New Zealand’s Great Flag Debate

After having read the several articles about New Zealand’s Great Flag Debate, I just have to write about this debate now.

There are several aspects that struck me when thinking about New Zealand wanting to change its current flag. Well, I say “New Zealand”, although I should probably say “John Key”, since he was the one to initiate the whole debate.

First of all, I don’t think the idea to change the national flag is totally wrong or bad. As we know, New Zealand’s flag does resemble the flag of their geografical neighbour’s very strongly, although the New Zealand flag was designed many years prior to Australia’s. Also, it does show New Zealand’s connection to Great Britain, which many New Zealander’s might not feel to be very appropriate in the 21st century, since New Zealand has its own Prime Minister running the country and since the Queen merely occupies a representational role. New Zealand, the history of which starts much earlier than with the British invasion, has a right to honour their Maori history with their national flag. Therefore, I can see that there are reasons for wanting to initiate the designing of a new national flag.

Having said this, I found it rather sad, to be honest, that this whole debate turned rather quickly into something of a joke, with many people “designing” flags only to make fun of John Key. I also found it sad that John Key had this idea in his head of what the flag should look like and that therefore three out of four “final contestants” for the new flag looked pretty much the same (I only say “fern”).

Now, with many people being upset and angry with Key and with the way the debate turned out, I can see why they would prefer their good old flag with the Union Jack on it to the ones John Key had designed.

But I still find it sad that the whole referendum that was specifically established for this purpose did not do a better job of representing their population’s wishes and hopes for the new national flag in their designs. With letting John Key pull the strings in the whole debate, it seems to me that the new flag designs were doomed to failure and that, as a result of this, the current flag would continue to be New Zealand’s national flag.