Flag change for Referendummies
IT SEEMS YOU can’t Facebook a tweet these days without having someone wave their preferred New Zealand flag design in your face. Ferns! Stars! Laser- eyed kiwi! While the designs themselves have copped a fair amount of criticism, that’s nothing compared to the grizzling about the seemingly workedout-during-a-five-minute- drunken- cab-ride referendum process. The order of the polls feels a little like asking the accused to choose the method of his execution, then holding the trial.
The panel, rather than including anyone familiar with, you know, design, comes across as a less photogenic version of Dancing With the Stars, only without the stars. Or the dancing.
Can a cherished and unifying national emblem emerge from the shambles? Who knows! Will it help your anonymous scribe fill a page with cynical humour? Probably! Read on, patriotic Idealog reader, as we present The Facts You Need To Know about the flag change referendum. Countries where they have ferns: All of them. They’re everywhere. If someone invents a new country it will already have ferns in it. Countries where they have stars: All of them, but only half the time. Best flags: Japan, Switzerland, France, and McDonald’s. Worst flags: Position currently vacant but we’re working on it.
Essential background
Who’s saluting what?
Top 3 flag conspiracy theories
——— The panel, rather than including anyone familiar with, you know, design, comes across as a less photogenic version of Dancing With the Stars, only without the stars. Or the dancing.
———
Red Peak: Designers, tweeters, Gareth Morgan. Monkey’s Bum: Monkey fans, surfers, surfing monkeys. Weet-Bix box (both variants): Your mother, Maggie Barry. NZTE Logo: NZTE, rugby fans, people who can’t afford colour printers, John Key. Status Quo: RSA, New Zealand Flag Manufacturing Concern, Guangzhou Industrial Area 3, Ron Mark.
Due Authority:
If we change the flag, we’ll upset the Queen, have to leave the Commonwealth, sever ties with the monarchy, pledge allegiance to Donald Trump and won’t ever be allowed to watch Coronation Street again. Government Smokescreen: While we’re all focussed on the flag, the sneaky politicians will be signing secret trade deals, banning books and playing free and loose with convention centre pokie machine deals. Wait, what? Rugby World Cup Coincidence: The referendum is timed to capitalise on an All Blacks victory giving the PM’s preferred design a last minute boost. Arise, Sir Ritchie!
Where will it all end?
Why wait until March? We’ve run the numbers through the office computer and here’s how it’s going down: 75% chance: status quo: What? We just spent $26m on arguing with each other about cloth! 15% chance: civil war: Flag debate exposes deep divisions in society leading to nattilydressed graphic design guerillas waging war on Government troops from their Parnell strongholds. 9% chance: flag it: Common sense somehow prevails and we cancel the whole thing before we do something we might regret. 1% chance: Success! We unite under a new flag and see the process as a defining moment in our growth as a nation, or something.