New Flag- Did they mess up their chance?

So we all know about the flag referendum in New Zealand. The votes won to keep the old- union jack and four stars- flag. The whole campaign cost 26 million dollars and at the end it wasn’t changed after all.

So the question is: why not?

I think one of the main reasons is that New Zealanders were not at all enthusiastic about the final desings chosen by the panel. All five of them look pretty similiar (to me at least) as three of them have the silver fern on it, mostly differing in color. The other two have different designs but also only the colors black, red, blue and white.

Many New Zeanders designed their own versions and a lot of those were actually drawn by children and often ment to critisize the whole campaign.

Another question which came up during the referendum is if changing the flag means becoming a republic? Also a lot of people saw the referendum as ‘personal wish’ of their Prime Minister.

So I think there are a lot of subjects to this matter which have to be clear beforehand and maybe then more people would have been more open minded to the changing. But the fact that the final five looked all quite similar in design and color (even) disappoints me and probably did so with many New Zealanders who were maybe actually open to a change of the flag.

I think it’s such a great opportunity to actually change it and create something new, something that respresents the country and it’s inhabitants that I personally find it quite sad that the whole flag debate and referendum was such a disappointment in the end and for me it kind of seems like they just didn’t really take their chance.