2015–16 New Zealand flag referendums have markedly low attendance. The consideration panel noted strong online engagement with over 850,000 visits to the website and 1,180,000 engagements on social media. The panel reported that feedback found the themes of freedom, history, equality, respect and family to be the most significant to New Zealanders, however it was later revealed that those themes were dwarfed by the amount of feedback critical of the flag change process. From the submitted designs they found the most common colours were white, blue, red, black, and green. The most common elements incorporated into the flag designs were the Southern Cross, silver fern,
National colours of New Zealand ANZAC day. The national colours of the Māori, an indigenous people of Polynesian origin in New Zealand, are black, white and red. On 13 March 1975, the Queen's Service Order was created by royal warrant. With the institution of the Queen's Service Order, red ochre was "given official sanction as a national orders colour". This colour has spiritual importance to the Māori by whom it is known as "kōkōwai". In 1989, a competition was run by a group named Te Kawariki to design a national Māori flag. The chosen flag became associated with the tino rangatiratanga or Māori sovereignty movement.