New Australian Flag

The topic on weather or not Australia should change its flag form the traditional British Ensign is a hotly debated subject and political mine field in Australia. From what I have read most Aussies are content with their current flag for the mean time. Personally I like the Australian flag but if the Aussies ever voted to change it what would it be?

This was my original design. As you can see it has most if not all the characteristics of the current flag. The Southern Cross Star formation, Commonwealth star and a red cross similar to St George's Cross. It also has the Aussie Colours of Green and Gold. Native Aboriginal colours of red, yellow and black, and the British colours of red, white and blue. Two more aspects of this design is the boomerang shape with the aboriginal colours in the canton, and below that you can see part of the make up of the Union Jack, but not a whole one. These symbolise the two main Australian communities the ones descendent form Aboriginals and British Settlers.
Personally I thought this although interesting was very complicated. So I retired to studying the Australian flag.

   

The three main consonants of this is the British Union Flag in the Canton, the Commonwealth Star under it. This symbolises six Australian states and the seventh point is for all the Australian territories that aren't part of the mainland. Towards the fly is the southern cross star formation which can also be seen on the similar flag of neighbouring New Zealand. The bit on this flag that the pro-new flag people don't want is the Union Jack as this symbolises British Sovereignty, this is probably not surprising as Australia was part of the British Empire when this flag came out. However today Australia is fully independent so some people say the flag is out dated. Others say it was the flag Australians have fought and died under and link to their ancestors and mention that the Queen is head of state of Australia and other countries in the Commonwealth.  

I decided to remove the Union Jack if only to see what it would look like without it. I didn't think it looked too bad. I moved the Commonwealth star up to the centre and it looked better. Then I thought about changing the colour. Green and Gold seemed the most appropriate. This was the result: 

It is clearly Australian and is based on the traditional flag. The other advantage for this flag is that in keeping with Australian tradition, the colour can change for sea. Currently the State Ensign is the current flag. The Civil Ensign is the Australian Red Ensign and the Naval Ensign is the the Australian White Ensign . For example the new ensign of the Royal Australian Navy might look like this:  

Alternatively the stars could be blue.

My friend Leonardo Piccioni from the Flags Forum also designed a version shown below:  

 

This is the civil version he had the idea that the government version should include the Commonwealth star and the Civil one only the Southern Cross.  Me and another form user 26 May 1989 (who is Australian) think that although the Kangaroo is a great Aussie symbol it is rather Corporate which is not good for a national flag. Now the reason I included Leonardo's design is because I used it as a template for the next design:

State Flag

 

Civil Flag

As you can see I removed the Kangaroo. In terms of colour the only colour this would change is white for the Navy, as at sea both Gov and Civil ships will use either the State or Civil versions. Although the Civil flag looks a little plain I think after use it would 'grow on you' but I think there are lots of alternatives that should be considered. to see the flags forum discussions on the subject click HERE