Press

CAMPAIGN FOR NZ FLAG THAT DOESN'T LOOK SO AUSTRALIAN

Nick Squires in Sydney

30 January 2005

Sick of being mistaken for Australians, and increasingly removed from their British colonial heritage, some New Zealanders are campaigning to ditch their national flag, perhaps in favour of a new, Maori-influenced design.

Last week a campaign group, the NZflag.com Trust, began canvassing the public and collecting signatures in the capital, Wellington, as well as Auckland and three other cities.

The group has to collect 300,000 signatures in order to force a referendum on the issue. Ideally, that would be held in conjunction with the next general election. A date for the poll has not been set but it must be held before September.

One of the backers of the campaign is Catherine Tizard, a former governor-general who insists there is no contradiction between her past role as the British queen's representative in New Zealand and her desire to abandon the flag and the Union Jack it incorporates.

"The issue is not one of forgetting our British heritage, it's one of defining New Zealand's identity - what symbolises us as a modern independent nation," said Dame Catherine, who was governor-general from 1990 to 1996.

"There's nothing of New Zealand in the present flag. The Union Jack is British and the Southern Cross is common to the whole southern hemisphere. It's absurd that we should have a flag that is so similar to that of our next-door neighbour that people get the two mixed up."

Similarities between the flags of New Zealand and Australia are so close as to be absurd, campaigners say. Both feature the Union Jack in the corner and a large Southern Cross. While the stars of the constellation on the Australian flag are white, those on the New Zealand flag are red, bordered by white.

The flags are frequently confused at sporting events and public ceremonies.

The present New Zealand flag is up against several new designs which include a representation of the country's iconic flightless bird, the kiwi, the silver tree fern, an abstract Maori design or a combination of all three.

Changing the flag, Dame Catherine insists, has nothing to do with New Zealand becoming a republic. Unlike Australia, which held a referendum on whether to cut constitutional links with the British crown in 1999, the republican debate in New Zealand is low-key. New Zealand retains Queen Elizabeth as head of state and is active within the Commonwealth.

Jo Coughlan, the spokeswoman for the trust, said changing the flag would reflect the increasing number of Pacific islanders and Asians who now call New Zealand home. Thousands of Indians and Chinese have emigrated to New Zealand in the past decade, and Auckland now has the world's largest congregation of Pacific islanders.

"We've moved on and having the Union Jack on the flag is not relevant any more. It's not a rejection of our British heritage. It's just that it doesn't represent who we are today."