As a non-resident I won't vote but do prefer #2 as once it is out in the world for a bit it will be easily identified as being distinctly New Zealand

Sorry to butt in to your debate
Paul

here is our chance to have a flag unique to NZ, different to AUS

Haha - don't count on it. If you squint you can see that fern looking like a stylised kangaroo, and I'm sure they would change the black to a yellow pretty quickly 

Yep agree. It could be close, and the poll results here (although hardly a representative sample) are interesting. Make sure you complettthe the poll you lot!

I don't really want to persuade people one way or the other but for me:
: Existing flag - I get people have fought under it, but it is our third flag and i wold guess that people fought under the other flags as well
: Existing flag - I'm not that excited about having another countrys flag on our flag. I don't mind the fact that we have a monarchy. I'm not a monarchical lunatic like some people  - I just don't mind the link. However the monarchy have their own flag and it doesn't look anything like the union jack. As a country I think we have deeper roots than our european heritage so I just don't see the point in having it there

: Both flags have the southern cross on them. I think thats important as it was used as a navigation device for early settlers to come to this country, so in a sense it is core to our "founding"

: New Flag - I like the representation of the stars on this flag. Maybe the red is slightly redder or the blue is a better offset to the red, than the dark blue is
: New Flag - The blue is important to me because I see it as the sea that our ancestors and everyone who comes to NZ travels over - or more generally the water that makes up our streams, and mountains. It is a key part of our country, and therefore who we are as a nation. The dark blue of the old flag doesn't look like sea/water at all
: New Flag - The fern I could give or take - I like the idea of the fern as it is uniquely recognizable to our country. We are not the only country in the world who have ferns, but the white or silver fern is unique to NZ (to my knowledge). Not sure I like the styling but can't have everything!

: New flag - the black I could give or take also. Black is also the colours that our sport teams often play in, but not always, and you don't see artists (eg Peter Jackson) dressing in black just because they come from New Zealand. There are other people representing NZ on the world stage that aren't sports people. (ok Lorde dresses in black )

I am and I have voted for the New flag, a great opportunity to part of history. We need to change to something that represents New Zealand, we are not part of Britain any more and do not the union Jack on our flag.
I hope people vote for change and do not try and make a political statement in regards to John Key.
This is not a party vote, it is a chance to get our own distinctive flag!!

Might be interesting if we start a competition here on designs for the new Australian flag!

There's the classic green Kangaroo on yellow, but I think a yellow background with a BBQ with prawns on it would be a winner

The green and gold one I was thinking about was the one you see at cricket matches (especially when we loose!). Agree the bottom one looks similar to our proposed flag

Some suggestions:

The bottom one is missing a bit  - I think placing a pavlova middle bottom would look about right!
The middle one is also missing something - Move the star over to the right and then put a BBQ in where it was. If you can, put some prawns on it
The top one - In the green it needs a can of Fosters


And before anyone says anything, there is no room on our options for sheep!