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,
New Zealand flag debate national flag in the second referendum. What is your choice for the New Zealand flag? The second referendum was held 3–24 March 2016. It asked voters to choose between the current New Zealand Flag and the preferred alternative design selected in the first referendum (Option 2 above). With 2.1 million votes cast, voters chose to retain the current flag by 56.6% to 43.1%. The results of the referendums were binding, meaning the flag with the most votes in the second referendum was the official flag of New Zealand. If a new flag had been chosen, it would have come into