Mallard Trevor: New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMallard Trevor: New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 23 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:7021. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): There are a number of points that can be made about the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill. I think clause 2 the commencement clause is one around which there could be a little bit of debate—whether it is appropriate to bring the Act into force so quickly or whether in fact we should wait just in case the Prime Minister changes his mind again and decides that he wants yet another flag in there. But as I think some members have argued in the House actually he could probably do that anyway. So maybe changing the date to a set date rather than tomorrow or the next day is probably unnecessary. I think most members are aware that this bill does not do what most people think it does. What it does is it scraps the current four flags and says that the Prime Minister and Cabinet can put in any five flags that they want.I have heard during the debate some interesting discussions on that. I have heard some bush-constitutional approaches from Gareth Hughes in particular. I just want to say to that member that if Parliament wanted the Red Peak flag in here—Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. We are debating just clauses 1 and 2. Earlier in the week the member speaking was very strict about keeping to items being solely around the provision in the House and I think the House should be consistent.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Speaking to the point of order Mr Chairman.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Well I do not think I need any guidance at the moment. What I understand is that clauses 1 and 2 are fairly wide. I have not felt that the member has been wide of the mark yet and of course that decision is solely mine. Thank you.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Are you going to admonish the Minister for bringing up an irrelevant point of order and questioning your judgment?The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Whether I do or not is over to me. I do not intend doing that at the moment and I am not going to be instructed by my fellow presiding officer. He himself sails close to the wind on many occasions. Let us just continue with the floor which he currently has.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Thank you Mr Chairman. As I was trying to explain before I was so rudely interrupted this bill in fact leaves with the Governor-General on the advice of the Prime Minister the timing of when to assent to it. So that is a choice that can be made in clause 2. The timing is a matter for Order in Council and the timing of when that occurs is the advice. But more important there is a debate as to whether that timing should be earlier or later just in case the Prime Minister decides to slip in another flag rather than just the ones that are there.There is a pretty important pretty basic point that I want to ask the Attorney-General about and that is the use of the word “Referendums” in the title. It is a question of whether our level of English is slipping by using the word “Referendums” instead of the traditional word “Referenda”. So there is a question—Paul Foster-Bell: His own party have been using it all day.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Look I am not going to be responsible for slipping standards amongst members of Parliament and the use of English in the Chamber. I do accept—and I think the Attorney-General will tell us—that the word “referendums” is a sort of lower level alternative use in a number of dictionaries. It is becoming acceptable. But when we are talking about titles of bills in Parliament there is a question about whether we should stick to the higher standards which the Attorney-General has generally been supportive of as far as legislation goes—Hon Christopher Finlayson: I am.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: He is. I am wondering whether we could maybe get an amendment drafted up to drop the “um” and to put in “a” instead. What that would do is it would give us a title that is something more reflective. I think to be fair to do that we would also have to include another subclause in the bill that changed the title of the Act that we are amending because having a “New Zealand Flags Referenda Amendment Bill” amending the New Zealand Flag Referendums Act might in fact be a little bit inconsistent and it would be a matter of trying to get that right.My colleagues will no doubt have a number of views as to more appropriate titles for this bill. My view is that the “Making the Process Even More Biased Bill” is something that would be appropriate because what everyone knows is that this process is biased towards change. People have not been prepared to go with the approach that has been traditionally used for referenda in New Zealand including the MMP referendum with a yes/no question. The question we are now facing is whether the title should include words that incorporate recognition of that bias. To do that it could be the “John Key Vanity Biased Referendum Bill” or it could be the “Why Won’t the National Party Caucus Put Their Hands Up to Support John Key’s Biased Vanity Project Bill”—Pita Paraone: Because they don’t.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well they do not believe it. They do not support him. There have been members all over the place through the debate who have refused to get on their hind legs and support the Prime Minister on this because they know that he is wrong and they know—especially the ones who live in electorates and who work in electorates and who do their doorknocking—that if they stand up and say they support John Key on this they are going to be goneburgers at the next election. They are not silly—they are not silly. That is why they are not prepared to even debate. There is not a member on the other side who is prepared to stand up and debate on this particular clause indicating that they think this is the proper title. They all know that I am right. They on the opposite side of the Chamber all know that this is yet another attempt to get a referendum that is failing across the line. It is weird. But the question we are facing is whether or not that should be incorporated in the title.My view is that if this Government were honest if it were straightforward and if it titled things appropriately then it would include in its title something that indicated that this was a way of unbalancing the pitch. It is a way of—I do not know whether we are still allowed to but we used to say “queering the pitch”. Is that still an acceptable term? [Interruption] It is still an acceptable term. I never know with PC and all of these things these days Mr Chairman. But what we are attempting to do here is to put a bias on the playing field. The question the Committee is facing now is whether that bias is something that should be properly reflected within this title of the bill and whether allowance should be made in clause 2 around the commencement date for a change of mind on the part of the Prime Minister.To be fair there is a balanced call there—44000 people indicated on a petition that they wanted a yes/no vote. I think 14000 people made submissions to the Justice and Electoral Committee and that was ignored by the Government. There were a few people based in wine bars and coffee bars and other liberal establishments who got on to Twitter. There was a decision made to make a change and we are supporting it—anything to make this more interesting.We are voting for the clause. But what happens if next week there is a Facebook campaign and there is a major push for another flag to go in there? Should the commencement date of this legislation be flexible enough to take on board next week’s Facebook campaign to incorporate a sixth design or to drop one of the current designs? The bill is actually flexible enough to do that; I do accept it is there. But if the Order in Council with the particular flags occurs then after that—well actually probably we would not. Maybe this argument is slightly unnecessary because the Government could just rescind its Order in Council and do another Order in Council. But then the Government could have done that for this if it had wanted to—if it had really wanted to do it. But there is a question of timing and especially if people wanted to bring another design into the area.