Flag Debate

Between the 3rd - 24th March 2016 there will be a referendum held in New Zealand as to whether we should officially change the flag. The public will be deciding between the current NZ flag and the silver fern flag. Room 9 have been investigating this debate, through writing a discussion piece which looks at both sides of the argument. We then were given a paragraph to state our opinion about this debate. We held our own referendum in Room 9 and interestingly 19 of us wanted to change the flag, while only 10 of us wanted to keep it!

Alara Akkaya

Between the 3rd and the 24th or March 2016 there will be a referendum about whether we should keep the flag or change it. You need to be 18+ to vote.

History

Let go back in time to when we had our old flag and there were no referendums going on about changing our flag. Our flag has been with us since 1840. Have you ever looked at our flag and wondered what do all those things on our flag have to do with NZ? Well on our flag there are stars that represent the southern cross. The blue on our flag is to represents the navy, the ocean and the blue skies in NZ, and the Union Jack represents the commonwealth. Yes, our flag history is quite interesting!

Keep

We need to keep our flag! Our flag has been with us since 1840 so why change now? We took this flag to war and held this flag high when we achieved our goals! NZ is known for this flag! Why don't we spend millions of dollars on something that's more important - something we New Zealand actually NEEDS! Do you ever think about all the starving people? Or the families who can't even afford food to survive? If we don't waste this money on getting a new flag, we could actually help these people and save lives! If we do end up getting this new flag it’s going to be really sad seeing people taking down our old flag, our history! Everyone has different opinions and some of us don’t think the way that you think. Some of us don’t like this new flag. But there is a group of people who care, and do think  that we should keep our flag! And not waste millions of dollars on changing our flag. I sure don’t see anyone else changing their flag, so why should we?

Change

Finally we are having a referendum to change our flag! The flag that thousands of people have thought looks to much like Aussies flag. We need our flag to be instantly recognizable and unique, so people know STRAIGHT AWAY that this is New Zealand's flag! The old flag has not much to do with NZ and not many symbols representing it! Changing our old flag is for the best! We are still getting dominated by Britain! We can be our own country now! We can be the independent country that we have wanted for years if we get this new flag!  We have already spent $25.7 billion on the referendum, so NZ, take this opportunity to change our flag!

The Maori were here before the British and our current flag makes it look like that the British were here before the Maori. I think that we should change the NZ flag because the current NZ flag looks to much like Australia's. Our new flag will be instantly recognisable! I think that the new NZ flag will represent more about NZ. This is a great opportunity so let’s take it NZ!

Eva Burton

N.Z Flag Referendum

N.Z is currently going through a flag referendum to officially change the New Zealand flag. A referendum is where the citizens of new Zealand, (18+,) vote on a question given by the government. This will be going from 3rd march-24th march. The current choice is between keeping the original flag and changing to the new silver fern flag.

N.Z’s flag has a lot of interesting history behind it, from having the flag over 100 years to joining the commonwealth and flying their flag.  An interesting fact about N.Z’s flag history is that the current flag was adopted in 1902 making it 114 years old. N.Z has had 3 official flags. The history also links to what the flag means. The stars represent N.Z’s position,the union jack is a symbol of a country we no longer need, and the blue represents the navy we had in the past.

Why should we change the flag? Isn’t fighting under our flag  to keep our country safe enough? Our friends and family died under it, everyone knows us for it, all our achievements and accomplishments they did it all under the old flag. We waved it at the olympics, sir. Edmund hillary stuck it on M.t everest, so now what? Will there just be an unwanted loner flag on a pretty unbeatable mountain. We will have to change our official uniforms, passports, our bought flags, wasting money, and who will buy the flag flying on our lawn? No-one as it won’t be needed. We have had it since 1902, to me that shows a stable country, doesn’t it?

N.Z, is it time for a change? Sure it will raise the price but it will also help us, our country. Why, I ask you should we hold onto our country once being part of the british? We our N.Z, We are our own country! So why hold onto being powered by british?