Historic referendum to decide whether to change the country’s flag to a black and blue design with a silver fern may end in anticlimax, with survey showing two-thirds of people wanting to maintain the status quo

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

New Zealand is on the cusp of deciding whether to change its flag, nearly a year after the process began – and polls indicate the result will be anticlimactic.

Voters have been asked to decide between the current flag and a black and blue design with a silver fern by postal referendum.

Voting closes on Thursday, with preliminary results expected to be announced at about 8.30pm local time. The official result is unlikely to differ but will be confirmed the following Wednesday.

The preferred alternative design, by Melbourne-based New Zealander Kyle Lockwood, was chosen from five options last year in the first postal referendum. Turnout was 48.78% of eligible voters.

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As of Wednesday 16 March, two weeks after voting in the second referendum opened, approximately 1.6 million papers had been received by the Electoral Commission – more than the total number received in the first.

The prime minister, John Key, the leader of the National party now in its third term of government, has been vocal in his support for a change of flag. He first floated the idea in early 2014 to a mixed reception.

The process got under way in earnest in May last year, with the appointment of a 12-person “flag consideration panel” and an appeal for public submissions of designs, and is estimated to have cost NZ$26m.

The potential new flag has been flown at more than 250 sites across the country since late January, to help voters reach a decision.

But according to a telephone survey undertaken in the last week of February, almost two-thirds of New Zealanders want to maintain the status quo, with 59% agreeing the issue had been “a distraction and a waste of money”, and that voting for the current flag would “send John Key a message”.

Thirty-two per cent of respondents were in favour of change and 9% unsure. Twenty per cent agreed with a new flag in principle but did not like Lockwood’s design.



An update to the survey published last week showed that younger New Zealanders were keenest to retain the flag. Results were split by political affiliation, with “a narrow majority of National voters” intending to vote for change “but big majorities of other voters” in favour of retention.

New Zealand's prime minister John Key wants a new flag. Does anybody else? Read more

The total costs of rolling out a new flag if the vote calls for a change remain unclear.



The finance minister, Bill English, said last week it was “hard to say” how much it would cost to update official material such as police uniforms, driver’s licenses and navy ships.

“There’s been some work done on it, [but] we haven’t gone into huge detail,” he told Newshub.



The only concrete figure he was able to provide was $2.7m to replace about 1,500 flags on government buildings and to update defence force uniforms (excluding new badges, lapel pins and pennants for official vehicles).

If the apparently unlikely event that Lockwood’s design is voted in, it will take effect in about six months’ time.