Terry Sarten: Waving $26m flag won't signal who New Zealanders are

WHO WE ARE: Our actions define us - our flag does not do that. A-WTA250409SNANZAC16

I AM not sure how or why deciding on a new flag should cost $26 million. It seems a mite excessive.

Mind you, the going price for a new door to keep the National and Labour MPs apart, or for what appears to be a headstone outside the Starship Enterprise (or the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment as it is usually called), illustrates that taxpayer money is for spending.

The headstone might mark the spot where a very bad idea was buried and, of course, parliamentary offices should probably all have revolving doors ... but still it all seems expensive. I did wonder if the sheep flown to Saudi Arabia travelled business or cattle class as they appear to have been on ministerial business.

There is no doubt that we do need a new flag. The current one is often mistaken for the one used by the big island off the coast and we need to avoid getting mixed up in the morally suspect motivations of Australia's Abbott Government.

I note, with increasing concern, that John Key is starting to sound like Abbott with his rhetoric about not taking more refugees and casting more such arrivals as bogie men.

Classic scare tactics such as this will not sway most NZers who have seen asylum seekers give back to their new home in more ways than can be counted.

It is good to remember the National Government reaction to the possibility of 12 such arrivals by sea and the immediate legislation response that declared 12 was (surprise) the exact number that equated to a mass arrival. If it was not so sad, we would think it was a bad joke.

We could have dealt with the colonial aspects of our flag by simply shrinking the Union Jack part gradually until it disappeared completely, leaving the Southern Cross.

At least this would have provided some clear celestial navigational guide to where we are in the world.

World maps often do not show NZ at all or hide us in the middle folding bit where the staples go. This is not a bad thing - any potential invaders would need to find us first.

The current flag is a colonial remnant. It is a reminder that once New Zealand was colonised with settlers, with notions about race and place. In recent times, much work has been done to address the loss of mana whenua and Zealand is becoming New in many ways. A redesigned flag provides opportunity to display that.

We need a distinctive flag that we can wave when we get excited or brave, but in essence any flag is just a coloured rag. It does not carry our aspirations, skills, talent and certainly is not a "brand". If any advertising gurus wade into the discussion we must ignore them as they only value something they can sell.

As a country, we define ourselves by what comes from and is enacted by people and we are not for sale. It is how we, as a nation, conduct our relationship with the wider world that defines our reputation.

Spending $26 million on a new flag is not the way we signal who we are. There are other issues that this money could be used for, whether it be supporting agencies that work with disadvantaged children and adolescents or by taking more refugees from war-torn areas. Both are worthwhile investments in the future.

We do not need to wave a flag. Sometimes doing the right thing means nobody notices.

-Terry Sarten is a Wanganui-based writer, musician and satirista (coffee drinking satirist) - feedback: tgs@inspire.net.nz