Hard News: Not yet standing upright
316 Responses
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Robyn Gallagher, in reply to
I hate the spoiling the ballot campaigns. It’s literally the same as not voting.
"Wow, look at all these votes with "THIS SUCKS" written on them. I had no idea people felt this way. This is a serious wake-up call. Let's just scrap the referendum."
- No one, 2015
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Vote Hypnoflag! (Not blatantly self-promoting, honest!)
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
well you have to have something that all New Zealanders can relate to
Actually you have to have something New Zealanders WILL relate to
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Dylan Reeve, in reply to
“Wow, look at all these votes with “THIS SUCKS” written on them. I had no idea people felt this way. This is a serious wake-up call. Let’s just scrap the referendum.”
- No one, 2015
And yet that is exactly what Winston Peters is suggesting...
At the whim of the PM we’ve been saddled with a $26 million flag debate.
He’s going all out to get rid of our flag, which carries the Union Jack.
On the other hand, he brought back a colonial relic – knighthoods.
He wants more visits from the royals.
He’s given Prince Charles three military honours.
Yet he loves Hawaii, which has the Union Jack on its flag.
All rather odd.
And instead of being neutral for the debate he has been loud and clear he favours the silver fern.
Four designs today, and the silver fern dominates!
What the PM wants, he gets.
We say write Keep Our Flag, or KOF, on the referendum voting paper.
With many making the vote invalid there will be no good reason to continue with a second, costly referendum. #KOF- https://www.facebook.com/winstonpeters/posts/1188564987836293
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Alfie, in reply to
(Not blatantly self-promoting, honest!)
Obviously. Those of us who choose not to use Facebook aren't even allowed to view your post. That's one way to ensure Hypnoflag avoids widespread acceptance.
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Everyone seems to think it's important that a child could draw the flag.
Nothing horrifies me more. What are you trying to do, indoctrinate your children into blind loyalty to a flag? It's been done before a whole bunch of times, with horrifying results.
Flags should be for adults. They serve multiple purposes but children should not be the subject of flag propaganda - leave that for the USA.
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It’s a bit like being invited the flag-games. A compulsory $26m party at which choices no designer would make are being offered up. At least they aren’t demanding tributes to fight it out to the death on television.
By including 3 fern designs in the final 4 and one badly executed Koru the situation has become a Hobson’s choice.
It’s not like most of us have any use for a flag most of the time but it is disappointing to waste an opportunity to be excellent by making mediocre choices.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
Those of us who choose not to use Facebook aren’t even allowed to view your post.
That's not my choice. It's as public as I can make it. Given that Hypnoflag wasn't even a thing 24 hours ago, you can't expect the full web experience immediately.
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James Butler, in reply to
“Wow, look at all these votes with “THIS SUCKS” written on them. I had no idea people felt this way. This is a serious wake-up call. Let’s just scrap the referendum.”
- No one, 2015
What are you talking about? This is exactly how Banksy and Russell Brand brought down Capitalism.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
Technically those aren't leaves, they're leaflets on a compound leaf.
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I don’t think adopting an existing design with strong meaning associated would be a good idea
True, which rules out the Hundertwasser flag, which is most often seen surrounded by faded rainbow wind socks and driftwood poles sporting paua shells. Personally I loathe it - and I vote Green! Lockwood's awful mess is benefiting from 15 years of promotion, whereas any version of Hundertwasser's was up against it because of previous use. It was always a complete non-starter - as the final four should have been.
And for all the bitching about lack of Design Professional input, the 10,000+ entries included plenty of awful flags from professionals. -
Lucy Telfar Barnard, in reply to
That's not the point though. The point of saying that a child should be able to draw it is meant to be indicative of the simplicity of the design.
Also, why does being able to draw it imply blind loyalty? Any time we had to do a school project on a country, we'd draw its flag. So it's not just for the children of NZ that choosing a simple flag is a kindness. -
James Butler, in reply to
Any time we had to do a school project on a country, we’d draw its flag. So it’s not just for the children of NZ that choosing a simple flag is a kindness.
What this says to me is that the flag should be either a) very simple OR b) a dragon.
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One of the things I like about New Zealand is most folks don't give a rats arse about the symbols. You don't see kiwis stand up with hand on heart the moment the first bars of the anthem ring out. There is no blind reverence of the flag.
We are proud of our country not proud of some symbol.
So yeah our current flag is kinda meh and our anthem is a god bothering dirge, but hey who cares, our country is still quite good really.
None of that appeals to a politician, it means they can't command loyalty with a symbol they actually have to provide substance.
Our current flag isn't great, it could be better ... some of the designs proposed had potential to become something New Zealander's could accept as a better symbol of our country and our people.
But a cynical and mostly incompetent government screwed up the process and we got some logos.
I'll vote for the hypnoflag and then vote for our current flag because none of the National caucus approved options deserve to carry New Zealand into the future.
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Lucy Telfar Barnard, in reply to
Ha! No, not a dragon. I went to school in Wales for a bit. That bleeding dragon is a bugger to draw. All the Welsh children had trouble with it too, and they'd been seeing it all their lives and no doubt had had a bit more practice. Mind you, maybe the miserable little blighters' hearts weren't in it or anything else, what with the slag heaps and the 90% unemployment that were the prevailing features of Pontypridd in 1981.
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Emma Hart, in reply to
So yeah our current flag is kinda meh and our anthem is a god bothering dirge, but hey who cares, our country is still quite good really.
I've always kind of hated our anthem. Then one day I was curious about how and when the decision was made to add the Maori verse, and I ran across the documentary David Farrier made about it, and I kind of changed my mind. Turns out God Defend NZ is the brash new anti-colonial anthem. And the answer to my question was there never really WAS a decision, it just happened.
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Dylan Reeve, in reply to
Everyone seems to think it’s important that a child could draw the flag.
Nothing horrifies me more. What are you trying to do, indoctrinate your children into blind loyalty to a flag? It’s been done before a whole bunch of times, with horrifying results.
It's a shorthand for simplicity.
Think instead about the many mediums in which it might be desirable to be able to reproduce the flag - from embroided to painted on a face... even baked in a cake. In monochrome or with a limited palette.
Basically a flag should be easy to reproduce from memory, with simply implements even when constrained by materials.
(The same usually goes for logos too)
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Lucy Telfar Barnard, in reply to
baked in a cake
There's another good test for simplicity! How easily can I ice this on a cake?
Stars are easy, I can use star cookie cutters. Koru are fine - I'd need a template but I could whip one up easily enough. Straight lines, no problem. Fern fronds? Sod off! Fiddly. Annoying. Difficult.
Hypnoflag, on the other hand, would even be easy on cakes, cupcakes, or coffee crema (as previously mentioned). In fact, I reckon if I got super excited with egg white and food colouring, I could make a hypnoflag pavlova.
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My concern is less about the flag, more about the democratic process.
The role of a referendum is always an issue to debate in a democracy. Different lands, different methods. Generally, I favour representative democracy, but with an outlet, such as citizens' initiated referenda (and a beefed-up law, requiring a response, though Parliament must retain the final say). Basic principle - the more public engagement, the better.
This whole flag shemozzle is damaging the democratic process. A referendum is now widely seen as a PM's toy, not the result of hundreds of thousands of signatures. It's not from "us", as when people were exercised by smacking or asset sales. Result - more cynicism, and inevitable (if wrong-headed) calls to boycott, sabotage, etc.
It reinforces the feeling of a fake democracy. Yes. you can "have your say" on social media, but ... not really. You're not on the panel. You can do the work, submit the designs, but ... it's in the trash.
It's the kind of phoney consulting that pisses people off at work - "I value your input", lies the boss, before doing what he was planning anyway. And across the democratic world, cynicism is growing, often reflected in low turnouts and the rise of extremist parties. In NZ we're still a long way from the worst of that, and mocking is better than rioting, but ...
TLDR: Key doesn't do civics, doesn't care, and it shows. And it matters.
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Today's Tremain
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
Interestingly, Hundertwasser intended it to be a secondary flag.
I was privileged enough to be given one of his screen prints. It's showing it's age but I cherish this original dearly. I feel lucky :)
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
This whole flag shemozzle is damaging the democratic process.
I'm trying to figure out whether the first referendum is an STV vote? The Wiki entry refers to a ranking of the four designs but the official government website doesn't go into any explanation of that.
But if it is STV, then would a Hypnoflag supporter be advised to just rank that design with a number 1 and no ranking after that? Point is, if it is an STV vote, then one can only assume all 'fern' supporters will rank the ferns 1, 2 and 3 (with hypno as 4) and as one fern drops out in any one round, obviously the next fern will be allocated all the secondary votes from fern supporters next ranking, and so on until it's a fern - no matter what.
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Mikaere Curtis, in reply to
I'll vote for the hypnoflag and then vote for our current flag because none of the National caucus approved options deserve to carry New Zealand into the future.
This.
Key wanted his legacy to be a silver fern derivative logo, and stacked the flag panel to deliver his preferred options in a 3:1 mix. Screw that, I'm voting Hypnoflag followed by Keep The Existing One, I want a proper process not this farce.
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Paul Campbell, in reply to
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