"It is incontrovertible to say that European Australia was built on bloodshed and a failure to respect the dignity and humanity of this land’s original inhabitants. We have as a society gone some way to recognising this fact through the High Court’s famous 1992 Mabo judgment that recognised the title in land held by Indigenous Australians at the time of European settlement."
Nobody can deny that European settlement of Australia was characterized by the killing and dispossession of many Kooris and Murris and the introduction of disease, opium and alcohol. However there is one group of indigenous Australians who never "lost" their land and who were not moved to reserves or Mission stations remote from their homelands. I refer to the Torres Strait Islanders.
The Mabo case involved land title claims on Mer,an island in Eastern Torres Strait, where the Murray Islanders had lived for centuries and many still reside there. The Mabo judgment was extended to the mainland in the form of the Wik judgment.
However you lament the lack of any indigenous recognition in our flag as opposed to the Canadian flag. Where is the recognition of the original inhabitants on the Canadian flag? The original inhabitants utilized the Maple tree?
Surely the Aboriginals and Islanders utilized the Southen Cross as a navigation aid, the Cross featuring prominently on our flag. We all live under the Southern Cross.

There's nothing wrong with the Southern Cross, it's the Union Jack that needs to go.

Ray Martin is an irrelevant fading pretty boy, trying to keep his name in lights, any damn fool way he can.

Greg Barns is a fading dill, who fitted well with that other dill Malcolm Turnbull, when he tried to make a mark with him.

Give it a rest Greg, we're not interested in such rubbish.

Not only must the Union Flag go so that we can have a truly Australian flag rather than a 'defaced British Blue Ensign' (official definition of our current flag) but we must get our own head of state.

At present Australia is not even a democracy, let alone an independent country. Reason? Our elected government can be dismissed by the unelected representative (governor general) of the monarch of a foreign country (as defined by our High Court). That is not democracy; I don't know what it is but it is definitely not democracy.

The Australian Flag will not change unless and until a majority of voters see an alternative design that they like. Intellectual debates are pointless. People will look at a design and say "Oh, yes!" or "Oh, yuk!" and that will be the end of the matter.

So, if a major media outlet wants to have a "debate" about the Flag without risking a change, it will open its comment lines but censor any comments that link to alternative designs. That's what News Ltd just did. (It gets worse. This page appears to be open for comments but isn't actually accepting any: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/its-time-to-update-some-of-our-aussie-symbols/story-e6frfhqf-1225825023470 .)

I presume that OLO isn't playing that game. But, as Mr Barns is calling for a design that recognizes the indigenous peoples, I shall limit my nominations accordingly (disclosure: two of the designs are mine). Here they are:

http://www.flagoz.com/ (boomerang)
http://is.gd/7rwz1 (boomerang & Aboriginal colours)
http://bc.id.au/flags/ (ditto, but more colours)
http://is.gd/7rxg0 (Aboriginal colours, with kangaroo)
http://makepeace.ca/au/flag/ (variant of Aboriginal Flag).

Then go to http://www.flagsaustralia.com.au/newflag.html and scroll down to:

Harold Scruby 1994 (Aboriginal colours, with kangaroo)
Ralph Kelly 1982 (boomerang)
Alan Wright 1983 (2 out of 3 Aboriginal colours)
David Couzens 1993 (ditto)
Russell Kennedy 1997 (Aboriginal colours, with 'roo profile)
Stephen Berry 1998 (different 2 Aboriginal colours).

I whole heartedly agree with Ray and believe it is time for a debate and to modernise our flag to better represent our country as it matures. I find it bewildering to hear people calling it can't go because it is our past, war, fighting for it etc...

The flag is a symbol of who we and how we develop. I want something iconic Australian not branded as if part of a heard.

From what I gather the Union Jack could change anyway if Scotland seeks independence in Parliament as the blue would be removed. Sort of shoots the arguement right down should that happen.

While I often disagree with Greg Barns, he's absolutely correct on this subject. Ditto with the comments thus far, with the unsurprising exception of the very aptly-named Hasbeen.

As I've suggested in the thread in the General section, another very good reason for ditching the current flag is because it has been defiled by its recent appropriation as a symbol of contemporary Australian racism and xenophobia.

We need a flag that symbolically unites all Australians, not just those of British extraction.

Aboriginal people will not be fooled for a minute by the mob who always claim to be be working for their interests but always seem to have a secondary agenda of their own that somehow always rises to the top.

If the Greens and others want to stir things up to get noticed and there is an election in sight then so be it, but let no-one be fooled that they are doing it on behalf of indigenous people.

What about building some houses and forget the flag? But wait on, millions of dollars regularly go into housing and have done so for decades, but the houses are missing, so where does it all end up?

Those who claim to represent "Indigenous Australians" (copied from 'African American', no doubt) and who are continually inventing new cultural imperatives for them are an embarrassment and nuisance to Aboriginal people, who realise there is nothing they can do to stop the industry that lives off them and diverts government resources, attention and effort away from the fundamentals for which the moneys were allocated.

What about some houses, health care and education instead before all of the money disappears again?

The laughable part of the arguement is that if the Union jack is outdated how much more the aboriginal flag. If it wasn't for the British we would probably have a Dutch or even Japanese flag flying over Canberra. The the word genocide would then be a reality instead of continual revision of history we have now.

Cripes CJ you will be outlawing watermelons and Jim Beam next. Afterall a watermelon hat and a can of Jim Beam are the preferred headgear and drinks of these mindless boofheads.

'Meanwhile we are stuck with a flag that is a statement about exclusion.' Crikey, what a ridiculous statement from someone who wants us to adopt the aboriginal flag, surely that is exclusion at its most extreme. It certainly does not include me or any of my ancestors that have lived here for almost 200 years.

The current Australian flag represents all Australians equally, and quite rightly recognises that it originated from British settlement. Ours is the best flag in the world no matter how you look at it, and it should stay exactly as it is forever.

I think the previous comments by Hasbeen are pretty well on the money.

I see no reason to change the flag, if we become a republic then perhaps we should review, otherwise it is a good reflection of our country and our government. Most of us trace our roots back to Britain it's a fact get over it, our head of state is British get over it.
Greg and some of the commenter’s seem to be confused. In the one hand they don't except our British past (our national anthem still describes us as such) because that is in the past and we should be looking to the future. In the next breath their saying we should recognised that fact that there were people here before Cap Cook.
I for one have got no interest in seeing a hunting club on the Australian flag, it’s a symbol of violence and it’s not even uniquely Australian aboriginal. The oldest one found so far comes from Poland, yes that right we were once hunter and gathers.
If we are going to be silly why not the boxing Kangaroo!

Change the flag, is but one of a number of half baked concepts that from time time to surfaces out of the mire. The concept initial gains some momentum as it is pushed along by this or that self appointed advocacy group. Eventually, the greater Australian public come to appreciate that it is a nothing but a costly nonsense - a nonsense that will do naught to improve anybodies life. In fact may, because of the law of unforseen and adverse consequences prove to be socially deleterious? So eventually the concept is forced back into the mire from whence it came, to lie dormant until after a number of years it is resurrected by a new generation of busybodies.

A partial list of such dormant concepts, include:

• The republic.
• Daylight saving in WA.
• Reducing the voting age to 16years or younger.
• Banning cars from city centres,
• Reducing speed limit for motor vehicles to 40 kmh or even lower.
• Outlawing plastic shopping bags.
• Earth Hour.
• Censoring the internet.
• Etc. etc.

As a further example, the evidence is that the global warming fiasco has run its course and is about to be boxed up and returned to the bog.

Our country's national colours are blue and yellow (look it up) our flag is red, white and blue, every kid and sportsman dreams of representing our country in green and gold and little Johnny Howard's ignorant bogon (Chinese made "England at night flag") wearing idiots have the gall to say we don't need a new flag to unite and represent us?
Our present flag made official in 1952 by Menzies with his real favorite flag the "Union Jack", representing the Nth Hemisphere's England's cross of st George, Scotland's cross of St Andrew and Ireland's cross of St Patrick, "what could be more representative and Australian". We have the Victorian State symbol the Southern Cross to represent Menzies home State on his liberal party's blue background, and a big star to represent the entire rest of the Australian colonies?
My great uncle was at Galipolli with the 10th light horse and he told me the British slaughtered us and to never respect that despised union jack, they almost shot the pomie officers, now theres some history. My father was in the 6th division, the one Churchill would not let us have back in WW2 and diverted while the Japanese attacked us, that Prime Minister Jack Curtin demanded after Menzies was sacked by his own party, we dumped the poms and sided with the yanks, some more history, think about Singapore and Darwin, some more history? They can keep the union jack, it's called the "butchers apron" by our troops! More history, Boer war stealing the Kruger gold mine off the Boers for the poms. Boxer rebellion pushing opium on the Chinese for the poms? Thats your union jack flags history, we should have burnt it after Galipolli and called it the ashes!

Ray Martin is a TV journalist, not an eminent Australian: getting a medal (AM, I think it was, from elites doesn’t make anyone ‘eminent’. And, Greg Barns’ agreement with him on flag changing is probably the kiss of death.

Barns’ “symbols” of “confidence” and “independence” are a joke, given that Australia is busily handing over its independence to the United Nations and to the god “globalisation”. Australia has less independence that it ever did under Kevin Rudd. A new flag will not change anything; but it will remove an important part of our history, which is the whole idea behind the continual nagging and whining about a new flag.

As for a flag that includes aborigines, they have their own flag –that’s what they wanted – so let them be happy with it. All that is needed is some instruction on flag protocol for those who fly the flag with the Australian flag. They are usually flow in the wrong order.

Before British settlement, there was no such thing as ‘Australia’. The native populations were not Australian. They had no symbols. They were a Stone Age society, now making up about 4% of the population. There time is gone.

There is no good reason to change our flag.

I do agree with Barns about the sentimental nonsense of dying for, under, or somewhere near the flag. Soldiers died to protect Australia and its people, not a flag.

But, there is still no good reason to change our flag.

Australia’s history did start with the raising of the Union Jack. Anything before that belonged to a Stone Age people in an un-named, un-used and wasted land.

We now have a flag whose small Union Jack represents the history of the founding of white Australia. There is no good reason to change it, simply because Brit-hating multiculturalists want to expunge our historical ties and further encourage the hotch-potch of cultures which is dividing Australia.

I think Ray has overstepped the mark and has ventured into the fantasy world of his own irrelevance; looking for a quick headline to put his name back up in lights – But they did not pay the power bill;
So Nihilists and cultureless cretins; - return back to your caves; There is an ample supply of moronic politics in Australia – perhaps understated – overwhelmed by Idiotry as politics.

Ray , Just Go back to Kevin Spud for brains place and enjoy your B B Q; and leave the rest of us alone.

I see no point in shooting down Ray Martin for saying what he thinks!
The flag is a topic many people in Australia are thinking about at a time when we are also thinking about a Republic.

I believe we should keep the current flag until we become a republic, and then look at changing it to something that does not represent England at all. It should just be one with a southern cross on it, and maybe something representing all the states and territories.

Aboriginal Australians already have their own flag, so I don't really believe they want to share it with other groups of Australians.

When other countries in the past have been taken over or invaded successfully by another country, they have had to live under the conquering country's flag. That is just the way it has happened in our world's history.

One thing I find strange in all this is heritage,

It appears that the very people who want to burden us, & our cities with a whole bunch of heritage listed, basically useless old buildings, are the ones most likely to want to destroy the heritage in our flag.

Then the new chums, who want our flag, to represent them. It appears to me to be a biting the hand that feed to me,

Those who have been invited, or allowed, to join us, in this country, & take advantage of what at least some of us have toiled, & sweated to build, should have the courtesy to accept our institutions, & symbols, when they accept the material advantages.

In fact I think they mostly do. It appears to be only those, often with UK, but not English foebears who are the most noisy.

Come off it! Haven't you been reading the polls on this? The opinion of the majority seems to be, hands off the flag, and hands of the Queen. The reason is simple, we do not trust the ruling elite to do the 'right' thing. Nothing can change without a referendum, and that is fine with me. I am getting a little tired of hearing the same clap trap each year about it's time to change. The flag, and the Queen are the major unifying elements in our society. By all means change the national song. If you want something to pass a referendum put up 'we are one and we are many' as a choice.

Some years ago I saw an Aboriginal dot painting which I thought could be the basis of a great flag. It was four tracks leading to a waterhole, with the waterhole in the centre of the flag and the tracks coming from each corner of the rectangle - like a St Andrews cross. It seemed to have elements of Aboriginal and European design, but was unmistakably Australian. The centre could be seen as representing water, or the Aboriginal heart of Australia or even Uluru, which is our geographical heart. I really wouldn't want a kangaroo or boomerang on a flag - it would look like a cheap advertising banner.

This debate is not about being anti-British
which is the accusation that's consistently
being levied every time this topic comes up.
Then it becomes a finger-pointing exercise
once again and turns into a "them" and "us"
scenario. Those people that see only problems
in this debate usually see homogeneity as not only
desirable but mandatory. It harks back to
the times when people lived in the most remote,
ethnocentric, inward-looking and changeless
society on Earth. No, not Lhasa in Tibet, but
East Kew in Victoria.

As Phillip Adams pointed out way back in the 1980s
in an article he wrote for The Age newspaper (12/7/80):

"It's important to remember Australia before the
most recent wave of migration. It was dull,
self-satisfied and joylessly conformist. Not simply
null and boring, but nullarboring. Not merely mindless,
but lobotomised. Of course, the option of multi-culturalism
involves taking some considerable risks - but almost
every human advance is based on experiment, innovation
and adventure."

As I stated in another thread on this subject - I don't
have a problem with Ray Martin. The man's simply
expressing an opinion. I also personally don't have a
problem with the flag as it is. However, before changing
anything - I think that the country has to decide first
whether it wants things to remain as they are - that is -
we remain a British colony - or whether we
want to become - a fully independent nation.
Only after that should we consider changing the flag.
What we need is a Referendum - and let the people vote
on what they want.

1."We have the Victorian State symbol the Southern Cross to represent Menzies home State on his liberal party's blue background,"
Sir Robert Menzies was only seven when the current Australian flag was designed. Fancy being so influential at such a young age.
2."..he told me the British slaughtered us and to never respect that despised union jack, they almost shot the pomie officers, now theres some history."
Yes there's some history alright. The generals at Gallipoli and later on the Western Front, never discriminated among British, Australian or New Zealand troops. They all were suffered equally on the slaughtering fields. Anzacs had their own officers eg Sir John Monash but the General Command were British.
3."it's called the "butchers apron" by our troops" Hmm that's interesting. My father and uncle who both served in WW2 with the British never mentioned that to me but I guess you must be right. You wouldn't tell fibs, would you?
4."Boxer rebellion pushing opium on the Chinese for the poms"
I think you are confusing the Boxer Rebellion with the two "Opium Wars" which happened some 40 to 60 years earlier.
Looking forward to your next history lesson.

Don't be ridiculous Mr B. Ray Martin is dead, not right. He passed away during the 80's and only his rugs live on today.

If Hawaii can have a Union Jack on their flag, why can't we?

Most of the people I talk to feel the same way about the flag as they do about the republic... basically that its a good thing and we should make the change eventually but that there are lots of more pressing priorities.
As it stands, it is not so bad that there is any real impetus to change it. I can't see that changing until something coalesces support - and then you'll have to find an option that everyone can live with. Of course, Mr Barns will be decrying the national anthem next - 'girt' indeed!
;-)

Don't forget to throw out bp and all of the other parasites attached to us. What a laugh. I currently pay a little more than 0.50c per litre here in Indo for petrol, and for a 15kg clean weight bottle of gas for the stove which lasts more than a month for a family of three who mostly eat in, less then $AU10.

Grow a brain, grow up and do it for yourselves Australia.

I would love to know how much this country hemorrhages each year as a result of being too lazy and too stupid to do certain things for ourselves.

We must pretty much have all the resources we need, potentially all the intellectual property, but .. Jesus .. makes me want to puke.

" ... But we are told that everything has to get more expensive and that we have to work longer for less reward in more crowded cities. .. " JoeH

Corruption in all of its guises is a lazy person's business.

Hmmm .. here's an example .. a fancy super sharp silicon knife, for carving up turkeys. The silicon sands are from Oz. It is sent to red chinese sweat shops to be stamped out. Then they go to Japan to be sharpened and by the time it comes back, we pay $AU100+ for one of them.

Doesn't impress me from a security perspective if we can't even make a good knife. Oh, that reminds me .. we've got Noordin Top's ex Mrs (1 of them anyway) in the local court at the moment. It appears that she cooperated with the interrogators and is now happy but keeping coy with the media. And not just her, but associates as well. ..hmmm .. the hunt goes on it seems - but hopefully they'll try and catch more next time round instead of just wasting them pre-examination.

Oh, re Jihad one of the local clerics stated something like,

" ... it is important for problems like when you are overrun by the Dutch. ... "

Of course, Indos refer to us by the same name as they do the Dutch. We need to do more work on that, through say, AUSAID, or otherwise, why waste our money? Cough!

After all, we assisted them at the UN to get rid of the Dutch post WWII, who even after a good dose of the Nazis for their trouble didn't get it.

Do we really deserve to be classified by way of a derogatory term after extending the hand of friendship. The reality of course is that most Indos do not know this, because the Indo establishment only wants them to beleive that it was by the efforts of their own "Freedom Fighters" alone that they achieved independence.

Diplomacy sometimes needs to be conducted out in the open in my view.

There is much talk here about what the flag is about; or what it stands for.
But little of how the flag actually looks visually and how it looks against other flags.
Visually the Australian flag is not particularly striking,it looks exactly like the the many other pacific nation flags that where colonised by the British.
A striking original flag that won’t be confused with other flags is a great idea.
So why knock Ray when he is just stating the blindly obvious.
Basically was commonwealth brand name England, the fact that we still have it and people seemto love it shows the unoriginality and lack of imagination of those Australians.
To be original means to be bold and to recognise our difference in the world, its a sad fact that Australia just isn't bold enough to take that step.