Tommy Wilson: Now is time to drop flag

My feel-good flag would have been the pohutukawa in full bloom.

I love flags and love flying them.

I always have. And at every opportunity on my many voyageurs du monde I have flown a flag across my backpack, embroidered on my potae, hung out the window of a bus or clipped to a car.

Tinorangatira flags, French flags and All Blacks flags, but never have I flown the New Zealand flag. There is no feel-good factor to our flag. It just doesn't do it for me and never has.

When Canada came up with their feel good flag in 1960, it had exactly the same demographic of doubters as we do here. Their old flag was very similar to our existing one, however from the moment their Maple Leaf - voted the world's most attractive national flag - was hoisted, the doubters disappeared.

During the 1988 Winter Olympics when Eddy the Eagle captured the headlines around the world, I witnessed first-hand the pride in their Maple Leaf flag. Every time Canada won gold the country would stop and people would stand and salute their flag. At home or where I was working we would stop, salute and sing O Canada.

So why not here?

Surely we want to but the handbrake of belief in our flag does not translate into standing tall to salute or sing when it is raised.

We only have to look at the recent Rugby World Cup to see, or in this case, not see, the pride we had in our national flag.

The reality is there is no mana in our flag, as it belongs to the crown that colonised this country, just as it did to Canada and just as it belongs to the crown who colonised our convict cuzzies across the ditch.

My feel-good flag would have been the pohutukawa in full bloom. Every time I see the crimson korowai of our very own Christmas tree, it sends out a karanga of hana koko's (Santa's) impending arrival, and like any other kid I get excited, as I would seeing it on our flag.

Buying into the Anzac argument doesn't do it for me. Nor does the cost, given we spend five times the amount on Te Puni Kokiri administration every year.

Yes, my dad fought in the war and so did my ancestors, who paid for the land I live on today with their blood.

Both of these wars came at a cost and now we, the benefactors of their sacrifice, get to go from those days to these days - and beyond.

So marching together under a new flag is a hikoi that we could and should take by saying yes to a new flag, whatever it may be.

At the end of the day, yes it is night time but when it comes to flying a flag where we can stand up and salute it, then my motive for change is purely personal and somewhat selfish. How cool would it be to see our sevens standing on the gold medal dais at Rio, with Ngati Skippy a sad second, and as we sing our anthem in Maori and in English and hoist the new flag. "Chur Brudda" would ring out across the land.

There wouldn't be a sitting room in the country not standing.

Now when does that happen with what we have now?

Half the time we are still working out if we came first or second to the Aussies, such is the sameness of our current flags.

As for the leaders' legacy being captained by the "sloop John Key", again who cares who nails their flag to their legacy mast? Long after this leader has gone, the old flag - if it stays, will be blowing in the wind like a tired Bob Dylan classic.

Perhaps the answer to tomorrow's tino rangatiratanga and the symbiotic coming together of this long white cloud, is to fly a new flag?

Perhaps we should park our personal prejudices and look to what it would be like to stand every time our new flag was hoisted - overseas and in our own backyard.

Would I fly it on a flagpole outside my whare or on the roof of my office? Hell yeah.

Look outwards and look forward and have your voice recorded by voting this week.

Stand by your country that stands on its own merit and mana, not a majesty from a far off land.

So hoist up the flag John Key.

See how the main NZ sail sets.

Call for the country to get in behind and set a new course - beneath and above a new flag that is ours and ours alone.

-broblack@xtra.co.nz

Tommy Wilson is a best-selling author and local writer.