CHANGING THE NEW ZEALAND FLAG
What Does It Mean?
as people’s ability to pay to live decreases, the World
Bank and other guardians of the global economy have
hailed the New Zealand Experiment as a great success.
New Zealand, Aotearoa (pronounced AH-oh-TAY-ahROH-ah by the Indigenous Maori), land of the long
Consequently, the people of Aotearoa have become
white cloud, or land of first light, is more commonly
increasingly concerned about identity, sovereignty, and
known as middle earth thanks to local filmmaker Sir
foreign control, more so when faced with ex-Merrill
Peter Jackson. These two tiny islands in the southern
Lynch bankster, Prime Minister John Key, who spent
hemisphere, jewels between two oceans, are far from
over $26 Million on a flag change nobody wants.
the madding crowds and the growing discontent of the
rest of world. Hidden down under Australia, and with
Now you might think that changing a flag is nothing
a population of only 4.5 million and growing, Aotearoa
special. Other nations have done similar and nothing
is a melting pot of multi-cultural diversity of which the
untoward happened. You might think that there are
people of this land are extremely proud.
many good reasons to change the current flag: New
Zealand can unshackle itself from the colonizing pow-
Yet this tiny isle has the same big-world problems as the
ers, forge her own identity, and be her own sovereign
densely populated northern hemisphere. New Zealand,
nation. Another is that changing the flag would give
unbeknownst to many, has long been seen as a test-
her an identity that would once and for all stop people
ing ground for experimentation, first by the colonising
thinking that New Zealand is simply another state of
power of the British Empire, who after realising they
Australia.
couldn’t go around killing and enslaving the natives
without creating wars, decided to make treaties with
However it’s not that simple. A change in constitution
the Maori: Experiment number one. The New Zealand
is also happening, along with the signing of the Trans-
Experiment part two arrived more recently, in the early
pacific Partnership Agreement and the introduction of
1980s, with the implementation of economic theories
newly minted money that appears to lack any royal pres