The Southern Cross and the kangaroo have dominated the most popular flag designs in The Canberra Times flag vote which closed yesterday.
Readers were asked to vote for 109 flags presented by the voluntary non-profit organisation Ausflag.
The winner with 369 votes was the flag with the Aboriginal flag’s motif on the left and the Southern Cross on the right.
Second (300 votes) and third (234 votes) featured the flying kangaroo. Fourth (214) was green and gold with the Southern Cross. Fifth (204 votes) was the Southern Cross done with Aboriginal circle motifs and sixth (186) was the red and blue with a white kangaroo and the Southern Cross.
Then the vote fell away sharply.
Three of the nine flags from winning designs in previous competitions were in the top six.
The executive director of Ausflag, Harold Scruby, said just as the republican movement was taking a lot of time to come up with a single design to put to the people, it was taking time to get the right flag design.
“”There is enormous public interest in it,” he said. “”Ausflag’s internet site has had more than a million hits.”
The Canberra Times received 3330 responses, a very high reader response.
Mr Scruby said such a competition would get nowhere in, say, the US, Britain, Japan or most other countries because their flags were accepted.
The 109 flags will go on display early next week at the National Gallery of Australia.
He said the existing flag had not been put as an option because the aim was to test public opinion about which was the best the alternative designs. Only when opinion coalesced around a single alternative would it be tested against the existing flag.
The Canberra Times results were similar to Ausflag’s internet opinion. There were few kangaroos on offer, but those that were got a lot of support. However, the kangaroo is a polariser, with a lot showing strong dislike. The Southern Cross, however, drew support and not strong dislike.
Ausflag would ask the designers of the top 10 or so designs to revisit their designs before further public exposure.