Monday, September 21, 2015

Just not ready yet

The latest 3 News Reid Research poll has found only one in four people want to change the flag.

The process of change is often gradual. At an individual level people try to change something about themselves multiple times before actually succeeding.

Perhaps changing the flag is like trying to get voluntary euthanasia legalised. Parliamentarians failed in 1995; failed again in 2003, though it was a much closer run result. They failed because the weight of public opinion wasn't behind change.  I believe it'll be third time lucky for that particular battle.

And so it may be with the flag.

3 comments:

Jigsaw said...

Sadly I think the main reason people don't want to change the flag is because they see it (rightly or wrongly) as John Key's idea. Sad really as I think our flag is well past it's use-by date.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Jigsaw. The media seems to be overlooking that Labour had the flag-debate in its manifesto too. I recall Helen Clark mentioning a possible change to the flag as long ago as 2004. It is not John Key's idea nor is it solely attributable to Labour.

Cadwallader

Psycho Milt said...

I'm not surprised it's so low. There's been no constitutional or other change that would warrant changing the flag, so Key's push to change it amounts to changing a corporate logo because the old one's now a bit old-fashioned. The only thing I find surprising is that a quarter of the country considers that a reasonable basis for changing its flag.