Our esteemed Prime Minister has decided that it's time to change the New Zealand flag. Why? Because it embarrasses him to be mistakenly seated under an Australian flag at diplomatic shindigs, as the rest of the world neither knows nor cares that our flag is slightly different from the Australian one. The Aussies have one more star, and our PM is a bit miffed at this. He's decided that we're going to have a new flag, and there will be a referendum to decide if the rest of us agree with him.
The whole exercise will cost $25 million (that's just the referendum, not the cost of actually producing and distributing new flags, with poles, changing all official documents, etc, etc.)
They've even sent us all a card, inviting us to state "what we stand for". This is called "The Flag consideration project". If you read the wording, you'll see that there is a fait accompli at work here, typical of this government. They assume that the referendum is over, and that we have said yes, and that all we need to decide now is what form the flag will take. "Your name and contribution (hopefully not a financial contribution, we've already done that through our taxes) will help build our national flagpole..." It will have to be a very large flagpole to contain the names of all New Zealanders who have contributed.
Ridiculous. New Zealand is a small country that could spend $25 million on many other things, but this is the PM's personal project; this is how he wants to be remembered, as the PM that changed the flag. My response, not well considered but honest:
Of course, there are now many attempts at a new design, both earnest and humorous:
Sorry, Aussies
This is the PM's favourite. It also happens to be the logo of the All Black rugby team, and I'll be buggered if I stand up and salute that. It has also been pointed out to Our Glorious Leader that it resembles the flag of the ISIS Caliphate, not really something we want to be associated with. And since black is the colour symbolising death in the West and white is the colour symbolising death in the East, it's not really a very life-affirming flag.
All we can really be sure about is that the government will cock it up and we'll end up with a flag none of us want or like. I close with a quote from Dr. Samuel Johnson, that I hold dear to my heart and mutter to myself whenever I think of my Prime Minister:
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel".
Sigh. I really, really hope that none of our pollies see this. Except that our current Prime Minister is more than happy with the Union Jack - and waves it at every available opportunity.
ReplyDeleteMyself I would like a new flag. One which recognises the indigenous inhabitants our our country.
Not holding my breath though.
I like the Italian flag best; red, white and green - tomato, mozzarella and basil!
DeleteI think we had a similar debate here years ago and it all fell in a heap. I don't like the feather, it looks like something given to men in WW who didn't enlist.
ReplyDeleteThe feather is supposed to be a fern leaf! I agree that it does look like a white feather, again not a very encouraging symbol for a nation's flag.
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