In the debate about our flag, it is important to understand where it has come from.
The origin of the New Zealand flag is largely naval. The Royal Navy originally comprised of three divisions, in order of seniority, the red, white and the blue. The ships of each division wore an ensign of its divisional colour, all having the Union flag in the upper canton or top right handed corner.
In the case the the white ensign, a St Georges Cross was added in 1702 to avoid dangerous confusion as sea with the white Royalist French flag.
As part of the Naval Reforms of 1864 the colored divisions of the Navy were abandoned, and the red ensign was assigned to the merchant fleet, the white for the Royal Navy, and the blue for vessels of the Naval Reserve and the Civil Service. This is where the New Zealand flag comes in.
After the Treaty of Waitangi, the flag of the colony of New Zealand was the British Union flag. In the year following the Naval Reforms, the British Government issued instructions to all its colonies, including New Zealand, that all vessels belonging to or in the service of the colony should wear the blue ensign with the badge or seal of the colony on the fly.
New Zealand lacked a badge so simply used the British blue ensign without any stars or other badge. This caused an incident when the Commander of HMS Challenger a Royal Navy ship in New Zealand waters in 1866, challenging the use of the undefaced Blue Ensign.
The Secretary of the Post Office suggested four red stars of the Southern Cross be added as the New Zealand seal was too elaborate to reproduce on a flag.
It was only a maritime flag for use on official vessels, but as the only unique New Zealand flag, it began to be used by the public beyond its official purposes.
At the height of the Boer War when patriotic emotions were running high, the New Zealand blue ensign became by Act of Parliament in 1901 and Royal Proclamation in 1902 the "recognised flag of the colony for general use ashore within the colony and on all vessels belonging to the Government".
The New Zealand flag predates by a couple of decades the often confused Australian flag, which was first flown on September 3, 1901 after an international design competition, and was later approved by King Edward VII in 1902.
If the confusion is to be avoided, it is perhaps the newcomer that ought to be changing its flag, but good luck in persuading our neighbor to do so.
Like our children, nations grow up, and I support a new flag that firmly places us as an independent nation of the Pacific. We can do better than a rugby flag. Place our red stars of the southern cross on a flag of Pacific rather than Royal Blue, to give us our history and future. We were named by the Dutch as the "New Sealand", and our flag should acknowledge us all as such.
Silver fern means rugby, and we need something more than just rugby.
Black is the colour of mourning and we need more uplifting colours.
Like South Africa under Mandela, we need something fresh and new rather than something loaded with past associations.