On Tuesday, The Flag Consideration panel in New Zealand revealed the four final designs for a potential new flag that the country will vote on in November. New Zealand's current flag looked too similar to Australia's, causing New Zealanders, colloquially known as Kiwis, to start a movement to get a new one, according to Yahoo News.
How many billboards like this, all over the planet, would $26million have got us? #nzflag pic.twitter.com/9oypL7enaT
— Tim Kong (@timoslimo) September 1, 2015
The final four flags were whittled down from over 10,000 sumbissions. Three of the four designs display a silver fern — New Zealand's national symbol — while the fourth displays a black and white Koru, a Maori symbol that's reminiscent of a curled fern frond.
Despite being on the cusp of a potentially historical event, according to CNN, Kiwis are not pleased and say all of them are boring and lack variety, and took to Twitter to voice their dissatisfaction with the finalists:
$26M #nzflag shows Key's drunk on his own personality cult. Last NZ politician this drunk on power was Muldoon. And he was actually drunk. — Graham Cameron (@mvlgrimace) September 1, 2015
#NZFlag panel sitting with politicians & kids waving 4 godawful flags was our own Kiwi version of the Simpsons monorail episode — 2Tapu (@2TAPU) September 1, 2015
One user observed that the designs were hardly inventive since they already existed in some way, shape or form:
The final 4. Looking gud NooZulund! #nzflag pic.twitter.com/P6T3KgS5hE — Paul Be (@paulsbradley) September 1, 2015
However, what had Kiwis the most frustrated was the fact that some of their favorite designs, which according to them were more creative, didn't make the cut:
The major news outlets have made a mistake, here are the actual final 4 flag designs... #NZFlag pic.twitter.com/22meOgIY8e — Local Auckland (@LocalAuckland) September 1, 2015
After voters decide on a flag, it will go up against the original NZ flag in 2016, and whichever wins will become (or remain) the national flag. However, judging by the responses from the locals, it's unlikely the flag will change.
