Flag Consideration Panel chair, John Burrows, said the Panel’s decision had been guided first and foremost by the results of its engagement programme across a range of communities where thousands of Kiwis shared what was special about New Zealand, as well as the Panel’s own selection criteria.

He stressed the importance of designs being unmistakeably from New Zealand, timeless, free of any copyright or intellectual property issues and with the ability to work in a variety of contexts.

“Interestingly, reviewing the flag designs long listed in detail and in real-life contexts helped shape the Panel’s decision making. For example, there are practical matters such as how they look from a long distance, how they look from both sides, when flying (or still), in situations where they may hang vertically, and so on.

It would have also been easy to take a category based approach to our selection, for example have a silver fern option, a Southern Cross option, a koru option and an abstract or kiwi option. However, our mandate was to select what we believe to be the strongest flag designs, with the best symbol and colour combination that work well in any context from celebration to commemoration. We have made the decision to include one of the designs (by Kyle Lockwood) in two colour combinations, because they say different things to different people,” said Burrows.