NZFlag

ALL IN A FLAP

The lines have been drawn - literally. Sarah Catterall reports on how celebrities and sports stars are all in flap over a new flag.

Rich blue with a "stars and stripes" look, renowned artist Dick Frizzell says of his latest flag design: "I quite like this one".

If this Hawke's Bay artist has his way, his flag design on an A4 sheet of paper may be hanging on more than just the wall. Frizzell has designed three potential flags, and he rates all of them as stars above our current flag. "When New Zealand athletes throw a flag over their shoulders as they do the last lap on their bikes, our flag should look glorious," he says.

As it celebrates its 135th birthday, our national emblem gets few birthday wishes from some of the country's notable sports stars, business people, artists and designers, who are chanting for change. Click through their anti-flag outbursts on the nzflag.com campaign website, which is like visiting New Zealand's online Hall of Fame. "Irrelevant and unidentifiable," slams fashion designer Karen Walker. "Visually and symbolically non-descript," cries musician Neil Finn. Sports broadcaster Keith Quinn complains that our flag is too similiar to Australia's. Others are respectful of the current flag but argue it's time to change.

Frizzell leapt up when Lloyd Morrison, a Wellington multi-millionaire, asked him to endorse his flag campaign. With the aim of holding a referendum on the flag debate at the next election, Morrison put $20,000 into the campaign. The merchant banker thinks his stylised black and white silver fern flag - on sale for $22 to $76.50 - is "capable of inspiring" but has no expectation it will be adopted as the replacement. If a referendum called for a new flag, ideally an independent panel would choose options. The new and old could then fly side by side in a further referendum.

Recalls Frizzell: "I said to him, 'What a brilliant idea,' but I told him I didn't like his deisign. It looks like a bent Roman spear or a pavlova slicer. He said, 'Okay smarty, see if you can do better,' so away I went [and] designed some flags."

But 1976 Olympic 1500m gold medalist John Walker slams the flag campaign as an absolute insult to his grandfather, a former Gallipoli soldier, and others who have fought for their flag and country. "You race and you look for your flag. If every radical group got their way and changed what we don't like, imagine it. We may as well cahnge our national anthem while we're at it."

A point rejected by the campaign's media manager Jo Coughlan, who says the campaign is respectful of the current flag. "Everyone has connections with the war. For most people, this is an issue they've not thought of," she says.

Campaigners want 100 high-profile people to endorse the project. For now, they are moving into classrooms. A "design a flag" and why we should change the flag essay competition for Year 9 and 10 students is being taken in English and social studies classes, with the ulimate prize a day in the Capital with Academy Award-winner Richard Taylor, at his Weta Workshop.

Sacred Heart Lower Hutt head of English Phillipa Bartlett plans to run the essay competition in her class and used the flag teaching resource last week to stimulate discussion. A quick poll of her 28 students found the majority backed a flag change. "They don't identify with the current one and there was only one girl who asked if she could write an essay arguing to retain the flag," she says.

Silver Fern Anna Rowberry, one of the 68 endorsers, says on the website that the black flag with aq silver fern always stands out for her at matches. "To one day see our fern placed on our nation's flag would, for me, make New Zealand feel like a nation with its own identity, " she writes. It is understood that Netball New Zealand was unhappy the netballer had put her face forward without seekig official approval.

Morrison's flag is flying for Rowberry, but supporters have other designs to choose from in a gallery on the website. There's a koru and Southern Cross in blue, white and red, by Jeffy James, an illustrator, who first started sketching flag ideas when he was living overseas and missing New Zealand. Wellington architectural student Adam Schroyen's concept is a blue, green and white striped flag, symbolising the land, bush and long white cloud.

Other rival flags are being hoisted independently of the official campaign.

Kyle Lockwood, a Wellington architectural designer, won a local newspaper competition with his flag - a red, white and blue version featuring the Southern Cross and a white silver fern. He then set up a flag campaign website ( www.nzflag.info). With 5700 visitors by late last week Lockwood aregues that we should change our flag but fly the current on at state events.

While the campaign aims to be non-political, politicians would have to back change if a referendum cried for a replacement flag. But Helen Clark doesn't think it's time for change and says she has lived with the current one for 54 years. Don Brash has an open mind, and would support a referendum on the issue. "Of course there would be also have to be significant public buy-in on the new design and at this stage we appear to be a long way from that," says Brash.

The Returned Servicemen's Association is holding fast to the flag which soldiers have fought for, with its chief executive Pat Herbert saying: "We're not in favour of change for change's sake. There needs to be a jolly good reason for a flag change and no one has come up with a good reason."

The RSA polled its members late last year and found 79 per cent strongly disagreed the flag was out-moded and should be changed. A further eight per cent strongly agreed with the statement, with the rest lying somewhere in the middle.

To those who argue that our flag is too similar to Australia's, Herbert says. "If you can't distinguish five white stars and one big whte star from four red stars the people need an eyesight check."

If we opt for a new flag, it should feature black, says Prudence Stone, a Victoria University academic, who is researching the significance of the colour black to New Zealand. She doesn't like the campaign flag. "People have to try visualising it on a massive scale. They have to be proud enough to raise it on their roof. That's why you join a movement to change a flag. No one has had much black on their flag since the priates."

Frizzell is not so sure about one of his flag designs featuring black and white, as he feels the colours are too closely linked to our sporting culture.

"Desiging the national emblem would be the ulimate for an artist."