It’s official: we’re keeping our flag.

For the past year, New Zealand has been working through the official process of deciding whether to change our national flag, or to keep the present option. Our crowdsourced approach attracted international attention, including a shout-out from The Big Bang Theory’s Dr Sheldon Cooper:

At least now everyone knows what our flag looks like (we hope).

The project came about because people apparently confused our current flag with that of Australia, and said the Union Jack is representative of the bygone age of colonialism (also true, but most Kiwis have at least some Brits in their ancestry).

This is our flag:

Not this one:

We started the process by crowdsourcing design options . . . which produced some interesting results. ‘Interesting’ being the operative word. It seems that as a nation, we’re more skilled with MS Paint than with Photoshop.

Many schools used the process to kickstart discussions around the electoral process, the purpose of a referendum, and research into the history of our flag and the Australian flag. My eight-year-old niece informed me the New Zealand flag predates the Australian version, so they copied us (not the other way around, as is often assumed), and therefore they should be the ones to change. I’m also hoping some schools used the process as the theme for art projects and submitted the children’s efforts. This would explain the level of artistic talent on display . . .

An government-appointed Flag Consideration Panel reviewed each of the 10,000+ submissions and came up with a shortlist of forty designs (although one was then removed for breaching copyright):

The panel then narrowed the longlist down to a shortlist of four, although a fifth design was added after a grassroots social media campaign.

Two referendums (or is that referenda?) were scheduled.

In the first, registered voters got to choose which flag design they wanted to go up against the current flag in the second referendum. Some people voted for their favorite flag, while others apparently took a more strategic approach and voted for the one they liked least (on the basis it would then lose to the current flag in the second referendum). On that basis, I have no idea whether the winning design was the nation’s favorite or least favorite! All I’ll say is that I don’t think the final five represented the best designs on offer . . . maybe the official panel were also using the reverse psychology of the designs they liked least, or the ones which were so inoffensive as to be meaningless.

All the same, we then got a second referendum, choosing between the current flag and Kyle Lockwood’s design. My teenagers had been vocal throughout the entire process, pointing out that it was unfair that they, as the children who would carry this flag into New Zealand’s future, were ineligible to vote while “old people” (me) could. After much discussion (and rolling of eyes), my husband and I agreed to cast our votes as requested (directed ) by our children. They voted, and the wait was on to find out which design won.

The official result was announced last week, on Wednesday 30 March. After ten months and $26 million dollars, we get to keep our current flag.

Three cheers for democracy.