Editorial: Strong message over flag

Nationally, 56.6 per cent of voters opted to keep the current New Zealand flag.

So the flag debate answer blowing in the wind was "no" - we don't want a new flag.

It had been too hard to pick in the lead-in to the referendum result, but now we know - clearly New Zealanders still feel some sort of connection with the motherland, or the Union Jack.

Which means the flag referendum has also doubled as an indicator of whether or not we are ready for republic status - clearly not.

Northland strongly rejected the Kyle Lockwood-designed silver fern flag - 87,520 Northlanders voted and 63.2 per cent said no.

Nationally, 56.6 per cent of voters opted to keep the current New Zealand flag while 43.2 per cent voted for the silver fern flag.

What was surprising though, was the Northland Maori vote.

Although only 50.9 per cent of the eligible Te Tai Tokerau electors turned out, a whopping 78.5 per cent of them said no to the new flag. In the Northland electorate, 60.7 per cent said no, with 58.5 per cent in Whangarei rejecting the new design.

Why was the Maori vote so high?

There are many things that were perplexing about the flag debate. The huge cost, the prime minister's attempt to influence the vote by parading the new design. Add to that the Maori determination to retain a flag that one could easily argue symbolises the colonial oppression that so many Ngapuhi rail against on a regular basis.