Ever since global treasure and wonderful sunbeam of a human Jacinda Ardern has gone on leave to deal with the whole “having a child” thing, she’s left her Deputy in charge of New Zealand. And, as it turns out, New Zealand’s current deputy PM is a man called Winston Peters, and he has a brain worm.
[jwplayer 3sjoYETp]
Winston Peters – a man whose name sounds like he has several crumbs on him at all times – has long taken umbrage with Australia and, much more specifically, is frosty about our respective nation’s similar flags.
Speaking on TVNZ, Peters went on the offensive, claiming that Australia flagrantly copied New Zealand’s flag, and for that reason and that reason alone the entire sovereign nation should be forced to change it up.
We had a flag that we’ve had for a long time, copied by Australia, and they should actually change their flag and honour the fact that we got there first with this design, being decided by a Prime Minister and his legacy.
Which… like… you alright there, m8?
True it is that New Zealand’s flag has been in place for a hell of a lot longer than Australia’s; the Kiwi flag as it stands today was formally adopted in 1902, while Australia’s current all-blue variant of the flag wasn’t adopted until 1954 after cycling through a handful of different versions.
Two years ago the NZ Government spent some NZ$26million holding a vote to see whether or not the public wanted to change the flag, a vote that was ultimately shot down (including the defeat of a flag variant involving a Kiwi shooting lasers out of its eyes). Rendering New Zealand, much like Australia, as being flag-toting ass-lickers of the United Kingdom for the foreseeable future.
Peters, for what its worth, is also getting chirpy at Australia over our nasty little habit of deporting accused New Zealand criminals without a trial. So that’s fun too.
See what happens? Jacinda goes on break for a few weeks and everything turns to shit.
The way things are going there’ll be another underarm incident before she gets back.
