Talk:Flag of Australia
There are a number of things that I would change about this article, which I find to be partisan. Wikipedians ought to be mindful that this article is about the flag of someone else's country. A totally disspassionate approach is called for.
My comments are in square brackets.
HEADING: History
The flag was proclaimed by the monarch in 1904 after a design competition.
[Couldn't we hear more about this unique design competition? When Australian schoolkids celebrate Australian National Flag Day this is one of the key things they learn about. Also the date 1904 is wrong - the King made his decision in 1902. On 20 February 1903 the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette No. 8 published a copy of the proclamation which notified Australians that King Edward VII had approved design for the Flag of Australia. Source: http://www.australianflag.org.au/concepts.php]
This flag was mainly intended for naval use. Throughout the first fifty years of Federation, the Union Flag was widely used, as was the "Red Ensign" (the same design with a red background), as the unofficial national flag. On 14th April 1954 the "Blue Ensign" flag became the official Australian flag, though it was not until well into the 1960's that the national flag usurped the Union Flag completely in public consciousness. The blue ensign design was adopted over the red ensign design due to the fact that red was the symbol of communism and the rise of anti-communist feelings in Australia at the time.
[Introducing the Flags Bill into parliament, Prime Minister Bob Menzies explanied that: "The bill is very largely a formal measure which puts into legislative form what has become almost the established practice in Australia." House of Representatives, 20 November 1953.
The red ensign was always intended for use by merchant ships - the theory that it was skiped over for selection as the Australian flag because of its 'communist' connotations is wild and woolly indeed. The only way we would know for sure if Bob Menzies really had this in mind is to find a document, in his own handwriting, held at a public record office in Australia where he explains that he 'changed' the colour of Australia's flag because of his hatred of communism. No such document or cabinet record has ever been found; Wikipedia insults Australians by repeating what some of them could see as an outrageous, baseless claim.
Also, research by the Australian National Flag Association has shown that the blue ensign was being extensively used prior to the passage of the Flags Act: Government buildings; Olympic games (since 1904); flown from the bow of all Royal Australian Navy ships and from the mainmast as a 'battle flag' during combat (since 1911, see Banjo Patterson's poem 'We're all Australians now'); saluting flag of the army (since 1911, source: Australian Army Military Orders: M.O.135); the great Australian explorer Douglas Mawson used the blue ensign to claim the Australian Antartic Territory in the name of King George V and the Australian Commonwealth on Christmas Day 1912.
The Flags Act did not result in the blue Australian flag being flown anywhere it wasn't already being flown or displayed in any circumstances it wasn't already being displayed. What it did do in practice was require the 'Australian national flag' to be flown in the 'prime' position in Australia. The days of the British empire as one integrated national unit were gone.
If Wikipedia was fair dinkum it would have a little section on the history of Australian National Flag Day as well. See here: http://www.australianflag.org.au/flagday.php]
HEADING: Arguments against flag change
[One of the key arguments for keeping the exisiting Australian flag is missing from here - that abandoning the existing design would be an insult to the country's 102,000 war dead. See here: http://www.australianflag.org.au/anzactradition.php
I find it strange that this argument dosen't feature here. It is possibly the most compelling and convincing argument AGAINST change there is.]
HEADING: Progress of the debate
No official proposal has ever been legislated to precipitate a change in the status quo. Defenders of the flag have in the past supported its addition to the Constitution, to no avail. In 1996, however, the Howard government passed an amendment to the Flags Act so that the national flag could not be changed except by means of public referendum, angering some proponents of change. Some however have questioned the constitutional validity of this legislation, since it involves Parliament acting to bind its own legislative power.
It seems certain that the flag debate will not be resolved before the question of an Australian republic is settled. It remains a low priority for most Australians.
[If Wikipedia must go into details about the criticism leveled at the Flags Amendment Act (1998) then the following criticisms should also be mentioned:
(1) Australia extends the franchise to a significant number of British subjects who are not Australian citizens. Some supporters of flag change strongly resisted attempts to prohibit flag change other than by a referendum for this reason.
(2) Some proponents of flag change point to the Canadian example, where the Canadian parliament enacted that country's flag without taking a vote on the issue. (The parliamentary committee that examined the flag issue in Canada specifically rejected a resolution calling for the issue to be put to a referendum.)
It is important to note that supporters of flag change leveled both technical as well as the above 'in-principle' criticisms at the Howard government's decision to put the future of the Australian flag in the hands of the Australian people.]
HEADING: Flag trivia
[Wikipedia could also point out that the Australian flag is the only national flag that flies, or has ever flown, over an entire continent. Indeed, until the independence of New Guinea in 1975, Australia's flag flew from the south pole to the equator.]
- As far as this point goes, this is more about Australian geography/geopolitics than the flag itself, so I wouldn't be putting that in this particular article.Lacrimosus 03:22, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Well, I think you'll find that the majority of this article was in fact created by Australians. Certainly I'm one. I think your points are largely valid, and encourage you to be bold and make the relevant edits yourself. But note that matters of the flag's historical development (eg. red vs. blue ensigns, the exact requirements & nature of the design competition) are typically disputed between proponents and opponents of change. Be careful, therefore, to cite the views of ANFA, a partisan organisation, as such. There is an excellent, non-partisan volume on the history of the Australian flag, The Australian Flag - Colonial Relic or Contemporary Icon?, by Carol A. Foley, that I will be checking out to read again as it contains much useful information. Lacrimosus 03:22, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
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Foley's book is a rare and thoughful analysis of the 'flag debate' but it has been shown to contain many errors. For instance she thinks that a green and gold flag would be unique and distinctive, yet many more nations than she apparently knew about at the time use these colours in their flags.
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I'd question whether ANFA are a partisan organisation. They have something like 20,000 members across Australia (including Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, and parliamentarian and former republican leader Malclom Turnbull) and they have organised public celebrations of Australian National Flag Day at public places since 1984. Indeed, the official Flag Day is their baby.
Australia's official flag of state, the centenary flag, was devised by ANFA and presented to the Prime Minister. http://www.australianflag.org.au/centenaryflag.php. In 2002 the Federal education ministry gave every Australian elementary school a copy of ANFA's Australian flag video, which I understand has now been officially incorporated into the 'Discovering Democracy' civics program.
There are also far more militant 'keep-the-flag' orgainsations in Australia, such as the Australian Flag Society. www.flagsociety.org.au.
I'd call ANFA an 'educational charity' these days.
I know really hard-core supporters of flag change won't appreciate me saying this, but it does seem to me that recent historical discoveries have fairly comprehensively routed some of the more damaging claims put forward by the Ausflag organisation over the lasy 20 years.
- Appreciated. It's still necessary to cite ANFA's views as belonging to it, and Ausflag's views as belonging to it, and let readers make up their own minds as to their credibility (Wikipedia:Cite sources). ANFA, having a stated ideological position opposed to flag change, has a theoretical bias towards presenting the flag in a certain light (exactly of course, as Ausflag has in the opposite direction). Lacrimosus 04:02, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
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The flag on the Flag of Canada page is a lot more accurate than the flag on the Flag of Australia page.
The colour of the Australian flag is wrong - so are the stars.
Regarding arguments to keep the flag, a lot of folks think the argument that the Australian flag looks too much like the New Zealand flag is not a strong enough reason to change. There are an awful lot of look alike flags in this world, go and look up the flags of Indonesia and Poland and see.
If the people of Poland and Indonesia have similar flags and do nothing about it then that is their problem - it doesn't mean that Australians have to do the same thing.
- And a lot of folks who do. I think you're missing the point here: Wikipedia reports arguments and discussions, it doesn't make judgements on their validity. With no false modesty, I think this is a reasonable entry on the subject. If you want improvements in it, I encourage you to add them yourself. Lacrimosus 08:04, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Somebody with more skill as a writer than me could try to add this to the article.
I went to quite a bit of trouble doing research about Australia's centenary flag of state but somebody keeps on deleting what I have wrote. The first time that the centenary flag was flown was not at Hyde Park in London. That was the first time it was used to represent Australia overseas as our official flag of state.
The head of state was present on that occasion.
recent deletions
While I don't get on that well with the person/people who originally contributed this information, I wonder whether it was necessary to completely remove:
- the paragraph on the Centenary Flag. The flag definitely started as a political stunt, but that's not a reason not to report its use. Maybe in the history section - it's at least as relevant as John Anderson's proposals about flagburning.
- the argument against flag change about the flag's historical significance because it was the flag Australia grew up under etc. The wording was a bit corny, but it does seem to be the most successful argument for keeping the flag, or at the very least, the reason people are attached to it.
Unless there are objections, I'll add something about the Centenary flag, but I'd like some suggestions on how to word the historical significance bit. JPD 15:58, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
-proposed changes-
"The new flag came into use slowly and was often flown alongside the Union Flag. In 1908 it was used to represent Australian athletes at the London Olympics, and by 1911 it was also used as the saluting flag for the Army."
Instead of this I would use this form of words:
"The new flag came slowly into use: in 1908 it was used to represent Australian athletes at the London Olympics, and by 1911 it was also used as the saluting flag for the Army. As a member nation of the British Empire, Australia retained the Union Jack as the flag for use on official occasions." (This comes from the teachers notes of an Australian flag video put out by the Australan government: http://www.curriculum.edu.au/democracy/download/natflag.pdf)
"On 14 February 1954, Elizabeth II gave the royal assent to the Flags Act (Cwth, 1953). This the first piece of Australian legislation to receive the monarch's assent in person, timed to coincide with the Queen's visit to the country. Section 3 of the Act officially confirmed the Commonwealth blue ensign (first flown on 3 September 1901) as the Australian national flag."
I propose something a little bit more grand:
"On 14 February 1954 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II gave Royal Assent to the Flags Act (Cwth, 1953). This was an historic occasion of some importance in that it was the first Australian legislation to which a reigning sovereign had ever assented in Australia. Section 3 of the Act officially confirmed the "blue ensign" (first flown on 3 September, 1901) as the Australian National Flag. Then Prime Minister Robert Menzies explained that the Act was "very largely a formal measure which puts into legislative form what has become almost the established practice in Australia". (The Queen is the ruler of 16 countries and Her Majesty is the right title I would think.)
"In 2002, the leader of the National Party of Australia, John Anderson proposed to introduce laws banning desecration of the Australian flag, a call which attracted support from some parliamentarians both in his own party and the senior coalition partner, the Liberal Party of Australia. However, the Prime Minister, John Howard, rejected the calls, stating that "...in the end I guess it's part of the sort of free speech code that we have in this country." [1], and no legislation banning flag desecration was put to Parliament."
Why not leave this out? it was not the first time this legislation has been proposed - won't be the last.
If wipedia must cover the "Great Australian flag debate" then how will we deal with the fact the Ausflag organsation specfically does not want the Eureka flag and a lot of nationalists do? We must deal wth ths issue if we deal with the debate at all.
Even if the Centenary flag - Australia's ceremonial flag of state - started as a politcal stunt wikipedia must deal with it like Australians who come into contact with it: respectfully and seriously.
I propose a separate secton for the Centenary flag and we fill it in with information out of the "Australian national flag" brochure put out by the Australian government which has a section about the country's offcial flag of state - recognised by warrant of the Governor-General.
I wouldn't mind seeing the content of this page remain stable.