Referendum petition flag-wavers decide to flag it away

A group campaigning to change the New Zealand flag has dumped its petition for a referendum - and has blamed apathy for the failure.

NZFlag.com Trust chairman Lloyd Morrison said yesterday that assembling a network of volunteers to collect 270,000 signatures by October to force a referendum had proved too big a challenge.

"We simply failed to get petition forms in front of New Zealanders - apathy was the winner again," the Wellington businessman said.

Only 100,000 signatures had been collected and it had become clear the required number would not be reached by October.

Despite opinion polls showing 40-60 per cent support for a change in New Zealand's flag design over the past 18 months, the push for distribution of petition forms had been dealt harsh blows, Mr Morrison said.

This month Telecom and New Zealand Post backed out of a controversial plan to post the petition to 1.4 million households, reportedly after negative feedback from shareholders and customers.

That decision had finally made the campaign untenable, Mr Morrison said.

However, the campaign had got people considering issues of national identity.

"To this end we have achieved our goal of provoking debate and giving people the opportunity to have a say on the issue."

Mr Morrison said the issue would not go away and New Zealanders would one day choose a flag that uniquely represented New Zealand. Campaigners had wanted the New Zealand flag, adopted in 1902, changed because they said it was rooted in the country's colonial past and was too easily confused with the Australian flag.

The petition for a referendum was officially launched in January, with Mr Morrison proposing a stylised silver fern in white on a black background.

Prime Minister Helen Clark said this month she did not believe there was enough support now to force a referendum on changing the flag, but thought it was possible in future.

- NZPA