New flag needs to reflect Maori heritage says artist

Kerikeri artist Lester Hall with one of his designs aiming to spark debate about a new national flag. Photo / Dean Wright

A Northland artist with a long-standing interest in the national flag says the winner of the recent referendum for a new design is "an outrage" because it does not reflect New Zealand's Maori heritage.

The design with the greatest support of the five options offered depicts a silver fern and the Southern Cross on a black and blue background.

However, Lester Hall said the process had failed to consider what the flag represented - instead treating it as "colouring-in contest" for a logo or trade symbol - and the result lacked any reference to Maori.

"That's outrageous. This is the only land Pakeha have and the only land Maori have. Why wouldn't that be reflected in the flag?"

Mr Hall said he supported changing the flag but a new design should be the result of a 10-year national conversation, and one that would unify all New Zealanders.

It should be born "in the cauldron of the past" and not in a marketing firm's boardroom.

The Kerikeri-based artist came up with his own designs before the current moves to change the flag. His flags combine elements of the Union Jack, the current flag from 1902, the country's first official flag (the United Tribes flag of 1835) and the tino rangatiratanga or Maori flag from 1989.

Mr Hall said he created the designs to spark a discussion, not because he thought any should be adopted as a new national flag. He did not enter his designs in the recent competition for a new flag.

The second postal referendum, to choose between the current flag and the winner of the first, will be held in March.