Hey guys,
Recently as I was watching a few Youtube videos i came upon a topic that interested me. In 2017, New Zealand held a referendum to change their national flag mainly due to the reason that it looks too similar to the Australian one. The process included 2 referendums where 5 new designs were chosen and voted on voted on in the first referendum and the winner of that referendum went head to head with the current NZ flag in the second one. This however did was not successful, and in the second referendum, NZ chose to keep the current flag.
This got me wondering, about our own Australian flag and i did a little research about it. This kind of links to the argument whether Australia should become a republic or not, but with this is mind, and not basing my opinion with this fact, i still think that it is time to change our flag for the following reasons and what i would like to see on a new flag:
1. Union Jack- this is probably the main reason why i would want the flag to change. The Union Jack not only represents Great Britain in which Australia is technically not part of, but also has a certain negativity about it being the symbol that was used against Aboriginals during colonisation. Some people would like to see the Aboriginal flag to be the replacement of the Union Jack, but i also do not agree with this as Aboriginals should be recognised on their own with a seperate flag, which represents their beliefs and heritage.
2. Use of green and gold- the colours green and gold is pretty significant when it comes to Australian sports and yet this is not represented on our flag. I dont mind the blue colour already on the flag but i think id like to see these colours represented on our flag somehow even if it was a stripe or whatever especially because other countries most of the time use colours of their own flag as their uniform colour.
3. We did not vote for this flag- during my research, i found that the way our current flag was chosen was through a competition where people sent designs created by them. The winner was chosen by our first Prime Minister, Edmund Barton, rather than passed through parliament (at the time) or through a referendum to show in our constitution. Due to this all coming down to one mans opinion back in 1901, i think that the people should have a say on this matter. Furthermore, our flag was actually designed by a Kiwi, who also designed the current NZ flag years earlier.
4. Too similar to New Zealand- this ones pretty straight forward. The people of NZ recognised this issue and did their own referendum to overcome this. I think its time that we change it especially because apparently, the New Zealand flag was created before Australia's and was from the same designer who was a Kiwi.
5. Australian symbol incorporation- i'd definitely like to see some sort of Australian symbol, other than the Southern Cross be used on the flag to represent our countries landscape. In alternative designs, i have seen use of Kangaroos, Boomerang shapes, Wattle, and the Sun. Through the use of this, Aboriginal heritage could also be linked with the flag because Aboriginals have great connection with our unique landscape and could further lead to their recognition.
Thats my opinion, what do you guys think ?
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Topic: Change of the Australian Flag ? (Read 3199 times)