150 and no sign of flagging
proved itself tried and true in the final vote.
It captured the hearts of 1,200,003 voters, while Lockwood’s design gathered only 915,008.
In memoriam: the flags that weren’t to be
While most took great care in submitting flag designs for the referendum, not all had the best intentions. But it would be rude not to mention the flags that made international headlines and gave us a good chuckle.
Designers were told their flags could not be offensive or divisive, could not include words or photos, and could not include images of people. We’ll give them a gold star for trying, but it didn’t stop the penises, ‘‘sheep shaggers’’, swastikas and images of John Key pulling ponytails and flushing money down a toilet.
Others were less subtle, with text saying ‘‘We are not Australians’’, and the Tui slogan ‘‘Yeah right’’ sitting beside a silver fern.
The parody flags even got us a mention on the US current affairs and comedy show Last Week Tonight
with John Oliver, who urged New Zealanders to vote for a flag titled ‘‘Eggsplosion’’, which featured a singing egg and an explosion.
Perhaps the best-known flag of the debate was James Gray’s ‘‘Fire the Lazar’’, also known as ‘‘laser kiwi’’, which depicted a kiwi shooting a laser beam from its eye.
Gray told
Stuff in 2015 that the design was mocked up on Microsoft Paint one night after some ‘‘random inspiration’’.
‘‘You look at Australia, they’ve got all sorts of deadly animals,’’ he said. ‘‘We don’t even have one. I thought it was about time we had one.’’
What next for the flag?
Flag historian Malcolm Mulholland, who was also on the Flag Consideration Panel, predicts a flag change in the future is ‘‘inevitable’’, especially with Brexit looming.
‘‘If they [any part of Britain] were to become independent of the UK, it would be inevitable that the Union Jack flag as we know it today would change quite dramatically. It would be a redundant flag.’’
He believes the only emblem readily recognisable as Kiwi is the silver fern, given most of our national sports teams already use it.
Despite the popularity of the kiwi icon, he says ‘‘animals never work on flags’’.
‘‘People would look at the kiwi and think it’s a fat chicken.’’