Posts by George Darroch
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Hard News: Art with a job to do, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Or Sean Plunket.
Touche.
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Hard News: Art with a job to do, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
subliminal blipverts on the telly...
Shhhh, that's already happening.
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Hard News: Art with a job to do, in reply to Matthew Hooton,
Just by the way, New Zealand has grassy-green or snowy-white mountains. Australia has red peaks. Red peak has no meaning for New Zealand.
Actually, the soil of many of our most iconic maunga is brown or red (particularly in our volcanic regions). They are capped with white, in the form of snow or cloud.
But if you weren't an inner-city latte-sipper, you'd know this.
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Hard News: Art with a job to do, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
So, a corporate logo it is then?
I also compared it to clothing. The flag is not clothing, unless you're Australian.
It is a flag. An item with symbolic meaning that is used for a range of practical purposes and which is necessary for any nation-state in the modern world.
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Hard News: Art with a job to do, in reply to Matthew Hooton,
Inane supposition.
You'll probably repeat it confidently on National Radio though, at which point it becomes truth.
What is factual is that support for a flag change is higher among those who are; university-educated, Wellingtonian, younger, male, and higher-earners. Which (salary aside) pretty much describes me and my immediate peer group. However, a concentration of support in a group does not mean that its support is or was limited to that group - otherwise it would not have garnered the votes of 119,000 New Zealanders.
The archetype is not the type.
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Hard News: Art with a job to do, in reply to James Littlewood*,
Would we really stop being a nation if we didn’t have a flag?
No more than Qantas would stop being an airline if it flew aircraft with white tails. It would find its job considerably harder though.
I’m not sure you’re being sincere.
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I know I shouldn't be.
But I am constantly surprised at the level of conspiracisation from the public.
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Hard News: Art with a job to do, in reply to James Littlewood*,
“Stupid flag! Why do we even NEED a flag?”
Because (like it or not), we are a nation. And nations need symbols, for practical purposes, and not so practical ones.
And it is those less practical but more important things that relate to meaning and identity that a flag comes to embody.
Yes, it's not practical in the sense that you could simply give all people a grey uniform and be done with clothing, but expression to the world is important. We're human, after all. And if we're clever humans we'll let our flags unite us and not send us into conflict.
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If you like a flag, fly it. That is the best way to demonstrate how the image ‘works’ (or doesn’t) as a flying moving thing. I suspect that the thousands of Red Peaks out there will continue to have an impact as people see them. It may not ever become the popular choice, but they’ll make their statement.
And that’s my biggest complaint about this omnishambles. There was very little opportunity for the New Zealand public to interact with them as flags. Not as clipart – which was the primary medium through which people interacted with these.
Some of them look great as gifs or on paper, which is how they were presented on voting papers. They fail as flags. A rushed and underresourced (I’ll get to that) process meant that the great majority of New Zealand not once saw these flags flying. If you live in Tokoroa, you did not see them flying. If you live in South Auckland, you did not see them flying. If you lived just about anywhere in New Zealand they were absent.
And because of that, the chance to familiarise with them was absent. Instead, people felt rushed into making a decision, and either rejected the process or stayed with the familiar. Both are understandable.
Supporters of any of the flags were denied the chance to fly them by being rushed through the process. Buying and distributing flags, fundraising, and having them adopted by their supporters were all highly limited, and the later in the window of time that anyone participated, the less impact their decisions had.
A much better process would have recognised the need to put the flags out there in large numbers, with public institutions flying these in rotation alongside the current (British Naval Ensign) flag. In some places, semi-permanent poles would have to be erected, but this is also fine.
Imagine: A giant red peak / weetbix #1 on the Auckland Harbour Bridge alongside the current ensign. Or furled above Mt Victoria. Colour and design against the sky and above nature and structure. In full size and in full glory people would have the chance to make up their mind, and compare them to what they have already. No apprehensive second-guessing, but an assured choice to select, keep, or reject.
This would have cost money. I estimate several million dollars for flags and associated costs, to be generous. A $26m process would become a $30m process. And it would have meant time; a period of 4 months at a minimum but preferably a whole year. Both would have been fine…
After all, you only do this once.
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Hard News: Change for the Better, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Inapproprite speed is as dangerous on a bike on a cycleway as it is in a car on the road. A lot of MAMILs are old school cyclists who are used to neglected and unused cycleway segments that were basically deserted and their playspaces.
I was having this disagreement with Wellington cyclists recently. When you're around pedestrians on a shared space, anything above about 15km/h is either unsafe or uncomfortable for the people you're around, depending on how many of them there are. That means slowing down for a few moments, but life is too short to go round scaring people, and having to dodge them when they amble aimlessly. If you want to go fast, there's always the road (in Wellington there's only the road, or the large pedestrian boulevards that line the waterfront areas).