Kiwiblog

Amelia Wade at NZ Herald reports:

New Zealanders are adopting the Silver Fern as the national flag because they identify with it more than the Southern Cross, a leader for a republican movement claims.

Flag campaigner Lewis Holden said New Zealand needed a flag that Kiwis connected with and related to, rather than one which gets confused with the Australian flag. …

Mr Holden said it was evident at sports matches and events of national significance that New Zealanders preferred to wave the Silver Fern.

“And from pictures I’ve seen of the Waitangi Day pub crawl in London, very few people actually had New Zealand flags – they were all draped in Silver Ferns or Southern Crosses.”

I agree. You also see it with Kiwis hitchhiking around the world. The Silver Fern is the emblem of choice.

Labour spokesman for Arts, Culture & Heritage, Charles Chauvel, who put forward the New Zealand Flag Bill in 2010, said the Government needed to address the issue. …

Mr Chauvel’s bill, which is waiting to be drawn, seeks to create a commission which must spend 18 months seeking public input on the status of the national flag.

The commission would be appointed by the Prime Minister after consulting all parliamentary leaders.

As part of its functions, it would hold a nationwide competition for new flag designs, ranking the three that best reflect national identity, aspirations, culture and heritage.

While my personal preference is for the Silver Fern, I like the idea of a national competition. The final decision should be made by the public in a referendum.

In my blog at Stuff I salute New Zealand’s new national flag.

UPDATE: 39 comments at Stuff in under 30 minutes. Lots of people fired up on this one.

UPDATE2: Now almost 200 comments, and pretty much all since 3.30 pm which is normally the dead zone.

At 6 pm off to an ASPG event at Parliament on how the relationship between Parliament and the Executive — how it has evolved over the past 20 years and where the relationship might head over the next 20.

At 9 pm will be at Backbenches, where I’ll be doing a 60 second soapbox on the issue of the NZ Flag. I’ll even have some Canadian and Australian flags with me as visual props!

Tomorrow morning I’m one of three submitters appearing on the Electoral (Administration) Bill between 10 am and 11 am in Bowen House. This is the bill that merges the Electoral Commission with the Chief Electoral Office. The major issue all three submitters (The other two are Andrew Geddis and the NZ Law Society) have raised are that the new Commission should be an Independent Officer of Parliament, or the very least the appointment of Commissioners should not be decided by the Minister of Justice, but require parliamentary agreement.

TVNZ have just put out a PR saying:

Prime Minister, John Key was asked to draw his version of an alternative NZ Flag by TVNZ’s Pippa Wetzell on Breakfast at 7:15am this morning.

By the time the programme went off-air at 9am, TVNZ had received many pledges of money for the A4 sized doodle, the highest being $1000.  Mr Key gave his consent for the drawing to be auctioned for charity and it has been listed on Trade Me this afternoon with all proceeds going to the children’s charity, Cure Kids.

Mr Key described his drawing as a “silver fern”.  Pippa Wetzell described it, perhaps more accurately, as a “lop-sided Christmas tree”.

I have to say Pippa has the more accurate description. But at least John drew it himself!

The interview Breakfast interview is above. Will be nice if bit of fun during a TV interview can raise some money for charity.

The Herald has opinions from pretty much every columnist, and a few others.

• Our greatest athlete Peter Snell says it is time for a change and would like a silver fern flag.
• Fran O’Sullivan backs change saying the current flag is too boring, and too similar to Australia.
• Noelle McCarthy admires the Canadian flag.
• Brian Rudman wants the existing flag rolled up.
• Garth George says we should have changed our flag when the UK entered the EEC, but says a change should now only happen when we become a republic.
• Tapu Misa says she is a proud NZer but indifferent to the flag.
• Paul Thomas says the current flag is about our past.
• John Roughan says the way to change the flag is to design a better one.
• Tracey Barnett says “if anyone told me I had to stop to count the stars to tell it apart from its Aussie twin I would have asked what they were smoking”
• Jim Hopkins seems to be the sole voice calling for the current flag to remain as it represents our history and a change would be divisive.
• Rebecca Barry says NZ has outgrown the flag and needs a new one.

The NZ Herald shows graphically why New Zealand needs a more distinctive flag.

They found:

A Herald survey of 18 of the 22 members of the Order of New Zealand – the country’s highest honour – has found 11 of them believe it is time for a new flag. Only five oppose a change at this time. One is unsure and one is unwilling to comment.

And some of their reasons:

“Our flag is too much like Australia’s and most people in the world don’t know the difference,” said former All Black captain Sir Brian Lochore.

He said New Zealand supporters at international sports events already waved what had become the de facto national flag – the silver fern on a black background. “We should take notice of what people do who support us. The people have been giving us a message about the flag they want.”

Sir Brian is right.

Former Prime Minister Jim Bolger said even officials sometimes got the two flags confused. “On the commemoration of the landing in Europe at the end of the Second World War, the Australian High Commissioner in London walked down off the podium and picked up the New Zealand flag and proudly carried it off,” he said.

“When I got down, I picked up the Australian one because that was the only one that was left. These things can happen; there is a similarity to them.”

From a distance you can’t even tell them apart on flagpoles unless the wind is blowing strongly.

Wellington businessman Lloyd Morrison, who in 2005 tried to gather signatures for a citizens-initiated referendum on the issue, said all the arguments raised against a change, such as honouring those who had died fighting under the present flag, were also used in Canada before it swapped the Union Flag for the maple leaf in 1965.

“Today I doubt if you could muster 1 per cent of the Canadian population who would go back to the old flag.”

We will change eventually, and after we have people will ask why did it take so long.

The Herald editorial endorses change:

Canada addressed this issue 45 years ago. It came up with its much-praised and instantly recognisable maple leaf design. The debate there was solely about identity, not about wider constitutional matters or the embracing of a republic. It need be no different here. The debate need not become bitter. Changing the flag is not about dishonouring those who fought under the present flag, just as that ensign, introduced officially in 1902 during a wave of patriotism occasioned by the Second Boer War, was not a slight on the New Zealanders who had fought under the Union Jack.

Indeed.

John Ansell and Kenneth Wang are thinking big. They want to fly the silver fern flag over the Auckland Harbour Bridge on Waitangi Day.

And when I say “fly” and “over” I mean it literally. They want to have a chopper fly it over the bridge. Now of course a normal sized flag is hard to see up in the air, so their flag will be 10,000 square feet in size.

However making and flying a flag costs money – $20,000 in fact. But for those who want to change the flag, it is a great promotion and will get great media attention. So if you are willing to contribute towards the cost, email john@johnansell.co.nz.

And if you have a preference, for which fern design gets flown, if enough money is raised (pledges will be returned if not enough is raised), feel free to comment on John’s blog.

UPDATE:

Who knows what this is?Answer over the page.

(more…)

The Sunday Star-Times reports:

FLAGS WERE in the air last week, and so was nationhood. Maoridom chose its Waitangi Day Flag by a big majority, but discontent with the New Zealand flag, with its conspicuous Union Jack in one corner, has been simmering for years.

So the Sunday Star-Times asked a handful of experts to design a new flag. Today we reveal fascinating new designs by artists Billy Apple and Dick Frizzell, by former ad-man John Ansell, who designed the famous “IWI/KIWI” National Party billboards in 2005, and by Wellington graphic design company Base Two.

Now John has six different versions of a fern flag on his blog site, and you can vote on your preferred designs.

My favourite is the classic black. Second equal would be versions E and F. The split colour looks quite good.

I’ve just voted, so go over to John’s site and have a vote also.

I said back in January 2009 when the decision was made, that I think allowing a Maori flag to fly on the Auckland Harbour Bridge on Waitangi Day was more than fine with me, noting that at various times all sorts of flags have flown there – even the EU flag I think.

On the day to commemorate an agreement between the Crown (now the Govt of NZ) and Maori, I think it is entirely appropriate to have a Maori flag fly one day a year.

I also think over time it will be seen as totally uncontroversial, and in fact will remove some of the divisiveness associated with the Tino Rangatiratanga flag.

But in the short term, I have no doubt there will be a backlash. Interestingly there was none when the decision in principle was  made in January, but things have changed, and listening to talkback last night was a painful experience. A lot of the anger is at the PM personally. Mind you I don’t listen to talkback much, so this might be the normal state of affairs

I am quite impressed with John Key’s response on the Maori flag issue.

He has correctly pointed out there is no agreement on what flag represents Maoridom. So he has astutely bounced the ball back at them, and said if you guys go away and get all the Iwi to agree on a common flag, then yeah I have no problem flying it once a year on Waitangi Day to mark the fact it was an agreement between Maori and the Crown.

This removes any heat around the issue for 2009, is mana-enhancing for the Maori Party, should ensure a smooth 2009 Waitangi Day, and while some will be upset with the decision, they are hardly going to swing to Labour because of it.

My personal stance is the same as last week. Don’t really care strongly about it. Hell we fly the EU flag once a year (including at Parliament) so the Tino Rangatiratanga one worries me far less – and I much prefer MMP compromises that don’t cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

All during the Olympics Games I kept getting reminded of how much I want to change the NZ Flag. It was near impossible to tell it apart from the Australian flag, as it went up a flagpole.

At least we are not the only ones who get confused. Sideswipe reports:

During a ceremony at Ku-ring-gai Council recently, his friends – an English family of five – had just received their Australian citizenship documentation and posed with the mayor for a photograph. “A helpful councillor came forward with a flag suggesting it would make a nice prop for the photograph,” he writes. The family agreed, but asked whether he had an Australian flag. “Oh my God,” said the councillor, “We’ve been using a New Zealand flag all night.”

One of us needs to change flags, as they are so similar. I bags us!