Flagging the Issues

3 March 2016

I’m sure many of you are tired of the flag debate. The process has been flawed. The committee lacked design expertise and many are disappointed by the candidates the committee has chosen. Red Peak was omitted and then reintroduced, only to fail to gain any real traction in the final vote. It’s costing $26m. And many see this as a vanity project for John Key.

There’s a lot of noise, but I don’t see much sensible discussion. I've found myself becoming irritated by some of the things being said on Facebook. But rather than reacting to a particular post, I decided to take some time to set out my thoughts here.

Obviously, everyone should feel free to choose the option that they like best. It’s a subjective question with no right or wrong answer. People need to be tolerant of others’ views.

We are where we are. We’re unlikely to get another chance to influence the choice of our flag any time soon, so don’t waste this chance. Don’t be distracted by the noise and rhetoric. Just take the time to really think about which option you like best. Which one would you like to see flying when a Kiwi wins gold at the Olympics later this year?

Ignore the fact that it cost $26m to get here. That money has been spent. We had no say in that decision. Not voting, or voting for a particular option as a protest, isn’t going to get that money back, so we might as well accept it and make the best decision we can.

NZ Army

It doesn’t matter what flag our grandfathers and great grandfathers fought under. Those wars are potentially as good a reason to change the flag as they are for keeping it. My great great uncle, Jim Ryan, captained the NZ Army side that won the King George V Cup in 1919. They beat the English side at Twickenham. This is him receiving the cup from King George himself. Jim is wearing a black jersey with a silver fern. He and his brother were All Blacks, too, so the Silver Fern might well’ve resonated with him. But I never met him. I don’t know what my ancestors would think about the referendum. No one does. And why speculate? Times change. What might have symbolized NZ then doesn’t necessarily still represent the multicultural country we live in today. You have to be alive and over 18 to vote on this one. It’s our decision to make.

I’ve even seen comments to the effect that flags are jingoistic symbols of arbitrary and inherently divisive national boundaries and that we shouldn’t define ourselves in this way. Where you’re born is simply a matter of blind chance. * Breaks into song * "Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do…" Well, I would say Lennon was a dreamer. We live in this imperfect world. We do have countries. And it’s kind of accepted convention that each country has a flag. We now have a chance to choose ours. So I don’t see this as any reason not to choose or to choose one option over another.

For the purposes of this decision, it’s irrelevant what you think of John Key or his motives. In 10 years’ time, he’ll be fish’n’chip paper and we’ll still have whichever flag we choose now.

And there are a bunch of other distractions:

New Flag

What am I going to vote for? The new one. I agree it’s not perfect. The blue is maybe too light. But I think it needs to be lighter than the current blue or it won’t work with the black. And is it just me or has the blue gotten darker since the first referendum? I think it looks good in its current iteration on the Bridge as I ride across each day.

I like that it introduces some black into our flag, given that is the predominant colour of the uniforms worn by our national teams. And I like that our teams wear black. It’s the best uniform colour. I feel sorry for our neighbours across the Tasman. Did you see the jerseys their Sevens team had to wear in Wellington? And imagine trying to wash the English rugby uniforms. The addition of some black and a Silver Fern mean the flag and our sporting uniforms would have some sort of link. I think that’s a good thing.

And, I agree with Richie’s sentiment (not just because Richie said it). The new one is more distinctively and recognizably ours. It doesn’t look almost identical to that of our nearest neighbour. And that’s the whole purpose of a flag.

I’m keeping this in perspective, though. You may like and want to hang onto our current flag. If so, I hope you go and vote that way. I won’t think any less of you. Unless, perhaps, if you’re doing so for any of the reasons set out above or because of any of the other nonsense floating around on Facebook…

We are where we are. We can’t change that. But we have a chance to decide something important. Not critically important, though. If my preferred option isn’t adopted, we’ll continue with the current flag and I’m ok with that, too. If that’s the outcome, I just hope it’s because people have given it some thought and made a decision based on which design is the best option for NZ’s flag for the foreseeable future.

And remember. A flag’s just one symbol. Countries are known for other things. So be nice to each other. I’d rather we were known for that.

PS: I've just spoken with some people who plan to vote for the existing flag in the expectation (hope?) that, if there's a no vote, they'll get another chance further down the track to choose a different flag that they like better. It's probably true that changing the flag means it will be harder to change it again. But this seems like a big gamble. I don't see any realistic chance that we'll get another opportunity to change the flag in the foreseeable future, except maybe if NZ were to become a republic. There's no certainty as to whether and if so when that might happen. The only sensible assumption is that a no vote means we'll be stuck with the current flag. Given the cost and opposition to this process, can you imagine how much harder it will be for anyone to get another flag referendum off the ground following a no vote?