Brian Rudman: Flagging a change needn't cause a flap

The Maori flag is just too good to be number two. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

At last we've got a new flag. Well, sort of. After official dithering going back to Waitangi Day 2007 over whether or not to fly the "Maori" flag alongside the New Zealand ensign on Auckland Harbour Bridge, John Key's Cabinet has said yes.

Mr Key has even volunteered to fly it from his and the Governor-General's flagpole and "from other significant sites" on that day.

But not alone, just alongside the boring old official flag.

All of which is a start. What then needs to be done is to quietly fold up the borrowed British naval ensign we've been making do with for 100 years, store it on a museum shelf and, as I suggested earlier in the year, hijack the Maori sovereignty flag as the New Zealand sovereignty flag.

To keep Maori sweet we could link the deal to one of the Treaty settlement agreements.

Make an offer, in return for nationalising their flag, to hand back the South Island, or some other remote wilderness.

Assorted traditionalists were blathering away yesterday about what an insult it would be to the historic New Zealand flag to force it to share airspace with the politically inspired Tino Rangatiratanga flag.

They forget their history. The current flag didn't become the official national flag until 1953, when we finally put aside the colonial Union Jack.

As for its origins, these were just as politically motivated as the Maori sovereignty battle flag.

Until the outbreak of the 1899 South African War, New Zealand happily bounced along as an outpost of empire under the imperial flag.

But when the Boers stirred up trouble in another corner of the empire, and patriotic fervour reached a fever pitch here, Premier Richard Seddon had a little problem.

We lacked a flag the volunteer New Zealand forces could wave in their South African adventures to distinguish them from other colonial troops.

Full of imagination, Mr Seddon introduced a bill proposing to stick stars representing the Southern Cross on the British Navy's Blue Ensign and call it ours.

There was some nit-picking over details, but eventually, on Guy Fawkes Day 1901, the New Zealand Ensign Act was passed. We've been lumbered with this unimaginative, second-hand make-do ever since.

Like the Union Jack and the New Zealand flag, the newly anointed "Maori" flag has its origins as a battle standard.

Hone Harawira's Northland protest group Te Kawariki held a contest in 1989 for a flag. A design by Hiraina Marsden, Jan Smith and Linda Munn won.

You only have to see it fluttering from a pole or leading a protest march to understand why.

The black and red halves represent the Maori creation myth, with a central white koru shape representing the unfolding of new life, renewal and hope.

It gives off a buzz that the tired old hand-me-down British naval flag never had.

I was happy to read in an interview with Herald reporter Yvonne Tahana that Ms Munn said when they designed it "we never wanted anything to do with violence" and she's annoyed it's been "usurped by some groups who remain angry with the world".

She said "giving Maori a voice was the flag's purpose".

She also talked of it always giving her the "warm fuzzies", especially when she's overseas, adding: "It's funny how symbols bring people together, and I hope people will see it in a positive light."

I agree. And as far as the warm fuzzies are concerned, she and her fellow designers have managed to produce a symbol which talks to all New Zealanders. Well, most of us anyway.

The monarchists are reportedly upset, as are some of Mr Harawira's sparring partners, such as Kingi Taurua who still favours the 1834 "independence" flag.

That's hardly indigenous. It's based on a doodle dreamed up by British representative James Busby, when he cajoled 35 northern chiefs to declare independence. His motive was to head off Baron de Thierry who, it was rumoured, was about to set up an independent kingdom on the Hokianga.

Labour's Shane Jones is peeved too, but Labour had two years to address the issue once Transit NZ refused to fly the Maori flag on the Auckland Harbour Bridge in 2007, and did nothing.

In 1983, international artist Frederick Hundertwasser, of Kawakawa public dunnies fame, gave us a green and white "koru" flag as his thanks for granting him citizenship.

The unfurling green fern frond in the iconic koru shape represented our clean, green dream, while the white background represented the long white cloud that waves of seaborne settlers first sighted.

To me it is a bit insipid, but not as bad as the assorted black designs with assorted white feather/fern frond decorations sports fans have adopted for want of anything better.

Which brings us back to the "new" Maori flag. It's too good to be No 2, to be dragged out once a year to grace a few official flagpoles. The sooner it becomes No 1, the better.