2 The Sea and the Land

WHEN a country is big enough for land vistas to the far horizons, and contains Australasia’s highest mountain merely as a part of an alpine chain, it is easy to forget that we are an island nation.

• TE MOANA – the backdrop – NZ was the last habitable land on Earth to be settled by humans [c. 1,300 years ago] and those humans – impressively – ventured over vast tracts of open ocean. Modern travellers to and from NZ, journey by air and they overlook the sea meta-phorically, as well as literally.

It’s also easy to forget that only a small minority of the world’s nations are island states. Some have disputed borders with neighbours and a few are landlocked.

Our coastline is thousands of kilometres in length and no part of NZ is more than 130 km from the shore. Few populations have the sea within one day’s land journey and as such a close, constant feature.

The only element retained from the old flag is the sea. In the current flag, the dark blue background is said to represent the Pacific Ocean. This Proposal has it in pale blue form, similar to the background of Fiji’s flag, where their bright blue also represents the Pacific [the unofficial flag of NZ’s Antarctic Ross Dependency is also a pale blue – an ‘ice’ background].

Fiji's pale blue Pacific

• TE WHENUA – inclusive – The coast of Aotearoa encompasses every thing in it and on it: all culture, all history and all politics. No other single image can be so all-embracing. A depiction of the islands of Aotearoa, automatically embraces Maori and colonial history, ferns, rugby, korus, kiwis and everything else that makes up our country. It is not about a single aspect. Variability is envisaged in scale and in the detail of coastline]. The one thing that should probably remain constant, is the exact colour of the sea and of the land [not here determined]. This, to encourage a family resemblance and easy association.

Omissions: the intention is to be a representation – stylised to a greater or lessor degree – of the main land masses. It is not to be, or to look like, a map. Stewart Island is left off: without it, the North & South islands can – within a square shape – be scaled to an area that is 10% larger than otherwise.
Similarly, further outlying islands are omitted in order that the two biggest islands can be rendered to scale at good size. The Chatham islands are omitted for the same reason [their own unofficial flag also happens to be their island].