What Happened to New Zealand's New Flag?

New Zealanders kiwis immigrants kings subject’s forever 🍺

Foreigners keep saying NZers were "concerned the flag looks like the Australian flag". It's just not true. The Prime Minister at the time (and giant douche) wanted this pet project to be his legacy. He said he preferred a silver fern option and wow, look at that, 3/5 of the finalists have a silver fern on it (3/4 of the original finalists). The two grand finalists look like beach towels or logos for our rugby team. We rejected the Prime Minister's shitty multi-million dollar marketing stunt. He quit a few months after the referendum failed.

You also said that conservative parties wanted to keep the flag. Again, not true. The National Party is our main conservative party and this was their initiative.

The black fern

New Zealand belongs to the native people,
Everybody else is an invader or a guest some welcome some not. A new flag that represents the original people of new Zealand
Is the only way forward.
Greetings from Ireland to the people of new Zealand.

Don’t forget Tuvalu

That was an utter waste of money and time to go through a whole process of invitation to design, different rounds of selection only to pick the existing one! Its like a national manic-depressive episode.

They should put a fern in middle of stars in old flag

Do people in New Zealand have this as there main priority to worry about like Britain and the United States and Canada i'm sure they printed a bucket load of money which the interest they will have to pay pack and changing the flag i'm sure is not a huge worry for the Kiwis

The uk is eternal, the british colony on the new zealand flag remains

Modern attempts at flags look like sports club or shopping centre logos.

Glad to see a change in New Zealand's flag, No more Union Jack in it. Waiting on Australia.

Becoming a republic would not mean leaving the Commonwealth of nations which has republics among its members. Australia and Canada also share a monarch with the, UK, Australia has the union flag in the canton but Canada does not. The US state of Hawaii has the union flag in the canton in recognition of its history. Many of King Kamehameha's advisors were British and the islands were once placed under England's protection.

I am British but I was living in NZ at the time of this. I thought the flag chosen was very good but agree that the process for choosing was flawed. Most didn’t like the flag that got through to challenge the current flag and so the current flag won.

I wonder how the new flag would have faired if the shade of blue used was the same as the current flag?

Who the hell are you?

because its a stupid looking design, thats why.

Once New Zealand changes their flag it will be easier to identify the sheep shaggers

Clear evidence of the 80/20 rule there 😂

Flag without a British Ensign would be unnaceptable

That laser-eyed Kiwi makes me want to stay the heck out of New Zealand. The Cacapoopoo is bad enough...

The Flag referendum was a huge waste of money, and no one wanted it. National, and mostly John Key, wanted to "leave a legacy" type of move rather than out of necessity. When the Laser Kiwi wasn't in the top 5 it was already done for. Plus, all of those top 5 designs were from a government lead design team if I'm not mistaken, so there was definitely an agenda to it.

NZ flag has no identity. I wish they change their flag someday

Now’s flag is the Best😊

According to the breakdown, the youngsters wanted the change. The older ones wanted the old one due to its history.

As a Brit I was surprised that the new flag was rejected, but seeing the two together the old flag looks better. It makes the proposed new flag look a bit lame. A bit like it was designed by simply sticking some NZ related stuff in a rectangle.

New zealand n australia completely diffrent society's, same flag helped with anzac pride, but rest of world thinks were the same society. That anything new zealand is australian n vice versa, when in reality we think the other as culturally simple.

Voting the old flag to continue means New Zealanders can't get snippy with being confused with Australians. They are essentially voting for that confusion to continue, since it looks like their flag is a ripoff of the Australian flag. This is a bad vote, a vote against New Zealand having an identity and a national esteem all their own. At least Canada doesn't fly a Stars and Stripes with maple leaves instead of stars. Change the flag to something more keenly part of New Zealand identity.

Colonizer will always choose colonial flag.

Disappointing.

I’m a sucker for symbolic flags. I can see the difference between the Australia and New Zealand flags (which some might say is impressive for a visually impaired person), but I definitely think it should’ve changed.

Metatron talking about flags!!!

Actually that Koru is a young curled fern tip like the ones you eat. I'm not sure if it symbolzes a wave. As wave in Māori is ngaru. I would have liked to see a green koru, a silver white fern, the southern cross, with a background showing a bottom of teal with a top of white. All over the back. The koru is a nod to the maori heritage and people, who should be represented, and the hidden potential a young shoot has that has yet to be unfurled, the white fern is also a beautiful treasure of the land and the wiri or vibration of life itself, vibrant like the shimmering of waters, the southern cross is a nod to the many navigators who used the southern cross to find Aotearoa. The teal represents the green seawaters, the kelp forests, and the green lands of nz, and the white represents purity, but is also a nod to the māori name for new Zealand Aotearoa, Long white cloud. I think that would have been such a beautiful flag to behold.

If I were a Kiwi, I would certainly get rid of Union Jack, keep the Southern Cross and introduce some of Maori symbols (either koru or slightly less direct silver fern.) Also, i would use at least some black. In other words, the flag that was proposed on the final referendum would do just fine, IMO.

Because the British Empire is still alive, and its sons spread all around the globe and do not forget their mother country.

It didn't change because of the hatred a lot of Kiwi's had ,towards the person who put it forward John Key, and also most of the White Citizens didn't want to cut the umbilical cord from mummy England ,but I'm sure it would have changed if Richie McCaw had put it Forward 😅

I like the furn with black

The "Peak" flag idea was unashamedly stolen from a North Carolina company named Peak Engineering.

I recall when the American state of Wisconsin had a contest for the state motto for its license plate, two of the most popular were "Eat Cheese or Die" (a play on New Hampshire's motto) and "Come Smell our Dairy Air".

Total waste of NZ tax payers money this process. I voted to keep our original.

conservatives are stuck in the past

National party was trying to break NZ away from the commonwealth. And no one wanted that, which is why the change of the flag failed.

No change.

they were all just ugly flags that's all

A FUCKING LEAF

1. NZ flag predates the Australian flag
2. It is the Silver Fern, not the white fern
3. The Silver Fern has much more relevance than just the All Blacks
4. There are more than 2 variants of the NZ flag- the blue, the red (merchant marine) and white ensign (Navy)
5. Koru is NOT a wave - it is a fern frond.

While the current flag is atrocious, the proposed new one was only marginally better. If I was a Kiwi, I would have only accepted something that was really really great.

While overall it was a trivial matter, it at heart became incredibly political. I remember how my school was doing a "create your own flag submission" during that time - that only lasted a week as parents shared political concern etc etc getting "flag talk" shut down. And honestly I'm really glad it didn't change, other than the designs the 2nd biggest aspect that was talked about was the cost. That's right, if ya didn't know the National party advertised it to be a mere $4million for a flag change... that in the end was going to be $26million. You can search it yourself but HOLY I did not want my tax dollars going towards a new flag that 1. we really didn't need and 2. an historical achievement for a political party to "look back on". So many of nz's socio-economic areas were/are underfunded and crumbling at the time that $26mil really didn't need to go towards a lil flag. But yk, that's just what I (a kiwi born and raised) remember from that time period, and what I theorize to be a big reason for no flag change.

What!? You can’t just keep bothering the people with referendum to change the flag design. You have to at least wait 18 years.

The abomination added later was essentially 1/4 of the Nazi swastika - I labelled it "Mein Gott", and it was, like most others, a design that looked like a 12 year old had drawn it.

No. Our flag has not changed.