The New Zealand flag referendum and IAP2 framework

Unfortunately, I am yet to get practical experience in online participation since I live in Vietnam. Therefore, every time I read about an online engagement such as the New Zealand flag referendum, I have a special feeling.

The first impression is of the huge number of people who sent their designs to the engagement processes: more than 10,000 designs that might become the new New Zealand flag. It shows that changing the national flag received significant public interest. However, when comparing the New Zealand flag referendum process to the IAP2 framework that shows the ideal role and influence the public should have throughout the decision-making processes, I discovered some issues that should have had greater attention.

First of all, while there was clarity about the decision-making process, it was not necessarily the right process.

The citizens made their own decision as to how they engaged with the government departments involved in this project. They could vote for the flag online through the platform design for flag referendum or by post. Besides, they voted for flags that were submitted by other citizens, not the design of the government. In this case, the decision making can be seen as from the bottom up, meaning that the citizens suggest their choices and make the final decision.

However, to me, the most significant choice was at the beginning: who decided they would like to change the New Zealand national flag? Did the wish come from citizens’ desires or from some particular politicians? Who will decide to change the flag? The decision belonged to the then Prime Minister, John Key. At the first referendum, the government seemed to push all the citizens into changing the flag with the question “What is your choice for the New Zealand flag” not “Would you like to change our national flag?”. If they asked the second question, the story would have been different and there would have been little interesting to talk about like this. The question in the first referendum indicated top-down decision making, not giving an option for the citizens to choose to say no. While in the referendum process, the government’s decisions were transparent and both top-down and bottom-up decision-making processes were applied, in my opinion choosing the right time to use top-down or bottom-up approaches is extremely important as it could save time and money (26 million NZD). My conclusion for this part is that although the decision-making process was clear and transparent, using the approach at the wrong time resulted in unexpected costly outputs.

The second thought appeared when I put the flag referendum into IAP2 Spectrum, the reflection of the level of public participation and the level of the potential influence that the public influence on the decision-making process, I found that the process progressed along this spectrum.

In the IAP2 Spectrum, there are five levels of public participation: Inform, Consult, Involve, Collaborate, and Empower with increasing impact on the decision. In the New Zealand flag referendum, the government obtained public feedback by asking for the submission of flag designs (consult). Then in the first referendum they asked the citizens to vote and choose the between the top five flags (collaborate). The second referendum was to choose between the winning flag and the old flag, with the people deciding to keep the old flag (empower). However, the government should rather have empowered the citizens from the start by allowing them to choose an alternative path. Instead, there was no opportunity for the public to influence their opinion at the first stage of the process.

The IAP2 Core Values contains seven values that help to make a better decision by identifying the interest and concern of potentially affected the public. These are that public participation:

· is based on the belief that those who are affected by a decision have a right to be involved in the decision-making process

· includes the promise that the public’s contribution will influence the decision

· promotes sustainable decisions by recognizing and communicating the needs and interests of all participants, including decision-makers

· seeks out and facilitates the involvement of those potentially affected by or interested in a decision

· seeks input from participants in designing how they participate

· provides participants with the information they need to participate in a meaningful way

· communicates to participants how their input affected the decision (IAP2 Core Values of Public Participation)

The New Zealand flag referendum covers all the core values of IAP2. The New Zealand government recognized that that is was an issue that should not be done by the government alone but also the citizens affected by the flag changing. So, the citizens have the right to decide the flag they would like to represent their nation. Through the referendum project, the government encouraged its citizen to be involved by creating online and offline channels for citizens to submit their designs in the most convenient way to them, voting for the flag they love and also making the final decision was that to keep the old flag — but only after spending a huge amount of money, time and human resources.