We initiated the flag campaign a little while back. You can read the full background here.
To summarise, Tasmanian Times is running a competition for a new state flag. We started with one of the Flags for Australia designs, a striking thylacine with a three-coloured background.
Since then we’ve had a fair bit of mail on the issue and there is quite a spread of views. Some people argued about the significance of the thylacine, some were (predictably?) outraged about changing our current terribly outdated flag, while others actually did what we hoped for and sent in some designs. Yay, more on that later.
Meanwhile, we waded through the mire of Facebook to pick out some of the interesting comments:-
Rick Polden: Yep, get rid of the Lion, not native to Tasmania or Britain either. Tasmanian tiger is more relevant and even used by the state government as a logo.
Sean Mcgovern: Wonder if Tassie leads the way will we also get a proper flag for Australia?
Kay Tracey: I kind of like it except there’s too much yellow and the fauna emblem should be 180 degree rotated to represent from past to future. Just my opinion?
TT said: It’s a tradition that animals on emblems face left. But we don’t think there’s any penalty for breaking that ‘law’ so why not?!
Kathryn McCarthy: It looks like a sporting flag with those colours. We are surrounded by water so surely blue could be used. Try something with a little more finesse and elegance.
Jeremy Matthews: “We are surrounded by water” – The yellow stripe represents the Bass Strait and surrounding oceans and is a reference to Tasmania’s rich maritime history.
Jude Lennox: Don’t know that the Tassie Tiger’s a good one ….we made it extinct !
David Will: Love the colours, love the emblem. No one would confuse us with any other state. If the Californian flag can feature a California grizzly, which is extinct, and the flags of Wales and Bhutan can feature dragons. Then I don’t see why we can’t utilise our most iconic and recognisable animal emblem.
Lois Evans: All suggestions are plain b____y Ugly. What is the Tasmanian Times? Never heard of they. When was there any idea or expression made about changing the Tasmanian flag. Any change should be decided by All Tasmanians. ?????????
Rajan Venkataraman Why is it necessary to have flags at all? Are they still needed to identify ships at sea or has satellite tracking technology made that redundant? Are they just something to drape around athletes at sporting events and to hang behind politicians at press conferences?
Paul Berry Very offensive remark, hardly boring, Union Jack in the corner and the state badge what could be more Tasmanian?
What could be more Tasmanian than a red lion? Man has a point. Ran over six of the damn things driving down from Launnie last week.
Seriously though, we also had some comments come in by email and a few designs.
Jack B echoed the sentiments of quite a few when he was thinking along the lines of how to provide some kind of indigenous recognition on a new Tasmanian flag.
He also said: “I understand if you don’t want to count my flag suggestion into the group but I didn’t want to just submit a Tasmanian flag on its own – I wanted it to be a part of the national series which is why I have shared it with you the way I have. In my own mind I dream of a time when all the Australian states orchestrate their state flag changes in a co-ordinated fashion on the same day we become a republic!”
We can’t really proceed along this line however. The Aboriginal flag was designed by Luritja artist Harold Thomas. He holds the exclusive copyright to the flag and any use of the design would require his approval.
Harold Thomas has stated: ”Our flag is not a secondary thing. It stands on its own, not to be placed as an adjunct to any other thing. It shouldn’t be treated that way.”
His position appears to be that appropriating the Aboriginal flag for use on a non-Aboriginal flag risks diminishing its relevance and ability to solely represent Aboriginal people, which is its purpose.
So unless he changes his mind, Jack’s suggestions will have to stay on paper.
Our next design
We had a somewhat cranky letter just yesterday. Perhaps he’s not getting enough fibre?
“Sir, I disagree with all your criticisms of the current Tasmanian flag. If a lion is not appropriate, in your opinion, I question what is appropriate about the thylacine? That poor creature, persecuted by ignoramuses for killing equally innocent sheep, even though there was no sane evidence of their being able to do so, is hardly a suitable replacement symbol.
Whether one likes it or not (I do), Australia is not a republic so fantasising about removing the Union flag is rather childish. It might also be a good idea to learn the difference between ‘alternate’ & ‘alternative’.
Thank you,
– P. Newman, Launceston”
Actually we do know the difference between alternate and alternative, and humbly suggest that it’s Mr Newman’s grasp of that which needs a brush up, as well as his use of parentheses.
He’s also wrong about the Union flag. Of the 53 Commonwealth nations, four of these countries have never had the Union Jack on their flag, forty-four have removed the Union Jack from their flags, and Fiji is in the process of changing its flag, which will take the number to forty-five. South Africa and Hong Kong both dumped the symbol when they adopted new flags in the 1990s, so there is recent history. Hence ‘Australia is not a republic’ is irrelevant even for a national flag, let alone a state one.
More to the point, it’s not Tasmanian Times proposing the thylacine, it was the designer of the flag we featured in the first article. There are plenty of animal-less flags around the world that are still beautiful, so we’d in fact be interested to see designs that explore that territory.
Which of course brings us to our new flag. It’s by Daniel Sobkowski, who’s a designer. Like Jack B, he’s gone and done a whole set of Australian national and state/territory flags.
I have previously designed a concept flag for Australia (@modernoz.flag by @modernoz.design); my Tasmanian design is derived from that, using the same size proportions. The colour-set is derived from the unofficial sporting colours of Tasmania; maroon, yellow and bottle green.
My vision for the Tasmanian flag is to fall into line with my national flag design which I hope for all state flags to follow (see below images; Flag for Tasmania, comparisons to ModernOz.Flag and Fibonacci rectangle design and national and state colours square).
The actual ratio of the Fibonacci flag is 8:13. For this competition I have scaled the Tasmanian entry to 3:5 which isn’t actually that much different to 8:13.
I haven’t included literal symbolism, e.g. Tassie tiger, because the flag should be viewed from a distance and detailed symbols get lost from a distance. Tribalism is the goal.
What do you think?
Leave a comment below or on one of our social media channels Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
And of course please send in a design if you’d like to be featured! We will try to post lots, although not necessarily all will get a run.
