The New Zealand flag

[crocos]

I like the thought put into the Red Peak flag. I still don't like the design.

EDIT: Fuck it, I'm bored of the flag bollocks. I'm going to vote "don't change" but fuck voting for any sort of preference from the 2.5 designs being presented.

[Ab]

One thing that Stuff columnist hits on the head - commentary on the flag question among the lefty twitterati is almost all a variation on this theme:

"The current flag is an offensive symbol of patriarchial colonialist oppression and should definitely be replaced, but if John Key wants to do it then I'm against it. And really, the silver fern and All Blacks and rugbyheads *sigh* *eye roll* *more sighing*"

[Spoon1]

What is it with the raving lefties in comments etc and their anti-sport attitude? You'd almost think it's not possible to be both.

(I vote left and love sport.)

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Ab

"The current flag is an offensive symbol of patriarchial colonialist oppression and should definitely be replaced, but if John Key wants to do it then I'm against it. And really, the silver fern and All Blacks and rugbyheads *sigh* *eye roll* *more sighing*"

I'd prefer we remove the substance before we remove the symbol.

[fixed_truth]

More flag dramas!

Flag judge Julie Christie's conflicts of interest

[Ab]

oops

[Ajax]

There's another design very similar to Red Peak but from a different design outfit in the final 40 longlist.

The triangle seems a fairly inevitable outcome if you're going for a mountain motif (or meeting house or whatever the fuck). That said, it could still be a ripoff.

[blynk]

I think the thing is that there are no new designs left in the world, and everything is a rip off of something else.

[blynk]

I bet it wont be long before we see this shot mocked up with the other flags

[crocos]

I wasn't thinking other flags so much as... Well, *ahem* yes I'll go back over to my corner and hang my head in shame again.

[blynk]

Originally Posted by crocos

I wasn't thinking other flags so much as... Well, *ahem* yes I'll go back over to my corner and hang my head in shame again.

Well I guess the flag isn't the only thing that has to be photoshopped.

[Ab]

we have a winner in the contenders' ballot:



From Farrar's blog:

By an incredibly narrow margin the black, white and blue silver fern has beaten out the red, white and blue design.

Turnout was 48.2% and of the 1,527,042 votes received there were 148,022 informals.

The first round of counting saw:

Red, white, blue fern 41.7%
Black, white, blue fern 40.2%
Red Peak 8.7%
Black & white fern 5.7%
Koru 3.8%
The second round of counting saw:

Red, white, blue fern 42.4%
Black, white, blue fern 40.9%
Red Peak 9.7%
Black & white fern 7.1%
The third round of counting saw:

Black, white, blue fern 44.8%
Red, white, blue fern 44.4%
Red Peak 10.8%
The final round of counting saw

Black, white, blue fern 50.5%
Red, white, blue fern 49.5%

I'm surprised Red Peak scored so low. Thought it had a chance.

[CCS]

Oh come on. Red peak was fucking garbage.

[blynk]

Red peak was one of the bottom when they had 40 flags.
It got through because of vocal minorities.

What Im glad about is that the top 2 flags were essentially the same, and together, they got 82% of the total first round voting.

[fixed_truth]

Can it beat the colonial tramp stamp though? I would be ok with that but I just can't see a flag change happening with Key as prime minister.

[ZoSo]

Nice. Get two laughs out of the red peak wannabes now. Their 2nd votes helped kick black to the top. Cheers _b

[Ajax]

Kyle Lockwood's fern designs look like a tired Commonwealth Games logo. The current flag is an embarrassing colonial relic. It's an impossible situation.

[leadinjector]

well out of all the new ones its the one i would have picked. red peak just looks like a shite logo, and the red and blue one looks like a major league gaming logo

[crocos]

None of them - including this one and red peak - are better than the Blue Ensign. Why bother changing it?

[Ab]

because grown-up countries don't have other countries' flags on their flags.

[Lightspeed]

In that vein changing the flag seems like a "fake till you make it" kind of approach.

[Ab]

gotta start somewhere.

[Ajax]

I'm all in favour of a change. It's just unfortunate that nothing great (like Canada's flag) emerged from the design competition.

[Lightspeed]

I wonder what was happening in Canada at that time they changed their flag. There doesn't seem to be any groundswell of popular support compelling the change right now in NZ. If there was I think there'd be more burning creativity that would have the potential to produce something iconic like Canada's flag.

[Deadmeat]

[Ab]

[CCS]

Originally Posted by Ab

because grown-up countries don't have other countries' flags on their flags.

You don't reckon NZ is a grown up country do you?

[Kryten]

I'm ok with the choice, because fuck the Union Jack being on flag. What I worry about now is that the sandy vag pseudo-intellectual Red Peak mob will eventually stop crying into their soy lattes and organise to spoil the party, which will mean we won't get any change at all, and that would be dumb.

[pxpx]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

I wonder what was happening in Canada at that time they changed their flag. There doesn't seem to be any groundswell of popular support compelling the change right now in NZ. If there was I think there'd be more burning creativity that would have the potential to produce something iconic like Canada's flag.

http://mytoba.ca/voices/new-flag-was...-life-went-on/
http://www.theprovince.com/news/year...716/story.html

Here's an interesting one - the runners up for the canadian flag:
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/ca...ved-maple-leaf

[blynk]

So change the flag now, and be stuck with this flag for a very long time.
Dont change the flag now, and have the possibility that it will come up again in 10 years time and a better flag will emerge.

[pxpx]

Don't change the flag now, go through the whole process again, only this time it costs $46m (inflation or someshit) and we still can't decide.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by CCS

You don't reckon NZ is a grown up country do you?

*looks at flag*

nope

[CCS]

I agree; we're not a grown up country. But it's not because of the flag. Having a new flag won't make NZ have a magical growth spurt. But big step toward being a big boy country would be declaring independence from Mother England. That would be a good time to get a new flag.

Another good thing to do would be if people just stopped getting so damn excited because somebody in another country mentioned us. Chill the fuck out and act like it's no big deal. Because it ain't.

Conversely, we're going to have to stop wetting our pants if some fucker from some other country makes fun of us. Put on the big boy pants and drop the whole "You can't be mean to us because we're little ol' New Zealand and we're really nice and we made movies about Hobbits!"

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by Kryten

What I worry about now is that the sandy vag pseudo-intellectual Red Peak mob will eventually stop crying into their soy lattes and organise to spoil the party, which will mean we won't get any change at all, and that would be dumb.

It'll totally be white man's blue ensign + red peakers > the silver fern beach towel design.

[fixed_truth]

Well that's all over.

Lesson learnt - don't initiate a referendum when there wasn't much of a public interest in change and then try and paint it as the price of democracy. Also it's not a good idea to make the issue all about you when you are one of the most polarizing politicians of recent time. Finally, designers on the flag panel please.

[pxpx]

~30% of registered voters voted for change, you only need 10% for a citizens initiated referendum. I'd say there's plenty of public interest in change, especially if you consider the (unknown/unknowable) percentage of "I want change, but fuck John Key/National" votes.

John Key didn't make it about him, the left made the Flag debate about John Key. Which is quite impressive, an actual successful manipulation of the electorate by the left.

I agree with the flag panel though thing though, proper designers would have been nice.

[fixed_truth]

No the numbers of voters was after the fact and doesn't at all gauge whether or not they thought a referendum was something worth going through with.

Also Key totally made it about him through his consistent campaigning for his choice of flag, which ironically he wouldn't have had to do if there was real public interest in having a referendum in the first place. The left (whatever that empty buzzword means) or anyone else didn't have to do too much as the whole process was a big cock up.

[Cyberbob]

Originally Posted by pxpx

~30% of registered voters voted for change.

Source? Are you taking about the results, or pre-process polls?

[pxpx]

Rough calcs from the results, voter turnout as a percentage of eligible voters.

900k people voted for Change FT. Sorry but you're flat out wrong that there was "wasn't much of a public interest in change".

[fixed_truth]

We’ll have to agree to disagree, I don’t see how turnout after the fact shows that people wanted to go through with a flag referendum. But maybe they did, too bad we were never asked if we wanted to change the flag eh?