Whose Flag ?

There is no doubt that the flags of Australia and New Zealand confuse the people of the rest of the world. They can easily be mistaken for one another and now there is a suggestion by the acting New Zealand prime minister that Australia stole the design from New Zealand and Australia should change its flag.

Winston Peters has an irascible sense of humour and that is probably said in jest.  As recently as 2016 our Kiwi neighbours held a referendum to choose a new flag and the existing design won hands down.  Some elements in both countries are keen for a flag change but now it seems to be a dead issue.

Examining the facts tells a different story to Mr Peters claim.  The Australian flag design won a national competition in 1901 and was proudly flown in September of that year during the first flag day.  It underwent minor changes during the following decades.  However, it was not officially designated as our national flag until 1954.  New Zealand technically adopted its flag in 1902.

We often hear claims in both Australia and New Zealand that our fighting forces commemorate battles won or lost under their national flag and that is not strictly true.  The flag actually used was usually the Union Jack simply because neither of our flags were well known in other parts of the world and the Union Jack was the insignia of the British Empire.

In fact, Australia and New Zealand nearly became the one country at the time of Federation. We are probably closer in temperament, humour and living standards than any other tribal people on this Earth.  People move between the two countries with little hindrance - and apart from a few vowels -our language is identical.

A lot of Kiwi's move to Australia and do not apply for Australian citizenship, and there is an exchange of Australians retiring to New Zealand.  Recently there has been friction because Australia has started returning Kiwi's with criminal convictions as deportees, often without bothering to bring them to trial  That puts stress on the notion that the two nationalities are interchangeable.

It seems inevitable that differences between the two countries will widen.  At the end of the second world war Australia opened its doors to the dispossessed of war weary Europe.  New Zealand restricted immigration to citizens of the British Isles.  When Australia abolished the White Australia policy we accepted immigrants from Asia and Australia is now a much more cosmopolitan identity.

We live in a much more dangerous world and our sea of tranquillity in the south Pacific is under threat.  The importance of Europe is fading and Asia is fast becoming the fulcrum of the world.  The fact that our flags are so similar simply reinforces the relationship between the two countries and their isolation from the cockpit that has delivered so many wars.   That is something to be nurtured - and expanded.