New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill

I move, That the New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill be now read a third time. This bill will give New Zealanders the opportunity, for the first time ever, to vote on the flag that represents them and their country. We made a commitment as a Government, ahead of the last election, and this bill delivers on that commitment for a referendum on the flag.

The first of two postal referendums will soon be held over a 3-week period from late November and into December. I just remind the House about the process that was put in place, of which this legislation is part. Early on the Government, with the assistance of a cross-party group of MPs, set up the Flag Consideration Panel. It was resourced by the Government, but in every other respect it has been operating independently and has now, through a process of public engagement, particularly through its website, produced a long list of 40 flags.

The members of the cross-party group took quite an interest in the legislation and made a number of comments during the Committee stage, questioning whether officials had acted properly in the advice that they gave to the cross-party group. I just want to put on the record that I have no concerns about the roles that officials have played. Cabinet made a decision in October 2014 about the process and the budget for this project. The decisions were announced publicly at the time, and the Cabinet paper and minute were made immediately available online. So the process has at all times stressed the independence of the Flag Consideration Panel and the transparency of any decision making around it. I want to thank the cross-party group for their contribution to this bill.

Consensus recommendations of the cross-party group are determining the planned referendum dates, the preferential voting system used in the first referendum, the number of alternative flags on the first referendum voting paper, and the approach to regulating referendum advertising. The bill contains the measures required for the referendum process to progress. This includes setting out the postal voting processes of the two referendums and a promoter statement requirement for those who are publishing referendum advertising. The bill also has measures for implementing the new flag if voters decide to change the flag, and they are separate and parallel to the work the Flag Consideration Panel has been operating.

The panel has now released a long list of alternative flag designs, and we look forward to them accomplishing what must be a difficult task of selecting from those 40 flags four flags for the purposes of the first referendum. Now that the process for underpinning the referendums—the passage of this bill—will be complete, I think that the public debate over the flag is likely to rise a few notches in intensity but also in relevance to what the flag is about. Up until now it has been dominated, to some extent at least, by criticism about the amount of money that is being spent. There has been quite a bit of expression of views by people who have every right to oppose any change whatsoever and oppose the opportunity for the public to make a choice, which seems a bit odd given that that opposition has come mainly from the most populist party in Parliament, New Zealand First, which in every other respect believes we should have referendums on everything. But apparently on this, when it comes to putting New Zealand first, New Zealand First members do not believe that New Zealanders are capable of exercising a choice about the flag. It is almost as bizarre as the Labour Party position, which is to support a change in the flag but oppose a referendum and not vote in it.

Clearly we are heading out of those swirling political waters, fortunately, to the sunny uplands where New Zealanders will get to decide what kind of symbol they regard stands best for their country and their own sense of identity. I look forward to a robust debate in that respect, because, as the Flag Consideration Panel found out, there is a wide range of associations that New Zealanders have between the name of their country and their flag and the values that they think it represents. I would imagine that the discussion about the choice of the flag will represent that wide range of associations. And then there is the sheer difficulty of understanding the intuitive connections. If you think New Zealand is about equality or fairness or freedom, what does that look like on a flag? Of course, there will be extensive debate about the balance of representation of our history, rich as it is, and our future, aspirational as that is.

In my capacity as a member of the House I want to acknowledge the role the Prime Minister has played in bringing about this legislation and, in fact, the referendum. Leadership is always challenging, and there is no doubt that he has been challenged in his desire to see this debate occur. But I have absolutely no doubt that in pushing this issue forward he is showing the qualities of leadership and a fundamental belief that New Zealanders should have this opportunity. The logic is pretty simple: New Zealanders have gained in confidence about their economic capacity and about their place in the world. It is a hard-won confidence, through various controversies and recessions and internal political debate, and there is a unique opportunity now for people to choose how that confidence should be expressed.

The Prime Minister was, at the time he raised this issue, almost uniquely aware of the need for that opportunity. But the debate that we will see from here, I think, will see many New Zealanders grasp that opportunity with two hands and express their views. I would counsel the Leader of the Opposition to change his position—he does not usually have much difficulty in doing that—on not voting in the referendum. Even if he is opposed to change, there is a fundamental legitimacy about a referendum as a way of deciding it. Opting out seems to me to be the worst response to the challenge. Get in and argue—have a different point of view, try to persuade others. But for a political leader to say “Well, I’m not going to participate.” is actually letting down his party and letting down his role.

I look forward to the expression of the will of the people even if the New Zealand First Party fears it. I think it will be good for New Zealand to have this debate, and who knows—if the alternative is good enough, many of us just might vote for it.

I want to start where the Deputy Prime Minister nearly left off, and that is with the role of the Prime Minister in this vanity project. I am an old-fashioned parliamentarian, and I think the role of the Prime Minister is to stand up in this Parliament and to state his views. I waited through the first reading of this legislation, I waited through the second reading of this legislation, and I waited through the Committee stage for John Key to get on his feet and to give his views. I was waiting for the Prime Minister to give his views as part of this debate, and what did I see? He decided to contribute to this debate in the House by way of Twitter. He got the timing wrong because he did not anticipate Solid Energy, but he would not stand up on his hind legs in this Parliament and give his views. For a Prime Minister of a country who has a pet project, it shows, to me, a lack of commitment—

💬 Grant Robertson: Thrown Bill under the bus

—no, I cannot say that—to a parliamentary democracy.

I do want to make a few other points. I think what many members do not realise, and what John Key certainly does not realise, is that this is a very serious matter for a lot of people. It is not just, you know, “Shall we have five or six bottles of champagne with our dinner at the barbie in Hawaii?”. It is not something like, you know, “Shall we buy another Mercedes or another Porsche?”. It is a matter that is a symbol of New Zealand and important to a lot of people. I think Twitter does make some pretty good contributions in the area, and the one that I saw yesterday that likened changing the flag to an individual getting a tattoo is something that is pretty accurate. It is something that is a serious, long-lasting decision and one around which the process should be good and where the timing is also important.

Over the last couple of years and the next few years the Government and communities around New Zealand are spending over $100 million commemorating the First World War. The symbol under which New Zealand soldiers fought and died was the New Zealand flag. Their representatives, the RSA, had some very strong views—one about the change, but in particular about the destruction or the possible destruction of that symbol during that period of commemoration. Those representatives of the RSAs around New Zealand were treated disgracefully by the Justice and Electoral Committee, which was considering this bill. Ten minutes was given to the national organisation to be heard—10 minutes only. And what happened? Over the 3 weeks of adjournment—3 weeks of adjournment—Jacqui Dean refused to call the committee together to hear the submissions and to give people more time to be heard. Jacqui Dean, assisted by Alfred Ngaro, Jono Naylor, and Chris Bishop, denied 747 people who had made an application to be heard by the select committee their ability—[Interruption] Now Jacqui Dean is trying to blame Louise Upston. Sorry, I—

💬 Jacqui Dean: You forgot about Louise—so mean.

No, I do not think she was there on the day I was there. So we will just leave it. The other ones were the nasty ones. They were particularly nasty to the 747 mainly returned servicemen who used the Facebook page circulated by the RSA to put their submission in—

💬 Jono Naylor: By the Labour Party.

Well, yes—the Labour Party helped develop it. That is right. [Interruption] Members opposite laugh at returned soldiers because they used Facebook to put in submissions.

💬 Brett Hudson: We’re laughing at Trevor Mallard.

No, not via me—directly to the committee, Brett Hudson; directly to the committee. They were not allowed to be heard, and those members made that decision, and that is a disgrace. It is an absolute disgrace that that member went on holiday for 3 weeks instead of convening the select committee during the select committee sitting period.

I want to make a few other points—first of all, about the cross-party committee. I have said previously that the Labour Party—and I will take responsibility because I gave advice on the matter—made a mistake going into that process. We trusted the National Party members when they said that they would be straightforward and above board. And they were not. There were about three tasks. One of them involved giving advice on the shape of the referendum. At the meeting that considered it, every single party other than the National Party said that there should be a yes/no vote at the first referendum. Every single party that was present there was of that view. The shape of the referendum as recommended by the cross-party committee was rejected by the National Government Cabinet, and that is a disgrace. The committee put forward a group of fine New Zealanders as a suggested oversight group, and what happened? Some of the best people—

💬 Hon Bill English: Most of them got through.

Oh, most of them got through, but a group of them were knocked out and replaced by National Party hacks—people like Julie Christie. Julie Christie was responsible for the part of the programme that spent $2,300 getting people to meetings. For every single person who got to a meeting—the part that Julie Christie was in charge of—$2,300 was spent to get each individual there. Rod Drury, of course, was someone who—it is no secret—was agreed on by the wider committee. The online campaign has been fantastic. The work of the chair has been, I think, highly ethical given the very difficult task that he was given, but the confidence in the group was destroyed by the fact that Cabinet rejected the nominations of the cross-party group.

People have different views as to whether to vote or whether not to vote in the first referendum. I have heard my leader say that he, basically, cannot be bothered and that he will consider it later. I actually have a different view. I used to think we should change the flag. I think now is an inappropriate time to do it. I am going to pick the least popular option—the one that I think is most likely to be rejected by the people of New Zealand. I will put that at No. 1 and the one that is most likely to be accepted at No. 4, because I think that is what I can do to reinforce the fact that this is not a time for change.

And, as a final point, we are yet to get from Bill English the cost of the change process if it goes forward and the cost to the Crown. Will it be $100 million, $200 million, $300 million, or $400 million? How much is it going to cost the Crown? How much is it going to cost to change every crest in the country? Every Government crest in the country includes the flag, and in the part of the bill that says what the crest is, it says “the New Zealand flag.” So all the crests have to be changed, and that does not include private sector spending. This bill is a dog. It should be rejected. I know it is not going to be, and, in a funny way, John Key losing is going to be fun.

It is an honour to speak on this bill, the New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill, but it is disappointing to see that a member who has probably been here for over a hundred years and has served this Parliament for such a long time—he has been here for many years—has come to a point where he knows and he has agreed. In fact, at the Justice and Electoral Committee, he told us that he agrees with the changing of the flag. It is in the Hansard. He said that changing the flag is actually the right thing to do, yet today, in this House, openly to the public of New Zealand, he is opposing the bill out of spite—only out of spite. He knows that it is the right thing to do. He knows that it is the right thing to do, but he is choosing not to vote for it out of spite. It is a sad day when a member who has been here for that long and who has made a contribution can get to that point and, out of spite, vote against the legislation.

That member also made comments about the 740 form submissions that wanted to make an oral submission, and he has been going on about it in his all of his speeches, even in the Committee stage. That member knows, because he has been here long enough, that form submissions are taken as one submission and as a whole. He has sat on select committees, he has been a backbencher, he has been chair of a select committee, and he has been a Minister. That member knows that a form submission is taken as one submission. So to get up here and tell us that we did not allow the democratic right of 740 form submissions is not true and is not correct at all. Again, it is an act of spite—an act of spite. Instead, we heard the submissions that came forward from people who took the time to write their submissions and who took the time to say: “Yes, I would like to come before the select committee and be able to present my submission.”

In the speeches that we have heard on this flag referendums bill, we have heard people talk about this possibly being a vanity bill for the Prime Minister. I want to sort of contest this point. In fact, Carmel Sepuloni made this point just the other day when she said that the title of the legislation could be “The Prime Minister’s Vanity Bill”. Well, let me just remind that member. In 1970 when the then National Minister of Internal Affairs , Allan Highet, actually put a petition forward, was that vanity? No, it was not, because he was challenging the fact that there should be change. In 1988 former Labour MP and Minister of Foreign Affairs Russell Marshall—and I know the honourable member over there Trevor Mallard will probably know him—was that vanity? Was it vanity when he said that there was a point of change that was needed? In 1989 the Listener had a magazine article in which it actually had a competition, and there were over 600 entries and seven finalists. The current flag of 1902 was the winner only by a minority, and the people said: “Actually, this dispels the myth that this is the time for change.” Was that vanity? No, it was not.

Let us get to February 1992, when the late Hon Matiu Rata, former Minister of Māori Affairs for the Labour Government and the founder of Mana Māori Motuhake, called for a redesign to re-establish a national flag. Was that a vanity project? No, it was not. Why? Because even Mr Mallard knows that it was the right thing to do. This is what he said; it is in the Hansard. He said: “Yes, the current flag of 1902 represents our history and our heritage, but does it represent our future? No, it does not.” That was his challenge.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: It does—it does.

At that point in time—and listen up, Mr O’Rourke—the RSA had challenged and contested every single petition to change the flag. In 1992 the RSA conceded and said this: “This will not go away. The issue of change is going to be coming from one generation to the next.” [Interruption] So they said this, Mr O’Rourke and Mr Mark: “If there is to be a change, let it be by referendum.” In other words, let the people choose—let the people choose—and that is exactly what this bill is about. It is letting the people choose to have their day here.

We know that many people right up and down the country have turned round and said that this is something we should look at. This is what the bill is doing. It is saying: “Let the people choose.” So what have we got here? We have had 10,290 alternative designs—10,290 alternative designs have come forward—and 26,000 New Zealanders have shared what they stand for. In other words, they have been asked this question: what are the values that are important to us if we were to redesign the flag? And I know that Mr Mallard would say that that is the right process: let the people choose. What are the values that are reflected in this flag? What is the narrative behind the design? That is what has been asked of our people.

There were 2.7 million views of the flag gallery. That is what has happened. There were more than 8,500 online visits and 6,000 visits to the workshops and information stands. What does this say? In other words, the people are saying this: “Let us choose. Let the people choose.” Mr Mallard knows that this is the right process. The members of New Zealand First know that this is the right process. They are confused. As my good friend Jono Naylor said, they are so confused that they have had to write it down—in fact, I think they have squiggled it out now. On that little sticker, it said “New Zealand—why?”, because even they were confused; they thought that it was an Australian flag, right?

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Nonsense.

I think Mr O’Rourke has got his little blue marker out and he has squiggled it all out. That is right—he has taken it away. Even he knew that he was confused about what that flag was. So in order to allow that confusion to be dispelled and in order for the nation to choose, we believe that this bill is the right bill. We are simply saying this: let the people choose, as they have asked to do. As the RSA has said, let it be by referendum.

My final point is about this talk about the fact that—it is like MMP—we went out and asked the people this: do you want it or not? Let us remember that we had had years of talk about MMP, so people understood it. You cannot ask people for a decision on something they do not know about. What we have asked people is this: let us put out the designs; let us make sure that people have a view on what that alternative could look like; let us know what the narrative is, not only about our history and our heritage but also, as the late Matiu Rata said, in this place even, in front of Mr Mallard, “Let’s choose a flag that represents our future.” That is what this referendum is doing, and the people will choose that. I commend this bill to the House.

It is not often that I disagree with my good friend the member for Hutt South, Trevor Mallard.

💬 Alastair Scott: Oh, yes, it is.

No, no. You would be surprised, actually, on the other side of the House.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I get on with the right-wingers OK.

Oh, yes, we can take that up later, Mr Mallard. His depiction of his thought process around the flag—he was a person who wanted to see it change and then he has come to believe over time that it should stay the same—is not a position I agree with. I am one of the members of the Labour Party who thinks that there is a place for a new flag for New Zealand, but I am equally a member of the New Zealand public who is angry with John Key for turning a process—

💬 Jacqui Dean: You’re always angry with John Key—doesn’t count.

No, no. Jacqui Dean contributes meaningfully, yet again, from the back row there. I, along with a lot of other New Zealanders, am angry with John Key that a discussion about this and a discussion about our national identity has become a vanity project for him. There is absolutely no doubt that that is what has happened.

Ironically, as Mr Mallard says, the vanity does not extend to coming to Parliament to actually talk about the flag change. But, in terms of the way this entire discussion has now played out in the New Zealand public, it has played out as being about John Key and his desperate desire for a legacy and his desperate desire to leave something here in a flawed process that actually does not, as Alfred Ngaro would have it, give New Zealanders a say in the way that it should on this. A flawed process is the actual legacy that John Key has left New Zealanders on this matter.

I have a feeling that two things are going to happen with this referendum. The first of those—

💬 Ron Mark: Oh, yeah, you’ve got your crystal ball.

That is right, I have. I will see if Mr Mark agrees with these. I have a feeling there are two things that are going to happen with this referendum. The first of those is that the turnout in this referendum will be disappointing. The turnout in this referendum will not reflect what the National Party says to us is such a significant thing and a once in a lifetime opportunity. I think we will find the turnout will be low, in part because of matters that were discussed during the Committee stages of the debate around the way that the referendum has been held, the technology that has been used, and all of those things. So I think that is the first thing that I would say.

The second is that I suspect that the ridiculous order in which this referendum is taking place will come home to haunt National, because, by not asking New Zealanders the question of whether or not they wanted to keep the flag first, it put in place a process that will undermine National’s own argument, in my view. Government members are not being straight up with New Zealanders. They are not going into this conversation with New Zealanders saying: “Do you want this change?”. It has been raised in this House several times before.

If you were to spend thousands and thousands of dollars driving all around the countryside looking at different houses to try to decide whether or not you wanted to buy a house, and you had not even worked out whether you had enough money to do it, how ridiculous would that be?

💬 Ron Mark: It’s going to cost more than $25 million.

Exactly. How ridiculous would that be? And that is the problem with this process. The complete failure to treat New Zealanders with respect and actually look at this in a way that is a sensible and logical order is ridiculous.

The Labour Party in the Committee stages of the debate proposed two amendments. The first of those was to defer the referendum for 5 years. I think that was a sensible suggestion. I agree with other Labour speakers that at this time in New Zealand’s economic situation and in this time in New Zealand’s social situation, the time is right to push that back. To my mind, I would like to see New Zealand have a conversation about our identity and about our nationhood that encompasses not only a symbol like the flag, which is important, but also the future of our constitutional arrangements.

To me that is the thing that John Key wants to avoid. He wants to avoid the discussion about our overall constitutional arrangements, which should be happening at the same time. I am deeply disappointed that it is the vanity of John Key rather than the substantive issue of what kind of arrangements we should have in New Zealand. How can we be having a conversation like this about our flag without the deeper conversation about whether we are a republic, whether we are a constitutional monarchy—

💬 Hon Nanaia Mahuta: What does sovereignty mean?

Yeah, exactly. As my colleague Nanaia Mahuta says, what sovereignty means today in New Zealand, in the 21st century. But we are not having that conversation, because the Prime Minister wants to diminish it and reduce it down to his vanity project and his attempt at a legacy, because real leadership would be taking on that bigger challenge. Real leadership would be saying: “Let’s engage all New Zealanders in a conversation about how our country should be run and what values are important to us and what arrangements reflect those values in our constitutional arrangements.” But that is not what we have got. What we have got is an ill-thought-out, two-stage referendum process that is round the wrong way.

The first of our considerations was to defer for 5 years to be able to take on some of those ideas. The second proposal that we put forward was to cancel the second referendum if 50 percent of eligible voters do not vote in the first. And this really is a serious question: if the National Party really believe that the flag is this significant and this important, why not adopt that? Why not adopt the idea that, actually, it is important enough that at least half of New Zealanders have a say? But that was not picked up, and we know, from the debate in the Committee stages, that that is because National MPs are just not confident. They are not confident that people will participate to that level.

It is time for the National Party to front up to New Zealanders and to stop being so out of touch with what they must hearing in their electorates and around the country about this flawed referendum process. That is actually, in my view, why John Key has not participated in the debate, because he is worried about it. He is worried that it is going to go down and that it is going to tarnish “Brand Key”. Well, he should front up to New Zealanders, and he should accept that at least 50 percent of them should participate in the first referendum in order for the second one to occur. Unfortunately, both of those proposals by the Labour Party were rejected in the Committee stages.

I want to refer, just before I come towards the end of my contribution, to the select committee process, because I think it does sum up what has gone wrong here. For committee members—and Alfred Ngaro did this when he stood up before—to say to 747 people, who were, as Trevor Mallard says, largely returned service people who got together and decided that they want to put forward their views, and National members of the committee outright rejected—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: 15,000 did it.

Yeah, but 747 on that page. But 747 wanted to be heard, and were rejected on that side of the House. And, again, I ask: if they truly believe this is significant and if they truly believe this is the big change that they want to do in terms of national identity, how dare they not give those people the right to be heard? How dare they deny those people, who have got so much history with the flag, the right to be heard? So I am deeply disappointed that we have reached this point.

As I said at the start of my contribution, I still believe that there is a place for a change in the flag, but it comes as part of a wider process, and anything other than that wider process of consideration of our future constitutional arrangements makes this tokenism. It makes this process a vanity project. It is a huge lost opportunity for New Zealand to truly reflect on who we are in the 21st century. Instead, we are subjected to a political process for John Key to be able to give his so-called legacy to New Zealand. I think that is wrong, and that is why I oppose this bill.

Labour members have found themselves in an invidious position over the consideration of this bill because they actually want to change the flag. And that is a problem for them because they campaigned on wanting to change the flag—in fact, they campaigned on having a referendum to change the flag—and they have found themselves wrong-footed, somewhat, by the fact that this Government, which also campaigned on changing the flag, has actually done what it said it would do. Having found themselves wrong-footed over the process, they are having to cast around for reasons to oppose the bill. It has been a little bit like dancing on the head of a pin because you raise one foot and you just about topple off. It has been like that the whole way through this process. It seems to me that when the Labour Opposition finds itself trying to advance an argument that it does not actually believe in, it then starts attacking the process. That has been very apparent, also, throughout this consideration of the flag bill.

I want to dwell a little bit on the select committee stage of this bill and talk about how the Justice and Electoral Committee made certain decisions about the hearing of submissions. Those of us who are backbenchers and who spend a lot of time in committee rooms will know that a committee will have a discussion at the start of the process in order to decide those mundane things like time frames—how long we are going to invite people to speak for; what the conditions are that they come in. When committees are faced with some pragmatic decisions, which is what this committee did, we make—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: The member went on holiday. She didn’t sit during the recess week. It’s an outrage. She voted not to sit during the recess week.

They make those decisions as a committee. And so what happened in the consideration of this bill—and, for those people sitting at home or listening on the radio, they will hear a bit of noise in the background. That is Trevor Mallard. That is Trevor Mallard losing the argument yet again, because Trevor Mallard has got no argument to make, and so, in the absence of any argument, he is making a lot of noise. [Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

Some of the decisions that the committee made were about how long we were going to invite people to speak for and about how many people we were going to hear. It was a committee decision; it was not a National Government decision. In fact, was it not the Green Party that voted with the Government on this? Yes, it did. So the majority of the committee voted that it would consider as form submissions a number of submissions coming into the committee.

Form submissions are a normal part of select committee practice, and it does surprise me that the Assistant Speaker of the House, who is also the person making the most noise over this and who should know his Standing Orders, does not know his Standing Orders, or does not purport to know his Standing Orders, in this case. Normal select committee practice is that the committee can decide to group as form submissions a number of similar or identical submissions, treat them as if they were a petition, and consider them in that way. That is what the committee decided to do.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: The member never read them.

Trevor Mallard is making that noise again because he is losing the argument again.

I just want to go into those form submissions a little bit more because the question then becomes: “How did those submissions come to the committee?”. Well, it might surprise some members of the public to know that those submissions came to the committee via the Labour Party website. Those form submissions came to the committee via the Labour Party website, where submitters clicked on to the Labour Party website and were given a tick box to tick. So all that people had to do—and they were having their say, absolutely—was say: “No, I disagree.” Well, that is fine, but when you get a whole lot of those submissions, with the same people making absolutely the same point—and it would have been a sizable pile—I would contend that grouping them together with a sample on the top that reflects everything that lay beneath should be treated as a form submission.

So when Trevor Mallard gets to this House—and every time he does, he loses the argument just a little bit more—what he is doing is he is wilfully ignoring what he should know about parliamentary process. I will tell the House about the select committee—and, at this point, I want to thank the members for their consideration of this bill—it was a lively debate, as a select committee debate should be. We heard very carefully the submissions that were made to the committee, and we made a couple of changes as a result of our select committee consideration.

I am not going to make a terribly long contribution to this debate. I think that this bill is relatively simple. It sets out the framework by which New Zealanders can have a say on whether or not they wish to change the flag. The final point that I want to make about the process and about some of the Opposition contributions—mostly in the name of Trevor Mallard—as they lose the debate, is that this is not about the select committee process, actually. This is not about what the Prime Minister may or may not have had in his heart when he generated this debate, although we are pretty sure that it was in the best interests of New Zealand. It is not about that, actually. What this is about is enabling New Zealanders to have their say on what represents them by way of a flag.

With this third reading we the representatives of the New Zealand people have delivered ourselves of our collective wisdom on the issue of the New Zealand flag debate. We are about to conclude our part of the exercise. We have been voting and will, no doubt, vote again—today, perhaps—by 63 to 58, to proceed with the two referendums on the basis of the piece of legislation that is in front of us.

We have expended a quantum of hot air on this issue on both sides of the House on behalf of the people we represent. The 63 members who are about to support the legislation have argued that the original idea was a good one, that the dual process for the national decision is appropriate, that the cross-party panel is legitimately empowered to decide the four options, and that the expenditure is worthwhile.

The 58 members about to oppose the legislation have argued different things. New Zealand First opposes the fundamental idea of any change to the New Zealand flag. The people should not be offered a choice. Labour supported the idea of potential change, but, although many members among them cheerfully indicated they would support a new flag, they rejected the process and proposed a different one. Individual members of that party have felt the need to convey to the public their personal views.

We in the Green Party maintain that changing the flag is in itself an insufficiently important constitutional thing to be pursued by itself alone. It is, we have said, essentially a matter of optics and not worth proceeding with unless it were accompanied by other far-reaching constitutional reform.

In the first reading I identified the inconsistencies, as we saw them, on the part of the Prime Minister in personally proposing the process for a change of flag. He claimed there was a mandate for change, offered an unsolicited personal view in favour of change, and then acknowledged there was a need for a public debate and that there was no presumption of change. So the public could be forgiven for being a trifle confused. With all of this flying around on both sides of the debate it is no surprise that party politics has subsumed the substantive issue of the debate, following the Canadians half a century later and altering—should we decide as a people to do so—the emblem of who we are and what we stand for.

Meanwhile the panel has worked with professionalism and the designers have worked with creativity and passion. We have some 40 options and will soon have just four from which to choose, and I believe that the panel will make an informed judgment as to the final four. It remains then simply for the people to speak, and having spoken—by definition infallibly—we can move on to the truly important constitutional issues confronting the Realm of New Zealand that continue to cry out for attention.

There should be, I think, at least three categories of consideration for a flag change. The first is that there needs to be an appropriate context for it. Such a context could be, for example, a proposal for a republic, or at least a debate on a wide range of real constitutional questions such as Māori seats, a written constitution, the size of Parliament, the size and number of electorates, the length of the parliamentary term, Māori electoral options and participation, and the role of the Treaty of Waitangi. But there is no such context for this bill. That context is missing altogether. Therefore, there is little or nothing to inform the reason for the change of a flag on this occasion, which might, in turn, have informed the kind of flag that could be needed if, indeed, there was to be any change at all. Of course, New Zealand First denies that.

Secondly, the process for this kind of change needs to be driven from the bottom-up, not the top-down. This proposal is out of the blue from John Key—just his latest big idea, and, as usual, his bad idea. It risks, as it has done already in this case, undue politicisation and, therefore, divisiveness when we really need efforts to encourage unity in this country. But Mr Key is not interested in that. No doubt the PM has his own agenda. We are all expected to dance to his tune. But the consultation process has shown no public pressure for change. The roadshow that toured the country has been extremely poorly supported, with a very modest response online as well. The third category is that the process needs to be fair, understandable, and uncomplicated, but this process is none of those things. The process is not fair, because the first flag referendum effectively disenfranchises people who want the current 1902 flag. But they cannot express those feelings in the first referendum; therefore, the turnout is bound to be pretty low. I predict it will be lower than 25 percent. And there will also be many spoilt votes because the process is essentially undemocratic for the reason I just gave.

Also, the process is not understandable. Some may well think that the first referendum is the only referendum on the flag and that they must choose a new flag because the current one, of course, is not there at all. They will think that the current one is to be dumped, whatever they want. This lack of understandability is caused by the unnecessary complexity of the two-referendum system, one of which is totally back to front. One referendum would have been enough, either by asking first whether a flag change is wanted at all—which a normal, common-sense person would have done, but not this Government—or at least adding the current flag to the first referendum as one of the choices, thereby making the second referendum completely redundant.

It is now perfectly clear that the vast majority of New Zealanders are asking why we would even consider a new flag, especially now, in a year when we are remembering those who fought under the current flag at Gallipoli 100 years ago. One hundred years ago this month was the battle of Chunuk Bair. It is the efforts of brave Kiwis at that battle that have defined New Zealand as a truly independent nation. I want to read some excerpts from a recent newspaper article about that. The first says this: “The commander of the Wellington battalion Colonel William Malone never received the acknowledgment he was owed for his role. He cared deeply for his men, and when his British commanders ordered him to attack Chunuk Bair in daylight he defied them, saying: ‘We are not taking orders from you people. My men are not going to commit suicide.’ ” Further on, in another article, it is stated: “Chunuk Bair is also seen as [key to] … the development of a distinct New Zealand identity, not least because of the perception that Kiwis and Australians were treated as cannon fodder by bumbling British officers.” Later in the same articles it says: “And when it comes to Gallipoli there’s the added significance that this was the first time New Zealanders had been deployed … [as] distinct from Britain … ‘It was foundational in the development of our national identity.’ ”

This very month is the moment that John Key, the ever-silent Prime Minister on this issue and in this debate, and his worn-out National Government have chosen to push a new flag on New Zealanders. This is the moment he chooses to do that. How grossly insensitive to the men who died at Chunuk Bair. How deeply disrespectful to the flag they fought under. How totally badly timed in terms of context to be parading the incredibly awful long list of new flag designs we have seen recently—those gaudy, ugly, dull designs, most of which look more like logos for a pound of butter than they do a flag of the stature of New Zealand. One of them—the one with a white fern on a black flag, which I understand the Prime Minister favours—looks more like the Jolly Roger from a pirate ship. It is totally, totally inappropriate and out of touch with our rich Māori, Pacific, and British heritage.

The current flag is not out of date, as those members opposite would have us believe. It is as appropriate today as it was in 1902, when officially adopted. It represents, through the Union Jack in the corner, the British heritage of New Zealand—the Scottish, the Irish, and the English heritage—the English language, legal system, and culture, and the Westminster system of Government. All of those things are our heritage and are just as much the Kiwi heritage as they are the British heritage, and that is why that flag should stay in the corner of the New Zealand flag. But the flag also represents our Pacific and Māori heritage through the Southern Cross, which tells of the amazing feats of navigation and resilience by ancient Māori people finding their way across the vast Pacific Ocean and settling Aotearoa, and who are now the tāngata whenua of the land.

There is, in New Zealand First’s view, only one appropriate response to the first flag referendum for anyone who respects the current flag and who wants to keep the current flag. Either those people, and they are going to be the majority, should not vote at all—they should stay away. Or, alternatively, they may draw a vote, but not choose any of the four alternatives shown and return a blank vote. That would be proper. Or, if they wish, they could write “I want the current flag.” across the ballot paper, choose none of the alternatives, and put that in the ballot box. That would be appropriate as well. Given the gerrymandered and inappropriate nature of this non-referendum, this failed and flawed process, New Zealand First calls on Kiwis to do any one of those things to show their disgust, not just at the timing and the process for this referendum but the gerrymandered nature of it. The fact is that they want to keep the current flag, just as New Zealand First wants to.

It is a pleasure to rise and take a call in this third reading of the New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill. The third reading is a great opportunity to reflect on some of the arguments that have been made in the first reading, the second reading, the Committee of the whole House, and the Justice and Electoral Committee, and on what has already been said at the third reading. For a start, I have got to pick up on the last comment that Mr O’Rourke made in the previous speech, when he was inciting, I guess, civil disobedience in some way, shape, or form by encouraging people to spoil voting papers or not to vote at all. I hope that he does remember to tell them to make sure they vote in the second referendum if they are not going to vote in the first one.

There have been some really interesting arguments put forward as to why people should vote this down, and I want to reflect on some of them. The first one, which has been brought up a lot, has been the order of the questions, with people suggesting that we should have a yes/no vote first. This was put forward in the Committee of the whole House by a number of members, but possibly most eloquently by Kris Faafoi the other day, who likened choosing a new flag to having a new car. His argument was that if you are going to get another car, you should decide whether or not you want another car before deciding what kind you want. I was reflecting on this, and I was thinking of my wife’s Suzuki Swift. If somebody said to her “Do you want another car?”, she might say: “Well, yes. But it would depend on what it is.” Because if somebody was offering her a brand new Lamborghini, the answer might be yes; if someone was offering her a 1972 Ford Cortina, the answer might be no. So I think it is really important that we do get these questions in the right order, and this is the right order to have them in. It is the most logical.

By having the referendum split across two referendums and by putting them in this order, it is allowing absolutely everybody to participate. If you do not want a change to the New Zealand flag, you can still choose a potential alternative in the first referendum—or you can choose not to vote if that is what you want to do. Then the second referendum will decide which of those flags you want. If you definitely want change, you get to participate. If you definitely do not want change, you get to participate. But if you ask the yes/no question first, all of those people who are saying that it depends on what the options are will be excluded from the debate. Mr O’Rourke says that he wants everyone to participate. Everyone will get to participate, and if they choose to participate in only the second referendum that is OK—that is their business—because the first referendum is subservient to the second referendum.

The other thing that has been said, and Mr O’Rourke mentioned it a number of times in the Committee of the whole House, is how gormless the alternatives are. He used the words “gaudy” and “ugly” today, and he said that the alternatives were all in this category. I find this a little bit disturbing because one of the arguments that has been put forward is that the current flag is the flag that New Zealand soldiers died and fought under. Actually, a whole heap of those alternative designs that have been put forward have got the silver fern on them. I can tell Mr O’Rourke that, actually, if you want to have a sense of right dealings with people who have died for New Zealand—if you have a look at every New Zealand war grave, you will see that there is a silver fern on it—referring to the silver fern as “gormless”, “gaudy”, or “ugly” is, I think, a whole lot more disrespectful than whatever else has been talked about in this argument, as we have gone through it.

The other thing that has been really interesting is to observe the Labour Party’s approach to this debate. At least, it was quite good in the Committee of the whole House the other day. Mr Lees-Galloway finally—because not many Labour members have been willing to do it—admitted that it was the Labour Party policy to change the flag going into the last election. We did invite him to read out what the policy said but he declined, so I will do so for the House right now. It says this: “Labour will: review the design of the New Zealand flag involving flag design experts and with full public consultation and involvement.” So that is OK. The Labour Party was talking about that, and that is all right. But the argument that he put forward, and it has been put forward again by Mr Robertson today, saying to defer it for 5 years—Mr Mallard was suggesting that perhaps we defer it further—is kind of interesting, because if you read the next line in the Labour Party policy, it says: “We believe that the time has come for a change …”. It does not say: “We believe that in 5 years’ time, the time might come.” The Labour Party policy says: “We believe that the time has come for a change …”. I think that is kind of fascinating.

The other thing that Labour members keep saying too is that this is a vanity project—a vanity project of the Prime Minister. They say: “Oh, it’s vanity. Oh, it’s all down to the vanity of the Prime Minister as to why we are doing this now.” As I said the other day, when somebody put this in the Labour Party policy, whose vanity was it then? Because that is what those members are telling us: it is all about vanity—it is all about vanity. It was in the Labour Party policy, and so whose vanity was it then? The other thing that has been really interesting is that during the 2014 election campaign Labour’s then leader—I keep losing track—Mr David Cunliffe kept accusing the National Party of stealing Labour Party policies. We have a bill before us right now that is absolutely, in black and white—or red and white if you print it in colour—Labour Party policy, and Labour wants to vote against it. I do not understand it. There is no logic, but that is the Labour Party for you.

What we have heard from Mr O’Rourke already, and what we have heard from the Labour Party again today, is that the Prime Minister has got it wrong. He said that this will be the end of the Prime Minister—that he is forcing something on the people that they do not want. Well, I would say that nominally what those members are saying is: “We don’t like the Prime Minister and want to see him fall over.” If you are so convinced that this is a bad idea and if you want to get rid of the National Party and you want to get rid of the Prime Minister, then I dare you to vote for this bill, because what you are saying is completely illogical. So get behind it and vote for it if you are so convinced this is a bad idea and that it will be the undoing of the National Party.

What is this bill about? We have had three flags before. They have all been chosen by the Government of the day or by others, but for the first time in New Zealand’s history, New Zealanders will get to choose what their national emblem is—what the New Zealand flag is. They will get to choose. They may well choose the 1902 flag—the flag that we have now—and that will be their democratic right, but this party, the National Party of New Zealand, is absolutely keen to ensure that New Zealanders have their say and that they get to decide what is important to them. I am looking forward to passing this bill so that we can take this out of the political domain of this House and put it into the hands of the people of New Zealand, where it belongs.

The next call is a split call. I call Dr Russel Norman.

I rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak on the New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill. This bill, of course, is a classic form over substance bill. The form, of course, is what the actual pattern is on the flag—the flag that flies out in front of Parliament, the flag that is on all of the New Zealand First benches in here today, the flag that is here, there, and everywhere.

But, you know, at the end of the day a flag is a pattern. So, really, it is about saying that some people want to change the pattern. But the reason why the pattern of a flag matters is that it actually refers to a deeper substance, and the deeper substance that it refers to is about the constitutional arrangements of the country. That is the thing that really matters.

Part of the reason why, I guess, New Zealand First is pretty agitated about it is that it sees the Union Jack in the corner of the flag as representing the monarchy and the links to the monarchy—and fair enough. You know, I can understand that, but if you believe in independence and democracy and you want to cut the links to the monarchy, to actually have a proper republican democracy involving the Treaty of Waitangi, then, of course, you do not particularly want the Union Jack on the flag.

What the Government is proposing to do is to change the pattern without changing any of the substance. So it is having this big kind of hoopla and saying “Oh, we’re doing something really substantive. We’re doing something very important. We’re doing something big. This is big; this is visionary. We’re changing the flag.”, as if something underneath were changing. But, of course, nothing whatsoever is changing underneath. The Prime Minister awarded Prince Philip an Order of New Zealand, for goodness’ sake, just like Tony Abbott did. Basically, it has been years since we have had such a fawning Prime Minister over the British monarchy. I mean, I have never seen anything like it. So in terms of the substance underneath it, nothing changes.

If you wanted a referendum that actually had real substance, the asset sales referendum was a referendum about real substance: should we privatise these assets? People voted not to privatise the assets; the Government completely ignored them, of course. What it really wants is a show, and so we are going to have the flag debate show, which is really what the Government wants, rather than discussing the true substance.

At this very moment we are having a debate about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which changes the constitutional arrangements of New Zealand in a very fundamental way, through the investor-State dispute settlement clauses. As the former Director-General of the World Trade Organization said, they are writing a new constitution for a new world order. So that fundamentally changes the New Zealand constitution, by setting up a judicial system outside of New Zealand. At the same time as we are having this show called the flag debate, all about what the pattern on this flag should be, over here the Government is actually, fundamentally, really altering the constitution to take away the democratic right of decision making over Government policy. That, of course, is the reality of what is going on. So the show goes on over here: a show about the flag and what should be printed on the flag.

Over here, the reality goes on: power is being taken away from ordinary New Zealanders and assets are being sold. Those are the real issues. In terms of the relationship with the British Crown and the ridiculous idea that the head of State should be determined by birth—ha, ha! What a ridiculous idea. Let us have the head of State determined by birth—you know, what if someone came up with that? “Oh, we’re going to let them be chosen by birth.” What a great way to choose the head of State! So instead of having a debate about something real and substantive—whether the head of State should be chosen by the Parliament or by the people through an election, something like that; an actual, substantive thing—we are going to have the flag show. We are going to have the flag show, and the Prime Minister will say that this is his thing. This is his great vision of independence for the country.

At the same time he is actually selling out our independence and our real democracy and the things that really matter: the ability to determine what kinds of regulation we have about the environment and about health care. They are stripping away, through the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other kinds of deals like that, the right of people to actually determine the issues that really matter to people—about environmental protection; well, you name it.

So one of the real issues for the Greens in this is that we are having this debate around this pattern, which is all about optics and the Prime Minister’s vision, so that it looks like he has a long-term vision for this country, while at the same time the real issues that really matter—another 45,000 children living in poverty, as we discovered today—are being swept under the carpet and, actually, swept under the carpet behind the light show that is the Prime Minister’s flag show.

I call Marama Fox—5 minutes.

I rise to take a call on this very important discussion. I think it is an important discussion because I absolutely agree with a lot of the objections about why we are doing this. But, actually, I absolutely agree that I would like to see a change in the flag, because I would like to see something that does symbolise our duality of nationhood. Should we be spending this amount of money on doing it? I would like to think not. Should we have put a constitutional change in first, before we put a flag change in? I absolutely agree with that. I would love to see us talk about the constitution in very real ways, which is why the Māori Party wanted to have the constitutional review—and that is what has happened—based on the Treaty of Waitangi. A constitution that sees us into our young adulthood as a nation, that brings us forward into our future, with a symbol of our new nationhood, our independence, our forward-thinking nation built on a constitution of partnership with the Treaty at its base—I think that would be amazing.

But we do not have that opportunity. Right now we have this big debate about how much it costs, about whether we are disrespecting our fallen soldiers, about all of those things, and really we are missing the opportunity to talk about this symbol that encapsulates who we are as a nation. Should it have been round the other way? I absolutely agree. It should have been. But I do not worry about what other people’s agendas are. I want to know what our people think. If we get caught up in talking about everything else, we will miss the opportunity to pick a symbol, to choose something that truly represents us.

I have listened to Mr O’Rourke’s comments about our fallen warriors and the flag and what it represents. I actually disagree. I do not think that our soldiers fought for a flag. They fought under a flag, yes they did, but they fought for each other, and they fought for their families, and they fought for the right to be free and to express our freedoms. Our warriors, our Māori Battalion, our Hokowhitu-a-Tū, went to that same war, those same battles, and gave their lives under a flag that actually, at the time, did not recognise their right to be free people. Under that flag they came home and were not treated in the same way. They were not given land. They were not given an allowance. They were disrespected under that flag. When they went to war they were not even given a weapon. So, actually, I say: they fought for what? For the price of citizenship, under a flag that did not recognise their greatness. We do now—we do now.

So let us move forward. Let us move forward as a nation and take the opportunity to have the discussion, because if we get caught up in the discussion that is only about the money and all of those things, then we will miss the opportunity.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Who’s disrespecting them now?

I do not think it is disrespecting them. You can still fly the Union Jack, this flag that is proudly represented on the benches over here. You can still fly that flag if you want to, but I think it is time to move us forward into a new generation that represents the duality of our nationhood, where I can proudly see myself as a Māori citizen of this country. My ancestors fought for the right just to speak their own language in this country. My ancestors fought for the right to live on their own land, to practise their own culture, and I want to see a flag that represents their struggle. I do not see that in this flag right now. I would like to take the opportunity for our people to come together to have that discussion and really think about what the symbol is that encapsulates our desire as a nation to stand together and be united, recognising our duality of nationhood, our united history, our Māori history, and our non-Māori history—whatever culture that is—and have it reflected in a flag as a symbol of unity for our country.

I quite like the red, black, and white flag with the fern, but I would not mind seeing the Matariki stars on it. We talk about navigation. There are a few stars that are missing. That is why we are going to support this referendum, and I proudly do so. Kia ora.

There are at least two parties in this Parliament that are in favour of a referendum on changing the New Zealand flag. There is the Government party—the National Party; we are in favour of a referendum on changing the flag—and the Labour Party. Labour members are in favour of a referendum on changing the flag. They just do not have the guts to turn up in this House—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I know what the member is going to bring up. I would ask the member to withdraw that comment. This is a seemly debate, and comments like that do not add any value. Just withdraw the comment and then carry on.

I withdraw. They do not have the intestinal fortitude—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That has been ruled out many times. This is now repeated offending. [Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am on my feet. I will ask the member to withdraw that comment. We will not have any more of those sorts of comments.

I withdraw. It is a real shame that the Labour Party is voting against this bill. It is the official policy of the Labour Party to have a flag referendum, to have a referendum on changing the flag. The leader of the Labour Party wants to change the flag, or at least he wants to consider changing the flag, and he wants to do it in a deliberative and consultative fashion. We know that, because he told the National Business Review and he told a commenter in the “Ask Me Anything” section in the National Business Review. We know that most Labour Party MPs, I believe, are in favour of a flag referendum. Probably Labour Party members, ordinary grassroots members of the Labour Party—as few as they are—are in favour of a referendum on changing the flag. So it is a real shame that this is not a bipartisan bill.

This bill is fundamentally about a conversation about who we are as people. It is a conversation and it is a discussion about what New Zealand is in the 21st century. Symbols do matter. The flag does matter. Do we want the Union Jack on the flag? In 21st century New Zealand, with our multiplicity of ethnicities and peoples who exist, for the most part, harmoniously in this country, do we really want the symbol or the message on our flag to be that we are a vassal of mother Britain, of the mother country? Do we really want that in the 21st century, with New Zealand today, with all of its complexity, with all of its diversity, and, quite frankly, without the links back to the United Kingdom? So symbols do matter. That is what this bill is about.

Also, this bill is about a democratic process to choose the design of a potential or putative new New Zealand flag. The Government could have legislated for a new New Zealand flag. We could have done that. We could have put it in the National Party manifesto, before the last election, that we would legislate for a new New Zealand flag. Other countries have done that. When Canada changed its flag, that is essentially what they did. We could have done that. But no, the Government chose not to do that. What the Government chose to do was involve the people. I believe that is the right thing to do. I believe the right thing to do is to ask the people what sort of flag they want, because, as I mentioned, this is about a conversation with the New Zealand people as to what New Zealand represents, what New Zealand is in the 21st century. So it is right that we ask the people.

The great thing about the process so far is that New Zealanders want that conversation to happen—they do. If you look at the New Zealand Herald polls and at the designs that have been submitted, and you look at the number of people who are getting involved online and talking about it at the water coolers, every single day that goes by more and more people are having those conversations. They are getting a coffee and they are talking about it. I hear it when I go into cafes. I hear people grabbing a drink and talking about it. I hear it in pubs and clubs. I hear people talking about what the change should be. People are talking about whether they want the blue and red design with the silver fern or whether it would be better to have a blue and black design. Is it appropriate to have a Southern Cross on it or not? Should we go for something completely different? The 40 flags that have come down on to the long list are really provoking debate out there. So this is about a democratic process to choose the design. We are not just legislating for a change of flag; we are legislating for a process.

If, after the second referendum, New Zealanders do not want a change of flag, well, that would be the people’s say; that would be the people’s verdict. But I reckon people are actually getting pretty excited about this process and I reckon we are going to see good participation in both referenda, and I think that is good.

I want to run through some of the arguments that have been raised by the Labour Party members and other people about why this bill should fail. Firstly, they say this is not the right time. Well, I mean, really? Is any time ever the right time? People have been trying to change the flag since the 1970s. This was first raised in the 1970s. You can make that argument about any time. The Labour Party says: “Oh, well, let’s do it in 5 years.” Why 5 years? That is totally arbitrary. Why not 10? Why not 7? Why not in 2 years? It is just bizarre.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: It’s politicking.

It is just bizarre, and it is just politicking, as my colleague points out, and it is a real shame. It would have been nice for this to be bipartisan. I do not accept the argument that now is not the right time.

Then we have this absurd argument that nobody wants a change of flag. Why? Oh, because we looked at the opinion polls. Well, actually, we are going to have a giant opinion poll about it; it is called the referendum on changing the flag. Everyone will get to have a say, and it will not be a cursory show of public opinion before we have had the proper debate, before people have managed to see the options, before people have managed to make up their own mind. We are going to have a giant opinion poll; it is called a referendum, and it is going to be next year.

So this absurd argument that we can just take a slice of public opinion from the New Zealand Herald online poll at a particular point or something, and say that therefore we should not go through with a referendum is a silly argument. On the same basis, we would have taken a slice of public opinion on 19 September before the last election and gone “Oh, well, National’s on 54 percent; the Labour Party’s on 18 percent.”—or something like that—“and we won’t bother with the election.” No, we do not govern like that in this country. We put it to the people.

Thirdly, we had this argument that there are other priorities. There is this ridiculous argument that as a Government you can do only one thing at one time in this country; you cannot do two things at once. There are other priorities. The nadir of this argument was Andrew Little’s ridiculous claim this week. This is the potential future Prime Minister of this country.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Unlikely.

Very unlikely, my colleague Michael Woodhouse points out. His claim is this ridiculous comment that he is not even going to bother to vote in the first referendum. He is not even going to bother. The potential future Prime Minister of this country, whose own party has a policy of having a referendum on the flag, is not even going to bother to vote. Well, how ridiculous! The reality of Government is, amazingly, in the grown-up world on the side of the Government, not “Planet Labour”, that you can do two things at once. We can improve the economy, we can improve social housing, we can focus on the least well-off in society, and we can do that contemporaneously by having a referendum on a flag. We are grown-ups on this side of the House, not children in the sandpit like members opposite.

Fourthly, we have the silly argument that this disrespects veterans, and this is allied to the argument that was raised by, I think, the member for New Zealand First that people fight for the flag. Well, actually, I put it respectfully that the people who have fought for this country do not fight for a piece of cloth; they fought, and they do fight, for the values that underlie the flag. I have been to Gallipoli and I have seen the memorials and I have seen the graves, and it is not the New Zealand flag that exists now that is on those memorials—it is not—it is the silver fern. So I do not buy the argument that this disrespects veterans and it disrespects the sacrifice that they have made. I do not.

Then we hear that this is a waste of money. This is also a silly argument. In the grand scheme of Government spending, $26 million is not a large sum of money. We did not hear the Labour Party members complaining about a waste of public money when we had a referendum on asset sales. They did not make that argument at the time, so I also do not buy the argument that this is a waste of money.

Then, finally, we had the argument that we need an up or down, yes or no, vote in the first referendum. This was an argument that was put by Trevor Mallard in his petition and by Labour members of the Justice and Electoral Committee. The official advice that we received as a select committee was that this would not be a good idea—that we should not have a yes or no vote in the first referendum. Why? Because, quite rightly, people want to know what they are voting for before they vote for whether or not they want to change the flag. That is a legitimate point of view. People have a right to know in a binary sense what the options are, and that is why Government members do not accept that.

This is an important bill about an important part of New Zealand’s future. It is a shame that the Labour Party is voting against this bill, not because it does not agree with it, not because members do not potentially want a change of flag, but because they are based only on spite and jealousy.

The next call is a split call. Jenny Salesa—5 minutes.

I rise to take this call on this very costly and wasteful bill, the New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill. The New Zealand flag is significant to many of us. It is an emotional point of connection for all New Zealanders, and it can be a rallying point, a unifying icon, and a brand that is of benefit to Aotearoa New Zealand.

However, there are an increasing number of New Zealanders who have joined the Labour Party in opposing this bill and the expensive flag referendums process that we are just undergoing. Many do not support the process or the spending of millions of dollars on the flag referendums. I would also like to point out that the decision of what four designs will actually be put through on the referendum will not necessarily be from the consultation process. It is a decision that Cabinet will actually make.

People know what is actually important to them. In the last few weeks the Labour Party MPs called together a lot of people in my electorate, in Ōtara in Manukau East, for a housing meeting. Over 120 people came to that meeting, on a cold, freezing, rainy Saturday afternoon in the middle of winter. Contrast that to one of the other meetings, which was a flag referendum meeting, held in the same electorate at Ōtāhuhu, where only 34 people attended. Lest it be said that Manukau East is an anomaly here, I would like to point out that at the very first flag referendum meeting held in Takapuna, only 13 people could be bothered to attend that meeting. There has been a total of only about 700 people across New Zealand who have actually turned out to public meetings on the flag project, and this is at a cost, on average, of about $550 per person. However, when you take into account the exorbitant fees of the panel members and venue hire, this amount rises to a shocking $2,300 per person.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: How much?

It is $2,300 when you include the price of advertising.

The people of South Auckland and elsewhere have shown this Government what is actually important to them, by attending the forums on issues that matter to them and their families. They attended the meeting on housing in South Auckland because they are desperate to have maintenance issues on their houses fixed—their houses that are leaky, damp, and mouldy—and they also attended because the rent is becoming way, way too expensive in our electorate. Housing is what matters to our families, not this wasteful vanity project on a flag referendum. What is the Government’s solution to the housing crisis? That is right: it is proposing to sell thousands of our State houses. I can assure you that it did not cost $2,300 per person to run our South Auckland meeting on housing; in fact, it cost the Government nothing at all because the hall was free—it was a church hall—and the organisers of the meeting brought the refreshments for the meeting.

The engagement with the public on the flag has been very poor: 747 Kiwis wanted to be heard at the Justice and Electoral Committee, but their request to be heard was refused; 43,000 people signed a petition asking for a yes/no vote on the flag, and they were also ignored.

Already we have spent $8.4 million on this process. We should not be contemplating spending an additional $17.3 million to distract Kiwis from the Serco scandals, the appalling mis-administration of charter schools, and the continuing job losses in important industries, to name but a few.

I also want to address what the members Jono Naylor and Chris Bishop on the opposite side of the House said, who actually stated what Labour’s policy on the flag referendum is. May I just say that we are focused on actually addressing issues that matter for our people. The questions that I ask are: can we afford this expensive $26 million on a flag at this time? Has this current Government produced the Budget surplus that it has promised? Well, the answer is no, not yet.

The Hon Nanaia Mahuta—5 minutes.

If this was a vote based purely on choosing a symbol, I think it would be quite easy, but it is not. Symbols do matter. Flags of a country and nation matter. What Labour is saying is that what sits behind the flag—the constitutional arrangements—is so important. Yet this particular bill has reduced the debate down to process, not principles and priorities.

My colleagues have been absolutely right in pointing out the inefficiencies of this particular process. The Government is treating Kiwis with contempt about significant questions affecting them. It is not simply good enough to say “Let’s choose a flag.”, and then the issue of the national anthem will come up, and then: “Let’s discuss that, and then maybe the Governor-General.” That is constitutional creep; it is not constitutional reform with a purpose that takes New Zealand confidently into the future. The Prime Minister is treating Kiwis with contempt, because those significant issues are not being put in front of this very important issue, which is the question of what symbol should best represent us as a nation.

I heard the impassioned contribution made by the Māori Party. In part, there are lots of members in this House who would agree with that sentiment. However, I think that choosing a symbol before the very legitimate debate about what our constitutional arrangements and the place of the Treaty should be is in advance of a very important type of consideration. I predict that the New Zealand flag will be changed, but I also predict that should this bill go ahead in the way that the Government is promoting, very soon we will see, in pockets of New Zealand, a number of communities that affiliate with a particular flag flying their own flag. Is that the symbol for the country? I think not. Is that the type of New Zealand we want to see—where people will have an affinity with different types of flag and fly them because they cannot have an attachment to the outcome of this referendum? I think that is the worst outcome of all.

What I am really fearful of is that because of the way that this particular referendum is constructed, it will be a flag for the 1 percent—$25.7 million spent on a process to deliver a flag for 1 percent is not good enough.

Out in simple communities where people want to make a living they are saying: a flag or feed children; a flag or warm homes; a flag or provide houses in our community for people who need them. That is the type of consideration that people are weighing up when they are listening to this particular debate—$25.7 million on this exercise.

Asking a question in advance of some significant, weighty issues around what the constitution of this country represents and what the symbol of identity represents is, I think, a farce in itself. People who know me know that I have no particular affinity with the New Zealand flag, but I will defend it for what it represents for this country. The history of my own particular area is that we have a particular flag for our iwi, but we will defend the New Zealand flag because we understand that it represents an evolving sense of identity that we can hold on to, that holds the Crown accountable for its commitment to tangata whenua, to Māori.

The member Alfred Ngaro raised the issue of Mat Rata. Mat said a number of things in his history. When he made that particular comment it was just before the fisheries settlement. The fisheries settlement was the first pan-Māori settlement where the Government attempted to do something in, I believe, a quite progressive way. Underpinning his comments, I believe, was his understanding that the Treaty had a place in the future of New Zealand. He established the Waitangi Tribunal. He led the challenge for this pan-Māori settlement, which could transform the nation. Just on Wednesday we had numerous debates about how Treaty of Waitangi settlements have transformed the national identity of our nation.

Well, the world has moved on and New Zealand has moved on. Our national identity is progressing; however, underpinning the choice of a flag must be the constitutional arrangements of this country. That is why I stand in support of my colleagues in the Labour Party who are opposing this based on process but, more fundamentally, based on principle. Any symbol of this country must give all Kiwis confidence that it is something that we can all hold on to. This one does not.

I feel very proud of what we are on the cusp of doing tonight, and that is giving the people of New Zealand an opportunity to do exactly what three out of four people voted to be able to do less than 12 months ago.

I always listen to the Hon Nanaia Mahuta with respect, and she knows I hold her in high regard. I have listened carefully to her arguments and I acknowledge some of them, but I ask her to look around her colleagues and to think carefully about some of the arguments that they have advanced. She must be ashamed of some of the contributions that Labour members have made to this debate, and of the fact that a party would put aside principle to go for short-term, populist interests because they seem, at the moment, to resonate with the public because there is a certain mood out there. She needs to reflect again on the fact that the Labour Party went to the 2014 election, less than 12 months ago, saying that it had a policy that aims to “enhance knowledge, appreciation and pride in New Zealand’s identity, history, biculturalism, multiculturalism and other diversity, community resilience, distinctiveness … through a review of the design of the New Zealand flag involving flag design experts and with full public consultation and involvement.”—in other words, exactly what we have just had and what we are continuing to do.

I want to commend all 40 of those designs that have been short-listed. Some of them, of course, are by the same designer, but there are a large number of designers whose work is represented there. They reflect a variety of symbols that give us choice, and I have to say I would be very proud for a large number of those to be the New Zealand flag, but I am going to put on record that, along with many people, I personally opt for the Kyle Lockwood red and blue fern with a Southern cross flag, and I will explain why in a moment.

I am absolutely appalled at the claptrap we have had to listen to, particularly from the Labour Party, but also from its friends in the Greens. There is absolutely no doubt that the vast majority of members of both of those parties want change in this area. They must be astonished that their representatives in this House have come here and are suddenly arguing for no change on an issue that they have all talked about for a very long time, in many cases for many generations.

When I spoke in the second reading of this debate I explained why it is quite a personal issue for me. We have heard a lot about what our military men and women may feel on this issue. I made the point that I am the great grandson, the grandson, the son, and the nephew of men who fought in the New Zealand Army in the great conflicts of the late 19th and the 20th centuries: the Boer War, the First World War, and the Second World War. My uncle Ken was killed in action right at the end of the Second World War, and he is buried in southern Italy. Along with all of those who could tell a similar story of being the descendants of people who fought for our country, they would all acknowledge that the thing those men, and in some cases women, have in common is that they are buried with a symbol that is not the New Zealand flag—

💬 Su’a William Sio: Smile, Tim. Smile.

It is not the New Zealand flag, Mr Sio; it is the silver fern.

💬 Su’a William Sio: Smile.

I will smile if you would like me to, because I am proud of what we are doing. I would say to Mr Sio that rather than treating this issue like a village idiot, he too should turn to his colleagues and say: “This is serious, and we are letting down the people who voted for us.” Those who voted Labour at the last election voted for what we are doing here today, and I cannot believe that Labour is turning its back on its own policy less than a year later and trying to pretend that somehow it is doing this on a point of principle.

I agreed with Marama Fox when she said earlier that the New Zealand men and women who have fought for this country fought for freedom, they fought for values, and they fought to maintain the way of life that we hold dear. Some may have had a sense of pride in a flag, but they did not fight for that flag; they fought for our country and for those who are allied to us and who share those values and who wanted to supress tyranny and fight back against tyranny. I say to them “Thank you for that service.”, and that is why I believe that at this time—far from Mr Mallard’s argument that it is disrespectful to be having this debate now—there is no better time for us to honour the legacy of those men and women than as we mark the centenary of Gallipoli and the 100-year period since World War I of 1914 to 1918.

As we look at those who through the ages in New Zealand’s relatively short history have fought for us, I believe that the symbol that they would most want to have on our flag is the symbol that is on their graves: the silver fern. It is as simple as that. That is why although I do believe in change in this issue, I particularly want the fern on our flag. I am proud of my British heritage, and most of us in this House—certainly not all, but most of us—have some British heritage. The Union Jack is a fantastic flag. If I were British I would wear it, I would fly it, and I would proudly display it at all opportunities. But we are not British. We are 12,500 miles away, and it is a very long time since we were a British colony. The time, therefore, in my view, is right to take that colonial emblem off our flag and to reassert our independence as a modern and progressive nation.

I am absolutely sick of having the confusion with the Australian flag constantly thrown at us. When people are overseas and asked to identify the New Zealand flag, hardly anyone can. Fifty years ago the Canadians had the same argument because they had a similar flag—it was just predominantly red instead of the blue that we have got. They had the same issue, they changed to a symbol that they all identified with, the maple leaf, and which one of them would go back to that old flag now? Not one of them, because they all now feel incredibly proud of that emblem that they wear and they fly and they display on their backpacks that says, unashamedly: “We are Canadian. Well, I want something that says: “We’re New Zealanders and let’s be recognised as New Zealanders right around the world.” The silver fern will do that, but I also want to retain the stars of the Southern Cross. That is why I like that Kyle Lockwood design, because of the Southern Cross with the stars that guided our Māori ancestors to this land. To my mind that is a wonderful way of honouring that legacy of the tangata whenua of this land while also putting something on the flag that we all embrace as New Zealanders of a modern era.

As I said, I am absolutely appalled by the duplicity and the populist hypocrisy of the 2015 version of the Labour Party, which cannot even honour its own 2014 election policy. What an abuse of trust. For the leader of the Labour Party this year to say that he will not even vote in an election, when last year he went on record and said that this is absolutely the right thing, that this is what we should be doing, and that this is the way to go about it, is absolutely abominable.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If New Zealanders do not vote to change the flag this time, most of us will not see the opportunity come again in our lifetime—maybe some of the younger members will, but most of us will not—and here we are being told that the cost is an issue. Well, it is the first time that New Zealanders have been given a chance—all of them—to say: “This is the flag I want.” What price democracy? It is an important decision to be made, and I would suggest to you that it is money that is worth spending and it is worth doing the process correctly.

I cannot believe that there are some who would argue that because there are other things we could spend the money on—and of course there always will be—we should not do it. Well, that argument will apply next year and the year after, and in 5 years’ time. That will never change. At some point we have to spend the money, and I believe spending the money on having a truly democratic decision on this particular issue is really important.

I will go back to the other issue that Mr Mallard raised earlier about going to tell the RSA what I think. I will accept an invitation from any RSA around the country to go and have this discussion, because I find when I talk to returned servicemen and women that they do understand the argument when it is put. I repeat that I believe that we are honouring them, their service, and particularly those of their comrades who paid the ultimate sacrifice, by having the symbol that is on the tombstones across Western Europe put on to their graves. I am, as I said at the outset of this speech, incredibly proud of the opportunity that we are delivering to the country. I am incredibly proud as a National MP that we are honouring the commitment that we took to the country last year and that we are standing by the policy that we campaigned on, and I remind everybody listening that nearly three in every four people who voted in last year’s election voted for this. So let us get on and do what they voted for.