By ANNA CHALMERS
06 February 2005
TV3's John Campbell and Carol Hirschfeld have joined the chorus of celebrity voices calling for a new flag, on a day when we celebrate what it means to be a New Zealander.
"I am extraordinarily proud to be a New Zealander and I do not see the essence of New Zealand lying in the Union Jack," said Campbell, whose partner and father are British.
Campbell, whose new show Campbell Live launches in April, said he was saddened when he heard people "slagging off the treaty".
"It's not perfect and there's still a long way to go, but having just been in Australia, we beat the crap out of them. I think there's much to celebrate."
Hirschfeld said a new flag would better reflect the nation in which her children, William, 10, and Rosa, three, live.
"History, like language, it moves on. It's organic, it changes, we have to accept and make accommodation for that change," she said.
Neither supported renaming Waitangi Day as New Zealand Day.
"I understand this is not a day that fills everybody with a great sense of joy and celebration but for me personally, I've always seen it as a great day that symbolises the hope of this country," said Hirschfeld, of Ngati Porou descent.
The pair were also celebrating naming their new show, the third to enter the 7pm current affairs race. Campbell Live was given the "OK" by the man himself, despite resistance to his name being in the title. He joked that he needed to run the name past his GP to check it was accurate.
The show, which will be produced by Hirschfeld, does not start until April. Along with Prime's Paul Holmes and TV1's Close Up, media commentators have predicted the three shows cannot last.
TV3 and Prime bosses will be heartened by Close Up's ratings fall. The Susan Wood-fronted show has dropped in the past two weeks to 524,00 viewers aged five plus, compared with an average of 572,000 during Holmes' final fortnight in October.
Shortland Street has lifted its channel share from 25% of all possible viewers in January 2004 to 31% in the last fortnight.
That is good news for Prime, with Paul Holmes debuting tomorrow. The first show will feature an interview with Jonah Lomu and producers hope the British prime minister's wife Cherie Blair, who arrives in the country tomorrow, will also appear.
Campbell Live has been dubbed a hybrid of Hirschfeld and Campbell's former shows, Home Truths and A Queen's Tour, with a current affairs twist.
"We're trying to reinvent the model. We don't want to do (current affairs)
the same way," she said.
The Sunday Star Times
© 2004 Fairfax New Zealand Limited