In a speech at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has launched his proposal for a referendum on the nation’s flag.
You can read the speech here.
It is a most impressive, thoughtful and statesmanlike view of the significance of a national flag in the life of a country, demonstrating very clearly its importance to the cohesion of the community over which it flies.
It shows that responsibility for national symbols resides at the highest level in New Zealand (as in other major Commonwealth countries).
Above all else it reminds us that we must never take a national flag for granted or leave it to look after itself.
It needs nurturing and protecting and treating with reverence and dignity.
Whatever your views, I strongly commend the speech to all who come this way.
Malcolm Farrow
President, Flag Institute; author of The Colours Of the Fleet, the most comprehensive worldwide list of flags and ensigns, past and present, containing the Union Flag.
