What Happened to New Zealand's New Flag?

this is the flag of New Zealand and a few months ago I made a video about why there is another variant of the New Zealand flag however in 2015 that could all have changed because it is in that year that they decided that they were going to change the flag of New Zealand to a new design a new flag for New Zealand now the reason why they wanted to do this with a referendum so asking the public to send in their own designs that would be chosen from one of the main reasons for this was that the New Zealand flag is often confused with the flag of Australia which looks really quite similar and actually you may have noticed that that wasn't the flag of Australia but it's the other way around so it's really quite similar in design now in 2014 the national party that was in power said if they were re-elected part of their promise to the people of New Zealand was that they would have a campaign for a new flag and in 2015 when they were re-elected they launched just such a plan and in a short space of time over 10 000 designs were sent in by members of the public hoping that theirs would become the new flag of New Zealand from this huge number a shortlist was made of just 40 designs that people could choose from although I think we can all agree that this one really should have won straight away without any contest the laser-eyed kiwi with the fern in the corner is frankly incredible and I would love to have seen this flying at the UN in general though the designs featured one of or more of five colors black blue red white and green and some of the favorite designs for on the flag were the Southern Cross which of course is featured on the current flag the white fern another symbol of New Zealand that is particularly associated with the the rugby team we play in all black with a white fern and the koru which is a great wave symbol that is important from Maori storytelling and mythology so these 4D designs then were eventually also whittle down to just four designs and they are as follows so here we have a white and black Fern we have here a design with a red white and blue with the Southern Cross and the fern Incorporated we then have a very similar design in fact by the same designer which replaces the color of red with black on there black being an important color for New Zealand as already stated and finally also a design with the the koru The Great Wave in white and black really quite a cool design in my opinion however the government panel that was deciding on the flags decided to add in another flag because a petition went round online that got over 50 000 signatures asking for this flag the red Peak flag as it's called to be included So eventually the short list was made of Five Flags and on the 10th of November 2015 the people of New Zealand were able to vote on which one they preferred the question on that referendum was if the new Island flag changes which flag would you prefer so the people of New Zealand had the choice between these five designs that had been sent in and when they went to vote it was this one choice e which was voted the most popular there although it was very tight it got 41.64 of the vote in fact a very similar design that just exchanges the red for black got 40.15 of the vote and the others all got quite a low percentage in the end so these two were clearly the most popular choices of the two but interestingly enough when this question was put to New Zealand which one of these two flags they preferred the other one actually got more votes getting 50.58 of the vote as opposed to 49.42 of the vote showing that some of the voters that had voted for the other flag actually preferred the black design to the red design here and so this became the flag that would be put up against the current flag of New Zealand to see if it would replace it as the flag and that is indeed what we see happening for on the 24th of March 2016 this question was put to the people of New Zealand in another referendum and this time it asked what is your choice for the New Zealand flag and they were able to choose between either this new design with the phone or the old design with the Union Jack and the Southern Cross and the old design won with 56.73 percent of the vote those in New Zealand that voted in the referendum preferred the older design the flag that has been New Zealand's flag for over a century rather than this new design with the fern on it although it was really fairly quite close I would say despite the fact that they chose to go with the old design the new design clearly isn't that unpopular and perhaps in the future we may see more referenda on such issues but for now this room Remains the flag of New Zealand now an obvious question is well why didn't the flag change if there was this government impetus to hold a referendum and people could send in whichever flag design they wanted and then vote on it why did people decide to go with the older flag well there's something to be said about an old design it's something people already associate with New Zealand obviously it was adopted a long time ago it shows something of the country's history with of course the British colonization in New Zealand ties to Britain ties as well of course to Australia whether that's a positive or A negative thing and indeed the Southern Cross locating it within the Southern Hemisphere and as it's seen on several other flags it's a popular design it's also fairly straightforward and it's a simplistic flag which is sometimes a good thing but it's not too much like a logo which is some of the criticisms that the newer designs had of course various parties in the government were very much against changing the flag particularly more conservative ones which perhaps is not surprising give that they want to conserve the older flag and indeed the meaning and the history behind that flag and what they associate with the flag a lot of the new designs Incorporated Maori symbols on them as well as ideas of republicanism by getting rid of the Union Jack you'd be getting rid essentially of the symbols of British rule of the past of New Zealand and that of course is quite a political thing to be doing so different people on different sides of the political Spectrum may think differently about that so is there any chance that in the future there may be a change in the flag well it is quite possible you know 43 voting for a new flag was quite substantially higher than the 20 to 30 percent that had been expected in polls beforehand so actually people were more receptive to a new flag than many professionals had thought before the referendum which is quite interesting although obviously it was not a majority and there was quite a lot of criticism for the way that the various referenda were handled in this case so for now it's unlikely that in the near future New Zealand will once again change their flag this has to come from a political move by one of the political parties and because it failed of course no political part will want to attach themselves to something like that if they don't believe that it will be successful but who knows what the future holds one thing that was mentioned at the time was that if New Zealand were to become a republic of course now it is part of the Commonwealth Nation that then perhaps changing the flag would be in order to show us further distance from the United Kingdom and that British colonial past and perhaps to embody some of the the new New Zealand as they would see it and this perhaps they said would happen after the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth and unfortunately of course we know that Queen Elizabeth died last year in 2022 we now of course have King Charles III but perhaps this then will be an impetus for future politicians in the next few decades to bring this issue back up and for New Zealand to vote on a new flat but let me know in the comments below do you think that New Zealand should change their flag which of the designs do you like have you made a design and if you're from New Zealand why do you think that it failed was it a big thing at the time did people really engage with it was it incredibly poorly handled and is that why you think it didn't work order most people the silent majority actually just prefer the flag as it is and don't feel the need to change it to reflect a different New Zealand let me know in the comments below I thought it was an interesting video to make about the new New Zealand flag as I have of course this series about old Flags I guess I did the Russian Peace Flag which um by some could be considered as a potential new flag for for Russia for some people but it's an interesting thing to consider and I hope you enjoyed the video let me know in the comments below any thoughts feelings criticisms opinions and I will see you all in the next one thank you all very much for watching I have been Hilbert and this has been the very recent history

Channel: History With Hilbert

Views: 445,146

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Id: QZhKfK_m5vU

Length: 9min 18sec (558 seconds)

Published: Fri May 19 2023