New Zealand’s flag debate
Even though the flag referendum is already over, it is still a highly controversial issue. The main reasons for a change of New Zealand’s national flag are pretty obvious: the Union Jack that is placed on top left of the flag immediately reminds us of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and thereby the colonisation by the British Empire until the Declaration of Independence in 1947. Another crucial reason might be that the flag looks almost identical to the Australian one and unfortunately shows us how underrated New Zealand really is. In my opinion neither the current flag nor the suggested one of the referendum live up to what New Zealand’s history and culture has to offer. I actually think it is kind of disrespectful towards the native people as nearly half the flag consists of the Union Jack.
As you can see there is not much difference between these two flags. It annoys me quite a lot that the proposed version has still way too much in common with the current one and it is absolutely reasonable to me that the new flag has lost the referendum in March 2016.
The colours that mainly stand out are the ones that are also used for both the UK and the Australian flag, whilst the silver fern is the only major change.
In my opinion the idea of changing the flag is not only a polite way of showing respect towards the indigenous New Zealanders, but also extremely important and necessary. Therefore, I would highly suggest to give it another try as they can always improve the design.
