29 July 2005
It is wrong to blame apathy for the failed petition to have a referendum on changing the New Zealand flag.
Rather than people failing to make the effort to be interested, generally speaking they were simply not interested.
There were those at either end of the debate who expressed strong views – the NZFlag. com people keen for us to have our own identity, especially one distinctive of Australia's, and the traditionalists, particularly ex-servicemen who saw the flag as the symbol they fought to protect in two world wars. In the middle though lay the bulk of New Zealanders, who thought the matter worthy of some thought but not enough to get worked up about.
And to be honest, we're not a great flag-waving nation anyway, and if we choose, and we sometimes do, we'll fly a silver fern or a kiwi if we feel like it.
The NZFlag. com Trust is obviously disappointed – hence the "apathy" remark – but it can be congratulated for provoking debate. No one else was going to. And the organisers did a tremendous job – getting New Zealand celebrities on board, promoting alternative flag designs, making regular public statements and attempting to get corporates on board.
The reality though was at the end of the day there was not even a groundswell to get enough people to go around with clipboards getting signatures, let alone getting the 270,000 required names, which then would have taken us only to the next step of actually having a referendum.
The promoters are right though that as we continue to define our identity this
issue will come up again, and in 10 or 20 years the climate for change may be
right. And then we'll have to go past the vote for change, to the real tough
choice. What would we change to? No wonder we're not interested just now.
The Timaru Herald
(c) 2005 Fairfax New Zealand Limited