Failure with flag Key’s biggest regret

Former Prime Minister Sir John Key revealed his biggest regret was not being able to change the New Zealand flag.

In an interview with the Australian Financial Review, Sir John told Patrick Durkin it was something he had often thought about.

“The reason I wanted to change the flag was to have something that was uniquely New Zealand, so that we could build a more overt sense of national pride,” Sir John said.

“This is not the most important issue by a long way for the country, but ultimately I was unsuccessful in changing the New Zealand flag and I have always thought back on that.”

He said it didn’t pass because Labour and the Greens turned it into a political issue and made it a referendum.

That issue was the one “I feel I definitely failed on. To be frank, I think I should have just pushed it even harder.”

Sir John said Kiwis were typically more reserved than citizens of places such as the US.

“Americans use the flag to symbolise what they believe, which is that America is the greatest country in the world,” he said.

Sir John spoke about how his father died when he was 6, and how his mother raised him in very poor circumstances.

“She was an AustrianJewish refugee who got out just before the Nazis invaded in 1938. My mother was a very determined Jewish matriarchal woman. She always used to say, ‘You get out of life what you put into it’.”

His advice to people, especially the younger ones, was that if they wanted to do something they had to make it happen.

“I wanted to be prime minister, I wanted to be financially successful, I wanted a successful marriage.

“A lot of times the reason people don’t act is the fear of failure . . . I say to people, ‘Just back yourself’.

“In the end, I would rather give it a go and fail than sit back and be a Monday-morning quarterback critiquing everyone else.”