The Flag Debate

Suddenly the flag debate has heated up. A wide assortment of malcontents, of whom I am probably one, think it’s time to replace the official NZ flag, based on the Union Jack and the Southern Cross. It does refer to our history and to our situation in the Southern Hemisphere. But it’s also redolent to many of colonialism and the days when dear old England was still called Home. Since then Britain has become part of Europe and New Zealanders have to get in the queue for Aliens at the border. And there are apparently a lot of strange people who have difficulty distinguishing it from the Australian flag.

Now the Prime Minister has said he prefers the Silver Fern flag. Please, oh please, let this not prevail…! It’s black. The silver fern is nice, and it’s connected with sport – and that’s about all that can be said for it. I know that Canada adopted the simple maple leaf, and that seems to have worked. The silver fern won’t work for me. It’s not even halfway exciting. And we are not, repeat not, defined by our sporting reference.

One of the horrors of this debate is that everyone thinks this or that available choice would be perfect given just a little alteration, redesign, fine tuning, addition, twitching here or there. Some of the products that get suggested are… ye gods. And, it seems to me, the very last thing we want is something produced by an advertising agency or design school. I have enough experience of committees trying to finalise some report or official statement or creed, to know that this is never the way to achieve any good result.

We also have the Tino Rangatiratanga flag. I suspect this one is summarily dismissed by many because it is associated with Maori protest and aspirations – and even more because it gets disastrously called the Hone Harawira flag.

But it is a fine design. It is simple, dramatic, its colours are strong and restless, and it evokes for every Kiwi the meaning of the bush and the fern, and growth. Adopting this flag would also be a real gesture in our society right now. It doesn’t matter what the rest of the world might think – this flag would be inalienably New Zealand and nowhere else.