Mallard Trevor: New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMallard Trevor: New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 23 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:6978. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]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.