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:6993. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon 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that the Order in Council that approved the current four that had been selected and endorsed by the Prime Minister is rescinded and there is an opportunity for any old five to be included.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—