'Renegade' red peak prompts debate

Helma van den Berg, co-owner of Clearview Estate Winery & Restaurant at Te Awanga, says she flies the flag, but only in support of the dialogue around the referendum, not the change itself. Photo / Paul Taylor

Flying high at the gate of Clearview Estate is the red peak flag design, but Clearview Estate co-owner Helma van den Berg says that doesn't mean she supports it.

Rather, the flag flutters in the wind as a symbol of the ongoing New Zealand flag referendum.

Ms van den Berg had been following the debate around the flag from inception, keeping a close eye on activity on the Facebook page.

While supporting the conversation around the debate, she was undecided about the reality of a flag-change going ahead.

Born in the Netherlands herself, she felt it wasn't her place to comment on the current flag because her "ancestor's blood hasn't been poured into New Zealand soils". She had however, spent all her life living in New Zealand and had flown appropriate flags from the mast at different times of the year.

"We've never flown the colonial flag," she said, but the Hawke's Bay regional flag often featured and the F.A.W.C!, Food and Wine Classic 2015 flag had taken up residence most recently.

Also flown often is the Hundertwasser flag, otherwise known as the koru flag, which was designed in 1983 by an Austrian artist who gifted it to New Zealand in 1983. He proposed it as a secondary flag for New Zealand, rather than as a replacement for the existing flag.

Indecision seems to cloak the topic at the moment, some people are certain they like one design, before they choose another and in the same breath decide they do not want a change at all.

Something of a wild card, or what Ms van den Berg called a "renegade", the red peak design was still strong in momentum following the powerful petition that got Aaron Dustin's design shortlisted in the first place. Yet many who chose it as their preferred design could not justify their decision, and that was what Ms van den Berg said was so appealing about it.

She said people's immediate response was like a "visceral, passionate" response and that's why it was valid.

Interested in design herself and in charge of the aesthetics and branding of Clearview Estate, Ms van den Berg said she felt the government had "thrown a lot of money at it and it's been bulldozed on us". Ms van den Berg said people would choose a flag from the shortlist without realising they had not truly chosen because they weren't included in the shortlist process.

"I chose to hang the flag to stimulate the conversation about the flags and because I think it's beautiful, I'm not saying that it's the flag we should have though."

Today is the last day people can enrol to vote in the New Zealand flag referendum.