Why Change the flag?

Who approved the current Australian flag?

The current Australian flag is a colonial flag of the British Empire. It was submitted to the British parliament in 1901 for approval and approved by King Edward VII. At that time Australia was a British colony and it was right to use a British colonial flag, known as a defaced British blue Ensign. All British colonies had either a Blue Ensign flag or a Red Ensign flag. The position of authority on a flag is the upper left corner, and this was always reserved for the colonial power. Australian law and government was superseded by British law and government at this time and we were not a fully independent nation.

Examples of British Colonial Flags

web link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_British_Empire

Examples of French Colonial Flags

web link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_colonial_flags

What has changed?

After the second world war, the British Empire effectively ended. Britain adopted a policy of peaceful disengagement from its colonies once stable, non-Communist governments were available to transfer power to. Between 1945 and 1965, the number of people under British rule outside the UK itself fell from 700 million to five million (three million of whom were in Hong Kong).

In 1986 the Australia Act was approved by both the Australian Commonwealth (Cth) and British (UK) parliaments. The Australia Act (Cth and UK) eliminated the remaining possibilities for the UK to legislate with effect in Australia, for the UK to be involved in Australian government, and for an appeal from any Australian court to a British court. In effect, this is when Australia became an independent nation, no longer under the control of any external authority. This is the point at which we should have changed our flag to represent our new identity in the world.

An independent nation needs an independent flag

As the flag is a symbol of the polity of a country, it is important that the flag correctly represents the current political situation within the country. An independent nation should display an independent flag. The colours on the flag should represent the national colours of the nation. This has been the case for most other nations who have moved from being a colony to a fully independent nations. The flag is the national symbol and the way we are presented to the rest of the world. It is something we should be proud of and understand the meaning of.

Examples of independent national flags