theories that we have heard in dealing with Part 1. The first conspiracy by the member Denis O’Rourke is that somehow this Red Peak flag is a Nazi symbol which I find scurrilous and disgraceful. It is quite incredible that within the second reading of the bill New Zealand First descended to Godwin’s law. In only the second reading it descended to Godwin’s law which we all know is the marker of not having a particularly good argument.The second conspiracy theory we have heard tonight is from the Hon Trevor Mallard. We have had this debate. I have raised this point in previous contributions that the Red Peak is not specifically mentioned in I believe clauses 4 and 5 because of the constitutional arrangement. We sought expert advice on this and it is improper for this Parliament to instruct the Governor-General on what to do. This is why it is mentioned in the explanatory note. This is the conspiracy theory. Does the honourable member in his assertions believe that somehow the Governor-General is going to pick a different flag? Is he going to pick “Laser Kiwi”? Is he going to pick something else? If this is the message that the honourable member is putting out there he should just say it.The honourable member also made some other points. I have got a lot of time for Mr Mallard. He has got an esteemed history in this House in our political history. Mr Mallard who I believe was somewhat patronising described me as naive silly and inexperienced in relation to the drafting of this bill. I will admit that this bill was drafted yesterday after our caucus meeting in the morning. It did receive some oversight from the Parliamentary Counsel Office.I would like to address the three allegations: I am naive I am silly and I am inexperienced. It is true I am naive of the old politics that we see from that member—the politics that saw two parties dig themselves into a political deadlock that has seen the Green Party try to fix it but not by scoring points. Sure I may be naive when it comes to scoring political points but I am not naive when finding constructive solutions to try to break the deadlock. The member called me silly and it may be true but perhaps a different definition of “silly” is railing against a bill the dirty deals that are behind it and then voting for it.Thirdly I might be inexperienced. I am not experienced in the old first-past-the-post politics where deals should be done between only the two big parties. I am not experienced in that and I am proud of it. We were talking that first-past-the-post politics. The honourable member also talked about the twitterati deprecating the social media campaign that we have heard about in other contributions on this debate.What this bill does is add a fifth option. This is not because five is a better number than four. We all know exactly why we are here. The fifth option is because of the absolutely phenomenal groundswell of support which all parties bar one has acknowledged. That is why we are here. We should not be deprecating those people for getting involved in politics be it on Facebook be it on Instagram or be it on Twitter. It is entirely appropriate entirely legitimate and I do not think that we should be somehow saying that because it is done in one particular forum it does not have the equal merit of others. In fact I think in hindsight we would not be in this situation. How did the Flag Consideration Panel incorporate new technology? Why on earth could not the public up-vote or down-vote the flags based on their preference? Why on earth could they not comment on the more than 10000 submissions so that perhaps we could have seen a more informed process? This is what alternative flag consideration projects have done at considerably less cost.So let us not knock those people for engaging in politics and democracy just because they did it on a phone. Let us give them a choice. Let us make sure that this Parliament acts constructively. Kia ora.ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): The very defensive National members opposite who contribute so little to this important debate on a very important issue have reluctantly continued to contribute very little. But this is an important issue. I want to speak to the amendment in my name which is about giving the full range of choice to New Zealanders in this referendum. The issue for New Zealand and indeed the issue for the Government for the last few weeks has not just been about a fifth option. It has not just been about Red Peak. It has been about a growing disillusionment amongst New Zealanders about a sense of manipulation and about a referendum that offers them no real choice at all. That really came to the fore when the Government released the four final candidates if you like for alternative flags which did not provide much choice at all. Three of the four options are virtually identical apart from a change in colour and the existence or otherwise of some stars. The fourth option is a koru flag which is quite different from the others. But out of a long list of 40 and a much longer list even before that that is all the Government could come up with? And still New Zealanders had not been asked whether or not they even wanted to change the flag.This amendment is about restoring at least some dignity to the process giving some dignity to New Zealanders who just want the courtesy of being asked that question. What could possibly be wrong with asking that question—giving New Zealanders a choice—of whether or not they even want the flag to be changed? That has been the fundamental error of judgment by John Key and his Government. He thought he could just sort of railroad through this process.Brett Hudson: He’s slow on the uptake this one.ANDREW LITTLE: You see the problem with the National members opposite is that they will not take to their feet and argue a case. They will barrack and give cheap calls across the House because they are terrified of the people of New Zealand. They are terrified of giving New Zealanders a real choice and a real say about whether they want to change the flag. That is how scared they are. They are happy to cheer and play along with their leader in their manipulated process because he declared from on high that he wanted a new flag with a silver fern on it. That is not where New Zealanders are at. New Zealanders deserve more respect and they deserve more courtesy than that.This is not about any individual politician’s personal choice about the flag. This is about respecting all New Zealanders. When we are asking them to enter into a debate about their emblem the insignia that represents them around the world they ought to be treated with respect and dignity. This Government has not done that. Members opposite fail to accept that at their peril. New Zealanders want to be treated with courtesy and we do that when we give them the choice of answering the question: “Do you want to change the flag or not?”. New Zealanders do not ask for much but being treated with courtesy by this House by members of this House and by the political process is just one small thing that they ask.When it comes to such an important choice of what sort of flag we have then being given that choice to make about whether to change the flag—being asked to make that decision—is absolutely crucial. That is why I have put up this amendment to allow that choice to be added into the process. I was very clear. I offered this to the Government last week but not as part of some grubby deal that meant we would put up a proposal and make a deal with the Government that we would not vote for New Zealanders to have a real say. We are not into that kind of grubby backroom deal that others in this House are into. We are into giving New Zealanders the choice about whether to change the flag as we have right through this process through the cross-party process through the input and the submissions we have had at the select committee—every opportunity we have had we have been absolutely consistent about it.If we are to run a referendum like this and allow New Zealanders to make a decision on their flag our national flag the thing that we stand under the thing that we hold high when we are on the international stage and the flag that so many Kiwis wrap round themselves when they at their Anzac Day events in Parliament Square in London when they are in New York when they are in Sydney or Melbourne or wherever they are in the world and they look to the New Zealand flag we should take this seriously because New Zealanders take it seriously. This is about giving choice and dignity to New Zealanders. New Zealanders deserve nothing less.FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First): I want to just take this opportunity to reply to Minister Parata’s statements around democracy and how important democracy is in this process. The Minister needs to realise that she is speaking about democracy under an urgency process which makes a farce of this statement in the first place. She is talking about democracy by Facebook and she is talking about democracy by pandering to lobby groups and focus groups. That is not democracy. If the Minister would dare to stand up in this House and extol the virtues of democracy to New Zealanders—I dare her and her Government to apply the same fine principles of democracy that she would extol to this House to the debate around secret tribunals which would undermine the sovereignty of this New Zealand Government under investor-State dispute settlements for example. But to turn specifically to the bill—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Yes. We do not want to have to talk about those sorts of things. They are not part of Part 1.FLETCHER TABUTEAU: Thank you Mr Chair. I am speaking specifically to the bill to clauses 4(2) and 5 in Part 1. This Government with the support of the Green Party is being—as Minister Joyce would say—tricky. It is being tricky. It is allowing by Order in Council the current four flag options to be removed completely. So what it is doing is not adding Red Peak—Brett Hudson: It was an Order in Council to begin with.FLETCHER TABUTEAU: It is removing all four options and then instead of simply adding Red Peak to this debate Mr Hudson it is adding another option. So actually what we find is that after this Government puts this legislation through the House New Zealanders will not necessarily find that they will be discussing the four options already agreed to and they will not necessarily be discussing Red Peak. What we will discuss and what we must be mindful of is that the Prime Minister—Brett Hudson: Read the commentary Mr Tabuteau.FLETCHER TABUTEAU: Oh Mr Hudson says: “Read the commentary.” For goodness’ sake! In all of the legislation presented recently you have wonderful song sheets telling us what this bill is about but then you actually read the legislation and it has nothing whatsoever to do with what you claim it does in the explanatory note. So the reality is despite Mr Hudson’s commentary there are now five blank options. What I was saying before I was rudely interrupted was that what we will find is that those five options are not necessarily reflective of a process that the people of New Zealand had thought was a robust and principled one.Pita Paraone: And would expect.FLETCHER TABUTEAU: And would expect. What we find is five blank sheets where the Prime Minister and Cabinet can fill them in at their own device. New Zealanders need to be very very wary of that.I would just like to finish my contribution by speaking to an amendment presented in the name of Denis O’Rourke. It is to rename the piece of legislation to the “New Zealand Flag Referendums (Future Generations Will Not Forgive You) Amendment Act 2015”. I have visited schools in Rotorua as part of my job to discuss Youth Parliament. In those conversations students asked me what my position was on the flag change. They wanted to know where I stood and I told them the truth. I love our current flag and I do not want it to change and I think this whole process has been a farce. And do you know what they said to me? They completely agreed. These are 16-year-olds—16-year-olds from all of the schools in Rotorua—consistently and unanimously agreeing that this whole process is a farce. They were as upset as anyone else about the waste of New Zealand taxpayers’ money on a referendum that does not even ask in the first place: “Do you want a flag change?”. It is an insult to this House and it is a waste of this House’s time. Thank you.Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I do want to speak a little bit about Andrew Little’s amendment which presents the option of having a yes/no vote in the initial referendum. Of course that is an incredibly sensible idea that could save millions of dollars for the country and if the public polling that has been consistent right through is right it would likely see a vote to keep the existing flag and save that money for the country.It seems a sensible amendment and I want to speak a little bit about that. But before I do I have got a couple of other points that I want to make. The first is I want to query Gareth Hughes’ earlier comment about not putting specifics in the bill. It seems a somewhat bizarre thing to say that you should not tell the Governor-General what to do. All of the bills we put through Parliament invite the Governor-General to do what the Parliament has decided is the right thing to happen for New Zealanders. In fact that is what we do with every bill that goes through the Parliament. So it is a very strange thing for him to say and I wonder whether when he takes his next call he might explain quite how he came to the view that we should not in the Parliament any more suggest specific changes in law. It is very hard to understand.The option presented in this bill is that we have five fresh flag designs. The Hon Trevor Mallard has eloquently articulated—Hon Trevor Mallard: I wouldn’t say that.Dr DAVID CLARK: —how that comes to be the case. I am being generous. We are being in the spirit of generosity this evening. John Key’s vanity project here is given a whole new lease of life because it leaves the Prime Minister open to choosing five flag designs that fit his particular criteria. We have already seen that he has a preference for not having designers on the panel. He has expressed great confidence in this panel which has no people with previous flag design experience and we have ended up with something that looks a lot more like commercial monikers I would say than proper international flags amongst many of the designs that we are faced with.I was asked earlier this evening on Back Benches in the pre-record—and I do not want to spoil the show for those who are hanging out at home—whether I supported the Red Peak flag design. I said: “Look I honestly have not”—have not—“given it much thought yet. It’s a new thing today.” Who knows what we may have tomorrow? I mean we are in a position where this changes day by day.It is a mockery of a process. It is an absolute mockery of a process that really belittles New Zealanders’ engagement in wanting to change our national symbol. We are spending millions and millions of dollars on a process that seems to change day to day according to the Prime Minister’s polling or political whims and that cannot be a good process for New Zealanders.In my view the right time to have this conversation is when we are debating whether we should become a republic or not. That is the logical time. I think we should be pushing out this debate. In Part 1 there is a way of doing that. We could increase the number of days mentioned in the amended section 13 which talks about 40 days before the commencement of the voting period to change the designs. We could change that to many many more days I think with other tweaks in the amendment.There will be people who know the subtleties of this process better than me who would know whether we can push it out there. I am interested to hear from the Minister in the chair Jo Goodhew whether she thinks it is technically possible to push it out through that mechanism. Certainly it would make the law a little bit more difficult to interpret at the other end. We could ask the Governor-General what he thinks of that.We have come to this point where we are having a debate that changes day by day on what are the options that should represent New Zealanders. That is not the way to unite the country. If we think right back to the start this was presented to New Zealanders as a way of uniting the country under one flag option. It has done nothing but divide New Zealanders. This process has done nothing but divide New Zealanders. There are way more opinions than flag options. But what is clear is that New Zealanders are not clear on which option they want—in fact of the new options even. We are leading towards a situation where the vast majority think it is such a shemozzle that they would rather keep the existing flag than vote for any of the options. That is what the polls tell us. Instead of uniting a society in this process we are paying millions and millions of dollars as a country to divide society. That cannot be the way this should have played out—that cannot be the way. But the Prime Minister has had it as his vanity project and that has been why we have ended up this way.I want to speak out about Mr Little’s amendment—a very sensible amendment. [Interruption] Yes the member is right. The member in the chair obviously made the right call in choosing the Leader of the Opposition when I stood up to compete for a call. This amendment does put the choice back in New Zealanders’ hands. It tries to restore some dignity to a process that has ravaged out of control and has become more about the Prime Minister’s ego. We have seen some very erratic behaviour from the Prime Minister. We have seen him at cancer fund-raisers asking for people to put their hands up if they are opposed to it and then berating them personally. That cannot be the kind of uniting process that people had in mind when they bought into this process—those who did—at the beginning.I understand—the Prime Minister now has the flag process hanging around his neck like an albatross. He is now in many polls less popular that Prime Minister Helen Clark was when she was thrown out of the Parliament and he still has a long way to go in his third term. His decline in popularity has been very steep and he seems to have attached his personal fortunes to a vanity project about choosing the flag. That must be a worrying place. It is a worrying place for the members opposite. They have been very quiet during this debate. We have not had very many calls at all from the National Party members. They seem reluctant to defend it. Of course the ones we can see are wearing the Union Jack—they are the ones who want to keep the flag process. It is a complete shemozzle on that side of the House.So this process which was supposed to unite New Zealand seems to be dividing us. I would ask the Government to really quickly adopt this sensible suggestion from Andrew Little that puts the choice back into New Zealanders’ hands immediately about whether they want to change the flag or not. I ask the Government to save the country millions of dollars and spend that money on early childhood education or on building a new hospital in Dunedin where it is sorely needed. I ask the Government to spend that money on anything that would help our society get ahead and unite us rather than undertake this process as prescribed in Part 1 which is dividing our country.I implore the members opposite to please consider voting for the Leader of the Opposition’s amendment which does give New Zealanders some dignity in the process gives the Prime Minister perhaps a way out and allows that money to be spent more wisely than on this process which has become such an albatross around the Prime Minister’s neck.We need to have this debate at another time further down the track when New Zealanders can be united in the final choice rather than divided. That is the kind of debate that a Labour Government would lead if we were ever to look at changing the flag because that is the kind of inclusive process that the Labour Party believes in. Going down a track that is about popularity and commercial designs and is rushed and changed every day because of an erratic Prime Minister whose personal fate is tied to the outcome is not the way to go.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): Just in case anyone had any possible doubt about this New Zealand First says this whole referendum process from beginning to end is a very bad idea and we should never have embarked upon it in the first place. The nation is effectively being forced into it by John Key’s own orders and that is the feeling that I get in the community. The community does not really want to go there but is being forced to do so by a Government that wants to distract it from other more important issues. Not only that but several National MPs a number of them do not agree with their own party and are in fact being whipped into shape by party discipline which is making them vote for this bill and indeed the original legislation. That shows just how political this is and how lacking in genuine public support any part of this process actually is.I now want to particularly refer to the general policy statement in the bill before us. The first thing that I read there is that the New Zealand Flag Referendums Act the principal Act is “to provide for 5 alternative flag designs”. Well why should it be just five? What is magic about five? Indeed what was magic about the original four? I do not understand why the legislation and why this bill needs to actually prescribe any particular number of alternatives. That is what should have come from the community. If there were enough good designs that would qualify as reasonable alternatives to the New Zealand flag then that process should have been gone through first before any number was specified in the first flag referendum.So that is the first problem that it has and that is one of the things that this Government has been tripped up on because now we have instead of four a fifth one which some people—not many I do not think; no groundswell just a molehill of people—want added as well. Well it is not a very good process on that basis.Secondly it says in the general policy statement that this flag design is “commonly known as Red Peak”—commonly known as Red Peak? It is not commonly known as any such thing. In fact this design is not commonly known at all and I know that because I speak to people in my electorate and around me and in taxis and so on and actually the fact is that very few people really know what this particular flag is or what it is about. That is the truth. Some people in this Chamber have deluded themselves that there is support for this particular alternative but in fact there is not. Most people—90 percent of the population—neither know nor care about Red Peak and that is the truth about that.That leads me to something else. Further down in the general policy statement we have references to other alternatives but in fact there are no such other alternatives. So this one has just been one out of many other possible alternatives that for some inexplicable reason based on a tiny little number of people in a poll many of whom have voted several times—that is the basis. That is the basis upon which this particular design is being included and that is a very very poor basis for doing that. It is a very very poor process.I will have to say this and I regret having to say so but I personally believe that the expert panel actually did not do a very good job in selecting the four alternatives that are there. It is that bad job that has led to this further demand for other alternatives to be put on the ballot paper for the first flag referendum. What is wrong with what the expert panel did is they included a number of designs that are almost identical to each other. That is not very sensible. People needed completely different alternatives if there was to be a genuine choice. That is not what we got with the first four and that is why we are now faced with this silly process of having to add yet another one—and it should not be. That other one should not have been added.If there were going to be a process for a wider choice it would need to be a much better process than this. It would need to be a process that provided genuine alternatives that were not very much like each other. And it would need to provide a process to develop a much larger number of alternatives for people to express an opinion on than merely four.I want to say something about Gareth Hughes’ comments because Gareth Hughes was clearly afraid of the truth when he protested that New Zealand First pointed out the similarity in symbolism between the Red Peak design and the use of a very very similar design and symbolism by Nazi Germany in the Second World War. The simple truth is that in actual fact as I demonstrated in an earlier speech there is a very very close similarity indeed between the actual use of that design on Nazi sentry boxes and the Red Peak flag.Hon David Cunliffe: You’ve turned it upside down.DENIS O’ROURKE: It was not turned upside down as one person over here says. He is simply not looking at the truth just in the same way as Gareth Hughes is not prepared to observe the truth—and that is the truth.In fact the colours are the same the design is the same it looks the same other people in other parts of the world will point out the similarity and it will be ridiculed. Those people who say that it is not the same should look at those designs to see the truth in that. That is why New Zealand First pointed it out—because it is a fact. It is not our opinion; it is just a fact.I want to go on and say this also if I get enough time. It is this: if we were going to change our flag—and New Zealand First opposes that altogether but if we were going to do so—there would need to be a much better process than the one that this Government has foisted upon us. This is how I think it should go. First of all there should be no legislation at all to begin with. The Government has the ability without passing legislation to simply set up focus groups throughout the country and to say to those focus groups: “Should New Zealand consider a new flag and if so what do you think that flag should be?” and it should take time over doing that—many months if not years to do that—because it does take time for that sort of grassroots consultation to take place. As a result of that you would get a set of criteria that would show you the kinds of things that the general population would like to see in a flag. That would be the first step.The second step would be to use that criteria and to have multiple design generators to use it to start designing a flag. The multiple design generators would be for example schools it would be the use of competitions it would be some paid designers and it would be many many other ways of encouraging people to generate ideas about designs. That would also not require legislation at that stage. To follow on from that you would then need a long period of public discussion on the main alternatives identified by that process. I would foresee that there might be a couple of dozen such designs that would come out of a process like that because people have all sorts of different ideas.Having done that and after that public discussion an expert panel might then be used to help to narrow down those two or three dozen possible designs that could be used to a referendum. But the first referendum should always ask that question: “Do you the public of New Zealand want to even consider a new flag?”. New Zealand First says no but some people might wish to do so. That is where it should have started.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): Never have I seen the potential for strengthening our national identity so squandered. This process has been crassly manipulated by the Government and by John Key in particular since its very inception. It has been a distraction from the real issues of the day. It is a personal legacy or vanity project for the Prime Minister and it is one of the most cynical uses of postmodern communications that I have ever seen.It must pain the Government that 70 percent of people when confronted with the four personal choices of the Government’s personal appointees hate the choices so much that they would rather leave the flag as it is. So the Government has broken the glass and pressed the emergency button and it has had to swallow a very large red rat. It is called Red Peak. I personally quite like it but that is not the issue. The Government knows that without this legislation—which the Greens have helpfully facilitated in a ménage a trois; they now consider themselves virgins—none of the flag options would get up and Mr Key’s personal legacy project would be down the toilet. That is why we are here under urgency—to save the flag project from obscurity.Debate interrupted.Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Thursday)