The Finlayson scale of nutiness

Stuff reports:

Attorney-General Chris Finlayson has described as “nuts” a theory that removing the Union Jack from the New Zealand flag will give the Government more power.

Despite that, Finlayson said that “in the world in which I live” the theory was “quite moderate”.

“I have people alleging that – old grandmothers write in and say that the GCSB is spying on them, and that the Romans and Phoenicians were here before the Maori, so in terms of insanity it’s only moderately nuts.”

I would have called it barking mad, but I guess in comparison to some of the other stuff, it is only moderately nuts. I think we should ask the AG to provide his full scale, with examples, ranging from reasonably plausible to certifiable.

According to the theory, removing the Union Jack from the flag would remove the “due authority” of the Crown in government matters, as the Union Jack represents the monarchy.  “It also means we take away the very power which enforces both the 1990 Bill of Rights Act (the closest thing NZ has to an entrenched Constitution) and the founding plank upon which the Treaty of Waitangi has meaning,” reads one blog post.

Asked if removing the Union Jack from the flag would have any effect on New Zealand’s constitution, Finlayson replied: “Absolutely not. It would be a novel constitutional argument that the sovereignty of New Zealand was dependent on one corner of the New Zealand flag.”

How stupid do you have to be to actually think this?