If anything is proven by the Prime Minister's $26.4 million taxpayer-funded flag referenda, aside from confirming 65 per cent of New Zealanders want to 'Keep our Flag,' it is that Mr Key's crassness knows no bounds.
Mr Key recently told Paul Henry: "Here's the silver fern. Front page with one frond coming off like a tear with Jonah Lomu and his years. Amazingly powerful, that's New Zealand. Where was our flag? Nowhere. I'll tell you around the world everywhere you go people know the silver fern and that's the thing they use when we're doing well and when we're hurting. That's our flag not some Union Jack..."
People can decide on the appropriateness of bringing the late Jonah Lomu into the flag debate. Suffice to say, there is a wonderful photo of Jonah and Eric Rush together at the 1998 Commonwealth Games holding a flag many New Zealanders will recognise.
If we put Mr Key's botanically incorrect white, as opposed to silver, fern to one side, the perfect retort to Mr Key's "pop history" comes from Pahiatua WW2 veteran, Jack Martin.
On turning 100, Mr Martin received letters from the Queen and a host of dignitaries including, ironically enough, the Prime Minister. So what does the flag mean to him? We'll let the words of his son Russ do the talking: "It's simple for Dad, he fought under the flag and sadly lost cobbers in WW2 from as far back as his school days... From Dad's room at Waireka he can see the flagpole while sitting in his lazy boy [chair] looking out across the lawns. The flagpole was a bit tatty and had no flag. Bryan James, the Pahiatua RSA president, refurbished the pole in time for Dad's birthday and a brand new flag was presented to the pole in a ceremony involving soldiers from Linton camp. Now Dad can see our flag flying proudly every day."
