The Majority Has Spoken, Aotearoa is Keeping Her Current Flag
After months of passionate debate, the majority has spoken and New Zealand is keeping its current flag.
The process:
14 AUGUST 2015. New Zealand Flag Referendum Act 2015 was assented. 26 million NZD was appropriated for the referendum.
AUGUST 2015. Long list of 40 potential flag designs were announced.
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015. First referendum. Between 20 November to 11 December 2015, New Zealanders were given the chance to decide on the future of the flag by answering the question “If the New Zealand flag changes, which flag would you prefer? There were 5 flags which were ranked from 1 to 5 where 1 is their most preferred and 5 is the least preferred.
15 DECEMBER 2015. The winner of the first referendum was announced. Kyle Lockwood’s silver fern with Southern Cross stars and black and blue background emerged as the winner.
3-24 MARCH 2015. Second referendum. New Zealanders get to vote anew. This time, they choose between the Lockwood design and the current flag.
24 MARCH 2016. The preliminary result of the flag referendum was announced with the majority (56.74%) of the 2.15M voters choosing to keep the flag.
New Zealand Flag Referendum – What went before?
1834 – 1840. Flag of the United Tribes of New Zealand was recognized as the first national flag of New Zealand.
1840 – 1902. After the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the union jack flag was used by New Zealand
1902 – current. The New Zealand flag, in royal blue background, union jack upper left corner and southern cross stars was adopted.
(Ref: legislation.govt.nz, nzhistory.net.nz; Photos from nzhistory.net.nz, wikipedia and stuff.co.nz)
