New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Deputy Prime Minister: I move, That the New Zealand Flag Referendums Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This is a very straightforward bill that simply adds to the referendum, which New Zealand is to have in November, a fifth choice of flag, in the form of the Red Peak option. There have been all sorts of claims by members in the House as to who is acting in good faith with the electorate and the general public of New Zealand. Let me set the record very clear. Prime Minister John Key announced in January 2014, 9 months before the general election, that if National were the Government we would hold a referendum on what flag New Zealand might take into the future. Furthermore, when National was re-elected at the election last year, with the largest vote that any party has had in the history of MMP—

💬 Denis O’Rourke: And then lost Northland.

—the Government then set about delivering—I know this is unique for members opposite—on what we said we would do. A cross-party committee was formed. There was an independent panel appointed. There was the option for every New Zealander to put forward a flag option to that panel. There was legislation passed quite properly through this Parliament providing for a referendum to decide people’s preferred choice and a second referendum, to be held next year, in which people will be able to make a choice as to whether they want to keep the current New Zealand flag or vote for that preferred alternative. For any fair-minded New Zealander, you could not have a more open, straightforward process.

I want to contrast that approach with that of the Labour Opposition, because the first thing that seems to have been lost on members opposite is that they stood at the last election saying they wanted to change the New Zealand flag and they wanted to have a referendum on that issue. In fact, I would point out to this Parliament that, actually, 83 percent of the New Zealand public voted for political parties promising to have a referendum on the flag—83 percent of the public voted for parties that promised a referendum on a flag during this term of Parliament.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Let the member out more. Release him. Let him go. Why is the National Party hiding him away? Let him knock on doors.

The part that I find so disingenuous, and that has really got all the fingerprints of the wrecker Trevor Mallard on it, is that despite that policy position, Labour has twisted and turned and has disingenuously tried to do everything it can to disown its policy at the last election. It reminds me—and I would remind some of the younger members of the Labour Party—as to how dangerous it is on these sorts of issues to change what you said. People will remember in history that in the 1987 election Labour promised a referendum on MMP and then in that term ratted on that very promise and was appropriately punished at the 1990 election. In contrast, National does what it says. It promised a referendum on MMP and delivered that, and that is a heritage that I am very proud of as a National MP.

Let me just inspect some of the arguments that members opposite have put against this bill. They say this bill is not needed to add the Red Peak flag to the referendum in November, because we could simply dump one of the four flags that have been recommended by the Flag Consideration Panel. Let me place a bet: if the Cabinet had overruled the independent panel and had taken one of the four flags that it had selected and put the Red Peak flag in, the members opposite would be the first to cry blue murder and to say that we had overridden the independent panel, and that is where that suggestion is so disingenuous. Can I also come to the point that has been put forward that what we should do is, in the first referendum, simply give people the choice as to whether they want to change the flag. The reason that is simply disingenuous is that so many New Zealanders—frankly, including myself—cannot make a choice as to whether the flag should be changed unless we are clear about what the alternative is, and that is what the process we have set out does.

Can I now come to New Zealand First, because I do find its position even more extraordinary. In every single period that I have been in this Parliament—for the last 25 years—I could list over 100 occasions in which the New Zealand First Party and its leader have said: “Let the public decide. The public should be able to make these decisions.” I have heard it on gay marriage, I have heard it on electoral reform, I have heard it on State assets, and, in fact, I struggle to think of a single issue on which members of the New Zealand First Party have not argued “Trust the public; let them decide.” That is why the position of the New Zealand First Party is, again, just so disingenuous that on a genuine question over the flag, that party suddenly says: “No, the New Zealand public cannot be trusted to make a decision on what is the right ensign for our country.”

I plead that I am a humble engineer. I have very little creative talent, and I certainly am not going to make the choice as to what is the right ensign and flag for New Zealand. But what I do say is, as compared with quite complex issues, this is an issue that the New Zealand public should be given the choice on, and it should be given that choice because that is what our party promised the New Zealand people when we were re-elected in 2014.

I emphasise again that this is a very simple bill that simply extends the number of options for flags from four to five. It has come about as a consequence of a number of parties, including the Leader of the Opposition and parties like the Greens and the ACT Party, wanting the Red Peak choice to be in that referendum, and this Government has shown flexibility and good faith in simply allowing that choice to be added. The last point I would make to the Green Party is that at least you are consistent with what you said. You are not here to play games. You want to see the flag changed, you want Red Peak to be included on the referendum, and I compliment the way in which you have allowed that to be done constructively through the parliamentary process without some of the, in my view, unnecessary games around a difficult choice for our country and what the flag is that best represents the character of our nation to take into the next century. This is a good, sensible bill, and I commend it to the House.

The Labour Party will be supporting the third reading of this bill. Right through the process since Red Peak came up we have indicated that we would work with Parliament in order to find a process whereby Red Peak could be included as one of the choices. I want to indicate that, unlike my leader, who seems to think that Red Peak has some merit, I think that it has no merit whatsoever, but that is something that will be put before the people of New Zealand. I am prepared to lay some money on the fact that it will not be amongst the final two on the preferential system, because all of the polling on this, which many of us have seen, shows that when this flag is considered by the public in an unbiased way—sitting somewhere between the two Lockwood designs; the awful thing that, apparently, is a koru; and the very, very poorly drawn fern that was selected by the panel—it will not be in the final two.

I want to say and place on the record—it is a point that I made during the Committee stage—that there are a number of people on the panel whom I have a lot of time for. There are a number of them whom I was involved with recommending. John Burrows is, clearly, an eminent New Zealander, and people like Rod Drury and Sir Brian Lochore are people whom I have an enormous amount of time for, but I think that the Government made an error in making the decision to take the design people, who were part of the recommendations from the cross-party group, off and to not include them. I think that there was a problem with the balance of the panel as a result of that. There was an extra problem, as a result of politicisation of the panel by the people who were put on it, and I think that as a result of this we ended up with what colleagues might describe politely as suboptimal options coming through the process.

Although we can have a debate about Red Peak and whether it should be included or not, I think that it is fair to say that the designs that have come through the process are ones that are either pretty unappealing or excessively complicated. I know Kyle Lockwood. He is a good New Zealander—with awful political views—living offshore, but he is doing what he thinks is important for the country around passports and around this issue. I admire him for doing that, but I must say that if we are to make a change—and, long term, I think that we will make a change—we have to change to something that kids can draw and that is easily recognisable. I think it is fair to say that Red Peak meets the “kids can draw” criterion, but I think it fails for a number of reasons.

Generally, this debate has been in pretty good humour. I think it is fair to say that I have had to spend a little bit of time correcting the Greens on the way the constitution works. I want to place on record that if Parliament had wanted Red Peak in here, we could have had legislation to add Red Peak to the current decisions. We did not do that. Gareth Hughes seemed to indicate that it would be rude for Parliament to indicate to the Governor-General what it thought. Well, that is just nonsense. Every week the Governor-General signs off legislation that indicates what Parliament thinks, and the Government-General assents to it. If Parliament had really wanted the Red Peak flag here, we should have been straightforward and just added it. But as has been indicated to me during the Committee stage, although this bill has Mr English’s name on it, some of the earlier drafting might not have had the professional support that was necessary to get it into a form that does what is logical, and, as a result of that, there has been a pretty bad mismatch between the explanatory note and the actual legislation. That is not a massive crime; it is just sloppy. I think it is pretty bad that the Government has picked up a bill that was drafted in such a sloppy way and has put a Minister’s name on it.

I want to acknowledge, as I have done on one or two other occasions, the superior judgment of the Rt Hon Winston Peters and his New Zealand First team in this general process. He recognised, right from the beginning of this process, that it was not one of good faith. It was one of predetermination, and he and his team declined to be part of the cross-party group. Now, I am probably more innocent in these matters—more trusting in these matters. I trusted the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister when they indicated that there was an attempt to make this process a genuinely multipartisan process that we could work through as a team and as a Parliament.

As has been placed on the record of Parliament before, despite the honourable efforts of Jonathan Young—and I do not want to impugn his integrity in any way—he was steamrollered, to a certain extent, in his chairing of that group. There were some things that the group put up and there were some names that the group put up that were rejected by Cabinet. I think it is fair to say that just as Gareth Hughes was naive as far as some of the processes in the House are concerned, I was naive in terms of accepting the possibility of the National Party working on a genuine, multiparty basis and accepting the decisions of the group. Right from the beginning of the process there has been, I think, a degree of misleading, and we are seeing it now—to the point that we are being misled by the explanatory note and the comparison with the bill.

The Labour Party put up a couple of amendments during the process. It is a well-rehearsed issue, the yes/no vote at the beginning of the process. It is the process that was used when MMP was brought in. The Prime Minister says that it is too complicated, and to be absolutely fair to John Key, I do not think that he was in the country at the time we switched to MMP. So he maybe does not understand that New Zealanders are bright enough to understand the difference between yes and no. But they were—85 percent of New Zealanders indicated that they wanted to change the parliamentary system when faced with a—

💬 Brett Hudson: 76 percent of voters said no to Labour.

That member over there was roundly rejected—did he come third or fourth in the Ōhariu electorate? Did that member come third or fourth? He is only here as a result of MMP. He is only here as a result of MMP, and I think his chipping in and saying that New Zealanders are too thick to understand a yes/no vote is an—[Interruption] Maybe he is right! Maybe he is right!

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Come back to the bill.

Well, Mr Deputy Speaker, I was only reacting. The point that I want to make is that New Zealanders are bright enough to understand yes/no. They are bright enough to save $7 million, but this Parliament has repeatedly refused to give them that right. What I really regret is that the principled position of the Greens, right back in the multiparty group, has been abandoned because John Key said: “If you don’t go along with this for the whole deal, then we won’t support your bill and won’t give you kudos.”

I have seen the front page of the Dominion Post, and if Gareth Hughes really thinks that getting his photo on the front page with John Key is good for the Greens in the longer term, then let him believe that. I do not, and it is my view that the Greens will regret this at some stage. But, actually, this whole debate is irrelevant, because I think the number of New Zealanders who do not want to change the flag is now up to 74 percent, and that being the case, we are actually wasting time.

Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. If there is one thing you can say about this debate in the last, what, 10, 12 hours, it is that it has been robust. It has been in good spirits. I think it has proven the immutable fact of Godwin’s law incredibly fast, thanks to New Zealand First. But, also, we should not forget that this is an incredibly important issue. This is a symbol of our nation, a symbol of the collective populace of New Zealand, and it is something that, despite being polarising in this House, despite being polarising outside this House, has always been polarising.

If you cast your minds back to—what was it—10 July 1834, when Hone Heke and his band at Kororāreka chopped down that first flagpole, it was an incredibly polarising issue, identifying the importance of flags as symbolic. In this case, the flag was symbolic of the Union Jack and the power of the British Crown. That flag was cut down a second time. It was then cut down a third time, after being sheathed in iron to protect it. It eventually led to something known as the Flagstaff War. So although passions are raised and everyone has got their own positions—and it is a polarising debate—it is something that has always happened throughout New Zealand history and it is fantastic that we can keep it peaceful.

Flags are important because they have a long history, from the Sassanids using it as battle standards in Roman legions, to 1748 when the Danes picked their first flag, which they still have today—the Dannebrog—through to the Union Jack, symbolising the merger of those independent nations of the United Kingdom. The flag has had a powerful history. I am actually off to California today for a private study tour during the parliamentary adjournment. When you are in the States you can see the Stars and Stripes hanging from so many households. You would never see that in New Zealand. We have all got a view. I am definitely of the opinion that we should change our flag. I think it is anachronistic. I think that we should not have the Union Jack on it, despite the history. But what we do know is that the flag has always had an association with passions, but also with warfare, from the original classical history through to the Middle Ages, through to when we adopted our current flag in 1902, with the pomp and patriotism of the South African war in the background.

There are legitimate allegations that these referendums are simply a distraction. Flags and flag-waving have been used as political distractions, and the Green Party absolutely agrees that there are much more important issues that we should be addressing today. I believe that we should be having a broader conversation around who we are as a nation, where our country is going in 2015, and what we stand for. Unfortunately, we have had a debate around geometric patterns and not about those fundamental questions such as how we build Te Tiriti o Waitangi into our constitutional framework. How do we have a debate around whether we should have a New Zealander as a head of State? These are some of the missed opportunities.

On the positive side of the ledger, I would like to say how fantastic it is to be here—that Parliament is passing this bill, a bill that is about choice. Yesterday when I introduced this bill it was about choice. The problem, of course, was that politics had got in the way. We had seen an absolute groundswell of support for the Red Peak option. However, politics got in the way, and we have seen that in this debate, where political point-scoring seems to be more of a focus than the constructive approach. We put up the bill to try to break the political deadlock, because New Zealanders were sitting at home watching politicians in this House trading letters, trading accusations, and trying to score political points. Meanwhile, the clock was ticking. The countdown to the referendum in only 6 weeks’ time was looming, and New Zealanders risked not having the legitimate groundswell of support reflected in the official referendum coming up.

I would like to point out that this referendum was going to go ahead anyway. I would like to reiterate that the Green Party does not support changing the flag. The $26 million this country—the taxpayer—is spending would, I believe, be much better served spent on breakfasts for hungry kids or on putting a solar panel on every single school in the country so that they can stop paying rising power bills and buy music and sports equipment. This is not the most important issue. We saw a flawed process. However, the law had passed. The Green Party had voted against it and opposed spending the money on changing the flag, but, the way it was going, a flawed process was going to be even more flawed, with worse outcomes. So I am glad that parties in this Parliament could work across party lines to improve the process. It was happening anyway, and I am proud that we have managed to improve it.

We know it was young people who engaged, I believe, most with the Red Peak flag. My big fear was that had this Parliament ignored that massive groundswell, we simply would have disillusioned those tens of thousands of Kiwis who maybe for the first time engaged with a political issue. The solution was a simple, constructive bill. I did not introduce the bill to score points. I did not introduce this bill to raise other issues, as raised by the Hon Trevor Mallard. This bill was simply about trying to break that political deadlock. It did not try to relitigate the entire referendum process. I understand the Labour Party’s position, and I understand it well—I am sympathetic to it—but the fact is that we risked playing politics and not seeing the outcome that New Zealanders wanted, so I am glad that this pragmatic, constructive, positive solution has been picked up and adopted by the six parties supporting it.

I would like to pick up on the criticism of the Hon Trevor Mallard that for some reason, by not mentioning Red Peak in the clauses, there is a conspiracy theory. The Parliamentary Counsel Office assisted with the drafting, and I think that his criticism is, in fact, a criticism labelled at those officials. It is a well-established precedent with parliamentary drafting that this House cannot instruct the Governor-General. Obviously in the original Act what the legislation set out was that there was an official flag process that made a recommendation to the Governor-General to adopt an Order in Council. So I think it was a distraction—another part of playing politics.

I would also lastly like to acknowledge that this was not the ideal way to pass this bill to see the Red Peak included. We did not have to pass this bill under urgency. We could have worked together earlier. Perhaps Cabinet could have agreed earlier to include the Red Peak option based on that legitimate, absolute groundswell. So there was a genuine problem—politics was the problem—and I am glad that the Green Party has managed to find a constructive solution. I would like to once again thank the Government for adopting my bill as a Government bill so we can see it passed.

In the coming 6 weeks when New Zealanders are sitting around their kitchen tables, or maybe in their offices, filling in their referendum ballot forms, I am absolutely proud, glad, and pleased that they will get a fifth option. They can choose the Red Peak if they want, they can choose the silver fern if they want, and down the line they can choose to keep the current flag if they want, because, ultimately, this bill was all about choice. So when Kiwis are filling out those ballot forms and sending them in they will have more good choice, and I believe that is beneficial and a great example of this Parliament working together.

I guess the action going forward that we should be mindful of—as we have set an example that we can work together when it comes to the flag—is whether we can also work together on some of the more important issues facing our nation. We have worked together on the flag. We have found a compromise and a constructive way forward. Why can we not do it when it comes to climate change? Why can we not do it when it comes to feeding hungry kids? Perhaps the original referendum that established MMP and that saw an MMP solution in the House today could also lead to more MMP solutions of working across party lines.

Lastly and finally, I would like to thank the teams involved in the drafting of the legislation. I would like to thank my caucus for its support. I would like to thank the six parties for their votes in Parliament. I am confident that this bill will pass with an overwhelming majority, because Kiwis deserve a choice, which is fantastic.

So for all those doubters who thought that Red Peak had peaked, it clearly has not peaked. It is not over yet. Let us support Kiwis having a choice. Kia ora koutou. Kia ora.

I am pleased that the member Gareth Hughes has acknowledged that this process has been less than ideal, because in my view, and in the view of the Labour Opposition, this whole debate and this whole bill has been a colossal waste of time.

Gareth Hughes talked about choice and that the bill gives choice. Yes, it gives the choice of a fifth option, but it is a half choice that is being provided to the people of New Zealand. It is major missed opportunity to actually make this whole process in this flag referendum have integrity and be a process of which we as New Zealanders—all New Zealanders—can be proud of and know that we are getting the right questions being asked.

I want to actually shout out respect to New Zealand First for its consistency through this debate. I have certainly not agreed with everything that has been said, and there are things that have been said that I have not liked, but I respect the right of those members to speak. I respect their consistency, and I respect their passion on this issue.

Unfortunately, this whole debate—this whole issue of a flag and changing our flag and a flag referendum—has descended into something that New Zealanders feel deeply uncomfortable about and deeply embarrassed about. It is something that they should feel unified around. Even if they do not agree on the choices of so-called design, they should feel proud of the process that has been undertaken and feel that they have been respected. Well, they have not.

They have not been respected at all—70 percent of New Zealanders said that they do not want to change the flag and they are not getting the opportunity to vote on that first in the referendum. That is the missed opportunity, and that is the issue on which Labour has been utterly consistent. If the Greens had been consistent, they would have voted for Andrew Little’s amendment to this bill, and I think that was a missed opportunity as well.

Our economy is in trouble. We have got State houses making kids sick and, in some cases, die. We have got zero-hour contracts. We have got issue after issue after issue of substance, and here we are, in urgency, with a bill that changes the option of the number of flags that can be on a referendum ballot. What an embarrassment. Is this the state that New Zealand has come to, that this is where we spend the House’s time?

We should have started off with a proper discussion about national identity. I know that pretty much all of the Opposition parties agree on that. Well, why can we not have that discussion now? Why can we not talk about what our national identity is and whether New Zealand should have a constitution? Are we mature enough as a nation to have our own head of State? Should we start the steps to becoming an independent nation? What is the role of the Treaty of Waitangi and how can we ensure that that is given precedence and due respect? Are our voices and our stories being invested in in this country? Those are questions that we should be asking.

We are the only nation in the OECD that does not have a public television broadcaster. Radio New Zealand, which is our public broadcaster, has been starved of funding for 7 years, and here we are spending $26 million on a flag referendum—on a process that is deeply flawed and that has made New Zealanders feel deeply uncomfortable and embarrassed.

This has not transcended politics—this bill before the House in urgency—this is utter politics, and it is a deal that has been stitched up and put before the House in urgency. It has undermined the expert panel, and I do want to acknowledge its members. They also must be feeling deeply uncomfortable about this whole process—deeply uncomfortable—and as if their goodwill and their knowledge have been undermined.

I acknowledge the public pressure for the Red Peak flag design to be included—50,000 people signed a petition. In the end, it is not even mentioned in the bill, and the member Gareth Hughes says that that is constitutionally correct. Well, if that is the case, then we would be putting bill after bill after bill through this House where we would just say to the Governor-General: “Oh, well, go on. You make the decision, because we don’t think that we can, constitutionally.”

This is Parliament. We get to say what we think should be in the legislation. Whether it is good law or not can be judged by the people, but, ultimately, it is Parliament that decides what the specifics are that should be in the legislation, not the Governor-General. And that is a really important point, and, perhaps, it is another reason as to why we should have a wider discussion about whether or not we need a constitution and a constitutional discussion, just so that everybody can be clear about what their roles are. So that, again, makes this whole process into a farce—a bill that we have spent hours and hours and hours discussing that gives another option for this flag called Red Peak, but that flag is actually not mentioned in the bill.

This referendum process is wrong. It is round the wrong way. New Zealanders know that it is round the wrong way, and they are going to be subjected to having to make a choice in a way that they do not want to make the choice. That is why Labour has been utterly consistent in its approach. It is why we offered to work with the Government in good faith—and that was rejected—and it is why we are standing here today saying that this process has been wrong from the beginning.

This should have been a process that unified us; it has not. We have ended up with an X Factor competition instead of a respectful process with the public. We should have had a discussion about our national identity—of who we are and where we are going. That is why the likely outcome of this bill is not going to be to the Government members’ liking, and it is they who are utterly responsible for it—utterly responsible.

It has been a shambles from beginning to end. It has been a shambles where the New Zealand Parliament has been treated with disrespect and where the New Zealand public have been treated with disrespect. We have been treated as if we are puppets, or muppets, and I know that most people can see through it.

In my constituency of Dunedin South this is not the issue on the agenda. This is not the issue that people want to talk to you about on the streets or in the supermarkets. What they want to talk about is the fact that there are not enough jobs in our regions, that the state of our housing is terrible, that the Government needs to fix State houses, that there are not enough State houses, that private rentals are too expensive, and that there is no warrant of fitness on housing. Those are the things that are important. Those are the things that people want to talk about.

This flag debate and referendum has become an embarrassment. It is a travesty. It treats people as if they are idiots and as if they can be manipulated, and the New Zealand public cannot, and should not, be manipulated. They should be treated with respect, and, unfortunately, this Government and the deal that has been stitched up through this process has not treated New Zealanders with respect.

You would not have thought that Labour had gone out and campaigned on a flag referendum, would you? You would not have thought that Labour had gone out and talked about consulting with the people of New Zealand through a flag referendum going into the last election. You would not have thought that, would you?

But, then, fathoming Labour’s position—[Interruption] Of course not. But fathoming Labour’s position on any of this has been a feast of changing position all the way through this whole flag debate, until finally it was utterly trumped and outplayed by the Greens. And good on the Greens, I say. Good on the Greens for focusing on what really matters, which is giving New Zealanders the opportunity to reflect on who we are via choices on the ballot paper at the end of this year and at the beginning of the next. So to Gareth Hughes I say congratulations on focusing on what matters, because what matters in this debate is providing the people of New Zealand, who do not actually care about this politics stuff, with a choice. None of my constituents has contacted me in the last wee while saying “This is outrageous. This is a travesty. This is a schmozzle.”, which seems to have become the favourite word of the left just recently. No, no. No.

The people of New Zealand want the opportunity to focus on what might be our new flag. What is it? What is it that we might stand for? What is the flag that might encapsulate how we feel about New Zealand and how we want to present ourselves to the rest of the world? After all, we are a small trading nation right at the very bottom of the world. After all, we do rely on markets being opened for trade to provide all those services that we all enjoy and need so badly in New Zealand—thank you, Mr Groser, for your ongoing work in that regard. So New Zealanders have the opportunity to choose a flag that says who we are now, and thank you to the Greens for bringing in this amendment legislation to enhance that process.

Later this year and early next year New Zealanders will be able to have a yes/no choice. Yes, they will! They will have a yes/no choice, but it will be an informed choice. First of all we get to consider what we might look like in the future. Having done that, if it is the case that New Zealanders as a whole decide that yes, they do want to contemplate a change, then they will get a yes/no vote. That is what, apparently, we all want in this House, but it will be an informed choice. This is a good bill and I commend it to the House.

I call Jono Naylor.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just want to follow the speaking order here, because you have had a couple of backbenchers from the National Party, and I thought that in this game, after many, many decades, that a certain seniority—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No. Well, that is not right. [Interruption] The member will sit. [Interruption] Order! The National Party’s third call was given to the Greens. That was a swap, and the Green Party, which would have been speaking now in slot six, has had that slot taken by National. New Zealand First gets the next one, which is No. 7, and that is the procedure we are following. It has been for the previous readings and is again for the third reading. I am calling Jono Naylor.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can I just ask you a simple question, which I am sure will interest a lot of people in other Commonwealth parliaments and debating chambers as well. Usually the argument goes for and against, for and against.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No, no. [Interruption] The member will sit. Parties have the opportunity to trade their calls. In this case—[Interruption] Order when I am on my feet. In this case the Greens and National have changed their third spot, so the Green Party took the third call, which was a National call, and National is taking the Green call, which is call six. That is why I have given the call to a National member. New Zealand First is call seven on the schedule, and it will get call seven.

I think the irony is that if we did go for and against on this bill, there would actually be only two speeches on this bill because New Zealand First gets only one speech in the debate. So if we were going for and against, it would be all over in two speeches.

I just want to briefly come back, if I can, to the actual bill. The parent legislation for which this is an amendment is all about public participation in choosing the flag of New Zealand. Some people want to change it; some people want to keep it the same. And guess what? The people who want to keep it the same will have a chance to choose, but for the first time in New Zealand’s history the people of New Zealand will get to choose the flag.

This amendment bill is really just a simple, small piece of legislation as a response to a groundswell of public opinion around the country that says: “Hey, we’d like to include a fifth option.” It is called the Red Peak. I am not a big fan of it, but guess what? We are going to put it in. That is small and easy to accomplish. The interesting thing that has been going on as we have been having this debate is the number of 10-minute speeches that I have heard from the other side of the House that talk about this being a waste of Parliament’s time. I cannot figure out why, if you thought it was a waste of time, you would spend 10 minutes trying to tell everybody what a waste of time it was instead of actually just making your point and sitting down so that we can get on with what is going to be, I think, a really encouraging process.

We have seen some good public thoughts come through on the Red Peak design. I am really looking forward to this other groundswell of what I am sure will be other interested parties who are interested in other flags putting forward their ideas. It is going to be a very healthy, public process, where everybody—those who want to change and those who want to keep it—will all get to have their say. They might have to wait for the second referendum to get rid of the current flag, or to keep the current flag, if that is what they want to do, but I am looking forward to New Zealanders having their voice. It will be a great voice that they have and at the end of the process we will be able to say that this is the flag that New Zealanders have chosen.

It is hard to imagine any justifiable reason for that member, Jono Naylor, getting to his feet. I want to say that New Zealand First saw the Prime Minister’s proposal, and at the very beginning we looked hard at it and our experience suggested we should do all we could to oppose it, and we have. We are going to call for a personal vote, because all manner of members of Parliament have gone up there and given their views on the choices thus far, including on Red Peak, and we would like to know where they all personally stand. We think such a request is a reasonable one—an extraordinarily reasonable one. I do not want to hear some sort of constitutional argument against that, because you have heard members say: “I don’t like the four and I don’t like Red Peak.” So they should be entitled, if democracy is to prevail—and all of a sudden the National Party has been overcome by it—to have a personal vote.

Moving the goalposts after the game has started always stinks. Changing the rules after the referee has whistled the game on always smells. The Prime Minister has been utterly consistent, though—and I will be reasonable to him—in his inconsistency. He has been utterly consistent—like the Skycity deal, like the South Canterbury Finance deal, like the Hollywood deal, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, and like the deal or the argument about not making New Zealanders serfs in their own country, or about separatist legislation based purely on race or about the State asset sales referenda that we have had. He has done a backflip on the whole lot including this legislation. So why are none of us surprised? You see, he was on a hiding to nothing, and we knew from day one that he could not be trusted to give the public a fair choice. We knew from day one that his obsequious toadying colleagues would do likewise, at the request of Crosby/Textor and anyone else—whoever finances the National Party right now. They personally would never make a stand in their constituency or public interests.

We said from day one we should have a choice: do you want a flag change—yes or no? If the answer became yes in a majority, then obviously the question was “To what?”. But the Government was never going to do that, and from the beginning New Zealand First smelt a rat, and, unlike all the rest, we put our record and our reputation on the line and we are being proven right. That is what National hates about it. That is what that backbench hates about it and that is what more and more out there who think they know about politics are going to hate about it. It is because on issue after issue after issue one party has principles and does not move from them.

💬 Brett Hudson: What about baubles and titles? Ministerial limos?

No, no—do not come here like a young pup, talking about the baubles of power. He is there because he got offered a list seat—not because he is any good, not because he bright—and he will be one of the first to go, and he will go on issues like this. We do not care about those whose experience is so little and who are so green in this Parliament.

We said from the word go that we would not join the cross-party, jack-up committee designed to “puppetise” the procedures for the PM’s whim. Here is the PM, who instead of saying “I want to leave the country in greater economic and social wealth and do great things in areas of reform.”—no, he wants to have of all things, at the end of his time, a flag. And when he is asked what flag, he says: “I dunno—I dunno.” So he wants a legacy that he does not know about. How pathetic and shallow and egotistical is that. We would not join the sham. You see, politics is about leadership, and, uniquely, New Zealand First has again on this issue—like with the Reserve Bank legislation, foreign ownership, and anti-separatist legislation—shown the way, and we will not resile from that.

Now the Greens say that this appalling change in the flag law within weeks is justified. Why? They say it is to break the political stalemate or to break the political deadlock. What stalemate? What deadlock? The Prime Minister was getting a hiding to nothing. His own internal polls were rising above 80 percent and they all dropped the bundle over there. So, like the cavalry over the hills, at the last moment comes in the most unlikely form—the most unusual salvation—from of all parties the Greens. This is pixie dust, Mr Hughes. It is naivety in the extreme. It is stupidity.

Look at the Greens’ Facebook. There is page after page after page telling them of the enormous political cost for this sort of naivety. Russel Norman would never have done this. He had his faults, but dear Russel would never have done something as stupid as this. Page after page is so damning: “Well done for helping the National propaganda machine. The rest of you are gutless.” It is unbelievable. I cannot read some of this because it is too bad. Then: “No, it’s awful—another logo.”, “Thank God for New Zealand First.”, “Why on earth are you playing into National hands?”. There is one after another. I am just reading each one separately: “You guys are idiots. Now the Greens are”—and I cannot possibly pronounce this word—“going to help National.” It goes on and on: “I can’t believe how you’ve done this. I voted for you at the last election. Now I’m going to vote New Zealand First next time.” Thank you very much. That has got to be a crowning win coming. Over and over again—“Appalled”, this person says. Oh dear me, I think I should make the Greens read this stuff out themselves because it is an appalling litany of complaints from their own supporters.

They said they did it to—what—break the deadlock, break the impasse. Oh no, they did not. They thought they were going to play politics and be real clever. I was overseas at the time and I thought: “Hallelujah! Now we’re all going to see them for what they are.” And so will the Labour Party members, who need to wake up on this issue. They cannot be trusted on our left for 5 minutes when you have got somebody who thinks that their political genius understanding of our country people measures up to a change like this. Online polling is not even the 5 percent required by referendum law. No, it is just online polling with triple voting and social media, and that amounts to a groundswell. Really? Well, we will see what is a groundswell as we rise for the next 24 months to the next election. But I know one thing: the Greens will not be around if they behave like this one more time.

This is frivolity of the worst sort. As for consorting with your worst enemy, what happened to the green-blue coalition? Well, it has well and truly gone. Month after month of vituperation from Ministers over there and over they come—the National Party—to rub their tummies and the Greens roll over. And Mr Key says: “Look, I will always have regard to a change in public opinion.” Do you believe that? Do you believe that? Well, if you believe that, you believe in the tooth fairy, do you not—anybody who believes that.

Red Peak is currently used by a US business. Red Peak is as old as the late 1930s in another country. It is a result not of a 5 percent voters’ referendum but an online result riddled with mistakes and duplication of votes. The PM, poll-driven as he was, is getting a complete public thrashing now and this will not get better. Red Peak will not save him. It is a public policy that has been the subject of a duplicitous and a disgraceful process and a waste of money.

So desperate was National that we got a letter from the Speaker’s office telling us to take down our official flags from this Parliament. I wrote back to the Speaker’s office and said: “Would you please tell me who gave that instruction?”. Sure enough, they dropped the bundle and no longer argued about it because they said they had gone to the Business Committee and there was no objection to the flags remaining. That was on 1 September from the Clerk’s office and I want to know, if that is the case, who authorised that first letter to us on 24 August telling us to pull down the flags? See how biased things have got? An independent member and servant of this House had the effrontery to tell us to pull down our national flag. Well, we are not doing that. We will do our utmost in the next few weeks to ensure that New Zealanders have got a chance to go down there and write “Keep our flag” on the ballot papers, which will mean a majority of informal votes, and this waste of public money will now cease.

Last Monday evening I went to an event in New Plymouth where there were 250 people present. It was a presentation by a company that runs Dragons’ Den - type events. As people presented different aspects to what their company was about, people were invited to say “in” or “out”. They started off by warming up the crowd by saying how it worked. The presenter said “The New Zealand flag referendum—who is in for a new flag?” and up went the in/out signs. The person at the front said to the crowd that there were more ins than outs—because the other side of the sign said “out”. I estimated that out of the 250 people there, around about 60 percent—just across the board, people from New Plymouth, all sorts of ages, backgrounds, and ways of life—said that they were “in” for a flag change. I think the mood is there in the country that we want to see all the potential and possibilities of what a flag referendum offers us.

I just want to put the record straight on a couple of matters, because I have heard members of the Opposition saying that this process has been flawed from the very beginning. I chaired the cross-party committee. Let me just read out a couple of points, because, by the end of November, we took three recommendations to the Minister in charge of the process: the use of preferential voting for the first referendum, four alternative flags instead of three, and we wanted to bring the timing of the second referendum forward to March rather than April. I reported back to that committee that the Minister had taken these recommendations to Cabinet and that each had been agreed to. The Minister and Cabinet listened to our recommendations. They were not obligated to agree with us, but they considered them, and where we had presented some very good rationale, they agreed and changed the process. So for people to say that the process has been flawed from the very beginning is actually inaccurate and incorrect.

In our final meeting of four, in the last 5 minutes before it was due to end, a discussion was proposed to change the structure of the referendum to a yes/no vote. Out of four meetings, which went for over an hour each, in the last few minutes of this process, this discussion took place. It is true. I was the single voice that opposed that proposal—that opposed that suggestion. As chair of the cross-party group, I said that I would convey the views of the majority of members regarding that yes/no vote, but I reminded them that the Government was not obligated to enact their views, and it did not, and I agreed with that, not because I represented National but because I understood the process, the rationale, and the reason why we had put that into place.

I refer again to Gareth Hughes’ opening speech yesterday, in which he said that his first choice was “Laser Kiwi” and that he has changed his view. I think what this demonstrates is that as people engage in the process, their views change, and that is all right. So the yes/no vote sort of cuts things off at the pass, in my view. As Jacqui Dean said, we do have a yes/no vote, but it is in the second referendum, not the first. I believe that the process we have put in place is good and that it will work. What it will do is engage New Zealanders so that they can look at alternatives before they come to the yes/no vote in the second referendum. I think that is an appropriate way. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for New Zealand to look at these things. I believe it is, and I believe that once we decide whether it is the present flag or a new alternative flag, that we as a country will settle on that and move forward.

I believe that it is important that we have a choice between alternatives. I do not agree with Mr Mallard, who says “Yes/no vote in the first referendum and choose your alternative out of five.”, because that is not really a choice. People want to know that they are choosing between the present flag and something else—not one out of five; they want to know something definite. Choosing a flag is that important, and I believe that we have got it the right way round.

To me, as I just come to a close, my choice will have a silver fern on it. I want the Southern Cross on it. I am not sure whether I want red and blue or black and blue—I have yet to think about that. The reason I want the Southern Cross as an important component of our flag is that we are an immigrant nation. We are all navigators. Our forebears got here by being navigated by the stars. We are a nation of nations. I believe that what the Southern Cross does is put us all on the same footing and on the same ground. We are all equal in this nation. I want to have a silver fern on this flag because it is unique to New Zealand. It has been emblazoned on our national sports’ uniforms. It has honoured our war graves. It is the single emblem that New Zealanders have identified with for decades. When Olympians stand in victory, I would love to see them wrapped in a fern, like a laurel of victory, rather than a Union Jack—no disrespect to Britain, but something that represents who we are as New Zealanders. I am very pleased with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to commend this amendment bill to the House. Thank you.

The next call is a split call. I call Dr Kennedy Graham—5 minutes.

I just begin by acknowledging once more my colleague Jonathan Young for his contribution to this whole process, including chairing the cross-party working group. He did a very good job. Just to agree with the Rt Hon Winston Peters in his contribution, politics is all about leadership. That is true. I am a little less inclined to agree with his characterisation that the Greens are naive or, for that matter, that Labour cannot be trusted. In our view, Labour can indeed be trusted.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I didn’t say that. No I didn’t. You’ve got it wrong.

I think, Mr Peters, you did. The transcript will clarify that one way or the other. Labour can certainly be trusted. The problem at the moment is that it is a little difficult to follow the logic by which it is getting to its position. Labour colleagues have characterised the bill in a variety of colourful ways: “a colossal waste of taxpayer money”, “farce of a process”, “silly political gain”, “undemocratic”, “stitch-up”, “tricky deal”, “besmirched process”, “undermining of the expert panel”, “disrespectful of the intelligence of the public”, “back to front”, “wrong”, “treating New Zealanders like muppets”, “lacking integrity”, “shambolic process”, “bizarre rescue operation”, “constitutionally dangerous”, “sloppy legislation”, “a half choice only”, and “a missed opportunity”. On the basis of that, in the exercise of Labour members’ infallible judgment, they are supporting the bill.

More seriously, the one substantive point that Labour has put forward, which we do respect, is the whole issue of the yes/no vote at the very beginning of the process in the first referendum. This is a valid point. There is, in our view, equal weight between the two positions. The first position is that you cannot make a decision as to whether or not the flag should be changed unless you know what alternative flag is in front of you, as opposed to a judgment that you can indeed, in principle, decide whether you want to change the flag, whether or not there is an alternative flag in front of you. Each of those two positions has equal weight. The Green Party was quite inclined to proceed with the Government’s perception on this. It does not really matter either way, but this is good enough to go with that particular one.

The time has essentially come now for the people to choose. When we choose we should think back to the experiences of both Canada and South Africa. In both cases, with sufficient dignity, they moved to change their flag. In both cases a number of conditions held. To change the flag did not show any disrespect to those who had given their lives under the old flag. It did not disrespect the Union Jack when they replaced it. It did not split their country asunder in either case. It did cost roughly the same as it is costing this country. Having made their decision, they embraced a new flag and resolved to move on. Let New Zealand emulate Canada and South Africa. It is time to move on now with the electoral process. The process has not been without pain. It has been politicised to an unfortunate degree, but the process remains valid and the choice before us is certainly a valid one. Now let the people choose.

I call David Seymour—5 minutes.

I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this bill, which is all about the very simple choice of having five options on the ballot instead of four. I think that, given the simplicity of the initiative, it has already taken more than enough of the House’s time, so I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

It has been an interesting debate. It seems that all parties except Labour and New Zealand First actually walk the talk when it comes to giving New Zealanders a choice. I think that it is a very constructive thing to listen to the public and to give this fifth option. I endorse what we have been doing with this amendment bill.

There was a member opposite who talked about personal votes. Well, this party believes so strongly in the ability for New Zealanders to have their say that we are giving every eligible voter in New Zealand a chance to exercise their personal vote in two referendums. It is a fantastic process, and I will endorse any choice that the people of New Zealand tell us they want. Thank you.

As other colleagues have acknowledged, the Labour Party will be supporting this legislation. As colleagues in the House know, we attempted to put before the House a bill that would have allowed Red Peak to be added to the referendum, along with our clear and consistent position that that should be preceded by a yes/no vote.

We have said from the outset that as the public mood rose up in support of additional options, we wanted to support more choice. I, for one, am pleased that New Zealanders will have more choice, and that is why we are voting for this legislation.

I want to reflect on what this process could have been: the opportunity to discuss New Zealand’s identity and our sense of place in the 21st century. What kind of constitutional arrangements underpin a country like New Zealand growing and going forward into the 21st century? That is a conversation that New Zealand needs, and I believe it is a conversation that New Zealanders want to have.

The Government dipped its toe in the water of that conversation with the constitutional review panel, chaired by John Burrows, who also chaired the Flag Consideration Panel. Professor Burrows is a learned and good person. That constitutional review panel’s recommendations have, essentially, just been put in the bottom drawer and locked away by the Government. It is not interested in having a proper conversation about this.

As a country, had we had that conversation and talked about the place of the Treaty in our future, talked about our constitutional arrangements, talked about whether we feel strong enough to move towards what I personally believe we should in terms of being a republic, and talked about how we organise ourselves. Inevitably, as part of that conversation, we would have discussed the flag and whether or not the flag should change. But there has been no commitment to that process by the National Government.

The Prime Minister has lifted out from that conversation a discussion about the flag. That, to my mind, is a huge disappointment. In the absence of that wider conversation, I suspect that in March next year there will be no change to the flag. There are some people in this House who will be very pleased that that will be the outcome in March next year. I am actually not one of those people. I am actually a person who thinks we probably could change the flag and probably should change the flag, but it needed to be part of that wider process.

In the absence of that, what we are left with is an attempt by the Prime Minister to create for himself a legacy. Well, I have got news for the Prime Minister. Our future constitutional arrangements and our identity as a country is not about him. It is not about his ego. It is not about a vanity project for him. I think it is a huge shame that this process, which could have been part of something so useful for defining ourselves as a country in the 21st century, has been derailed by the Prime Minister’s approach throughout this. I am very sad about that.

I want to say a couple of things about how this piece of legislation has found its way to us today. I acknowledge that the Green Party, in putting this bill forward, has the aim of increasing choice for New Zealanders in the referendum. We should not ignore the large movement of New Zealanders who wanted something more, and I think that is important. As I said, we too were attempting to put that legislation forward.

There is no way to hide, and we have not tried to hide, the disappointment of the Labour Party in the way that this has happened, and, in particular, in the fact that as part of putting this forward, a deal was done between the Greens and National to not support Labour’s Supplementary Order Papers. That is extremely disappointing to us because we do not think, if we are trying to avoid political game playing, that that is a genuine and straightforward way of approaching this issue.

Having said that, we have a good relationship with the Green Party. We have a lot in common. We have a lot of issues that we will continue to work on together. Whatever happens around this piece of legislation, I know that that relationship can, will, and should endure.

What I do know is that on the other side of the House we have a Prime Minister who is now completely desperate about his referendum. Only 2 weeks ago he told New Zealanders there was no chance of Red Peak getting on the ballot paper—none whatsoever. He repeated it. His very good and close friend Paul Henry said to him: “Prime Minister, I want you to clarify absolutely. Will Red Peak end up on the referendum?”. The Prime Minister said: “No, it won’t. We’re not going back to Parliament to change the law.” Those are the exact words: “We are not going back to Parliament to change the law.”

So what does the word of our Prime Minister mean? What does it mean to New Zealanders now if the Prime Minister says something and in 2 weeks he can flip around? And we know why.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: He listens.

“He listens.”, says Gerry Brownlee. He is desperate, Mr Brownlee, because his referendum is on the skids. Seventy percent of New Zealanders do not want to change the flag, and so the Prime Minister has taken to going to any venue in the country to run his flag process through it.

There was the bizarre situation of the Prime Minister standing up at a cancer fund-raiser and asking the people there to raise their hands as to whether or not they support the referendum. Then, those who do not support the referendum—the Prime Minister begins to interrogate them and berate them about the fact that they are not supporting the referendum. This is how desperate John Key has become.

John Key wants a legacy. John Key wants a legacy, and that legacy, for him, is to change the flag. He would be far better off leaving a legacy of lifting children out of poverty or leaving a legacy of ensuring that every young New Zealander grows up in a warm and dry home or leaving a legacy that unemployment goes under 4 percent. They would be legacies to be proud of. That would be a Prime Minister who knows that a legacy is not so much about him but about how he leaves the country.

This Prime Minister does not understand that. All the legacies he wants are about him and how he thinks he will be remembered. He is going to have to exercise enormous political capital over the next few months to try to get this referendum through. And I think he will. I think he will spend millions of dollars, probably, of taxpayers’ money on going up and down the country over the next few months, desperately trying to get his referendum passed.

That is the irony. Red Peak, the very thing he said he did not want and the very thing he said would not be on the ballot paper, is the thing he is now clutching on to as his saviour. I have said in this House earlier in the debate that I think Red Peak is a better flag than the others. I know others do not agree with me, but I think it is a better flag than the others.

I personally, as I have also said, think that the flag probably should change as part of that wider constitutional conversation. But every member of this House knows when they go out back to their constituencies and when they go to public meetings that the TV3 poll that says 70 percent of New Zealanders do not want the flag to change is accurate. Every member of this House knows that when they go back to their constituencies.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: No, not true.

Gerry Brownlee does not know that. The good people of Ilam are apparently completely outside of that—completely outside of that. It could actually be possible. Who knows what happens in an electorate that elects Gerry Brownlee time after time? They could be saying anything at all, but that is the truth.

This Government and, in particular, this Prime Minister have destroyed an opportunity for New Zealand to have the conversation we need to have about our future identity because of vanity and because of ego. Now, in his desperation, he accepts that there needs to be another option.

I am pleased New Zealanders will have more choice in this referendum. We support the bill because we believe New Zealanders should have more choice. We also wanted them to have the real choice of whether or not they even want to change the flag. I am disappointed that did not get through.

This has been a completely unnecessary process that typifies what has been a shambles of a referendum. The Government has failed New Zealanders once again.

I rise to take a very short call on this wonderful bill. I want to thank the Greens’ Gareth Hughes. I have had to endure watching this debate and sitting in this House listening to a whole lot of drivel from across the Opposition benches. I commend this wonderful bill to the House.

Members, this debate is concluded. The question is that the motion be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye, to the contrary, No.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Is it a point of order?

It is a point of order; that is why I put “point of order” in front of my request. I called for a personal vote at the beginning of my speech because, as I say—

No, no. This is the process. Let me explain the process. I told your whip this. The member will sit. [Interruption] The member will sit. [Interruption] The member will sit. The whip came and asked me the process. I told the whip what the process was, and the process is that if a party wishes to call for a personal vote, I put the vote, as I am doing now, and when I get to the stage of asking for those contrary to the vote, a party has the right to say they call for a personal vote. At that stage the party calls for a personal vote and I will adjudicate on it at that stage. That is the process. I will start the vote again. The question is that the motion be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye, to the contrary, No. The Ayes have it.

💬 Tracey Martin: No. Noes have it. Personal vote.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Noes? All right—a personal vote has been called for by the New Zealand First Party. This bill has not been subject to personal votes during the course of the first or second reading or the Committee stage. I see no need to have a personal vote on this matter. The votes have been quite conclusive over the period of this urgency debate and, on that basis—and I refer the party to the Standing Order 144. That is the Standing Order that is the relevant one in this case. I am not prepared to accept a personal vote.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am well aware of the Standing Orders and past procedures, but there has rarely been, in my experience in debate on this matter, when so many members have openly and on the Hansard record stated their personal—hang on, can I just finish it off?

No, no—I have already ruled. The member will sit. [Interruption] The member will sit. [Interruption] The member will sit. It is the Speaker who decides whether there will be a personal vote—and let me read it out. I quoted the number, Standing Order 144: “A personal vote may be held following a party vote”—and that is the process we are at now—“if a member requests one and the Speaker considers that the decision on the party vote is so close that a personal vote may make a material difference to the result.” As I mentioned earlier—and I have presided over much of this debate in the readings and the Committee stage—there have not been close votes. It has been very, very clear. On that basis, I am not prepared to accept a personal vote. That is the end of the matter, and I am now proceeding with the vote.

Members, the business accorded urgency is now concluded. The House now moves to orders set down for the extended sitting.