New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill

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.

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.

Three ferns, a koru, and a Red Peak—

💬 Grant Robertson: And a partridge in a pear tree.

—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.

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.

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.

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 one in. 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.

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.

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—

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.

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.

—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.

—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.

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.

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—

I move, That the question be now put.