Guest Post: Flag Referendum

A guest post by Anthony Morris:

The result of the first flag referendum was very close, with the country being split down the middle on whether we prefer the red and blue silver fern design or the black and blue sliver fern, The red and blue flag was a clear favourite on first preferences with 580,241 votes to 559,587 for the black and blue. The black and blue design only pulled ahead after the second preferences of the voters for two lowest ranking flags were added. The final tally, also adding in the second preferences of the red peak voters, was 670,790 for the black and blue design to 655,466 for the red and blue – only 2.3% behind.  

Given the result was so close I think it is time to pause the legislative process and allow for further consultation to tweak the final design. Surely we need more of a consensus on the preferred new flag before having a final vote? 

Design wise, I think a large area of black only works on a pure black and white flag. I can understand the desire to see the silver fern partly as we are used to seeing it on a black and white flag, but the black and blue design is not inspiring and the blue also looks too pale. Perhaps we can come up with a compromise? I have tried with the design below which takes the darker blue of the red and blue design and adds in a red contour to reduce the expanse of black. The contour could represent many things.

For my 2c I disagree. We’ve had a referendum and one design won. Merging the 1st and 2nd designs means a new design no one voted for.