Hubbard on the flag

A rare Anthony Hubbard column I agree with:

Our flag is not just absurd, it’s laughable. “New Zealand,” it says, “still British after all these years.”

“Kiwis,” it says, “colonial and proud.” “Don’t disturb,” it says, “still asleep in the 19th century.”

 As a symbol of modern New Zealand, the half-pie Union Jack is merely embarrassing. Anything would be better than this, which is why we should go for the alternative Silver-Fern-plus-Southern-Cross. It’s not much of a flag, but at least it would be ours.

Some call it the rugby flag, a tea-towel that’s worse than that old British thing. No, it’s not. If you visit New Zealand war graves in Europe, an experience that shakes the soul and tells you who you really are, you will find a silver fern on every tomb.

That for me is the key. I want a flag unique to NZ (not near identical to Australia) that has a silver fern on it and no union jack on it. I love the UK, but having their flag on our flag is not a good symbol.

Don’t believe the people who say we can have another go later. If John Key gets a hiding over this, as seems likely, no other government will touch it for decades.

A Labour-led government can’t go there. Labour has shown that when it comes to the flag they are an odious bunch of hypocritical cowards. Labour is the party of independent nationhood and necessarily supports a non-colonial flag, but it decided to use the referendum as a stick to beat Key with.

Ratting on your own beliefs for political advantage is gutter politics and it doesn’t work.

Labour are so obsessed with inflicting a loss on John Key, they have destroyed any chance of a flag change probably in my lifetime.