New Flag Ideas

Oh so nothing to do with Johns CV then. Ok.

You do realise this could be done without a referendum purely with a majority vote in Parliament. If this was purely to stroke Key's ego would he have not gone down that route

You cannot let facts stand in the way of conspiracy

Funny how the TPPA has fallen out of the medias sights since the 4 final flag designs came out - of course National we're going to run a referendum, it makes it look like they gave a crap about what we actually think where in reality 3 designs have a fern (which JK with weird support from Sir Richie McCaw wanted), the other is a terrible Koru design (no Te Reo representation on the committee by the way). Just because you call something out as a conspiracy, it doesn't make it so. I may be wrong, I may be right but at the very least, my head isn't so far up my own ass that I can't see that this flag process is suspiciously timed. Why do it now when you're bang in the middle huge trade deal? When housing in NZ is screwed? When ChCh still suffers? Allowing public submissions for the flag just added to the distraction. National (led by JK) get a trade mark...sorry flag, the public are tricked into thinking they actually had a choice and all the while the country is continually sold off. But it's just a conspiracy, best to just laugh it away.

So as a nation we are only able to deal with one issue?

The TPPA has not gone away, it is being renegotiated after it was found to be unacceptable.

Housing has issues in Auckland and the main problem (supply) is being worked on. This has been an issue for decades. If you want to blame someone for the Cluster Fudge that is Auckland, blame successive Councils.

Did you expect Christchurch to be fixed over night? When around 75% or more of buildings in the CBD have been flattened of course it is going to take time. Housing has largely been sorted now , yes there are some issues with quality of work in some instances but given the size of the undertaking that is to be expected.

No Te Reo representation on the Flag committe Panel? I am sure Hana O’Regan – Academic, Māori studies and te reo Māori, Christchurch might disagree with you there on that one.

Perhaps my head is " so far up my own ass that I can't see that this flag process is suspiciously timed" as you so eloquently put it, but I am not stupid enough to realise that this process was signalled before the last election and was, if you cared to pull your head out of from under your tin foil hat, that a change in the Flag was also a Labour Party policy.

My main gripe with Key is that he chose to politicise it by voicing such strong opinion for one type of flag.

Without knowing all the processes to narrow down the 10k flags to 40, hopefully they did more public consultation than the submission process/standfor website to try and at least make sure they get a wide variety of views and not setting the process up to be like just one stuff poll and the whim of self-selection bias.

I can see why people have issues with the timing of the flag debate, people are just expressing their annoyance that the issues that matter the most to them - they have no input and, as has been seen, been overshadowed by the flag.

This cartoon published in March does a good job expressing this point of view.

The Panel is a pretty diverse cross section of people which was selected by a Cross Party group of All parties, exluding NZ First, who decided not to participate.

The panel will be chaired by former deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Canterbury Emeritus Professor John Burrows, ONZM, QC of Christchurch who was co-chair of the Constitutional Advisory Panel. Writer and reviewer Kate de Goldi of Wellington will be the deputy chair of the Flag Consideration Panel.

The other 10 members are:

Nicky Bell – CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand and board director, Auckland

Peter Chin, CNZM – Former Mayor of Dunedin, director and trustee, Dunedin

Julie Christie, ONZM – Director of Julie Christie Inc. and board member, Auckland

Rod Drury – CEO of Xero and technology entrepreneur, Havelock North

Beatrice Faumuina, ONZM – Olympian, Commonwealth gold medallist, ASB Head of Talent & People Strategy, board member and trustee, Waitakere

Lt Gen (Rtd) Rhys Jones, CNZM – Former Chief of NZ Defence Force, Wellington

Stephen Jones – Invercargill Youth Councillor, Invercargill

Sir Brian Lochore, ONZ, KNZM, OBE – Former All Blacks captain, coach and administrator, Masterton

Malcolm Mulholland – Academic and flag historian, Palmerston North

Hana O’Regan – Academic, Māori studies and te reo Māori, Christchurch

There are some very well recognised and respected names amongst that lot. A bit of a stretch to think Key could "impose his will" upon the Likes of Brian Lohore Rhys Jones John Burrows etc.

John Key, from his powerful soapbox, can influence public opinion and should have been neutral in his preference for the design. As a private citizen he can have his own opinion but as PM he represents all of NZ and should not then be prescribing, as PM, what flag he would like to see.

Just because they are a diverse range of recognised and respected people doesn't make them the right people for the job. 

Its amazing how this is a John Key issue and its all John Key and his rich mates. If this was a Labour government, how do you think this would go? It would be an Andrew Little issue and how he is out of touch with middle NZ by doing the flag up (he is out of touch but thats a different story). That right there shows how people really are attacking the man and not playing the ball.

Should there have been a designer involved? Yeah, but then is that not what you do when you design logos? The above cartoon references design process etc.... the exact same thing when designing a logo or an emblem but for some people, this whole thing is about a logo or a trademark regardless if there was a designer involved, proportional representation on the committee. Its just an excuse to attack. The amount of noise I have read that say 'what the hell does that represent' when looking at this Red Peak, is a lot more than people going 'this should be a 5th option'


This process has bought out some really crazy ideas. I go back to the democratic process and your 1 vote. As SJ said, it could have been forced through in a vote in parliament so just have a vote and get over yourselves. If you really don't like the flag then vote for the status quo. Don't confuse that with your vote in 2017 where if you don't like John Key, vote him out. If the flag stays the same, you wont hear me going 'well the John Key haters have won'. There seems to be a lot of shouting from people that don't like John Key and transferring it into anything that should be vetoed, the flag change and the supposed shark options on offer included.

As opposed to Sue Bradford telling all of the populus they have no right to smack a child as discipline.... and 84% do not agree on a referendum.

Tell me whom was speaking for me when they decided that the drinking age should be lowered from 20 to 18?

I don't want to see NZ send troops overseas. The PM decides that.

Whether we like it or not, we voted these people in and their voice is going to be versed on things we do not like.

Hana O'Regan was my error, missed her off the list.

You're having a laugh regarding ChCh though. Housing is far from sorted and it's not overnight...it's well over 4 years ago and people are still waiting. 

As of June this year:

* Number of people waiting for social housing in Greater Christchurch (Christchurch city, Waimakariri, Selwyn): Housing NZ: 572, Christchurch City Council: 28, Canterbury Earthquake Temporary Accommodation Service: 276.

* Average rent December 2010:$299.60, Average rent May 2015: $408.00, Increase: 36 per cent.

* Average house price before the quakes: around $310,000, average house price now (including land) $450,000 and $550,000.

* Number of people living in temporary dwellings (including caravans, garages, insecure shelters) increased by 50 per cent from 2006 to 2013, compared with a 24 per cent increase in the Auckland region.

You absolutely do not design a logo (or anything) by committee.

I think some options have been given a disservice by showing people the design alone without the backstory. If it is a truly good design it will have been well thought out and have a rationale behind all the choices made to come up with the design and it will tell a story.

I don't give a fudge about National. I don't give a fudge about Labour. I do give a fudge about good design.

So I take it if they delivered results you are happy with, they would be people right for the job?

As someone who is regularly in Christchurch and has been since before the quakes, when you look at the scale of what has happened and the work that has taken place, the Housing issue is largely sorted.

Yes rents have increase over that period, but average rental of $408 does not seem out of line with what is available in the greater Wellington Are, being a comparable sized area. 

You mention demand for Social housing. You give no baseline for comparison. But again given what Christchurch went through, of course it was going to increase as many State Homes were in areas that have resulted in these homes being damaged.  As of April 2014 1000 state Homes had been repaired. While these repairs were occurring a demand probably increased.

House prices were bound to rise, demand and supply, as people with Insurance payouts purchased existing Stock and now that the supply side of the equation is catching up, the increase has plateaued.

So yes, Christchurch has a way to go, but it has, come a hell of a long way.

How has this "logo or flag" been designed by a committee? The committee called for designs, a large number of which were incidentally done by "designers"

A call for a design and getting a few entries from designers is quite different than a properly thought out brief being handed to a limited number of contracted designers.

Red Peak's at 35k on their petition. At least people are now involved. It took horendous and tacky choices to get people off their asses.

We have a bunch of people with a rudimentary understanding of design and semiotics and have asked them to choose a couple of new flag ideas from a plethora of oft ill conceived croudsourced designs. Does that sound like it will work to you?

And so they should, we had our flag first. They copied us.

If Social media was an accurate reflection of the Nations thinking, Labour and the Greens would have won the last election by an absolute landslide

I'm not saying it would win, I'm just saying that it has enough support to warrant figuring out a way to include it. We don't need two variations of the same (IMHO dreadful) design, and hypno flag has negligible support.

The nations opinion is that this is a farce and to keep the current flag. At least there is some interest and debate now.

My original point still stands, how many of the 35000 that signed that petition bothered to participate in the process? To have a say during the consultation process

Best. Off-Season. Ever.

  

  

    

From and including: Thursday, 10 September 2015
To, but not including Sunday, 11 October 2015

Result: 31 days

It is 31 days from the start date to the end date, but not including the end date

Or 1 month, 1 day excluding the end date

Does it matter? The government didn't do a good job of engaging the populous. People only realised that they should be involved when they saw how dreadful the designs that were chosen were.

Fudge me? How do you expect the government to engage the populous? At gun point?  The Shortlist of 40 was out there for around 2 months. Even Jon Oliver had a crack at the designs.

The whole thing is really down to our she'll be right attitude

That's not all quite apples v apples. 

It's fine for John Key to support the idea of a new flag, I don't think he should be giving his preference on design. It opens himself and the process up to criticism (even when there wasn't any direct inteference with the panel), the same would happen to any other PM commenting as Key has done.

BTW, Government has a role in protecting the rights of minorities, I don't think it would be right if more than 50% voted to make it illegal to practice any religion or play football, the Government needs to protect those minorities. The Govt and opposition at that time (incl. John Key lead National) voted to give children the same protection from assault as an adult has. That is the problem with citizen initiated referendum is that the question that people sign to support a referendum has to be the question in the referendum, no matter if it is double barrelled or leading.

How is fudge me a question?

It is what it is, people are lethargic when it comes to doing things, I doubt people expected half the designs to be identical and three quarters of them to be on the same theme.

John key clearly expressed his preference for a silver fern, there is even a drawing that he drew of the beehive with a silverfern flying overhead instead of the NZ flag. The panel might have been swayed by John Key's judgement, they may have not. They clearly haven't excersized any judgement or taste of their own.

If you're going to have a referendum then you need to have a cross section of designs to work from. If there wasn't so much similarity with the designs then I doubt people would be so worked up. 

I would have expected that once the theme of the flag was decided on then they would hire people to actually do a good job of it and not make it look like confectionary packaging anyway, so things like colours would be altered and shouldn't be part of the referendum.

Key is spelt with a capital K . You might want to check your spelling of exercised also. 

We can all be smart arse grammar and punctuation Nazi's if we want.

The thing is, the final four are a representation of what people who did participate in the process. Fern usage was overwhelmingly popular as was Koru designs and the Southern Cross. Triangles did not really feature. If the panel ignored the public comment and went on a tangent and a whim they would be accused of ignoring the public comment.

The whole debate reminds me of what happens in just about every football club in NZ. Bugger all people turn up to the AGM, a Committee is duly elected and then people sit on the outer sniping about what the committee does and does not do. 

That is the whole crux of my argument. Democracy requires people to participate in the process.

The 40 designs were only announced on the 10th of August, public consultation -not sure how succesfull that was looking at average attendance at the meetings - was finished by the 16th of July.

in excess of 700,000 website hits

how many unique visits?

I tried to attend but unfortunately work and life didn't allow for me to make a meeting.

Does that mean by your standards I shouldn't have an opinion either?  As it seems voicing an opinion if you didn't successfully attend one of the roadshows is the thing you are most annoyed by here.

Hey, voice all the opinion you want. We can all find a reason not to do things. If it really matters to you will always make time. 

Unfortunately work and family are my priorities and my son was really sick when they came to town, but you are right, If I really cared about the flag then I should have dropped my responsibilities as a parent to attend.

Or perhaps made a submission to the select committee, or emailed the flag consideration panel, or engaged via facebook and twitter, or phoned them

I didn't know those were options until long afterwards.  I know its my own fault for not investigating thoroughly how to interact ion every way on every thing in the country.  I only caught bits on news etc. and had the idea the only way to have a say was to go to the roadshow.

But as you said If I really cared I would have made time during that extrodinarily tough period in our young families life.

People, people.

• It's only a flag - nothing hugely important (honestly - the Canadians are quite happy with their fake maple leaf one).
• $26 mill may seem a lot but it's probably only the cost of a couple of MBIE talkfests.
• The process is pretty democratic which means it will be rather arse.

Wish the footy season would start soon.

Incorrect. A small minority subset are trying to convince everyone that the nation hate the designs and keep the current design. Once the democratic process bears out and the current flag is kept, then you can make that claim. 35k out of 5m is not even 1% of the population so like you, me and everyone else, you have 1 opinion and 1 vote. If you are that outraged, make your vote count.