Volume 709 Week 29 - Wednesday 23 September 2015(continued on Thursday 24 September 2015)Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 709 Week 29 - Wednesday 23 September 2015(continued on Thursday 24 September 2015)[Sitting date: 23 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:7005. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Wednesday 23 September 2015(continued on Thursday 24 September 2015)New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment BillIn CommitteeDebate resumed.Part 1 Amendments to New Zealand Flag Referendums Act 2015 (continued)CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South):Well things got a bit heated in this debate last night. After the House rose I went back to my office and I listened to a few songs and one of those songs was “Anchor Me” by Don McGlashan. It occurred to me as I have been pondering this issue for some time that what is really missing in this whole debate is a mature and considered respectful and nuanced discussion about New Zealand’s national identity and what that actually means before the farce of a process that we have ended up with in this House today and last night.New Zealanders are funny people. They are thoughtful people. They are can-do people they are people who rally around in a crisis they are people who like and require a fair go and they do not like to be treated like muppets or numpties which is what this Government is doing in this whole process and with this clever tricky little manoeuvre—the latest clever tricky manoeuvre—with this piece of legislation.I want to put on record that this whole thing is a colossal waste of New Zealand taxpayers’ time—taking this bill through this House and taking hours and hours and hours. The Opposition has the right to debate this bill but it is the fact that it is before this House when it could have been dealt with in a much quicker much more mature and respectful way—instead we have this farce of a process going through our Parliament right now. It is an embarrassment and it is a silly political game.Some of the speeches I heard last night from over the other side of the Chamber were just the epitome of National being wrapped up in its own sense of entitlement—to have the gall to talk about this as being democracy. This is a law change that is being rushed through under urgency with all its processes under urgency with no chance for the public to have another say about it and that is a disgrace.This morning I got a taxi to Parliament. My taxi driver was Cambodian and has been in New Zealand for 35 years. The radio was on and we were listening to Morning Report. We were listening to the interview with the Greens’ co-leader James Shaw. I want to acknowledge the measured response from the Greens’ co-leader in that interview this morning as opposed to some of the contributions from his colleagues yesterday in the House. I said to the taxi driver: “So what do you think about this whole flag debate?”. He kind of turned and looked at me and said: “Well you might not like what I’m going to say.” and I said: “Look I want to hear what you’ve got to say.” He said: “New Zealand must be a rich country to be spending so much time debating and discussing an issue such as the flag. Aren’t there more important issues? Where is the economic value or the social value from this process?”. I said: “I completely agree with you.”In my electorate Dunedin South every person I talk to rolls their eyes every time the flag debate comes up. This should have been a much better-handled process. My biggest problem with the process under which this bill is going through the House at the moment is my absolute objection to what Gareth Hughes said yesterday about this being some kind of new politics and engaging with the public.Let us be honest: this is just a stitch-up. This is a deal. It is a tricky deal that has been done with the National Government to allow this last-minute entry into the flag choicesof a fifth option. I do not have any issue with Red Peak but I think the whole process has been besmirched right from the very beginning. This is not new politics; this is old politics. This is a stitch-up deal and it is the National Government that is doing the tricky—DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): That was quite a wide-ranging and extraordinary contribution. Correct me if I am wrong Mr Chair but we are currently debating Part 1 of the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill. It is a very very simple part of the legislation. All it says is that the legislation will be changed such that there are five options on which the public can vote not four. This is not actually complicated. In fact I believe that members have the capacity to grasp what is happening well within their grasp and yet we hear all sorts of accusations that “Everybody but me”—Clare Curran just said—“is playing politics on this issue.”Well there are people playing politics on this very simple bill and ensuring it takes far more of the Committee’s time than it needs to and the puerile and infantile amendments on the Table from Denis O’Rourke are one example. It just goes to show what happens when the “Babysitter” is away. When the “Babysitter” is away all sorts of impractical and impolitic indulgences are indulged in by the New Zealand First Party. I believe I speak for many members when I say—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The amendments that you mentioned are not to Part 1. They are actually on the clauses.DAVID SEYMOUR: I apologise. I was not referring to the amendments in any substance; merely to the position that various parties are taking on this part which is indeed very simple. In fact going from four to five options is so simple that it is difficult to fill 5 minutes talking about anything else. Thankfully the Opposition has given us all sorts of immaturity all sorts of political game-playing and all sorts of excuses to make this process far more complex than it needs to be.If the Opposition were serious about being respectful of New Zealanders and acting in such a way that this legislative change happens quickly efficiently and smoothly so the House can get on to all of those things that the Opposition says are far more important we would not still be debating this. It could have been done and dusted and we could have got on to more important matters last night.The truth is that the Opposition has chosen to deeply politicise the very simple exercise of going from four to five options. I would not have thought that this was a complex matter to detain the House with for a long time but it does appear to have detained the Opposition for a long time. The Opposition in turn has detained the House and left us with a much much more drawn-out process than there needed to have been.So when the Opposition tells us that it is the Government or this side of the Chamber that is abusing or offending or taking for granted or belittling New Zealanders all it needs to do if it wants to move the Committee and the House on to more serious business is to say “We’re OK with going from four to five. We’re comfortable with that. We’re numerous enough to do it.” sit down and allow the Committee and the House to move on to more important business.But I predict that we are going to see the kind of puerile grandstanding from New Zealand First that we get whenever their “Babysitter” is away managing media matters for the Parliamentary Rugby Team in London or on any other occasion when those members are unsupervised and left to their own devices in a House they could never have entered without the ”Babysitter’s” assistance. They will carry on and carry on for as long as possible simultaneously claiming it is the Government that is taking advantage of the public and the House while nevertheless it is they who have a real difficulty with the simple concept of going from four to five options. That is all we are trying to achieve here so let us just say it—TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora Mr Chair. I cannot say it is a joy to follow Mr Seymour in the debate. It is interesting that Mr Seymour brings into the debate how people came into this House. I think that of all the people in this House who should not mention babysitters or special treatment or other things that have been manipulated by this Government to allow Mr Seymour to sit here to participate in a debate it is he who should not speak of such things. I think also that it is interesting that Mr Seymour suggests that only those who are reasonable would want to push forward this New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill and not waste the House’s time.It is interesting that Mr Seymour now stands for referendums whenevery other party in this House has lost its ability to take the high ground with regard to referendums. Every other party in this House refused to allow the New Zealand public to have binding referendums on other issues.Only in the last 4 years we have had issues that would have made massive social change and yet somehow National members treat the changing of the colours that we carry into the world without the same level of importance. They would not allow the New Zealand public to express its voice around marriage amendment or alcohol laws or other laws but around this referendum bill apparently it is OK to trust the public. Mr Macindoe waxed lyrical last night at how wonderful and magnanimous it was that the Government was responding to 50000 likes so that this referendum bill is now here. Yet when the people of New Zealand stood outside and asked for a voice over another bill in only the last 3 years this House said: “You can’t be trusted with it—you can’t be trusted with it.”The other thing that I think is very interesting—and I want to acknowledge the contribution on this bill last night by Mr Mallard when he acknowledged that the Labour Party had been naive to participate with the National Government—Paul Foster-Bell: The Greens—he said the Greens were naive.TRACEY MARTIN: With the National Government—go and have a look at the transcripts Mr Foster-Bell; I was here. Mr Mallard recognised that the Labour Party had been naive by participating in what it thought was going to be a cross-party conversation with mutual respect with the Government around the creation of a panel of people to select the flag design and then to go forward also around creating the bill that would put through the way that the referendum would be done. Mr Mallard quite clearly articulated that it was at that committee that they believed—and everybody on the committee supposedly agreed—that the first referendum question would be: “Yes or no—do you want a change or not?”but apparently the Government overrode that. So I want to recognise that Mr Mallard gave a nod to the wisdom of New Zealand First members who said: “We are not going to participate in the charade.”And the charade continues—the charade continues with this bill. Not only was there the charade of a cross-party political consensus to form the panel that selected four designs—four designs that nobody wants or that 70 percent of New Zealand does not want—but there was also the charade that there should be only four that the panel should be independent and that nobody should interfere with it. But when the polls start to turn—when the polls start to turn—and it looks like the Prime Minister will not get his legacy the item that he wants to have run up the flagpole so that everybody sees his name on it in the history books suddenly that independent process can be affected. Suddenly it is quite OK and somehow the Government is now responding to the will of the public.When New Zealand First actually listens to the public and the public says it wants binding citizen initiated referenda—when New Zealand First responds to that and puts it in its manifesto it is accused of being populist. How much more populist could one be than deciding to put legislation into the House off a Facebook vote? It is not even a scientific Facebook vote. It is a vote where you do not know whether 10000 people voted five times. Yet apparently this is not populist politics. Apparently this is worthy of the time and the money of this House.It is interesting that those who wish to rush it through for whatever reason they hold themselves suggest that it is those who stand for the current flag those who represent the 70 percent of New Zealanders who do not wish to see change those who represent the 70 percent of New Zealanders who do not want to see $26 million wasted on this referendum when there are more important issues those of us who stand for the history of this country those who fought and died under this flag and those of us who wish to truly hear the voice of New Zealand not on a Facebook page but on a scientific poll—apparently we are now accused by the ACT Party of all people of wasting Parliament’s time and money.David Seymour: Well you are.TRACEY MARTIN: By the ACT Party of all people. It is one of the largest wastes of time and money in this Parliament. So it is interesting that those who want to push this through are accusing those of us standing up against this legislation tonight of wasting Parliament’s time and money. Well we will continue to stand against it.I think the other thing too that is interesting is this push-through for flags and I want to now speak about Mr Macindoe’s contribution to this bill yesterday when Mr Macindoe again waxed lyrical about his personal preference. Obviously I am doing the same thing. I am making a statement that I prefer the flag that has the history that we currently have. We also note that there is now a push by the RSA to include the current New Zealand flag in the first debate. Mr Mallard suggested that that was possible. Mr Mallard suggested that this bill has been so badly written that it could pass it could go back to the executive and the executive—now that Parliament has interfered in the process and removed the independence of the panel—could decide on a whole new series a whole new five flags and put them in front of the public.The question New Zealand First has is not only whether there will be a commitment that that will not happen that this legislation will be amended during the Committee stage to make sure that actually we will not trash all those options and start all over again with whatever the Prime Minister likes—or perhaps the Prime Minister and Richie McCaw could get together and tell the country what they think we should have—but also how much extra money will this cost? How much extra money now by deciding we are going to change the independent process is this going to add to the $26 million bill that has already been budgeted for this event?David Seymour: Zero.TRACEY MARTIN: Mr Seymour shouts from the side again with no knowledge or understanding and it is interesting that he shouts from the side because the Government continues to protect him through the status he holds here. It does not allow Mr Seymour to be questioned. Nobody can question Mr Seymour because he is under the protection of the Government through his parliamentary under-secretary role. Yet he continues—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!TRACEY MARTIN: —to advocate—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Look this is well wide of the content of Part 1 so I ask the member to come back to Part 1.TRACEY MARTIN: That particular member argues for this legislation in the House. This particular member who cannot be scrutinised in any way stands and argues for a change to what is the historical emblem of this nation and we would question that. We question every part of this process. We question every dollar spent on this process and New Zealand First will continue to question every dollar spent on this process.We will not be supporting this bill. It comes as no surprise to anybody that we will not be supporting this bill. Not only should there not be any other designs; there should not be five designs or four designs and Red Peak with only 50000 likes has not been shown to have popular endorsement. So I think I have made my point fairly clear. We will not support the bill. We stand for the current flag; we do not stand for the wasting of this House’s time and money. But it was not New Zealand First that started this waste of time and money.It was this Government and John Key.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): Some of the debate around the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill has got a little bit silly. It has got a little bit out of control.David Seymour: I agree.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: David Seymour is nodding his head and he would know. I want to focus on what I think is the one thing that we can salvage out of this debacle which is Andrew Little’s proposed amendment to add the question—Hon Members: Ha ha!IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Calm down boys. I think from talking with people overnight that actually what people want to see is a little bit of dignity and decorum in this debate. When we actually try to address some substantive issues and we get laughter and barracking from the other side of the Chamber it does nothing to actually add to the decorum of this debate.I want to address this question of whether or not we should be asking people: “Do you want to change the flag?”. I have heard an odd argument against why we should do this which is that people need to see the options before they decide whether they want to change the flag or not. But actually people are going to be presented now with five options. People are going to know exactly what they are going to be voting on if they decide to go to a second referendum. People know exactly what they are going to be doing.We did this when we went to MMP. This is exactly the process—the Minister in the chair Dr Nick Smith is shaking his head but he obviously has as bad a memory as John Key does—we used with MMP. We asked people: “Do you want to change the voting system?”. And then the second question at the first referendum was: “Regardless of how you voted in that first question if we were to change what would you change it to?”. That worked perfectly well. There was no question back then that people needed to know which electoral system we would be changing to if we decided to change after that first question and it gave us the opportunity to ask people whether that was something we should actually be doing.I think it is even more important that we include that in the first referendum because so many people have come forward and said “We don’t agree with change.” or “This is not the right time. We ought to get the books back into surplus. We ought to deal with the $105 billion worth of debt that the Government has amassed before we deal with this issue. We want to have an opportunity to say: ‘No we don’t want to proceed and spend money unnecessarily.’ ” There are a lot of people out there—and I know that New Zealand First is sort of representing this part of the electorate—who just do not want to change. So we should simply ask that question: is this something that we want to do?I think it disrespects the intelligence of the voting public to say that they cannot make that choice before they have voted on which of the options they want to change to. So I again implore members to support this amendment proposed by Andrew Little. We know it works. We have got previous history of using exactly this process and of it working well and it is something that people want.Fifty thousand people signed a petition asking to include Red Peak. We could have included Red Peak without this legislation—let us make that clear. We do not need this legislation to include Red Peak so this is a sham and even more of a sideshow—but anyway never mind. People spoke up and said they wanted Red Peak. Well actually tens of thousands of people also signed a petition saying they wanted to have the opportunity to say yes or no at the first referendum and 80 percent of the submissions to the select committee—Clare Curran: 80 percent said they wanted the opportunity.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —80 percent said they wanted the opportunity for the yes/no question. So if we are responding to what the public wants and if we are going to indulge in the poll-driven behaviour that we have seen from the Prime Minister then let us include this question—yes or no—before we even go to having the expense of a second referendum.JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I move That the question be now put.RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I want to carry on from where my colleague Fletcher Tabuteau left off last night in his quite superb contribution. I want to begin as he ended by referring to one of the many very fine typescript amendments in the name of my colleague Denis O’Rourke. It says: “This Act is the New Zealand Flag Referendums Act 2015” and to replace that name with the “New Zealand Flag Referendums (Destroying our Heritage) Amendment Act 2015” because that is fundamentally what this bill is about. That is what this process is about.This process is really about a not very well hidden agenda to simply remove the Union Jack from our flag because there are people who want to remove the links to our British heritage. Basically what is underlying this whole process is a not very well hidden agenda of republicanism. I think it is a tragedy actually that there are fine members on the other side—Mr Foster-Bell for example and Mr Simpson who I know for a fact are fine patriots and who are staunch supporters of our constitutional monarchy. That members of that ilk who are very fine people should have to sit in this House and defend a process that basically undermines the things that they hold dear is a tragedy.The removing of the Union flag from our flag for whatever reason simply because it is an association with our British past is an anachronism. Personally my heritage is not predominantly British—I certainly have some British blood but no English—but I absolutely appreciate believe and recognise that everything the British brought to the world is a great deal better than anything that anybody else ever brought.If we are going to get rid of the English language Westminster democracy the separation powers the Magna Carta the English Bill of Rights the common law Christian tolerance and everything else that makes our society free and successful then what is it proposed that we replace them with? If we are not going to replace those things and if we are not going to get rid of those things then what is either wrong or irrelevant about having the Union Jack which is the symbol of them all in the corner of our flag? We are not beholden to Britain. Britain has no sovereignty over us.David Seymour: Has the member heard of Canada?RICHARD PROSSER: Mr Seymour is chipping away in the background. Hush now Mr Seymour. The grown-ups are talking. The Canadians had a completely different scenario to contend with. They had a French component who were not happy with the Union flag.But we are happy with the Union flag in New Zealand and in New Zealand First we are perfectly happy with the Union flag. Britain has had no effective sovereignty over New Zealand for more than 100 years and no legal sovereignty for 70 years. We still have the same Sovereign as Britain because we choose to not because we are required to. We are not a colony we are not a possession; we are not a protectorate. We are not any kind of an appendage.David Seymour: Is this is in Part 1 of the bill?RICHARD PROSSER: We are an independent nation and we have been so for nearly six generations. The Union flag does not hold us under the sway or thrall of some foreign power Mr Seymour; rather it symbolises everything that we still believe is good about our history and our heritage.The Union flag is our Union flag every bit as much as it is Britain’s Union flag. It belongs to us every bit as much as it belongs to British people. We are every bit as entitled to fly the symbols of our heritage and our values as are any other people who share them and who still subscribe to them.We are a classless post-colonial society. We are not slaves or serfs or subjects over whom the British royal family lord some kind of archaic dominion. Rather we are a free egalitarian people who embrace the Windsors as our royalty—the people who symbolise everything that we hold and whom we have chosen to retain as the basis for our constitutional foundation.We are not a federal republic like the United States we are not a federal commonwealth like Australia and we are not a federated constitutional monarchy like Canada. We are a realm. We have picked and chosen the bits of our constitutional make-up that suit us and we are comfortable in our skin. When our royals come and visit we do not bow and scrape as if we are lesser. We wave and we smile because they are our royals and we are pleased to see them. Everyone is equal in this blessed and egalitarian land.Some people on the other side on the republican side—the apologists—talk about our association with our British history as being cringeworthy. Do you know what I find cringeworthy? It is people who cannot find pride in themselves about living in a democracy. It is people who cannot find pride in the fact that the English brought Christian values to the Western World that the British Empire brought the light of civilisation into the deepest reaches of God’s earth and that the English-speaking world stood shoulder to shoulder against the darkness of tyranny twice and continues to do so every time freedom and rights are challenged anywhere in the world.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! You are way off the mark. We are on Part 1.RICHARD PROSSER: Thank you Mr Chair. I find it cringeworthy that the perpetually dissatisfied among us belittle the values of the world of which our nation is a part and that the Union flag represents. We are an English-speaking Western democracy. We are a steadfast and willing member of a familial alliance of nations with whom we share language culture values history heritage and blood.I am proud of all that. I find it cringeworthy that the detractors among us are not. There are some—the apologists the shamed—JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I move That the question be now put.A party votewas called for on the question That the question be now put.Ayes 77New Zealand National 59; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 44New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 12.Motion agreed to.The question was put that the following amendments in the name of Andrew Little to Part 1 be agreed to:insert after clause 4:4ASection 10 Amended (Subject of referendums)In section 10(1) replace “question” with “questions”.In section 10(2) replace “be held on the question set out in the voting paper in Schedule 2.” with “only be held on the question set out in the voting paper in Schedule 2 if more than 50% of electors returning a valid vote in Part A of the first referendum vote to change to a new flag.” andinsert after clause 5:5ASection 38 amended (Declaration of result of referendum)After section 38(1)(a)(iii)(E) insert:“(EA)the number of votes received in favour of keeping the current flag and the number of votes received in favour of changing to a new flag; and”.A party vote was called for on the question That the amendments be agreed to.Ayes 32New Zealand Labour 32.Noes 89New Zealand National 59; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendments not agreed to.The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Trevor Mallard to Part 1 be agreed to:insert after clause 5:5ANew Part 3AAbility to add additional flag67AAdding an additional flagDespite anything in this Act to the contrary the Governor-General may by Order in Council made on the recommendation of the Minister at least 40 days before the commencement of the voting period for the first flag referendum prescribe a sixth additional flag design to appear on the voting paper and any necessary alterations to the voting process to accommodate this.The Order in Council must include—an official description of the design to be used for the purposes of dictating the relevant parts of the voting paper under section 23(4)(c); andan image of the design to be used for the purposes of subsection (3) and section 14(1); andthe technical specifications of the design including the colours dimensions and proportions of the design and of any shapes or images in it; anda description of how the method of counting preferential votes and recognising preferences in Schedule 4 must be modified to accommodate the additional flag design.When producing voting papers for the first flag referendum the Electoral Commission must ensure that the additional alternative flag design prescribed under subsections (1) and (2) is inserted in the appropriate space as Option F on the form in Schedule 1.A party vote was called for on the question That the amendment be agreed to.Ayes 44New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 12.Noes 77New Zealand National 59; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.Part 1 agreed to.Part 2 Amendments to New Zealand Flag Referendums (First Flag Referendum) Order 2015CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): In Part 2 of this bill we move to clause 9 the revoking of clause 5 which is about the time period. Clause 5 amending section 13(1) replaces “60 days before the commencement of the voting period …” where the alternative flag designs are determined—there were four alternative flag designs—and it now becomes “40 days before the commencement of the voting period for the first flag referendum prescribe 5 alternative flag designs”.I have a couple of points to make about this part of the bill. No. 1 is that it does not actually say in the actual body of the legislation what the fifth flag alternative should be. So that leaves it up in the air. Last night in the House we had Gareth Hughes telling us that there were constitutional reasons for that which were a bit hard to fathom really. If he is going to take another call it might be good if he could expand on that.Really if we are unable to determine what the actual point of this legislation is in the actual body of the legislation then it hardly seems to be of much point. It feels to me that this is the part of the legislation that you could drive a truck through which is why my colleague Trevor Mallard last night described it as being badly written. That is because we now have an extra period of I am not sure how many days. Maybe somebody could illuminate us on how many days it is until the referendum occurs—when everything is fixed in place. But we now have this period of time when everything is in flux and there are five designs and we are not actually sure what they are going to be.David Seymour: It’s 40 days from November 20. It’s quite simple.CLARE CURRAN: Yes. The commentary on the bill talks about Red Peak but the actual body of the legislation does not specify what the fifth alternative should be and we are asking why we are wasting Parliament’s time by debating this in the House and why everybody is getting so worked up about it if we are actually not saying in the legislation what that fifth design should be.This law could have been made much fairer and much more reasonable by including a provision for a yes/no question. Sadly that has been voted down in the previous vote. That is how the process could have been made more honest and been given more integrity and could have matched what the people of New Zealand have been asking for. But unfortunately the deal that was done between the National Government and the Greens precluded that agreement and precluded that process occurring.Labour has been accused of being hung up on process and we make absolutely no apologies for that because the process that we have argued for consistently from the beginning which is the same process that was used in the MMP referendum—which actually managed to make substantial change to New Zealand’s parliamentary system—was undertaken in an honest way and with integrity. Our problem with this whole bill and this whole process with the flag referendum is that it is back to front and it is not giving people the opportunity to say whether they agree or not with changing the flag before they actually get to choose which alternative flag they want if they do want an alternative flag. So it is back to front. It is wrong. It is treating New Zealanders with disrespect. It is treating New Zealanders like muppets as I said in my previous contribution. Clause 9—the revocation clause—revokes clause 5 which is the clause that talks about the 60 days before the commencement of the voting period just leaves open a whole lot of questions and leaves open the possibility of there being other alternatives put in. So we might not end up with two ferns a koru and Red Peak—or is it three ferns?Iain Lees-Galloway: Three ferns.CLARE CURRAN: Three ferns a koru and a Red Peak—Grant Robertson: And a partridge in a pear tree.CLARE CURRAN: —and a partridge in a pear tree. We might end up with a partridge in a pear tree. That is what we might end up with and that is why this whole thing is a farce and everybody out there thinks so too. Seventy percent of New Zealanders have said they do not want to change the flag and 80 percent of New Zealanders said in a poll that was done earlier that they wanted the opportunity to answer a yes/no question first. That was the process that was used in the MMP referendum. That is the good process and by saying as some commentators have said that Labour is hung up on process—well goodness me. Somebody has actually got to care about the process. Somebody has to think that the process should have integrity and should be trusted.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Just before we proceed I wrongly announced the result of the party vote on the closure motion on Part 1. The correct votes should have been that the Ayes were 77 and the Noes were 44 whereas I said that the Noes were 46. The record will be amended accordingly.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): It is a pleasure to take a call on Part 2 of this bill. This is the part of the bill that highlights the fact that if the National Government had really been committed to the introduction of Red Peak into this process it could either have put it into the legislation or have done all of this already because what this part is actually about is the Order in Council process. This is the part of the bill in which we are setting up the ability for Red Peak to be included in the referendum. It is important for those who are closely following this debate on a Thursday morning to know that actually Red Peak does not appear in the words of this legislation—not here.Not to alarm the great many fans of Red Peak—Mr Seymour has gone pale at the thought that Red Peak would not actually be in this legislation. Not to alarm him but the process that will be followed now is that of an Order in Council—effectively Cabinet coming together and advising the Governor-General. And according to the explanatory note of this bill it will then decide to add Red Peak as the fifth flag. Technically it could actually add any old thing as the fifth flag—any old flag.David Seymour: A picture of a panda perhaps.GRANT ROBERTSON: That is right. They could take Mr Seymour’s collection of ideas. We could perhaps have a glass of beer a clock a panda—we could have anything on that fifth flag actually with the way that the law is written. As for the Order in Council that is discussed in Part 2—I guess the best way of describing what is happening here is that the Order in Council process has to allow time for that provision to be scrutinised. That is why the different days are put in this part.That shows just how shambolic this situation is because the Government has got itself in a position where it could have done the Order in Council with the full 60 days—it could easily have done so. Mr Seymour knows this. He knows—because he talks to the Government about this—that actually it was within its power simply to say: “You know what? There are three flags with silver ferns on them two of which are almost exactly the same. Why not take one of those out and put Red Peak in?”. That could have all been done without any need for legislation whatsoever—without any need for legislation whatsoever. We may need to educate the Minister in the chair Nick Smith about the process of how Orders in Council are done but that is the truth. The Government could have decided had it wanted to simply to take one of those identical flags out and put another onein. Instead what is being done here is adding a fifth flag and then we need a process by which to make it Red Peak. That is what Part 2 of the bill does. It shows what an absolute shambles this process has been.The point here is that the Prime Minister went on television last night and said: “You know”—he shrugged his shoulders as he does when he knows he is a bit uncomfortable—“well I wanted to stick with the process but far be it from me to get in the way of tens of thousands of New Zealanders.” Well the point here is that the process has been a mess from the beginning and the Prime Minister had multiple opportunities to intervene properly rather than to intervene subtly which is what he has done. How is it that remarkably three of the four flags have ended up with silver ferns on them? It is just a remarkable coincidence with what the Prime Minister happens to want in terms of the flag.In terms of this part I suspect that if the Prime Minister were really pushing his luck here he would probably say “Well actually the fifth flag probably should be the silver fern on the black background.” because that is what he said he wanted at the very beginning. He has not managed to get tens of thousands of signatures on a petition so therefore he will not—but it is possible under Part 2 of this bill—for that to be exactly what happens when the Order in Council is put in place.As it happens I am pretty confident that not even the Prime Minister can go that far. We have offered the option of perhaps having a sixth flag design because you know the Government might change its mind again between now and when the referendum actually occurs.Denis O’Rourke: Or a seventh one.GRANT ROBERTSON: Well that is right. Mr O’Rourke suggests that perhaps there should be a seventh one. The number of times that the Prime Minister has changed his mind on this process is so large that it could easily happen. What Part 2 of this bill really does show is the mishandling of this process by the Government—the fact that the Government has completely failed in getting up a process that New Zealanders can have confidence and trust in. We will make it slightly better by doing this but only slightly.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I first wanted to acknowledge Mr Seymour’s contribution to this debate today and in fact I am glad to see him here because he adds so much value to New Zealand First’s case in this debate—that is the case to keep the current flag. Anyone listening to Mr Seymour would have been convinced by that speech that this is indeed a political process that Mr Seymour has taken a principal part in and yet he criticised everybody else for wasting Parliament’s time and for actually making political speeches. Well hello this is the New Zealand Parliament. This is in fact the place where political speeches get made. Mr Seymour has not grasped that quite yet but I am sure that eventually he will in fact catch up. So I do want to thank him for his contribution. He has certainly helped New Zealand First’s case rather a lot.I want to particularly talk though about clause 8 of the bill because that is the one about process. I want to totally agree with what Mr Robertson said about that because the truth is that this bill is quite simply totally unnecessary whether you wanted an additional flag as part of the options in the first flag referendum or not. We look here at the Order in Council process and it could have been done using that process. But really that is not what it is about. What we should be thinking about with clause 8 is the entire process of this method of changing New Zealand’s flag if we were to change it at all—and of course New Zealand First does not want to do so.This process—which this bill and this part and this clause make only worse not better—is totally undemocratic. It has heaped farce upon farce and bad process upon bad process. It is an undemocratic way of going about it and after all it amends a principal Act that is only a few weeks old. Really what the Government and its supporting parties are saying is that they got it all wrong. In actual fact that has already been acknowledged. Mr Key himself has said that he has got it wrong. He said that on TV—I heard him. That is true. The Government has got it wrong from the beginning and this bill is not going to put it right. All it shows really is that this is a Government in total disarray over this bill as it is in so many other things. It is a slap in the face for the New Zealand voters because in fact to change the process this bill is being introduced even while the process under the principal Act is actually already under way. Nothing could be more inappropriate nothing could be worse in terms of good governance and nothing could be more disruptive.This Government and its supporting lapdog parties are showing just how bad its standards are in terms of governance for New Zealand with this particular piece of legislation. As part of all this you really have to ask why John Key and his Government have allowed this bill to proceed. It is one that ostensibly is being put forward by the Greens—well actually I suppose it is actually being put forward by the Greens—but is really for the purposes of supporting the Government and not really for any genuine motive in terms of an improvement to the flag referendums process.Why have Mr Key and his Government done that? The answer to that is perfectly obvious: the Government knows that it is in deep deep trouble over its attempts to change the New Zealand flag. It has admitted it. I can see Nick Smith sitting there smiling because he knows that that is true. The Government could not be in worse trouble over this process. It is a failed process by a failed Government. This particular clause demonstrates that even more. A failed process and—DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I would like to demonstrate how to give a speech on this bill such that one does not waste the Committee’s time and overly politicise the issue. This whole bill and both its parts are very simple. They extend the number of options in the referendum from four to five. It is very simple it need have no further debate and I hope that this part will pass very soon so that the House can get on to more important business. I hope that my parliamentary colleagues will not waste any more of the Committee’s time on a simple transition from four to five. Thank you.SUE MORONEY (Labour): It is a pleasure to rise and speak on Part 2 of the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill which is being passed under urgency in this House. I just want to say at the outset how disappointing it is. I used to really admire the Green Party because it always voted relentlessly against taking urgency in this House. It used to relentlessly take a principled position but with this issue it has completely sold out that principle which I think is rather sad because it is not an issue of much principle at all.In fact in Part 2 we see that what the Green Party is after—that is to try to get Red Peak on the ballot paper—is not a guarantee at all. It is not a guarantee. If the Green Party felt that its job was to bail out the National Government from the problem it faced let us just examine for a minute what the problem was that the National Government faced. The problem it faced was being out of step with the majority of New Zealanders. So here is the Green Party coming to the rescue of the National Government rescuing it from the opinion—Denis O’Rourke: Bizarre.SUE MORONEY: —of the vast majority of New Zealanders. It is bizarre quite frankly—trying somehow to save the Government from its own people. I just think that that is a very odd thing but I have a solution—if that is what the Green Party was actually trying to do. Here is the solution and I think that this is the solution that can fit the desire of every party in this debate. The solution is this: make one of those five flags the current New Zealand flag. If that flag were put in the first referendum then New Zealanders would have a genuine choice in the very first referendum and we would not have to waste money on the second referendum. People would have four of the flags and one of them could be Red Peak. The other three could be one of the silver fern versions from Kyle—I have forgotten his name—Iain Lees-Galloway: Lockwood.SUE MORONEY: —Lockwood and the other two options plus Red Peak plus the current New Zealand flag. That could still be done under Part 2. The New Zealand Government could still do that and save the taxpayer an awful lot of money because if those were the five options that were put before the New Zealand public then people could express their view. We know that 70 percent of New Zealanders do not want to change the flag so 70 percent of people would go into that first referendum they would tick the current New Zealand flag and it would all be sorted—all sorted in one easy motion.Part 2 actually allows that to happen. I urge the Government—because it will now be in the hands of Cabinet to determine which flags are the five flags after this legislation is passed—to make sure that one of those five options is the current New Zealand flag. If it does not do that here is what is going to happen next. Already I am informed that there is a person outside our Parliament today with yet another flag option that they are wanting to put up. It is not even one of the 40; it is a completely different version. That is what is going to start happening next. New Zealanders are going to sense weakness in their Government and they are going to say: “Oh actually let’s start promoting yet another flag and another flag and another flag.” The whole process is going to become more and more of a shambles.The sad thing is that this should have been a nation-defining moment for our country but it has become a complete shambles because of the desire of our Prime Minister to turn it into his own vanity project—his own vanity project. That is what has got in the way.I was disheartened to hear in the course of this debate the Minister of Education admit that she encouraged schools to do projects on the flag thereby driving clickbait—using New Zealand students our children as clickbait for the website.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Part 2—Part 2.SUE MORONEY: Thank you Mr Chair. How it relates to Part 2 is that we are now in a situation where the Government is scrambling to try to actually save this shambles of a process which has been of its own design—it has been of its own design. No one else has forced it into this. Although I have to say that yesterday I was seeking a call on Part 1 and I was wanting to get the call but I was also a little worried because yesterday—talk about strange coincidences—I just happened to decide not knowing what was about to happen in the course of the day to wear a necklace that had a silver fern on it. I was worried that because I had worn a necklace with a silver fern on it somehow the Prime Minister would try to make it my fault that this had turned into a shambles because that is what he is inclined to do. He is inclined to try to blame everyone else for his shambles and his shambles alone.Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): I do want to take a brief call on Part 2 of this legislation and raise some questions that we on this side of the Chamber would like asked around this part of the legislation. We had the Minister in the chair Nick Smith indicating that it was not possible for the Government to make a change without resorting to this legislation. So I urge the Minister to take a call and to set out exactly why that was not possible and why the Government could not have decided to change one of the four prescribed flags that were in—to take out one of the three silver ferns and substitute an altered design—and why it is that we have to be in this Chamber.We do have to remember that the leader of the Labour Party did make the offer to the Prime Minister to sit down and talk about these very things. So I am very eager to hear from the Minister why it is that we could not still have had four flags but one could have been taken out and an alternative put in.I am very keen to hear that because what we are doing now under Part 2 of this legislation is taking out the four prescribed flags. The revoking of clause 5 of the New Zealand Flag Referendums (First Flag Referendum) Order does that. Instead what we are doing is inserting five non-prescribed flags that will be considered. As my colleagues have pointed out they could be anything. The amount of movement and flip-flopping from the Government on this could see us considering anything. There are no guarantees for anyone who wants to see Red Peak put to the population that they are going to see this as an option that will be put to the New Zealand public. Although under the initial legislation there were four prescribed flag options that were going to be put to the New Zealand public in the referendum now there are five non-prescribed options.So I am also keen to hear from the Minister what guarantees are written into this legislation that this is going to bring into effect what everyone here today thinks they are doing—that is taking Red Peak to the masses. I do not want to hear hyperbole; I want to hear what clause of the legislation guarantees that that will be the case and that it will be.When I look through Part 2 of this legislation what I see is clause 9 which revokes clause 5 of the initial legislation which did give those guarantees around what flags were going to be taken to the public in the legislation. But what I see here are very permissive clauses that in effect—in reality—could allow the Government to do anything.Do we think it is going to do that? Probably not. Probably not even the Prime Minister who has made such a shambles of his vanity project would stoop to that level but I think the fact that we are putting through such sloppy amending legislation just shows the shemozzle we have got ourselves into here with this legislation.It is a mess. It has been a sloppy and messy process from the beginning and I want to know what clauses in Part 2 of this legislation actually guarantee to the New Zealand public that the Government is going to get that flag out for consultation at the referendum. So I am very much looking forward to listening to the Minister’s contribution on that.The previous speakers have talked about this lost opportunity. This should be a nation-defining process for us. This should be a time when we stop and think about who we are as a nation. This is something that I care deeply about as a New Zealand historian. This is something that we should be thinking about and taking a very considered approach to—not passing sloppy legislation under urgency that in effect actually makes the process more shoddy and more shambolic than what was also a shambolic and shoddy process to begin with.So Minister I am very much looking forward to hearing your contribution around why it is that the Prime Minister and the Government could not have just made the decision to insert the Red Peak flag as one of the four prescribed flags under the initial legislation and to say why it is that we are—and the Minister is gesturing to me so I can see he is warming up to get to his feet and give a contribution on this.So I am looking forward to a contribution on that Minister and I am also looking forward to a contribution from you on what guarantees we do have—sorry not you Mr Chair; that would be inappropriate—from the Minister on—JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I move That the question be now put.A party votewas called for on the question That the question be now put.Ayes 77New Zealand National 59; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 44New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 12.Motion agreed to.A party votewas called for on the question That Part 2 be agreed to.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.Part 2 agreed to.ScheduleThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): We have Andrew Little’s typescript amendment replacing the voting paper in the schedule. This is now inconsistent with a previous decision of the Committee.A party vote was called for on the question That the schedule be agreed to.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.Schedule agreed to.Clauses 1 and 2DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): The title of the bill in clause 1 is a matter of quite a lot of importance because it actually addresses—or should address—what the bill is about and this one does not. The current title is bland. It is not descriptive and it needs additional words to say what it is about because really this Red Peak design—and that is what this bill is about—is so much like just another corporate logo that that is actually what should be stated in the title. So after the word “Referendum” we should have “(Another Boring Corporate Logo)” as part of the title.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I do not know whether the member is aware but all your amendments on these clauses have been withdrawn and the one that you have just mentioned was one of those that you had an amendment on.DENIS O’ROURKE: No.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Well you had 13 amendments to the title. They have all been withdrawn so I am just cautioning the member. If you were speaking to an amendment that has now been withdrawn from the Table then I am just cautioning the member.DENIS O’ROURKE: I agree. We have quite deliberately withdrawn those amendments and I have not said in my speech so far that I was talking about any amendment. I am just criticising—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No sure. I realise that. That is why I am saying that if you were going to refer to them they have been withdrawn.DENIS O’ROURKE: Thank you for that but I did not have any intention of referring to them because they have been withdrawn. But that does not mean that this particular description for a title to the bill is satisfactory because it is not. It does not as I have said actually describe what the bill is about at all. Red Peak is a flag design that looks much more like a corporate logo than it does a national flag and all I am saying is that that should be reflected in the title.What we in New Zealand First have already said is that this whole process is a sell-out for the New Zealand flag so again that is something that I would have preferred to see in the title—a reference to selling out the New Zealand flag—because that in fact is what the entire process has been from beginning to end. I am supported in that by the vast majority of New Zealanders who do not want to see a flag change and who do see this as a sell-out. So that is another point that is not covered in the description which is the title to the bill.But most of all most New Zealanders say—and we all know this; it is not a secret—that this bill is an incredible waste of taxpayers’ money. The fact is that this bill actually wastes $8 million on process that has already taken place and never has there been such an utter and complete waste of money or indeed time of this House because of the introduction of this particular unnecessary bill. That is not reflected in the title either and it should be. There should be some words in the title to reflect that this is a waste of money and that has not been done.Another very important point is this. I have already made this point in my first speech but it needs to be said again because the title of this bill does not do justice to what is going to happen as a result of this bill. As a result of this bill what we are going to see is the New Zealand flag referendum process parodied and made fun of across the world. You can imagine what people like John Oliver in the US will make of this particular bill. We know what he has said about the process already even before this bill got going.So if I were to give a title to this bill I would call it the “New Zealand Flags Referendum (But Wait Till What John Oliver Says About It) Amendment Bill” because if we did that it would be the truth. The truth is that this bill will do nothing more in fact than show New Zealand up as a nation that cannot handle its legislative process and cannot handle a flag referendums process either. So that is a great shame.But another point I could make is this—and I will make it—and it is that future generations—SUE MORONEY (Labour): It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the title clause which is actually the one that I would like to focus on for the purpose of this debate because the title is the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill. I just want to put on record how disappointed I am that the amendment that we should have been making to the referendum but are not making is having the yes/no question about whether people want to change the flag at all. That question should be in the first referendum. We know that 43000 people signed an online petition calling for exactly that—for a yes/no question about whether we wanted to change the flag or not to be the subject of the first referendum. That is what this amendment bill the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill ought to have been doing if the Government was truly listening to the New Zealand public. Government members have shown that they will change their minds based on social media campaigns. I think that is going to be very interesting for the Government to contemplate in the future because that is what it has done in this bill. It has said that it is actually amenable if there are social media campaigns run where there are some numbers of people who express a view—that it will bend to the desire for people to have the Red Peak flag added to the referendum. But why has the Government not listened to the 43000 people who said they wanted the first referendum to ask the question about whether the flag should be changed at all?There is still an opportunity for all of those things to happen under this bill after it is passed as I have pointed out in my previous contribution. I really would like to hear from the Minister on whether the Government would entertain this or not because this would truly be a solution that I think could be supported by all parties around this Chamber—and I am particularly looking to New Zealand First. If one of the five flags that are now going to be in this referendum was the New Zealand flag—the current New Zealand flag—would that address the issues that are causing New Zealand First to vote against this legislation?Clayton Mitchell: Certainly might.SUE MORONEY: It looks like it may well do. Would that not be a nice neat tidy solution because then everyone would actually get what they wanted in one referendum? If we did it in one referendum—if we got the view of the country expressed in that one referendum—we would save in the order of about $13 million to $15 million. It is not a small amount of money. We could save that money and truly find out what the will of the New Zealand public is. We could save even more money—it would cost an awful lot less—and just look at the poll results. We know that if one of those five flags was the current New Zealand flag almost certainly 70 percent of people who participated in that referendum would tick the current New Zealand flag—done and dusted. It would probably cost us in the realm of about $10 million or $12 million for that one referendum. We could put the—[Interruption] Well the members opposite scoff. They do not seem to have the New Zealand taxpayers’ interests in mind at all when they are considering this issue about the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill. It is a really simple and elegant solution. If one of those five flags in the first referendum was to be the current New Zealand flag we would get all of this shambles sorted in one swift easy referendum. Would that not be honouring what all New Zealanders want—an appropriate say in whether the flag is changed or not—with the minimum amount of cost to the New Zealand taxpayer? I believe it meets the needs of everyone around Parliament.Therefore if we are reflective of the wishes of the New Zealand public as we ought to be that would satisfy the needs of the New Zealand public to have what they quite rightly should insist on—that is a proper say in how this flag referendum happens; not a manipulation by the Government. Actually I think if it did that it might stop people being humiliated by the process of going along to events where they are going along for all the right reasons to fund-raise for cancer research or things like that and they would not have to have the Prime Minister lecture them about trying to get his pet project through and trying to have his vanity project mandated. People could go along to those events for the right reasons and not have to suffer being berated by the Prime Minister if they dare to disagree with his view about changing the flag.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.JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I move That the question be now put.A party vote was called for on the question That the question be now put.Ayes 77New Zealand National 59; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 44New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 12.Motion agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question That clause 1 be agreed to.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.Clause 1 agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question That clause 2 be agreed to.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.Clause 2 agreed to.Bill reported without amendment.Report adopted.Third ReadingHon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) on behalf of theDeputy Prime Minister: I move That the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This is a very straightforward bill that simply adds to the referendum which New Zealand is to have in November a fifth choice of flag in the form of the Red Peak option. There have been all sorts of claims by members in the House as to who is acting in good faith with the electorate and the general public of New Zealand. Let me set the record very clear. Prime Minister John Key announced in January 2014 9 months before the general election that if National were the Government we would hold a referendum on what flag New Zealand might take into the future.Furthermore when National was re-elected at the election last year with the largest vote that any party has had in the history of MMP—Denis O’Rourke: And then lost Northland.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —the Government then set about delivering—I know this is unique for members opposite—on what we said we would do. A cross-party committee was formed. There was an independent panel appointed. There was the option for every New Zealander to put forward a flag option to that panel. There was legislation passed quite properly through this Parliament providing for a referendum to decide people’s preferred choice and a second referendum to be held next year in which people will be able to make a choice as to whether they want to keep the current New Zealand flag or vote for that preferred alternative. For any fair-minded New Zealander you could not have a more open straightforward process.I want to contrast that approach with that of the Labour Opposition because the first thing that seems to have been lost on members opposite is that they stood at the last election saying they wanted to change the New Zealand flag and they wanted to have a referendum on that issue. In fact I would point out to this Parliament that actually 83 percent of the New Zealand public voted for political parties promising to have a referendum on the flag—83 percent of the public voted for parties that promised a referendum on a flag during this term of Parliament.Hon Trevor Mallard: Let the member out more. Release him. Let him go. Why is the National Party hiding him away? Let him knock on doors.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The part that I find so disingenuous and that has really got all the fingerprints of the wrecker Trevor Mallard on it is that despite that policy position Labour has twisted and turned and has disingenuously tried to do everything it can to disown its policy at the last election. It reminds me—and I would remind some of the younger members of the Labour Party—as to how dangerous it is on these sorts of issues to change what you said. People will remember in history that in the 1987 election Labour promised a referendum on MMP and then in that term ratted on that very promise and was appropriately punished at the 1990 election. In contrast National does what it says. It promised a referendum on MMP and delivered that and that is a heritage that I am very proud ofas a National MP.Let me just inspect some of the arguments that members opposite have put against this bill.They say this bill is not needed to add the Red Peak flag to the referendum in November because we could simply dump one of the four flags that have been recommended by the Flag Consideration Panel. Let me place a bet: if the Cabinet had overruled the independent panel and had taken one of the four flags that it had selected and put the Red Peak flag in the members opposite would be the first to cry blue murder and to say that we had overridden the independent panel and that is where that suggestion is so disingenuous. Can I also come to the point that has been put forward that what we should do is in the first referendum simply give people the choice as to whether they want to change the flag. The reason that is simply disingenuous is that so many New Zealanders—frankly including myself—cannot make a choice as to whether the flag should be changed unless we are clear about what the alternative is and that is what the process we have set out does.Can I now come to New Zealand First because I do find its position even more extraordinary. In every single period that I have been in this Parliament—for the last 25 years—I could list over 100 occasions in which the New Zealand First Party and its leader have said: “Let the public decide. The public should be able to make these decisions.” I have heard it on gay marriage I have heard it on electoral reform I have heard it on State assets and in fact I struggle to think of a single issue on which members of the New Zealand First Party have not argued “Trust the public; let them decide.” That is why the position of the New Zealand First Party is again just so disingenuous that on a genuine question over the flag that party suddenly says: “No the New Zealand public cannot be trusted to make a decision on what is the right ensign for our country.”I plead that I am a humble engineer. I have very little creative talent and I certainly am not going to make the choice as to what is the right ensign and flag for New Zealand. But what I do say is as compared with quite complex issues this is an issue that the New Zealand public should be given the choice on and it should be given that choice because that is what our party promised the New Zealand people when we were re-elected in 2014.I emphasise again that this is a very simple bill that simply extends the number of options for flags from four to five. It has come about as a consequence of a number of parties including the Leader of the Opposition and parties like the Greens and the ACT Party wanting the Red Peak choice to be in that referendum and this Government has shown flexibility and good faith in simply allowing that choice to be added. The last point I would make to the Green Party is that at least you are consistent with what you said. You are not here to play games.You want to see the flag changed you want Red Peak to be included on the referendum and I compliment the way in which you have allowed that to be done constructively through the parliamentary process without some of the in my view unnecessary games around a difficult choice for our country and what the flag is that best represents the character of our nation to take into the next century. This is a good sensible bill and I commend it to the House.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): The Labour Party will be supporting the third reading of this bill. Right through the process since Red Peak came up we have indicated that we would work with Parliament in order to find a process whereby Red Peak could be included as one of the choices. I want to indicate that unlike my leader who seems to think that Red Peak has some merit I think that it has no merit whatsoever but that is something that will be put before the people of New Zealand. I am prepared to lay some money on the fact that it will not be amongst the final two on the preferential system because all of the polling on this which many of us have seen shows that when this flag is considered by the public in an unbiased way—sitting somewhere between the two Lockwood designs; the awful thing that apparently is a koru; and the very very poorly drawn fern that was selected by the panel—it will not be in the final two.I want to say and place on the record—it is a point that I made during the Committee stage—that there are a number of people on the panel whom I have a lot of time for. There are a number of them whom I was involved with recommending. John Burrows is clearly an eminent New Zealander and people like Rod Drury and Sir Brian Lochore are people whom I have an enormous amount of time for but I think that the Government made an error in making the decision to take the design people who were part of the recommendations from the cross-party group off and to not include them. I think that there was a problem with the balance of the panel as a result of that. There was an extra problem as a result of politicisation of the panel by the people who were put on it and I think that as a result of this we ended up with what colleagues might describe politely as suboptimal options coming through the process.Although we can have a debate about Red Peak and whether it should be included or not I think that it is fair to say that the designs that have come through the process are ones that are either pretty unappealing or excessively complicated. I know Kyle Lockwood. He is a good New Zealander—with awful political views—living offshore but he is doing what he thinks is important for the country around passports and around this issue. I admire him for doing that but I must say that if we are to make a change—and long term I think that we will make a change—we have to change to something that kids can draw and that is easily recognisable. I think it is fair to say that Red Peak meets the “kids can draw” criterion but I think it fails for a number of reasons.Generally this debate has been in pretty good humour. I think it is fair to say that I have had to spend a little bit of time correcting the Greens on the way the constitution works. I want to place on record that if Parliament had wanted Red Peak in here we could have had legislation to add Red Peak to the current decisions. We did not do that. Gareth Hughes seemed to indicate that it would be rude for Parliament to indicate to the Governor-General what it thought. Well that is just nonsense. Every week the Governor-General signs off legislation that indicates what Parliament thinks and the Government-General assents to it. If Parliament had really wanted the Red Peak flag here we should have been straightforward and just added it. But as has been indicated to me during the Committee stage although this bill has Mr English’s name on it some of the earlier drafting might not have had the professional support that was necessary to get it into a form that does what is logical and as a result of that there has been a pretty bad mismatch between the explanatory note and the actual legislation. That is not a massive crime; it is just sloppy. I think it is pretty bad that the Government has picked up a bill that was drafted in such a sloppy way and has put a Minister’s name on it.I want to acknowledge as I have done on one or two other occasions the superior judgment of the Rt Hon Winston Peters and his New Zealand First teamin this general process. He recognised right from the beginning of this process that it was not one of good faith. It was one of predetermination and he and his team declined to be part of the cross-party group. Now I am probably more innocent in these matters—more trusting in these matters. I trusted the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister when they indicated that there was an attempt to make this process a genuinely multipartisan process that we could work through as a team and as a Parliament.As has been placed on the record of Parliament before despite the honourable efforts of Jonathan Young—and I do not want to impugn his integrityin any way—he was steamrollered to a certain extent in his chairing of that group. There were some things that the group put up and there were some names that the group put up that were rejected by Cabinet. I think it is fair to say that just as Gareth Hughes was naive as far as some of the processes in the House are concerned I was naive in terms of accepting the possibility of the National Party working on a genuine multiparty basis and accepting the decisions of the group. Right from the beginning of the process there hasbeen I think a degree of misleading and we are seeing it now—to the point that we are being misled by the explanatory note and the comparison with the bill.The Labour Party put up a couple of amendments during the process. It is a well-rehearsed issue the yes/no vote at the beginning of the process. It is the process that was used when MMP was brought in. The Prime Minister says that it is too complicated and to be absolutely fair to John Key I do not think that he was in the country at the time we switched to MMP. So he maybe does not understand that New Zealanders are bright enough to understand the difference between yes and no. But they were—85 percent of New Zealanders indicated that they wanted to change the parliamentary system when faced with a—Brett Hudson: 76 percent of voters said no to Labour.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: That member over there was roundly rejected—did he come third or fourth in the Ōhariu electorate? Did that member come third or fourth? He is only here as a result of MMP. He is only here as a result of MMP and I think his chipping in and saying that New Zealanders are too thick to understand a yes/no vote is an—[Interruption] Maybe he is right! Maybe he is right!Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Come back to the bill.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well Mr Deputy Speaker I was only reacting. The point that I want to make is that New Zealanders are bright enough to understand yes/no. They are bright enough to save $7 million but this Parliament has repeatedly refused to give them that right. What I really regret is that the principled position of the Greens right back in the multiparty group has been abandoned because John Key said: “If you don’t go along with this for the whole deal then we won’t support your bill and won’t give you kudos.”I have seen the front page of the Dominion Post and if Gareth Hughes really thinks that getting his photo on the front page with John Key is good for the Greens in the longer term then let him believe that. I do not and it is my view that the Greens will regret thisat some stage. But actually this whole debate is irrelevant because I think the number of New Zealanders who do not want to change the flag is now up to 74 percent and that being the case we are actually wasting time.GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. If there is one thing you can say about this debate in the last what 10 12 hours it is that it has been robust. It has been in good spirits. I think it has proven the immutable fact of Godwin’s law incredibly fast thanks to New Zealand First. But also we should not forget that this is an incredibly important issue. This is a symbol of our nation a symbol of the collective populace of New Zealand and it is something that despite being polarising in this House despite being polarising outside this House has always been polarising.If you cast your minds back to—what was it—10 July 1834 when Hone Heke and his band at Kororāreka chopped down that first flagpole it was an incredibly polarising issue identifying the importance of flags as symbolic. In this case the flag was symbolic of the Union Jack and the power of the British Crown. That flag was cut down a second time. It was then cut down a third time after being sheathed in iron to protect it. It eventually led to something known as the Flagstaff War. So although passions are raised and everyone has got their own positions—and it is a polarising debate—it is something that has always happened throughout New Zealand history and it is fantastic that we can keep it peaceful.Flags are important because they have a long history from the Sassanids using it as battle standards in Roman legions to 1748 when the Danes picked their first flag which they still have today—the Dannebrog—through to the Union Jack symbolising the merger of those independent nations of the United Kingdom. The flag has had a powerful history. I am actually off to California today for a private study tourduring the parliamentary adjournment. When you are in the States you can see the Stars and Stripes hanging from so many households. You would never see that in New Zealand. We have all got a view. I am definitely of the opinion that we should change our flag. I think it is anachronistic. I think that we should not have the Union Jack on it despite the history. But what we do know is that the flag has always had an association with passions but also with warfare from the original classical history through to the Middle Ages through to when we adopted our current flag in 1902 with the pomp and patriotism of the South African war in the background.There are legitimate allegations that these referendums are simply a distraction. Flags and flag-waving have been used as political distractions and the Green Party absolutely agrees that there are much more important issues that we should be addressing today. I believe that we should be having a broader conversation around who we are as a nation where our country is going in 2015 and what we stand for. Unfortunately we have had a debate around geometric patterns and not about those fundamental questions such as how we build Te Tiriti o Waitangi into our constitutional framework. How do we have a debate around whether we should have a New Zealander as a head of State? These are some of the missed opportunities.On the positive side of the ledger I would like to say how fantastic it is to be here—that Parliament is passing this bill a bill that is about choice. Yesterday when I introduced this bill it was about choice. The problem of course was that politics had got in the way. We had seen an absolute groundswell of support for the Red Peak option. However politics got in the way and we have seen that in this debate where political point-scoring seems to be more of a focus than the constructive approach. We put up the bill to try to break the political deadlock because New Zealanders were sitting at home watching politicians in this House trading letters trading accusations and trying to score political points. Meanwhile the clock was ticking. The countdown to the referendum in only 6 weeks’ time was looming and New Zealanders risked not having the legitimate groundswell of support reflected in the official referendum coming up.I would like to point out that this referendum was going to go ahead anyway. I would like to reiterate that the Green Party does not support changing the flag. The $26 million this country—the taxpayer—is spending would I believe be much better served spent on breakfasts for hungry kids or on putting a solar panel on every single school in the country so that they can stop paying rising power bills and buy music and sports equipment. This is not the most important issue. We saw a flawed process. However the law had passed. The Green Party had voted against it and opposed spending the money on changing the flag but the way it was going a flawed process was going to be even more flawed with worse outcomes. So I am glad that parties in this Parliament could work across party lines to improve the process. It was happening anyway and I am proud that we have managed to improve it.We know it was young people who engaged I believe most with the Red Peak flag. My big fear was that had this Parliament ignored that massive groundswell we simply would have disillusioned those tens of thousands of Kiwis who maybe for the first time engaged with a political issue. The solution was a simple constructive bill. I did not introduce the bill to score points. I did not introduce this bill to raise other issues as raised by the Hon Trevor Mallard. This bill was simply about trying to break that political deadlock. It did not try to relitigate the entire referendum process. I understand the Labour Party’s position and I understand it well—I am sympathetic to it—but the fact is that we risked playing politics and not seeing the outcome that New Zealanders wanted so I am glad that this pragmatic constructive positive solution has been picked up and adopted by the six parties supporting it.I would like to pick up on the criticism of the Hon Trevor Mallard that for some reason by not mentioning Red Peak in the clauses there is a conspiracy theory. The Parliamentary Counsel Office assisted with the drafting and I think that his criticism is in fact a criticism labelled at those officials. It is a well-established precedent with parliamentary drafting that this House cannot instruct the Governor-General. Obviously in the original Act what the legislation set out was that there was an official flag process that made a recommendation to the Governor-General to adopt an Order in Council. So I think it was a distraction—another part of playing politics.I would also lastly like to acknowledge that this was not the ideal way to pass this bill to see the Red Peak included. We did not have to pass this bill under urgency. We could have worked together earlier. Perhaps Cabinet could have agreed earlier to include the Red Peak option based on that legitimate absolute groundswell. So there was a genuine problem—politics was the problem—and I am glad that the Green Party has managed to find a constructive solution. I would like to once again thank the Government for adopting my bill as a Government bill so we can see it passed.In the coming 6 weeks when New Zealanders are sitting around their kitchen tables or maybe in their offices filling in their referendum ballot forms I am absolutely proud glad and pleased that they will get a fifth option. They can choose the Red Peak if they want they can choose the silver fern if they want and down the line they can choose to keep the current flag if they want because ultimately this bill was all about choice. So when Kiwis are filling out those ballot forms and sending them in they will have more good choice and I believe that is beneficial and a great example of this Parliament working together.I guess the action going forward that we should be mindful of—as we have set an example that we can work together when it comes to the flag—is whether we can also work together on some of the more important issues facing our nation. We have worked together on the flag. We have found a compromise and a constructive way forward. Why can we not do it when it comes to climate change? Why can we not do it when it comes to feeding hungry kids? Perhaps the original referendum that established MMP and that saw an MMP solution in the House today could also lead to more MMP solutions of working across party lines.Lastly and finally I would like to thank the teams involved in the drafting of the legislation. I would like to thank my caucus for its support. I would like to thank the six parties for their votes in Parliament. I am confident that this bill will pass with an overwhelming majority because Kiwis deserve a choice which is fantastic.So for all those doubters who thought that Red Peak had peaked it clearly has not peaked. It is not over yet. Let us support Kiwis having a choice. Kia ora koutou. Kia ora.CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): I am pleased that the member Gareth Hughes has acknowledged that this process has been less than ideal because in my view and in the view of the Labour Opposition this whole debate and this whole bill has been a colossal waste of time.Gareth Hughes talked about choice and that the bill gives choice. Yes it gives the choice of a fifth option but it is a half choice that is being provided to the people of New Zealand. It is major missed opportunity to actually make this whole process in this flag referendum have integrity and be a process of which we as New Zealanders—all New Zealanders—can be proud of and know that we are getting the right questions being asked.I want to actually shout out respect to New Zealand First for its consistency through this debate. I have certainly not agreed with everything that has been said and there are things that have been said that I have not liked but I respect the right of those members to speak. I respect their consistency and I respect their passion on this issue.Unfortunately this whole debate—this whole issue of a flag and changing our flag and a flag referendum—has descended into something that New Zealanders feel deeply uncomfortable about and deeply embarrassed about. It is something that they should feel unified around. Even if they do not agree on the choices of so-called design they should feel proud of the process that has been undertaken and feel that they have been respected. Well they have not.They have not been respected at all—70 percent of New Zealanders said that they do not want to change the flag and they are not getting the opportunity to vote on that first in the referendum. That is the missed opportunity and that is the issue on which Labour has been utterly consistent. If the Greens had been consistent they would have voted for Andrew Little’s amendment to this bill and I think that was a missed opportunity as well.Our economy is in trouble. We have got State houses making kids sick and in some cases die. We have got zero-hour contracts. We have got issue after issue after issue of substance and here we are in urgency with a bill that changes the option of the number of flags that can be on a referendum ballot. What an embarrassment. Is this the state that New Zealand has come to that this is where we spend the House’s time?We should have started off with a proper discussion about national identity. I know that pretty much all of the Opposition parties agree on that. Well why can we not have that discussion now? Why can we not talk about what our national identity is and whether New Zealand should have a constitution? Are we mature enough as a nation to have our own head of State? Should we start the steps to becoming an independent nation? What is the role of the Treaty of Waitangi and how can we ensure that that is given precedence and due respect? Are our voices and our stories being invested in in this country? Those are questions that we should be asking.We are the only nation in the OECD that does not have a public television broadcaster. Radio New Zealand which is our public broadcaster has been starved of funding for 7 years and here we are spending $26 million on a flag referendum—on a process that is deeply flawed and that has made New Zealanders feel deeply uncomfortable and embarrassed.This has not transcended politics—this bill before the House in urgency—this is utter politics and it is a deal that has been stitched up and put before the House in urgency. It has undermined the expert panel and I do want to acknowledge its members. They also must be feeling deeply uncomfortable about this whole process—deeply uncomfortable—and as if their goodwill and their knowledge have been undermined.I acknowledge the public pressure for the Red Peak flag design to be included—50000 people signed a petition. In the end it is not even mentioned in the bill and the member Gareth Hughes says that that is constitutionally correct. Well if that is the case then we would be putting bill after bill after bill through this House where we would just say to the Governor-General: “Oh well go on. You make the decision because we don’t think that we can constitutionally.”This is Parliament. We get to say what we think should be in the legislation. Whether it is good law or not can be judged by the people but ultimately it is Parliament that decides what the specifics are that should be in the legislation not the Governor-General. And that is a really important point and perhaps it is another reason as to why we should have a wider discussion about whether or not we need a constitution and a constitutional discussion just so that everybody can be clear about what their roles are. So that again makes this whole process into a farce—a bill that we have spent hours and hours and hours discussing that gives another option for this flag called Red Peak but that flag is actually not mentioned in the bill.This referendum process is wrong. It is round the wrong way. New Zealanders know that it is round the wrong way and they are going to be subjected to having to make a choice in a way that they do not want to make the choice. That is why Labour has been utterly consistent in its approach. It is why we offered to work with the Government in good faith—and that was rejected—and it is why we are standing here today saying that this process has been wrong from the beginning.This should have been a process that unified us; it has not. We have ended up with an X Factor competition instead of a respectful process with the public. We should have had a discussion about our national identity—of who we are and where we are going. That is why the likely outcome of this bill is not going to be to the Government members’ liking and it is they who are utterly responsible for it—utterly responsible.It has been a shambles from beginning to end. It has been a shambles where the New Zealand Parliament has been treated with disrespect and where the New Zealand public have been treated with disrespect. We have been treated as if we are puppets or muppets and I know that most people can see through it.In my constituency of Dunedin South this is not the issue on the agenda. This is not the issue that people want to talk to you about on the streets or in the supermarkets. What they want to talk about is the fact that there are not enough jobs in our regions that the state of our housing is terrible that the Government needs to fix State houses that there are not enough State houses that private rentals are too expensive and that there is no warrant of fitness on housing. Those are the things that are important. Those are the things that people want to talk about.This flag debate and referendum has become an embarrassment. It is a travesty. It treats people as if they are idiots and as if they can be manipulated and the New Zealand public cannot and should not be manipulated. They should be treated with respect and unfortunately this Government and the deal that has been stitched up through this process has not treated New Zealanders with respect.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): You would not have thought that Labour had gone out and campaigned on a flag referendum would you? You would not have thought that Labour had gone out and talked about consulting with the people of New Zealand through a flag referendum going into the last election. You would not have thought that would you?But then fathoming Labour’s position—[Interruption] Of course not. But fathoming Labour’s position on any of this has been a feast of changing position all the way through this whole flag debate until finally it was utterly trumped and outplayed by the Greens. And good on the Greens I say. Good on the Greens for focusing on what really matters which is giving New Zealanders the opportunity to reflect on who we are via choices on the ballot paper at the end of this year and at the beginning of the next. So to Gareth Hughes I say congratulations on focusing on what matters because what matters in this debate is providing the people of New Zealand who do not actually care about this politics stuff with a choice.None of my constituents has contacted me in the last wee while saying “This is outrageous. This is a travesty. This is a schmozzle.” which seems to have become the favourite word of the left just recently. No no. No.The people of New Zealand want the opportunity to focus on what might be our new flag. What is it? What is it that we might stand for? What is the flag that might encapsulate how we feel about New Zealand and how we want to present ourselves to the rest of the world? After all we are a small trading nation right at the very bottom of the world. After all we do rely on markets being opened for trade to provide all those services that we all enjoy and need so badly in New Zealand—thank you Mr Groser for your ongoing work in that regard. So New Zealanders have the opportunity to choose a flag that says who we are now and thank you to the Greens for bringing in this amendment legislation to enhance that process.Later this year and early next year New Zealanders will be able to have a yes/no choice. Yes they will! They will have a yes/no choice but it will be an informed choice. First of all we get to consider what we might look like in the future. Having done that if it is the case that New Zealanders as a whole decide that yes they do want to contemplate a change then they will get a yes/no vote. That is what apparently we all want in this House but it will be an informed choice. This is a good bill and I commend it to the House.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Jono Naylor.JONO NAYLOR (National): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I just want to follow the speaking order here because you have had a couple of backbenchers from the National Party and I thought that in this game after many many decades that a certain seniority—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No. Well that is not right. [Interruption] The member will sit. [Interruption] Order! The National Party’s third call was given to the Greens. That was a swap and the Green Party which would have been speaking now in slot six has had that slot taken by National. New Zealand First gets the next one which is No. 7 and that is the procedure we are following. It has been for the previous readings and is again for the third reading. I am calling Jono Naylor.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Can I just ask you a simple question which I am sure will interest a lot of people in other Commonwealth parliaments and debating chambers as well. Usually the argument goes for and against for and against.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No no. [Interruption] The member will sit. Parties have the opportunity to trade their calls. In this case—[Interruption] Order when I am on my feet. In this case the Greens and National have changed their third spot so the Green Party took the third call which was a National call and National is taking the Green call which is call six. That is why I have given the call to a National member. New Zealand First is call seven on the schedule and it will get call seven.JONO NAYLOR: I think the irony is that if we did go for and against on this bill there would actually be only two speeches on this bill because New Zealand First gets only one speech in the debate. So if we were going for and against it would be all over in two speeches.I just want to briefly come back if I can to the actual bill. The parent legislation for which this is an amendment is all about public participation in choosing the flag of New Zealand. Some people want to change it; some people want to keep it the same. And guess what? The people who want to keep it the same will have a chance to choose but for the first time in New Zealand’s history the people of New Zealand will get to choose the flag.This amendment bill is really just a simple small piece of legislation as a response to a groundswell of public opinion around the country that says: “Hey we’d like to include a fifth option.” It is called the Red Peak. I am not a big fan of it but guess what? We are going to put it in. That is small and easy to accomplish. The interesting thing that has been going on as we have been having this debate is the number of 10-minute speeches that I have heard from the other side of the House that talk about this being a waste of Parliament’s time. I cannot figure out why if you thought it was a waste of time you would spend 10 minutes trying to tell everybody what a waste of time it was instead of actually just making your point and sitting down so that we can get on with what is going to be I think a really encouraging process.We have seen some good public thoughts come through on the Red Peak design. I am really looking forward to this other groundswell of what I am sure will be other interested parties who are interested in other flags putting forward their ideas. It is going to be a very healthy public process where everybody—those who want to change and those who want to keep it—will all get to have their say. They might have to wait for the second referendum to get rid of the current flag or to keep the current flag if that is what they want to do but I am looking forward to New Zealanders having their voice. It will be a great voice that they have and at the end of the process we will be able to say that this is the flag that New Zealanders have chosen.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): It is hard to imagine any justifiable reason for that member Jono Naylor getting to his feet. I want to say that New Zealand First saw the Prime Minister’s proposal and at the very beginning we looked hard at it and our experience suggested we should do all we could to oppose it and we have. We are going to call for a personal vote because all manner of members of Parliament have gone up there and given their views on the choices thus far including on Red Peak and we would like to know where they all personally stand. We think such a request is a reasonable one—an extraordinarily reasonable one. I do not want to hear some sort of constitutional argument against that because you have heard members say: “I don’t like the four and I don’t like Red Peak.” So they should be entitled if democracy is to prevail—and all of a sudden the National Party has been overcome by it—to have a personal vote.Moving the goalposts after the game has started always stinks. Changing the rules after the referee has whistled the game on always smells. The Prime Minister has been utterly consistent though—and I will be reasonable to him—in his inconsistency. He has beenutterly consistent—like the Skycity deal like the South Canterbury Finance deal like the Hollywood deal like the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and like the deal or the argument about not making New Zealanders serfs in their own country or about separatist legislation based purely on race or about the State asset sales referenda that we have had. He has done a backflip on the whole lot including this legislation. So why are none of us surprised? You see he was on a hiding to nothing and we knew from day one that he could not be trusted to give the public a fair choice. We knew from day one that his obsequious toadying colleagues would do likewise at the request of Crosby/Textor and anyone else—whoever finances the National Party right now. They personally would never make a stand in their constituency or public interests.We said from day one we should have a choice: do you want a flag change—yes or no? If the answer became yes in a majority then obviously the question was “To what?”. But the Government was never going to do that and from the beginning New Zealand First smelt a rat and unlike all the rest we put our record and our reputation on the line and we are being proven right. That is what National hates about it. That is what that backbench hates about it and that is what more and more out there who think they know about politics are going to hate about it. It is because on issue after issue after issue one party has principles and does not move from them.Brett Hudson: What about baubles and titles? Ministerial limos?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No no—do not come here like a young pup talking about the baubles of power. He is there because he got offered a list seat—not because he is any good not because he bright—and he will be one of the first to go and he will go on issues like this. We do not care about those whose experience is so little and who are so green in this Parliament.We said from the word go that we would not join the cross-party jack-up committee designed to “puppetise” the procedures for the PM’s whim. Here is the PM who instead of saying “I want to leave the country in greater economic and social wealth and do great things in areas of reform.”—no he wants to have of all things at the end of his time a flag. And when he is asked what flag he says: “I dunno—I dunno.” So he wants a legacy that he does not know about. How pathetic and shallow and egotistical is that. We would not join the sham. You see politics is about leadership and uniquely New Zealand First has again on this issue—like with the Reserve Bank legislation foreign ownership and anti-separatist legislation—shown the way and we will not resile from that.Now the Greens say that this appalling change in the flag law within weeks is justified. Why? They say it is to break the political stalemate or to break the political deadlock. What stalemate? What deadlock? The Prime Minister was getting a hiding to nothing. His own internal polls were rising above 80 percent and they all dropped the bundle over there. So like the cavalry over the hills at the last moment comes in the most unlikely form—the most unusual salvation—from of all parties the Greens. This is pixie dust Mr Hughes. It is naivety in the extreme. It is stupidity.Look at the Greens’ Facebook. There is page after page after page telling them of the enormous political cost for this sort of naivety. Russel Norman would never have done this. He had his faults but dear Russel would never have done something as stupid as this. Page after page is so damning: “Well done for helping the National propaganda machine. The rest of you are gutless.” It is unbelievable. I cannot read some of this because it is too bad. Then: “No it’s awful—another logo.” “Thank God for New Zealand First.” “Why on earth are you playing into National hands?”. There is one after another. I am just reading each one separately: “You guys are idiots. Now the Greens are”—and I cannot possibly pronounce this word—“going to help National.” It goes on and on: “I can’t believe how you’ve done this. I voted for you at the last election. Now I’m going to vote New Zealand First next time.” Thank you very much. That has got to be a crowning win coming. Over and over again—“Appalled” this person says. Oh dear me I think I should make the Greens read this stuff out themselves because it is an appalling litany of complaints from their own supporters.They said they did it to—what—break the deadlock break the impasse. Oh no they did not. They thought they were going to play politics and be real clever. I was overseas at the time and I thought: “Hallelujah! Now we’re all going to see them for what they are.” And so will the Labour Party members who need to wake up on this issue. They cannot be trusted on our left for 5 minutes when you have got somebody who thinks that their political genius understanding of our country people measures up to a change like this. Online polling is not even the 5 percent required by referendum law. No it is just online polling with triple voting and social media and that amounts to a groundswell. Really? Well we will see what is a groundswell as we rise for the next 24 months to the next election. But I know one thing: the Greens will not be around if they behave like this one more time.This is frivolity of the worst sort. As for consorting with your worst enemy what happened to the green-blue coalition? Well it has well and truly gone. Month after month of vituperation from Ministers over there and over they come—the National Party—to rub their tummies and the Greens roll over. And Mr Key says: “Look I will always have regard to a change in public opinion.” Do you believe that? Do you believe that? Well if you believe that you believe in the tooth fairy do you not—anybody who believes that.Red Peak is currently used by a US business. Red Peak is as old as the late 1930s in another country. It is a result not of a 5 percent voters’ referendum but an online result riddled with mistakes and duplication of votes. The PM poll-driven as he was is getting a complete public thrashing now and this will not get better. Red Peak will not save him. It is a public policy that has been the subject of a duplicitous and a disgraceful process and a waste of money.So desperate was National that we got a letter from the Speaker’s office telling us to take down our official flags from this Parliament. I wrote back to the Speaker’s office and said: “Would you please tell me who gave that instruction?”. Sure enough they dropped the bundle and no longer argued about it because they said they had gone to the Business Committee and there was no objection to the flags remaining. That was on 1 September from the Clerk’s office and I want to know if that is the case who authorised that first letter to us on 24 August telling us to pull down the flags? See how biased things have got? An independent member and servant of this House had the effrontery to tell us to pull down our national flag. Well we are not doing that. We will do our utmost in the next few weeks to ensure that New Zealanders have got a chance to go down there and write “Keep our flag” on the ballot papers which will mean a majority of informal votes and this waste of public money will now cease.JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Last Monday evening I went to an event in New Plymouth where there were 250 people present. It was a presentation by a company that runs Dragons’ Den - type events. As people presented different aspects to what their company was about people were invited to say “in” or “out”. They started off by warming up the crowd by saying how it worked. The presenter said “The New Zealand flag referendum—who is in for a new flag?” and up went the in/out signs. The person at the front said to the crowd that there were more ins than outs—because the other side of the sign said “out”. I estimated that out of the 250 people there around about 60 percent—just across the board people from New Plymouth all sorts of ages backgrounds and ways of life—said that they were “in” for a flag change. I think the mood is there in the country that we want to see all the potential and possibilities of what a flag referendum offers us.I just want to put the record straight on a couple of matters because I have heard members of the Opposition saying that this process has been flawed from the very beginning. I chaired the cross-party committee. Let me just read out a couple of points because by the end of November we took three recommendations to the Minister in charge of the process: the use of preferential voting for the first referendum four alternative flags instead of three and we wanted to bring the timing of the second referendum forward to March rather than April. I reported back to that committee that the Minister had taken these recommendations to Cabinet and that each had been agreed to. The Minister and Cabinet listened to our recommendations. They were not obligated to agree with us but they considered them and where we had presented some very good rationale they agreed and changed the process. So for people to say that the process has been flawed from the very beginning is actually inaccurate and incorrect.In our final meeting of four in the last 5 minutes before it was due to end a discussion was proposed to change the structure of the referendum to a yes/no vote. Out of four meetings which went for over an houreach in the last few minutes of this process this discussion took place. It is true. I was the single voice that opposed that proposal—that opposed that suggestion. As chair of the cross-party group I said that I would convey the views of the majority of members regarding that yes/no vote but I reminded them that the Government was not obligated to enact their views and it did not and I agreed with that not because I represented National but because I understood the process the rationale and the reason why we had put that into place.I refer again to Gareth Hughes’ opening speech yesterday in which he said that his first choice was “Laser Kiwi” and that he has changed his view. I think what this demonstrates is that as people engage in the process their views change and that is all right. So the yes/no vote sort of cuts things off at the pass in my view. As Jacqui Dean said we do have a yes/no vote but it is in the second referendum not the first. I believe that the process we have put in place is good and that it will work. What it will do is engage New Zealanders so that they can look at alternatives before they come to the yes/no vote in the second referendum. I think that is an appropriate way. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for New Zealand to look at these things. I believe it is and I believe that once we decide whether it is the present flag or a new alternative flag that we as a country will settle on that and move forward.I believe that it is important that we have a choice between alternatives. I do not agree with Mr Mallard who says “Yes/no vote in the first referendum and choose your alternative out of five.” because that is not really a choice. People want to know that they are choosing between the present flag and something else—not one out of five; they want to know something definite. Choosing a flag is that important and I believe that we have got it the right way round.To me as I just come to a close my choice will have a silver fern on it. I want the Southern Cross on it. I am not sure whether I want red and blue or black and blue—I have yet to think about that. The reason I want the Southern Cross as an important component of our flag is that we are an immigrant nation. We are all navigators. Our forebears got here by being navigated by the stars. We are a nation of nations. I believe that what the Southern Cross does is put us all on the same footing and on the same ground. We are all equal in this nation. I want to have a silver fern on this flag because it is unique to New Zealand. It has been emblazoned on our national sports’ uniforms. It has honoured our war graves. It is the single emblem that New Zealanders have identified with for decades. When Olympians stand in victory I would love to see them wrapped in a fern like a laurel of victory rather than a Union Jack—no disrespect to Britain but something that represents who we are as New Zealanders. I am very pleased with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to commend this amendment bill to the House. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. I call Dr Kennedy Graham—5 minutes.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): I just begin by acknowledging once more my colleague Jonathan Young for his contribution to this whole process including chairing the cross-party working group. He did a very good job. Just to agree with the Rt Hon Winston Peters in his contribution politics is all about leadership. That is true. I am a little less inclined to agree with his characterisation that the Greens are naive or for that matter that Labour cannot be trusted. In our view Labour can indeed be trusted.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I didn’t say that. No I didn’t. You’ve got it wrong.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM: I think Mr Peters you did. The transcript will clarify that one way or the other. Labour can certainly be trusted. The problem at the moment is that it is a little difficult to follow the logic by which it is getting to its position. Labour colleagues have characterised the bill in a variety of colourful ways: “a colossal waste of taxpayer money” “farce of a process” “silly political gain” “undemocratic” “stitch-up” “tricky deal” “besmirched process” “undermining of the expert panel” “disrespectful of the intelligence of the public” “back to front” “wrong” “treating New Zealanders like muppets” “lacking integrity” “shambolic process” “bizarre rescue operation” “constitutionally dangerous” “sloppy legislation” “a half choice only” and “a missed opportunity”. On the basis of that in the exercise of Labour members’ infallible judgment they are supporting the bill.More seriously the one substantive point that Labour has put forward which we do respect is the whole issue of the yes/no vote at the very beginning of the process in the first referendum. This is a valid point. There is in our view equal weight between the two positions. The first position is that you cannot make a decision as to whether or not the flag should be changed unless you know what alternative flag is in front of you as opposed to a judgment that you can indeed in principle decide whether you want to change the flag whether or not there is an alternative flag in front of you. Each of those two positions has equal weight. The Green Party was quite inclined to proceed with the Government’s perception on this. It does not really matter either way but this is good enough to go with that particular one.The time has essentially come now for the people to choose. When we choose we should think back to the experiences of both Canada and South Africa. In both cases with sufficient dignity they moved to change their flag. In both cases a number of conditions held. To change the flag did not show any disrespect to those who had given their lives under the old flag. It did not disrespect the Union Jack when they replaced it. It did not split their country asunder in either case. It did cost roughly the same as it is costing this country. Having made their decision they embraced a new flag and resolved to move on. Let New Zealand emulate Canada and South Africa. It is time to move on now with the electoral process. The process has not been without pain. It has been politicised to an unfortunate degree but the process remains valid and the choice before us is certainly a valid one. Now let the people choose.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call David Seymour—5 minutes.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this bill which is all about the very simple choice of having five options on the ballot instead of four. I think that given the simplicity of the initiative it has already taken more than enough of the House’s time so I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.BRETT HUDSON (National): It has been an interesting debate. It seems that all parties except Labour and New Zealand First actually walk the talk when it comes to giving New Zealanders a choice. I think that it is a very constructive thing to listen to the public and to give this fifth option. I endorse what we have been doing with this amendment bill.There was a member opposite who talked about personal votes. Well this party believes so strongly in the ability for New Zealanders to have their say that we are giving every eligible voter in New Zealand a chance to exercise their personal vote in two referendums. It is a fantastic process and I will endorse any choice that the people of New Zealand tell us they want. Thank you.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): As other colleagues have acknowledged the Labour Party will be supporting this legislation. As colleagues in the House know we attempted to put before the House a bill that would have allowed Red Peak to be added to the referendum along with our clear and consistent position that that should be preceded by a yes/no vote.We have said from the outset that as the public mood rose up in support of additional options we wanted to support more choice. I for one am pleased that New Zealanders will have more choice and that is why we are voting for this legislation.I want to reflect on what this process could have been: the opportunity to discuss New Zealand’s identity and our sense of place in the 21st century. What kind of constitutional arrangements underpin a country like New Zealand growing and going forward into the 21st century? That is a conversation that New Zealand needs and I believe it is a conversation that New Zealanders want to have.The Government dipped its toe in the water of that conversation with the constitutional review panel chaired by John Burrows who also chaired the Flag Consideration Panel. Professor Burrows is a learned and good person. That constitutional review panel’s recommendations have essentially just been put in the bottom drawer and locked away by the Government. It is not interested in having a proper conversation about this.As a country had we had that conversation and talked about the place of the Treaty in our future talked about our constitutional arrangements talked about whether we feel strong enough to move towards what I personally believe we should in terms of being a republic and talked about how we organise ourselves. Inevitably as part of that conversation we would have discussed the flag and whether or not the flag should change. But there has been no commitment to that process by the National Government.The Prime Minister has lifted out from that conversation a discussion about the flag. That to my mind is a huge disappointment. In the absence of that wider conversation I suspect that in March next year there will be no change to the flag. There are some people in this House who will be very pleased that that will be the outcome in March next year. I am actually not one of those people. I am actually a person who thinks we probably could change the flag and probably should change the flag but it needed to be part of that wider process.In the absence of that what we are left with is an attempt by the Prime Minister to create for himself a legacy. Well I have got news for the Prime Minister. Our future constitutional arrangements and our identity as a country is not about him. It is not about his ego. It is not about a vanity project for him. I think it is a huge shame that this process which could have been part of something so useful for defining ourselves as a country in the 21st century has been derailed by the Prime Minister’s approach throughout this. I am very sad about that.I want to say a couple of things about how this piece of legislation has found its way to us today. I acknowledge that the Green Party in putting this bill forward has the aim of increasing choice for New Zealanders in the referendum. We should not ignore the large movement of New Zealanders who wanted something more and I think that is important. As I said we too were attempting to put that legislation forward.There is no way to hide and we have not tried to hide the disappointment of the Labour Party in the way that this has happened and in particular in the fact that as part of putting this forward a deal was done between the Greens and National to not support Labour’s Supplementary Order Papers. That is extremely disappointing to us because we do not think if we are trying to avoid political game playing that that is a genuine and straightforward way of approaching this issue.Having said that we have a good relationship with the Green Party. We have a lot in common. We have a lot of issues that we will continue to work on together. Whatever happens around this piece of legislation I know that that relationship can will and should endure.What I do know is that on the other side of the House we have a Prime Minister who is now completely desperate about his referendum. Only 2 weeks ago he told New Zealanders there was no chance of Red Peak getting on the ballot paper—none whatsoever. He repeated it. His very good and close friend Paul Henry said to him: “Prime Minister I want you to clarify absolutely. Will Red Peak end up on the referendum?”. The Prime Minister said: “No it won’t. We’re not going back to Parliament to change the law.” Those are the exact words: “We are not going back to Parliament to change the law.”So what does the word of our Prime Minister mean? What does it mean to New Zealanders now if the Prime Minister says something and in 2 weeks he can flip around? And we know why.Hon Gerry Brownlee: He listens.GRANT ROBERTSON: “He listens.” says Gerry Brownlee. He is desperate Mr Brownlee because his referendum is on the skids. Seventy percent of New Zealanders do not want to change the flag and so the Prime Minister has taken to going to any venue in the country to run his flag process through it.There was the bizarre situation of the Prime Minister standing up at a cancer fund-raiser and asking the people there to raise their hands as to whether or not they support the referendum. Then those who do not support the referendum—the Prime Minister begins to interrogate them and berate them about the fact that they are not supporting the referendum. This is how desperate John Key has become.John Key wants a legacy. John Key wants a legacy and that legacy for him is to change the flag. He would be far better off leaving a legacy of lifting children out of poverty or leaving a legacy of ensuring that every young New Zealander grows up in a warm and dry home or leaving a legacy that unemployment goes under 4 percent. They would be legacies to be proud of. That would be a Prime Minister who knows that a legacy is not so much about him but about how he leaves the country.This Prime Minister does not understand that. All the legacies he wants are about him and how he thinks he will be remembered. He is going to have to exercise enormous political capital over the next few months to try to get this referendum through. And I think he will. I think he will spend millions of dollars probably of taxpayers’ money on going up and down the country over the next few months desperately trying to get his referendum passed.That is the irony. Red Peak the very thing he said he did not want and the very thing he said would not be on the ballot paper is the thing he is now clutching on to as his saviour. I have said in this House earlier in the debate that I think Red Peak is a better flag than the others. I know others do not agree with me but I think it is a better flag than the others.I personally as I have also said think that the flag probably should change as part of that wider constitutional conversation. But every member of this House knows when they go out back to their constituencies and when they go to public meetings that the TV3 poll that says 70 percent of New Zealanders do not want the flag to change is accurate. Every member of this House knows that when they go back to their constituencies.Hon Gerry Brownlee: No not true.GRANT ROBERTSON: Gerry Brownlee does not know that. The good people of Ilam are apparently completely outside of that—completely outside of that. It could actually be possible. Who knows what happens in an electorate that elects Gerry Brownlee time after time? They could be saying anything at all but that is the truth.This Government and in particular this Prime Minister have destroyed an opportunity for New Zealand to have the conversation we need to have about our future identity because of vanity and because of ego. Now in his desperation he accepts that there needs to be another option.I am pleased New Zealanders will have more choice in this referendum. We support the bill because we believe New Zealanders should have more choice. We also wanted them to have the real choice of whether or not they even want to change the flag. I am disappointed that did not get through.This has been a completely unnecessary process that typifies what has been a shambles of a referendum. The Government has failed New Zealanders once again.JOANNE HAYES (National): I rise to take a very short call on this wonderful bill. I want to thank the Greens’ Gareth Hughes. I have had to endure watching this debate and sitting in this House listening to a whole lot of drivel from across the Opposition benches. I commend this wonderful bill to the House.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Members this debate is concluded. The question is that the motion be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye to the contrary No.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Is it a point of order?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It is a point of order; that is why I put “point of order” in front of my request. I called for a personal vote at the beginning of my speech because as I say—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No no. This is the process. Let me explain the process. I told your whip this. The member will sit. [Interruption] The member will sit. [Interruption] The member will sit. The whip came and asked me the process. I told the whip what the process was and the process is that if a party wishes to call for a personal vote I put the vote as I am doing now and when I get to the stage of asking for those contrary to the vote a party has the right to say they call for a personal vote. At that stage the party calls for a personal vote and I will adjudicate on it at that stage. That is the process. I will start the vote again. The question is that the motion be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye to the contrary No. The Ayes have it.Tracey Martin: No. Noes have it. Personal vote.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Noes? All right—a personal vote has been called for by the New Zealand First Party. This bill has not been subject to personal votes during the course of the first or second reading or the Committee stage. I see no need to have a personal vote on this matter. The votes have been quite conclusive over the period of this urgency debate and on that basis—and I refer the party to the Standing Order 144. That is the Standing Order that is the relevant one in this case. I am not prepared to accept a personal vote.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am well aware of the Standing Orders and past procedures but there has rarely been in my experience in debate on this matter when so many members have openly and on the Hansard record stated their personal—hang on can I just finish it off?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No no—I have already ruled. The member will sit. [Interruption] The member will sit. [Interruption] The member will sit. It is the Speaker who decides whether there will be a personal vote—and let me read it out. I quoted the number Standing Order 144: “A personal vote may be held following a party vote”—and that is the process we are at now—“if a member requests one and the Speaker considers that the decision on the party vote is so close that a personal vote may make a material difference to the result.” As I mentioned earlier—and I have presided over much of this debate in the readings and the Committee stage—there have not been close votes. It has been very very clear. On that basis I am not prepared to accept a personal vote. That is the end of the matter and I am now proceeding with the vote.A party vote was called for on the question That the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill be now read a third 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 third time.Environmental Reporting BillThird ReadingHon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): I move That the Environmental Reporting Bill be now read a third time. This bill represents the Government’s commitment to bringing New Zealand into line with best international practice when it comes to monitoring and reporting on the condition of our natural environment. It was a policy that the Bluegreens developed during National’s time in Opposition that National campaigned on and that we are now delivering on. It is about giving greater integrity to New Zealand’s “clean green” brand by providing independent and authoritative information on how we match up. Also it represents a major advance in improving the regularity and integrity of national-level environmental data so that New Zealanders will be able to access the information on which to base important environmental business economic and societal decisions. It is very much about the fact that we manage that which we measure.As all parties in the debate on this bill have acknowledged New Zealand is out of step with other OECD countries in that we are the only country not to have a statutory system for regular independent state of the environment reports. The bill that we are now debating contains provisions that will ensure that those reports are regular that they are independent that they are comprehensive and that they are accurate. This means that the public can have confidence in and certainty about the scope timing and quality of New Zealand’s environmental information. It means that we are going to be able to get on rather than just spending time debating the data and whether it is accurate whether it is relevant whether it is timely or where it has come from. With this regime New Zealanders will be able to actually focus and get on and deal with the issues that are important for us to improve the management of the environment.What is under pressure? What is not working? Where is data getting worse? Where is it improving? How can we fix it? These are the sorts of conversations that are far more constructive than some of the arguments that go on in the environmental space about whether we can rely on the information. It is essential that communities businesses local authorities and central government are able to use environmental information to make better decisions on very important issues that affect our environment our economy and our society. In fact I would put it to this House that New Zealand more so than any other OECD country requires robust environmental reporting given the importance of our primary industries like agriculture forestry fishing and tourism which are so dependent on our natural wealth.The scope of the reports produced under this bill will be comprehensive and will go beyond the programme of just the environmental indicator updates that the Ministry for the Environment has produced in recent years. The reports will not cover just the state of the environment; they will describe the pressures that are driving those environmental trends and the impacts of those trends on our lives. To give a bit more detail state of the environment topics will describe what the biophysical condition of the environment is and how it has changed over time. Pressure topics will describe the human activities and natural factors that influence the environment in order to help us understand why it is in the condition it is. The impact topics will look at what the consequences of any changes in the state of the environment are across those five categories. These categories are ecological integrity the economy public health culture and recreation and through the select committee process we have also added with the representations from the Māori Party Te Ao Māori so as to include their view in environmental reports.The impact topics will help New Zealanders to understand how changes in the state of our environment affect different aspects of our society. A good example of this is to look at an issue like air quality which impacts on the health of New Zealanders and whether it is getting better or worse. If the concentration of air pollutants increases exposure to the increase in concentrations can have an impact in terms of increasing premature deaths and hospital admissions and restricted activity days for New Zealanders. Some of these health impacts will be the result because air pollutants can aggravate existing respiratory conditions such as asthma. People in organisations need to understand these links so that they are aware of how the state of the environment affects New Zealanders. Then we can make better-informed decisions about how we expend our resources to improve things.The environmental domains that will be reported on as specified in the bill are the air the atmosphere and climate fresh water land and the marine environment. The bill requires the Secretary for the Environment and the Government Statistician to publish a domain report on each of these five environmental domains every 6 months. Then every 3 years the Secretary for the Environment and the Government Statistician will be required to publish a national-level report on New Zealand’s environment—one that covers all domains. After the reports are produced the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Statistics will be required to present such reports to this House. The bill strikes a good balance between ensuring the timely availability of information to the public and statistical integrity in developing these reports on our environment. As the new environmental reporting regime matures the information and database on which it relies will improve.Statistics New Zealand and the Ministry for the Environment are already working closely with organisations like regional councils Crown research institutes and the Department of Conservation to provide the environmental data to be able to support this national-level reporting. The independence of the new environmental reporting regime is guaranteed through the involvement of the Government Statistician in determining which statistics or measures for each topic meet the high-quality statistical standards that are required. I would like to add that the regime’s independence is especially supported by clause 16 which ensures that previously unpublished data statistics and findings and environmental reports will be released to everyone at the same time. This clause is a key mechanism for keeping our environmental reporting independent and at arm’s length from the Government of the day. The regime’s independence is also shored up by the role of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment who can audit each report. This provides the public with the assurance that the information is being independently reviewed and that Parliament and the New Zealand public are being kept informed on those things about our environment that really matter.I know that both members of Labour and the Greens know this is a good bill that addresses a deficiency in New Zealand’s environment systems and as I have listened to their contributions on the select committee report and at the Committee stage I think they are in that space of just opposing for the sake of it. If you go into the details of the concerns that they have they read very much like they are clutching at straws. Let me deal quite specifically with two of those issues.The first of the issues is that this bill provides for regulations to be set around the topics and there have been questions about that. The reality is that the topics that we need to report on do change with time. For instance the issue of climate change was quite new and out of left field as that science evolved. That is equally so if you look at an issue like chlorofluorocarbons and how that developed. I am sure that over the next 20 to 30 years of the likely life of this legislation there will be changes in the issues that we need to measure and that is appropriate. I would also say that the process of consultation around those regulations is extensive and ensures that there is integrity in the way they are developed.I also find rather churlish the criticism that the bill does not provide for the reporting of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions. That of course is an important issue but I would draw the House’s attention to the Climate Change Response Act which requires that information to be reported through the United Nations system for its audit and I would question why we would want to double that bureaucracy.The last point that I wish to make is that I think this is a very important bill for the management of our environment. If you asked me as a parliamentarian of 25 years what the most important and best bill that has been put through this Parliament was I would say it was the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1994 which required the open and transparent reporting of this country’s finances. We went from a period pre-1994 when this country had some of the worst public books in the world and since then we have moved to having some of the very very best. My hope and ambition for the Environmental Reporting Act is that through this independent quality information about the genuine state of New Zealand’s environment it can shift the focus to those things that we do need to give priority to in order to improve how New Zealand manages its natural resources.Can I conclude by thanking the officials and my colleagues—particularly Scott Simpson and the team on the Local Government and Environment Committee—who have done a good job of putting this bill on the books of this Parliament. It will give greater integrity to New Zealand’s “clean green” brand and that matters for this country of ours.Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my pleasure to take a call on the third reading of the Environmental Reporting Bill. What is not my pleasure is the fact that Labour cannot support this bill because I actually agree with a great deal that the Minister for the Environment who has just sat down said in his contribution. This is an important bill. New Zealand is the only country in the OECD that does not have environmental reporting. Labour absolutely agrees that it is timely and that it is preferable that this be rectified and that we have a way in which we monitor and report on our environment so that we can be making the important legislative and policy decisions that we need to make in the future based on evidence. Our hope was that the Environmental Reporting Bill would deliver this.We have consistently been saying throughout the passage of this bill through this House that we have very much wanted to support this bill. We certainly support the intent of it. I think it is pretty much motherhood and apple pie that we would be monitoring and reporting on our environment and providing that evidence base—that we would be looking at the key five domains of air fresh water land marine atmosphere and climate producing the domain reports and then every 3 years having a synthesis report that would cross all domains and draw together the best available data. But the Minister says that we are churlish and just entering into opposition to the bill for the sake of opposition in our opposition to this bill. Nothing could be further from the truth.We worked constructively atthe Local Government and Environment Committee and I would like to acknowledge the work that the select committee did on this legislation. We did actually manage to make some improvements to the legislation and I think that that was a good thing. But what we could not change is what has been since the first reading and since the introduction of this legislation our core concern and that is the lack of political independence in deciding what it is that we are going to report on in setting those domain report topics in setting those synthesis report topics—which is vested in the Minister.We would have an objection to that whether we were in Government or Opposition. It is of concern.This is not the kind of legislationthat we put in place on something so importantwhere we should be getting it wrong. It is our concern that we are getting it wrong. The Minister told us in his contribution today that there is that independence in clause 18 guaranteed by clause 16. This is not the case. We listened very carefully to the submitters as they came before the select committee. More than half the submitters who came to the committee and spoke to this bill spoke about their concerns around the regulation-making powers in clause 18 of this legislation. That is our reason for not being able to support this bill.We had the Law Society come and tell us that for it “The regulation-making power enables Ministers to set the agenda by determining the topics to be reported on. This regulation-making power has the ability to undermine the independence and integrity of environmental reports published under the Bill.” This is not something that I could not listen to. This is not something that Labour members on the select committee could not take note of—when we had the Law Society come and talk to us about that.We had many submitters and I am sure some of my colleagues will go into some more of those submissions. Fish and Game New Zealand came and gave an excellent submission on this and I think it made a very good point when it said that “The grant of some legislative power to the executive is inevitable in modern democracies but that does not mean that matters of high policy going to the heart of the Bill”—i.e. setting the topics—“should be contained in regulations.” This is simply giving the Ministers far too much power.We supported the calls that we have the Government Statistician and the Secretary for the Environment rather than the Minister of Statistics and the Minister for the Environment making those calls on it because we did want to see that level of independence. The Minister says that the Ministers need to be able to make those decisions because things change and said that we just need to look at how quickly in this space we might need to look at what needs to be reported on. He gave the example of chlorofluorocarbons as something that changes the environment quickly.We are not for one moment in our opposition—and I want this to be very clear on the record—suggesting in any way that we set down in the legislation what needs to be reported on. What we are saying is that we do not hand over that much power to the executive to set the rules and be the people making the decisions. This should be legislation that holds our executive to account. This should be legislation that provides us with the factual basis on which we are to measure how a Government is performing on the environment. To suggest that it is preferable that we then have the executive making the decision as to what we report on is nonsense and is not the political independence that we want to see.We do not want to set down in this legislation that we set the topics. That is not what we are suggesting for clause 18. What we are suggesting is that we take that power away from the Ministers and that we give that to the Government Statistician and to the Secretary for the Environment who would also be required to consult with some of the groups that are laid out further in clause 18.I think the Minister’s assurance that one of the reasons we could not do that is our need to be flexible and to move with the times simply does not hold water as a reason why we would not do what it is that the select committee heard submitters say—that is take this much power away from the executive. We also heard from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and of course the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has a very important role in this piece of legislation which is laid out in clause 17 of the legislation and that is in terms of analysing the reports and having a commentary function. As Parliament’s person who is a bit of a watchdog for the environment the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment does have an important function under this legislation.The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment gave a very full and very knowledgable submission that I think needed to be listened to far more closely by Government members of the committee than they did. I personally would have liked to see more of the things that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment someone who is Parliament’s servant in matters of the environment came to us as legislators and gave her view on. She said that “Giving the selection of topics to the Government of the day creates the opportunity for political interference. For instance it would be possible to avoid reporting on an environment topic that is important but also controversial.” That is the point. No one is suggesting for a moment that any given Minister is going to politically interfere but Labour cannot support a piece of legislation that enshrines in our legislation the opportunity for a Minister to do that.We need to be better than that in terms of the legislation that we are putting in place. We need to ensure that we cannot do that—that we are putting something better in place. New Zealand has waited a long time for this legislation and I commend the Minister for bringing this legislation. Actually I commend the Government for bringing this legislation. But what I cannot commend and support it on is the fact that it is putting the legislation in place without proper political independence. It is a missed opportunity. We could have done so much better and it is with a heavy heart that Labour cannot vote on this legislation.I remain hopeful that we may be able to work to a more non-partisan position on this because I think it is important that the very structure that we are putting in place to be the monitoring legislation for our environment not be about partisan politics that we can actually have some political independence and that it genuinely be about the state of our environment.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel):As chairman of the Local Government and Environment Committee it gives me enormous pleasure to speak in this third reading debate on the Environmental Reporting Bill which is in the name of my friend and colleague Dr Nick Smith. This bill represents part of a suite of legislation that has been introduced during this National Government’s term of office that is real meaningful and important in terms of protecting and ensuring the enhancement of and the benefit to our beautiful natural environment. It is an important piece of legislation and it is important that we as a Parliament get this piece of legislation right and correct.Therefore it is a great pity to watch the spectacle of Dr Megan Woods dancing in this Parliament on the head of a pin trying to find some kind of justification and some kind of reason for objecting to this bill. This is a bill that Labour actually does want to support. It has made that very clear in its contributions at the select committee. It made it very clear in its contributions to debates on this bill earlier in this House. But oppose it must do and it has tried to find a reason to do so.What this bill actually does is it closes a gap in our environmental legislation that has needed closing for some time. This bill brings New Zealand into a state of best practice in terms of its environmental reporting and I am thrilled and delighted to be part of a Government that is actually doing something that is constructive and good for our environment. As the Minister for the Environment said in his contribution earlier you cannot manage what you do not measure. I would absolutely agree with him. The importance of providing good reliable accurate and credible environmental information is the very foundation of making good quality decisions in terms of the future of our natural environment and our natural spaces.What this bill does is it requires the regular reporting of the state of New Zealand’s environment as a whole—reporting on the state of our air and atmosphere climate freshwater land and marine domains. Those are the five key areas. It will mean that we get a production of environmental reports independently that are credible and accurate. As a Parliament and in policy terms they will enable us to make good decisions for the future of New Zealand’s environment. Thirdly and not at all unimportantly is that this bill actually affirms the role of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in terms of reporting on environmental matters processes and the objectives of that office. This bill requires the Secretary for the Environment and the Government Statistician to work together to publish a report on those five environmental domains. One environmental report will be released every 6 months with the additional synthesis reporting providing analysis and cross-domain trends and interactions once every 3 years. That is at the real heart of this legislation.It is a very good piece of legislation it is a timely piece of legislation and it is one that I am very proud to support. The select committee worked well notwithstanding the Opposition’s desire to find at any length a reason to oppose. But notwithstanding that the select committee did make some useful and worthwhile changes and they have been included in the bill and that I think is a further sign that the select committee process works well to improve what is already good legislation and refine it even further. It is with enormous enthusiasm that I support this bill and I heartily commend it to the House.Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): I grew up in Ōtara and went to school with many Māori peers who could trace their heritage back to either Ngāpuhi or Tainui. I learnt from them when they introduced themselves at the Māori third and fourth form class that I took about their references to the maunga and their references to the awa—to the mountain and to the river—which emphasises for the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand how important the environment is.In later years as I gained a better appreciation of my own cultures—Samoan in particular—I learnt how we as Samoans viewed the sky the lands the trees and the fishes as all having spirits and as all having human characteristics of their own.The older generations valued the environment so much that they treated each one of those characteristics of the environment as if it were a member of their family.I raise those two points because that is the point of view that I come to this debate from.I am sure that I am not alone in that with other members of this House who will share a similar value when it comes to our environment.I also raise that at the outset because when this bill was introduced I think our initial stance was that we would support it given the fact that our rivers today have this weed growing through them—in fact we can no longer swim in some of our lakes. Once upon a time as a young man in Ōtara I used to fish in some of our lakes. We cannot do that any more and that is because by and large we as a collective group of people have contributed to the degradation of our environment. We have polluted it through our economic activities or have done something else that has harmed the environment.So when the Government said that it would introduce this bill and that the bill would allow a group of people to report to this House about the state of our environment Labour’s view in the first instance was that we would take up this opportunity because at least then we would have the facts and the data that would show us what we had done wrong with regard to the environment and how we could better improve our situation going forward. After all we as a country pride ourselves on having this “clean green” image. We have used that image to sell our wares throughout the entire world. In fact we have branded ourselves with that brand and there is a high expectation that we maintain that brand. We saw the opportunity in this bill that if this reporting continued over time and we improved the way that we conducted ourselves and the activities that impacted on the environment then by and large we would end up keeping the environment safe by ensuring that the state of our environment would be left in a better situation for the next generation.You see from an indigenous point of view the land and the environment and the skies the air and the trees do not belong to us; they are part of who we are. They contribute to our survival and therefore we have got to look after the environment. We saw the opportunity that if the bill was worded right and the information was independent we would be on the same pathway collectively as a nation irrespective of who was in Government.We would get the correct information and whoever was in power would do the right thing by acting on it and ensuring that one we continued to protect the environment for the next generation and two we would maintain and even enhance our brand of “clean green” Aotearoa New Zealand.But alas when the bill went to the Local Government and Environment Committee and we began to hear the submissions from the public—and I would say from some very significant experts in the field of the environment—they said that to get it right the information must be independent and it must be peer reviewed by an independent organisation or individuals. That is not what is going to happen here. What is going to happen here is that this Government wants to be able to control the information it releases it wants to control the information that the public looks at and it wants to control whatever environmental reporting is made available. In fact it does not want the public to get the full and complete truth when it comes to the state of our environment and that is the sad thing about it. As a matter of principle we must vote against this bill because it does nothing of what this bill was written up for and was set out to do.In fact if we look at the general policy statement it says: “The purpose of this Bill is to create a national-level environmental reporting system to ensure that reporting on our environment occurs on a regular basis and can be trusted by the public as independent fair and accurate.” Those are the key words—that this information can be trusted by the public as being independent fair and accurate. The submissions we heard from doctors and professors—experts I call them—in the field of the environment said that as far as they are concerned if the Government continues to try to control information as it has set out in this bill to do that information will not achieve accuracy or independence or be fair.Therefore it is just a bloody waste of time because the Government has no such intention.What that signals to me and signals to other people who care about the environment and care about the next generation and the kind of environment that we leave for them is that that group there does not care. Government members do not care one iota because it is their belief that it will be somebody else’s responsibility.They do not care what happens to this environment and I will give you another example that shows that they do not care about the environment. I introduced as part of the process Supplementary Order Paper 92 asking to include in this reporting the impacts of our social and economic activities on the state of the environment in the Pacific because there is a link.There is a link between our economic activities and what is occurring in terms of climate change in the ecosystem of the people of the Pacific. Those members did not support it. This week we had a person from Kiribati who was deported and this Government refused to acknowledge the fact that he is being deported to a land that is literally sinking as a result of climate change and the impact of economic activities not just from us but also from other big nations.Further proof that those members do not care is that in the Pacific Islands Forum it was reported to me by leaders of the Pacific that both Australia and the representatives of this Government treated climate change as if it was joke. That tells me that those members’ rhetoric is one thing but their actions are simply totally different.Despite what their flowery words are about this piece of legislation it will do nothing—it will do nothing—to improve or protect the environment because the information is going to be controlled. Therefore it will not achieve what the bill was set out to do which was to provide independent fair and accurate information on the state of our environment.TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): I rise to take a short call to support the third reading of the Environmental Reporting Bill. Is it not extraordinary to follow such nonsense dare I say that is challenging this Government’s environmental credentials? As we have already heard from the two speakers on this side of the House this is the most reforming Government in recent memory in respect of environmental improvement. The Land and Water Forum reform of the Environmental Protection Authority the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management the National Objectives Framework—this is a reforming Government that has at its core a fundamental belief that you can only manage what you can measure. That has anchored our approach in respect of this bill as well. Only a handful of OECD countries do not have a similar piece of legislation. Under this Government under the leadership of Nick Smith we are going to get the job done here today and that is a step forward for this country.Unlike what we have heard over the last 5 minutes I look forward to the requirement that sits on the Secretary for the Environment and the Government Statistician to publish a domain report on one of the five environmental domains—be it air atmosphere and climate fresh water land or marine—every 6 months. I look forward to the cross-domain synthesis report with world-class analysis underpinning it being published every 3 years. I look forward to having a Minister be able to assure this House that the topics are the right ones that the report is underpinned by the appropriate analytic methodology of the highest order and that what we are doing through those domain reports is being measured robustly and has been appropriately consulted not only with the Government Statistician and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment but also with the public and with iwi and with local government. It is an absolutely appropriate mechanism that sits in this bill to enable the Minister to do this.I know that ultimately through this bill we will have greater data and greater information to underpin a national conversation and it is this Government that has led this. The Opposition is nonsensical to oppose it. I support this bill.EUGENIE SAGE (Green): I am pleased to take a call on the Environmental Reporting Bill. Government members can claim that this is a reforming Government in terms of environmental management and the concept of comprehensive state of the environment reporting certainly is a key part of improving environmental management in New Zealand but it is the way you deliver reform that is important. This bill will potentially do more to disguise the state of our air water biodiversity and coast than it will do to provide New Zealanders with a fair accurate picture of New Zealand’s environment why it is like that and what that means.We have had a very stop-start history to state of the environment reporting in New Zealand both in developing indicators and in producing reports. We have had only two nationwide state of the environment reports in 1997 and 2007 and absolutely nothing since then. That was why the Green Party supported this bill’s introduction. We hoped for and worked to try to achieve a genuine consensus across the House but the Government has persisted in rejecting the efforts of Opposition members to try to improve the bill both in the Local Government and Environment Committee and in the Committee stage with a number of quite detailed Supplementary Order Papers.Because of the way in which it undermines independence we do not want to have the environment Ministers and the Minister of Statistics selecting the topics that are to be reported on in both the domain and the synthesis reports. That was something many submitters opposed yet the Government persisted in politicising what should be an objective and independent process by giving the regulation-making powers to Ministers solely to enable them to choose the topics to be reported on. It is really disappointing that all of the changes in relation to clause 18 that we put forward in the select committee were rejected.Another reason that we are opposing this bill is the poor quality of environmental information that the Government is prepared to accept as valid in terms of state of the environment reporting. In July the Taranaki Regional Council released its state of the environment report for the region. It really highlights the shortcomings of this regime because the Government Minister Nick Smith went up to Taranaki to launch the report and that report did not even follow the Ministry for the Environment’s own rules in terms of collecting water quality data. The regional council followed the ministry’s guidelines for measuring at only two out of 18 swimming spots in the region. The Ministry for the Environment requires weekly surveillance during the 5-month summer recreational period. It requires samples to be collected from a minimum of 20 data points regardless of weather conditions. But what did the Taranaki Regional Council do? It collected only 13 samples in good weather conditions at 16 of the spots. By collecting data in only good weather conditions it did not look at the variation that you get when you have got heavy rain and then much increased faecal coliform and nutrient runoff. That completely skewed the information and it failed to tell families about the risks related to swimming at their favourite swimming spots.When you have the Minister endorsing a state of the environment report from a regional council that did not even meet the Ministry for the Environment’s own guidelines for state of the environment information how can we trust the information that is going to be produced under this bill? When the Government has given us a very bland report on air qualityso far and when we are not seeing the sort of information that New Zealanders need in order to actually understand what is happening in terms of environmental quality we do not think that this bill is actually going to deliver what New Zealanders had expected.One of the other flaws in the bill is its focus on providing “best available data”. That means that when reports are done there is no provision to include any requirement to generate information that is not currently collected or to include any requirement to identify gaps in the data. We have seen regional and district councils collect a lot of environmental information that is often for their own purposes and for their own priorities; it is not for pulling together a national data set. So their methods of analysis and their methods of collection as we have seen in the Taranaki example are often very different.The bill in relying on local authorities to collect that information will simply fail to provide a good mechanism for collecting comprehensive accurate data from across New Zealand when there is no requirement that they do this in a consistent way. Also in the Budget this year the Government failed to provide any additional funding to local authorities or the Ministry for the Environment to ensure that there is good quality reporting. So it has been yet another example of the Government loading responsibilities on to local authorities but not providing funding to assist with the implementation of the laws that Parliament is passing.When the disclosure statement on the bill says “Direct costs associated with this new environmental reporting framework will be managed within existing departmental baselines.” we know that the same sums of money are being spread more and more thinly over a wider variety of priorities. When the Ministry for the Environment in 2007 took 28 staff and 200 other people to produce the 2007 report and when there has been no additional funding that I can find in the vote for the ministry to assist with state of the environment reporting other than the allocation to the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment how is the ministry going to ensure that the information is good quality and accurate? What other priority work is going to be sacrificed in order to respond to its responsibilities under this legislation?The Green Party had wanted to support this bill. We need to have a good consensus on the law around state of the environment reporting but because the Government has repeatedly rebuffed attempts to improve the bill and has rebuffed efforts to ensure that state of the environment reporting is independent is not a politicised process and does not have the Ministers choosing the topics to be reported on in both the domain and synthesis reports we cannot support this bill because although we need robust information about the health of our environment to ensure that we make good decisions we are not convinced that this bill will establish the framework and the regime to actually achieve that. Instead it risks—take the Taranaki example where poor-quality information was used to claim that waterways in Taranaki were in a good state—potentially misleading New Zealanders about the state of our biodiversity and about the state of our water quality and it risks not providing them with the fair accurate picture that we need.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): This Government has a talent for turning a silk purse into a sow’s ear. It has done it with the flag referendums bill and now it is doing it with this legislation. This legislation should be something that all parties in this House would like to support but the Government has made such a mess of the bill that it is actually not possible to do so. This is something that New Zealand First wants—a good environmental reporting bill—but this is not that bill. The defects in it are so fundamental that we cannot support it.There are three main issues. The first one relates to the fact that Ministers are given the power to choose topics for reporting and that is unacceptable to us. There are—and many other parties have said so in the House—better alternatives. One of those that has been mentioned already in the debate today is that the Secretary for the Environment and the Government Statistician could jointly make those decisions and in doing so the public could see genuine transparency and genuinely independent decision-making. But there is another alternative and it is one I quite like. It is that there could actually be a schedule to the Act that could be changed every 3 years and would state what those topics should be. Three years is not so short a period that it would be impracticable. It would be good for Parliament to actually take part in such a process. It would be good for MPs to think about those issues and get their minds around them and then we together could decide what the topics should be.As it is clause 18 is just another example of creeping increases of power to the executive under this Government. I have stood here in this House over the last few years complaining time after time about the creeping expansion of power to the executive by this Government and this is just another example of it. This is especially bad and unnecessary when it comes to environmental reporting because environmental reporting must demonstrate integrity and must generate full public trust.The second main issue is this: clause 18 itself is not a robust process. I am looking at clause 18 and it says in subclause (2)(a) that the Minister must be satisfied that significant areas resources or numbers of people are involved for a pressure topic to be chosen and in subclause (2)(b) that topics must be measureable with robust statistical methods. That comes down to the personal opinion of the Ministers under this particular bill and that is most unsatisfactory. How do we know what matters are going to be looked at and whether they are going to be looked at objectively in making those decisions? Minister Smith commented during the Committee process saying: “Look don’t worry about that. It’s OK because we have in clause 18(3) a provision for consultation.” Saying that means that he believes somehow that consultation is actually a substitute for an independent decision-making process which of course it is not. It is simply an obligation to hear and to take into account the views of other people. That is not part of the decision-making process. It may well inform the decision-making process but it is not itself independent decision-making.This is very important in that people must see that that process is free of political interference. Like Megan Woods I do not actually think that there would be many Ministers—no matter what party would be in Government—who would actually do that but the point is that this bill makes it possible and it could happen in the future that Ministers do interfere inappropriately in that way. What the public expects is that the decisions will be made objectively on their merits. Clause 14 of the bill does not save the situation. That is the one that says that the Secretary for the Environment and the Government Statistician are required to act independently. But how can they do that under this bill when the Ministers actually have all the power? It is just not possible and clause 14 is valueless as a result.In addition there is clause 15 under which the Secretary for the Environment and the Government Statistician are required to assure in their reports “a fair and accurate representation of the state of New Zealand’s environment or the state of the domain being reported on.” but only “so far as it is reasonably practicable”. The words “so far as it is reasonably practicable” completely compromise the assurance of fair and accurate reporting that ought to be at the core of this bill. That is a great problem for us in New Zealand First.The third issue for us is the issue of transparency. Ministers must have regard to pressures on the environment that could cause adverse impacts and other environmental changes.Again I look at clause 18(2) where the Ministers must be satisfied that the pressure topics chosen have an impact on significant areas resources or numbers of people measurability and relationships between topics and impacts. But in the end these requirements actually place very little limitation on ministerial discretion. It is actually a very important issue and a very big problem for New Zealand First when we are being asked to support a bill on which there is such little limitation on ministerial discretion. What that means in practice is that Ministers could actually decide not to report on some topics at all and nobody would know that they had taken such a decision. That is actually a very severe defect because Ministers could decide not to report on a topic simply because it was inconvenient for the Government or might embarrass the Government. That is a very very serious issue for us.So why are we not seeing much more transparency when it comes to the regulations that will prescribe the topics to be covered in synthesis reports and domain reports? Without transparency you do not get integrity and you do not get the trust of the public. That is what is at the core of this bill. That is the fundamental reason why New Zealand First cannot support it.So what does transparency really require then? First of all it requires I think the background information upon which the decision is made to be made clear. Secondly it must show what the decision is in detail why the topics were selected why they were the highest priority and so on. The bill will not only fail the transparency test but also prevent the Official Information Act from operating as intended in relation to what is called untested information. Officials will be able to withhold that without genuine reasons for doing so. That again is putting far too much power in the hands of officials and that should not be the case. The public are entitled to access that information. It is their information. There is no reason for the secrecy surrounding that. This is after all about decisions on what to report on the environment. It is not a major State secret. What is the reason for all this secrecy? The members opposite have not said.For all of those reasons there is no way that New Zealand First can support such a badly drafted and defective bill even though we like other parties would like to see a good environmental reporting bill brought forward to the House.PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā tuarua. In following on from that feeble piffle I want to commend this bill to the House in the strongest possible terms. The Environmental Reporting Bill in the name of my distinguished colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith is a very good bill. Dr Smith along with Minister Maggie Barry will go down in New Zealand’s history as being amongst the best champions of the environment we have ever had in this country.This bill will provide reporting on five domains: water air atmosphere land and marine. It will cover the environment from the bottom of the swamps from which the Labour Party research unit hoovers up its political muck to throw impotently across at this side to the highest reaches of the ionosphere those hypoxic regions where brain damage can ensue and where the New Zealand First political strategists clearly operate. It will cover all of those environments and for that reason it is a very good bill. I commend it to the House.JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Most New Zealanders cherish our natural environment—our mountains our forests our rivers our beaches. I know I do. I know that all of this is a core part of the national identity—of what it is to be a New Zealander. I know that many voters even those who do not vote for the Green Party care deeply about our environment not only because our “clean green” brand is worth a huge amount to our largest exports like dairy and tourism but also because it is priceless being able to take our children walking in native forests and swimming in our rivers.I have no doubt that there are many Government members over there on the other side of the House who do care deeply about protecting the environment. Todd Muller spoke up in this debate about how he believes that this Government has done more to reform environmental protection than any other. I am sure that he would like that to be the truth. I am sure that he would like to be part of a Government that was actually improving environmental protection because he cares about the environment and he probably knows that it is worth it to our economy. We cannot be economically successful unless we protect our environment. Those two things are inseparable.Unfortunately it is simply not the case that this Government has been good for the environment. In fact its entire economic development strategy is predicated on degrading our natural environment—on increasing extraction and pollution. That is the sad truth and I have to speak up about that. This bill is a perfect example because although Government members have claimed that it is best practice it is not best practice and it is not going to result in robust and independent reporting.We would like to vote for a bill that did that—we would. Government members in this debate have claimed that the Opposition is looking for reasons to oppose the bill. That is not true. That is ridiculous. We have supported good legislation when this Government has put it forward and there is nothing I would like more than to see the Government of the day actually improving environmental protection in a way that makes it no longer a political football and that means that we can have cross-party agreement that New Zealand’s environment is worth protecting and fundamentally is critical to our long-term economic prosperity.So we are opposing this bill because it is not going to result in the independent and robust reporting that is essential for us to make informed decisions about policy. Any business person would tell us that we must measure what matters to us. And it must be independent because any Government of the day is going to come under huge pressure from vested interests to not regulate. We have seen this. The previous Labour Government under its state of the environment report suppressed a chapter about water quality because the Government was under huge pressure. That chapter which the Green Party ended up leaking and providing to the public told the hard truth that our intensive conversion to dairying had resulted in significant degradation of our waterways.We have to face up to these hard truths. We are not going to be better off or save money or improve the economy by allowing people to continue profiting at the expense of our waterways and our natural environment. It is simply not possible. So the first thing we have to have is independent robust credible information.To get that we need legislation that sets out that framework and we need the Government to actually fund it. That has not been forthcoming from this Government; in fact it has been reducing the amount of money available. It speaks up about the importance of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. That is a small office and an incredibly important one but it is now doing the work that the Ministry for the Environment should be doing itself.There is a real opportunity for New Zealand to improve our economic performance to ensure long-term prosperity for all New Zealanders and to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions but we are not going to be able to seize that opportunity as long as we do not have the independent monitoring and frameworks set up to ensure that we can make the best decisions. The sad truth is that the National Government is simply looking for opportunities to say that it is doing something on these issues just like it claims that we are doing something about climate change and that we are reducing our carbon emissions. The truth is that we are not—not under National’s policy.So again this bill is window dressing. It is not going to make the substantial changes that we need and the Green Party cannot support it unfortunately.MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Ā tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker e ngā mema o te Whare nei tēnā tātau katoa.[Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker; greetings to us all the members of this House.]I am happy to take a short call on this bill. The State Sector Act charges public servants with the ability to provide free and frank advice without fear or favour to the Government of the day. Why is this important? It is because we need to ensure that our advice to Ministers and the Government of the day is apolitical in nature and impartial.So I want to acknowledge the important role our public servants play in the running of our Government. I raise that because clause 18 takes that value of the State Sector Act and the protection of our public servants and says to our senior officials that “You are not good enough to provide free and frank advice to the Ministers on important issues like the environment. We don’t trust you; we actually think that sits with Ministers.” I am saying for all members of the House that we do not operate at the level that our senior public servants operate so I am really disheartened to hear that this bill takes away that very important role of senior public servants and places the ability to pick and select the topics that are under this legislation with the Minister and I am very very saddened by that.In the Minister’s speech on this bill he talked about managing the environment. I got to sit on the Local Government and Environment Committee briefly this morning to hear submissions on my Environmental Protection Agency (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill.I heard another gentleman a submitter talk about managing the environment. I would challenge that the environment or how we term it from where I came from the taiao is something that you manage. What we are here to do—and my colleague Su’a William Sio mentioned this in his contribution—is to protect to nurture to awhi to manaaki and to look after what is ours for the short time that we are on this earth.So there have been two occasions today that I have heard the expression “managing the environment” and we do not have to look very far to see the impact of climate change not just here in New Zealand but all around the countries. So I would say that the use of the word “managing” is inappropriate but that is what the Minister has said in our reading of this bill for the third time.I just want to clarify another point that the Minister made in this House. He talked about the grand or good advice that he received from the Māori Party particularly in reference to new clause 4A of this bill when it comes to the Treaty of Waitangi. Mr Assistant Speaker perhaps for your benefit and for other members of the House can I make a very clear point around mandate. It is important as holders of Māori seats that there is only one party in this House that can say with confidence that its members speak on behalf of Māori because Labour holds six of the seven seats.So I just want it clarified in this House that when the Government talks about receiving good advice from its coalition party the Māori Party it should keep that in perspective because I would hate for the Government to feel that the advice it is getting from the Māori Party actually is a reflection of all the iwi around the country because it simply is not. So I want to make sure that that point is really really important.But in terms of the clause that I indicated new clause 4A when it comes to the Treaty of Waitangi there are two particular phrases there that probably highlight my issue around the Government’s reliance on the Māori Party. New clause 4A(a) talks about “a Māori perspective”. Can I say that that terminology is very dated. It is a very 1980s term and if you go around iwi Māori katoa they do not use the words “Māori perspective”. “Kaupapa Māori”—yes you hear that but not “Māori perspective”. So I just want to give that piece of advice for free.The second clause is new clause 4A(b) where it talks about iwi authorities. We well know because we have got one happening right now about the emergency of hapū entities. So these are two examples of the reliance of the Government on the Māori Party’s advice. I am saying that with all respect. Things have moved and you need to ensure that you are speaking to people who hold mandate and I am sure my colleagues on this side are more than happy to help build your strength in dealing with Treaty of Waitangi issues.I stand there; that is my contribution. We cannot stand in support of this bill. It has lost the opportunity and I think it has got really bad advice. Kia ora tātou.NUK KORAKO (National): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. I stand to take a short call on the Environmental Reporting Bill and there are three really important points that I want to highlight. The first one is that this bill sets up an environmental reporting system that is everything that the previous Government’s attempts were not; secondly it is robust it is independent and it is aligned with international reporting standards; and thirdly there are major provisions in this bill that ensure the independence and reliability of the reports that are required. Finally just from this side of the House: kikoraki te tai kahuraki te tauka [Blue is the tide priceless is the treasure]. A blue tide—where this is concerned this Environmental Reporting Bill is a treasure. Kia ora.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Can I say that I am really disappointed that at this final stage of the legislation Labour is still not able to support it. I think it would have been a really great move for every single party in this Parliament to have been able to vote in favour of the bill because the intention the framework of the bill is certainly sound. The devil is in the detail and that is where we have the problem with it.Can I commend the Hon Amy Adams who was the Minister who originally brought this legislation to Parliament. It is my view that she recognised the gap that we have in our system. We do not have environmental reporting standards and we do not have any public accountability for the state of our environment. She recognised that deficiency and sought to address it and then that same cause was taken up by the Hon Nick Smith.I also want to acknowledge the work of the Local Government and Environment Committee. I am not a permanent member of that select committee but I did sit on it during much of the deliberation on this bill and I think that the members of that committee worked hard to ensure that the concerns of the submitters were heard and understood. In all but one incident they were responded to and that is the one instance that both the Green Party and Labour expressed concern about in their minority views when this bill came back to the House.For me it is even more frustrating because this is a lost opportunity. We all know that we were lacking in environmental reporting. We have had only two state of the environment reports done in New Zealand in the last 50 years both quite recently. They highlighted actually the need for more regular reports on the state of our environment so that we can all monitor what is happening. We all care about the environment. It is hard to say whether it is going well or not and then to develop robust public policy if we do not have reporting. It is impossible for our non-governmental organisations—our community and voluntary organisations—that work so tirelessly for environmental causes to be able to say that what they are doing is making a difference and having a positive impact if again there are no measurements.The most important thing about measurements though is that people trust them and that people can rely on them to be sound. You have to have evidence that is independent and evidence that is based on science and in this legislation we have missed that opportunity. I know that there have been a number of attempts to get the Minister to just consider that point. He was dismissive of it in his third reading contribution and I think he is better than that actually. I think he is probably a bit irritated that he was not able to get his Cabinet colleagues to agree to changes in the legislation. He demonstrated earlier an understanding of the frustration that parties on this side of the House felt about the lost opportunity but he then dismissed it in his third reading speech.We should have independent environmental reporting so that not just in New Zealand but internationally we can hold our heads up and say that we know this is evidence-based and that we know it is independent—that there has been no political tainting of this in order to make a particular Minister or a particular party leading the Government look good. I do not think that either the Hon Nick Smith or the Hon Amy Adams had that in mind when they developed and progressed this legislation but we cannot say that their personal integrity would be enough to carry the debate in New Zealand or internationally. We should have been able to send a clear message from this Parliament that every single member cares about environmental reporting and thinks that it is something that we should have in our legislation.I suppose the other lost opportunity that is very sad and it has been highlighted by my colleague Su’a William Sio in his earlier contribution is that this was also an opportunity for New Zealand to show leadership amongst our Pacific neighbours who are the most threatened of any countries by climate change. We have done nothing. So when they look to Australia and New Zealand for leadership on these issues they are going to be so disappointed. This was another chance that we had to say that we care not just about the impact of decisions made in New Zealand on our environment but also about the impact of decisions made in New Zealand on the environment in the Pacific. That would have been not just a good move in terms of actually monitoring the actions that we take but also a clear signal to Pacific countries that we care enough about them to consider our actions and to put it in legislation so that we can be monitored against those actions.As I said at the beginning this was a bill that I think started out with a lot of hope. It did fill a gap in our legislation that needed to be filled but it has been a lost opportunity. With just a few changes to the provisions in clause 18 all parties in this Parliament could have agreed to this bill but that was not to happen. So I hope that in the future we are able to get better progress on this and that we can truly have robust standards of reporting.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 1 p.m. (Thursday)