This process is not expensive and $26 million is not a lot of money in the grand scheme of a country's economy - $26 million is not going to extinguish child poverty or cure everyone who needs an operation and, in fact, this is just 0.04 per cent of total Government revenue. Or, put another way, this referendum is costing every adult in New Zealand about $7.
Now, in their wisdom, the Government could have decided to change the flag regardless of what the majority of New Zealanders wanted. They have the power to do that and it would have saved us $26 million. But would that have been the democratic thing to do? I suggest not, and to have a say on such a controversial issue is worth $7 to me personally. Hell, I would have paid $7 to have a say on asset sales and a number of other contentious issues.
So in the scheme of things this is not much money although to the average person on the street it blows their minds - my mother would change the world with that amount of money!
Conspiracy theorists have come out in droves, particularly those who seek to use the flag debate to highlight their fear of the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement. If they could not use this issue against the Government they would find something else. Perhaps John Key is a conniving bugger but we are faced with a decision regardless of why it was proposed in the first place - but also a good reason why governments should never be allowed to initiate a referendum, as is the case in Switzerland.
Polls supposedly show the majority of New Zealanders do not want a change. Don't fool yourself - online polls mean diddly squat. They are not scientific and even scientific polls are often wrong.
I imagine this has to do with falling landline numbers with the uptake of mobile phones. It is also most likely that those who do still have a landline tend to be older people whom I suspect support the current flag.
For those who say we fought under this flag, we owe allegiance to the Queen and so on, I would point out that the flag has nothing to do with this. We fought to save the Empire and/or New Zealand, and it was not just the NZ flag we fought under either. This is just emotional banter, especially when Britain cast New Zealand aside when it joined the European Union. I also remind you that early settlers in New Zealand came under the British flag - not the current New Zealand flag.
Patriotism and emotional debt come in many forms and neither is an excuse to keep or to change the flag.
What a flag should do is distinguish us from other countries when it comes to matters of national pride, congregation and competition - be that war or sport. Does our current flag do that? Would any of the proposed new flags do that? This is the decision we must make.
So let us make that decision without emotion but with commonsense by using our collective wisdom as a nation. After all, the collective wisdom of over two million voters is better than the collective wisdom of 121 Members of Parliament.
One concern I do have is that elderly New Zealanders, whom I suspect are the main supporters of keeping the current flag, will return their referendum papers in droves because they are motivated. I am not so sure that those who seek change are just as motivated. Let's hope the turnout is high and not one-sided.
-Steve Baron is a Wanganui-based political commentator, author and Founder of Better Democracy NZ. He holds degrees in economics and political science.
