Nigel Latta has written the best piece I have seen on the flag I have seen to date. My thinking is that such things should be driven by people who want to give something back, not people who see 25 million and jump on board for their share
Courtesy Of Nigel Latta Why I’m voting to keep the flag It isn’t just because the proposed new flag is ugly. Although it is, in my view, ugly. It looks like a company logo designed at a brain storming session in the tearoom and then mocked up on someone’s computer. It doesn’t inspire me, or speak to me. I think it looks like something you’d see at a display stand for a company that doesn’t understand what good design means. If we wanted something awesome, we should have got a team of designers to come up with something that speaks to who we are. At the very least there should have been a designer on the panel appointed to select the flags we got to choose from. There wasn’t. Not one.
It isn’t just because the RSA don’t want it, but that’s a pretty good reason all by itself. These are the men and women who went off to foreign fields and fought to protect the freedoms we all enjoy (including the freedom to change our flag) and I think their view holds special weight.
It isn’t because I’m opposed to change. I’m not. I love change. I love the practice of periodically rethinking what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and whether there might be a better way. I’ve tried to live my life doing just that.
It isn’t about the politics of whether I do or don’t like John Key. That would be a silly basis on which to make a decision like this.
The real reason I voted to keep the flag is that it is, I believe, a shameful waste of money. Absolutely shameful.
If we were a rich country, and we could afford everything we really need, then that would be one thing, but we’re not. We can’t afford life-saving melanoma drugs. We can’t afford better buildings for schools which have been waiting years to have damp and crappy classrooms replaced. We can’t afford all the hip replacements, knee replacements, ear operations and a gazillion other medical procedures people need that they can’t get. We can’t afford to fund the kind of science and research that we desperately need to be doing if we’re ever going to lift our economy to where it could be. We can’t afford to properly fund social service agencies doing incredibly important work in our communities all over the country every single day.
I could go on for days and days and days about all the important things we should have but we can’t afford.
And it isn’t just the cost of the referendum, it’s the cost of replacing all the flags on all the buildings, and uniforms, and letterheads, and a hundred other places the NZ flag appears. No one has said how much that cost will be.
Still, even if it was just the cost of the referendum itself, I would still be voting no.
It is, I believe, shameful, so I voted to keep the flag.
AN UPDATE FOR THE PEOPLE WHO DIDN'T READ THE POST PROPERLY: Just for all the people who keep saying the money is already spent... it isn't. If you'd read the above post you would have seen my argument that we've spent $26m on the referendum but there is still many millions more we will have to spend actually changing the flag. So the money isn't already spent. Some of it is, but there are millions more to come if we did actually change it.
4 comments:
spot on!
Nigel Latta has written the best piece I have seen on the flag I have seen to date.
My thinking is that such things should be driven by people who want to give something back, not people who see 25 million and jump on board for their share
Courtesy Of Nigel Latta
Why I’m voting to keep the flag
It isn’t just because the proposed new flag is ugly. Although it is, in my view, ugly. It looks like a company logo designed at a brain storming session in the tearoom and then mocked up on someone’s computer. It doesn’t inspire me, or speak to me. I think it looks like something you’d see at a display stand for a company that doesn’t understand what good design means.
If we wanted something awesome, we should have got a team of designers to come up with something that speaks to who we are. At the very least there should have been a designer on the panel appointed to select the flags we got to choose from.
There wasn’t. Not one.
It isn’t just because the RSA don’t want it, but that’s a pretty good reason all by itself. These are the men and women who went off to foreign fields and fought to protect the freedoms we all enjoy (including the freedom to change our flag) and I think their view holds special weight.
It isn’t because I’m opposed to change. I’m not. I love change. I love the practice of periodically rethinking what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and whether there might be a better way. I’ve tried to live my life doing just that.
It isn’t about the politics of whether I do or don’t like John Key. That would be a silly basis on which to make a decision like this.
The real reason I voted to keep the flag is that it is, I believe, a shameful waste of money. Absolutely shameful.
If we were a rich country, and we could afford everything we really need, then that would be one thing, but we’re not. We can’t afford life-saving melanoma drugs. We can’t afford better buildings for schools which have been waiting years to have damp and crappy classrooms replaced. We can’t afford all the hip replacements, knee replacements, ear operations and a gazillion other medical procedures people need that they can’t get. We can’t afford to fund the kind of science and research that we desperately need to be doing if we’re ever going to lift our economy to where it could be. We can’t afford to properly fund social service agencies doing incredibly important work in our communities all over the country every single day.
I could go on for days and days and days about all the important things we should have but we can’t afford.
And it isn’t just the cost of the referendum, it’s the cost of replacing all the flags on all the buildings, and uniforms, and letterheads, and a hundred other places the NZ flag appears. No one has said how much that cost will be.
Still, even if it was just the cost of the referendum itself, I would still be voting no.
It is, I believe, shameful, so I voted to keep the flag.
AN UPDATE FOR THE PEOPLE WHO DIDN'T READ THE POST PROPERLY:
Just for all the people who keep saying the money is already spent... it isn't. If you'd read the above post you would have seen my argument that we've spent $26m on the referendum but there is still many millions more we will have to spend actually changing the flag. So the money isn't already spent. Some of it is, but there are millions more to come if we did actually change it.
I'm with Hollie, Philip and Nigel :-)
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