It seems that John Key’s decision to allow Maori to agree on a flag to fly on Waitangi Day has reignited debate on one flag for New Zealand and what it should be.
The Herald has an article about the history of some of the flags:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10552244
And Wikipedia also has a good background article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_New_Zealand
When the debate last fired up in 2005 I was in favour of retaining the current flag.
However my views have changed over the last four years and now I believe that NZ should be independant of the U.K. and this should be displayed in a change of the flag.
My favourite flag was one that U2 showed when they played in Auckland:
However I will the first to admit that it is a little bland.
An alternative flag that has got quite a positive response was designed was a few years ago:
Now at first I like this it has some powerful images, the red represents Maori, the fern being white represents the land of the long white cloud, and the blue and stars represent the sea. However I think this design is too messy with two many different features.
Currently there is a call for the Tino Rangatiratanga flag to represent Maori:
However I think that while this flag current represents some Maori groups it does not represent all of New Zealand.
As a response to this there has been a call for NZ to revert back to the old United Tribes flag, the first official flag of NZ which pre-dates the treaty.
However with this flag I still don’t think it shows our true independace.
So how about this:
It has the red representing Maori on it, The cross of St George representing European, The sea, the sky, and the white for the land of the long white cloud.
However I believe that this post and the entire debate on the flag is pointless. I don’t imagine we will change the flag until we declare indpendance, and that is unlikely to happen in the next decade at least. So round and around the debate we go.
