Editorial: Plan to change flag may fly yet

Kiwis can submit their designs to a Flag Consideration Project panel. Photo / NZME.

Support for changing our national flag seems to be limply flapping in the wind.

The latest Herald-Digipoll shows just one in four people, or 25 per cent, would like to see a change. That's down from 40 per cent last year.

The poll was taken just before Anzac Day, when the RSA criticised the Government for timing the first referendum in the centenary of World War I. That may have affected the result - there is clearly still strong feeling among our older generation who defended Queen and country.

But it can't be ignored that, of the 54 Commonwealth members, just 45 fly a flag bearing the Union Jack.

Are we being asked to discard the Union Jack? No. But we are being asked to consider a new design.

At first glance, the differences between the flags of New Zealand and our Aussie mates across the ditch are barely discernable. That alone should surely drive sentiment toward change.

Kiwis can submit their designs to a Flag Consideration Project panel.

There will also be roadshows and hui. The project panel will consider the alternative designs before a postal referendum later this year, in which one design will be chosen by the public. A second binding referendum in March will compare the new design against the current flag.

Enthusiasm might be flapping limply right now but I sense something else in the wind. I think it might be change.