This Flag Debate

Disappointing!

That is to put it mildly.

Where are the existing alternatives? We already have the 1835 Declaration of Independence Flag, and the Tino Rangatiratanga Flag, which has flown in front of our local District Council Building for years.

Surely they should be among the choices for voting in the first referendum? Both have a history and a special association with our country.

I can readily understand the PM's reasons for wanting a change. Having lived overseas, it is clear to me our present flag confuses foreigners: it is almost identical to the Australian one, and it incorporates the British one. So how come we say NZ is an independent and democratic country?

In Indian languages, for instance, "republic" and "democracy" are the same word, different from "independence" or "self-government". They see us as "self-governing" like any crown colony, but not "democratic". Our head of state is a citizen of a foreign land. Our flag does not separate us from others. So I think it is long past the time we should have changed our constitution, our flag, our anthem and our name to reflect our unique nationhood and our democratic principles.

And, to use the language of the Treaty, how can we have, both Maori and Pakeha, tino rangatiratanga
if the authority of our kawanatanga is vested in a foreigner, who lives overseas and takes scant interest in us?

In the seventies, when I attended the Waitangi Day celebrations for the first time, I was horrified to see the Union Jack at the top of the main flagstaff. Where was the New Zealand flag?

The next day I put that question to Norman Kirk, who was then the PM, at a meeting I attended hosted by the Labour Party. He said, "Yes. I wondered that too. Leave it with me." The next year the Queen visited and her first act on reaching NZ was to present the PM with a NZ flag to be flown at Waitangi, at the top.

I would be happy to vote, say, for the Tino Rangatiratanga flag, but it looks like I won't get the opportunity.