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NZ flag nonsense


The Marquis de Leech

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The colour scheme in the new one looks terrible, black really doesn't belong with white and blue on a flag like that.

Honestly though Red Peak was the only decent one of the options, sad that it was eliminated so quickly.

And if they want to change the flag then they should go down the Canadian route and make it completely different, it's really just the same with a fern (and black) instead of the Union Jack.

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I didn't like any of the silver fern options, though I think the eventual winner is the least worst of the silver fern options. I am most likely voting to keep the current flag in the next round. Even if red peak had won I'm not sure I like it enough to vote for it to be our new national symbol for ever.

Unfortunately the Umaga-O'Driscoll spear tackle would never be accepted because Umaga is Samoan, and that just would no do. I think since we're the first country to win the RWC 3 times I think we should put the Web-Ellis trophy on our flag. Gold on Black.

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  • 2 months later...

I'm going to have to make an informal vote; there's no way I can endorse either option here. Colonial relic that's virtually indistinguishable from Australia's, or awful new design chosen by a hopelessly undemocratic process ("which of these red/white/blue/black ferns do you prefer?") pushed through by a horrible prime minister.

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Maggie Barry was on the radio yesterday saying that the silver fern "must be on our new flag". Seems to me that it's national party policy that a new flag sans silver fern motif would never get a look in. But no radio interviewer called her on it.

Anyway, I think the similarity to the Aussie flag may be a bit of a red herring because Aus is likely to become a republic sooner rather than later, which means they will change their flag sooner rather than later. So to overcome the similarity to Aus all we need to do it wait.

I'm formally voting to keep the flag because as long as we have the old flag there are going to be future opportunities to change. Once we adopt a new flag that's the end of it forever.

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50 minutes ago, felice said:

I'm going to have to make an informal vote; there's no way I can endorse either option here. Colonial relic that's virtually indistinguishable from Australia's, or awful new design chosen by a hopelessly undemocratic process ("which of these red/white/blue/black ferns do you prefer?") pushed through by a horrible prime minister.

Thy  should have gone the route of my primary school when they wanted a new logo and had a bunch of 5-11 year olds design one themselves and submit them for voting. :P 

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46 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Thy  should have gone the route of my primary school when they wanted a new logo and had a bunch of 5-11 year olds design one themselves and submit them for voting. :P 

Oh, they did. Then a panel appointed by the PM narrowed it down from 10,286 submissions to a shortlist of four we got to vote on (plus one latecomer added due to a popular campaign).

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What was the process for changing the Canadian flag? And more importantly what was the public mood like for a flag change. If you have only about half the country actually wanting a change then I would say there isn't enough public support for it.

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Note that while the current flag looks like Australia's, ours came first. The Australians copied us, not vice versa.

(Personally, I'd sum it up as a contest between a national flag and a National flag. The current flag is a colonial relic, but at least it is a flag, not a corporate logo).

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I'd also note that, on the ballot, the John Key Flag is listed first. All things being equal, people will tend to tick the top box - the ballot should have been randomised, or else have the flags side-by-side to prevent positional bias.

Also, consider the language used in the brochure:

https://www.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Flags/2-choices-official-descriptions.pdf

The "change" Flag gets much more evocative language.

I really do smell a rat here - not that it'll do Key much good given recent polling on the referendum.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I don't think the position matters in these things. If you don't care about the subject, you're not going to go through the effort of picking an option at random, you're just not going to vote at all. And if you do care, you already know what your choice is, so you definitely won't be swayed. And nobody reads those brochures anyways.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A breakdown by electorate. The Maori seats, South Auckland, and Dunedin voted most heavily for the existing flag. Basically, Maori, Pacific Islanders, and old-school white socialists voted to keep the union jack. The areas that voted for change (Bay of Plenty, Clutha-Southland, East Coast Bays, Tamaki, Selwyn, and Ilam) are the wealthy Tory areas.

http://www.electionresults.govt.nz/2016_flag_referendum2/result-by-electorate.html

 

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