30 Mar 2016

Official results confirm Lockwood flag's loss

5:45 pm on 30 March 2016

Final results for the second flag referendum have confirmed the current New Zealand flag won with 56.6 percent of the vote.

New Zealand flag and Silver Fern flag

Photo: 123RF

More than 1.2 million people voted to keep the same flag, beating the blue-and-black Kyle Lockwood design by nearly 287,000 votes.

A total of 2.135m people voted in the second referendum for a voter turnout of 67 percent.

More than 10,000 votes were not counted because the voter had not clearly marked their preferred option or they were invalid.

The official results of the second flag referendum were released on 30 March.

The official results of the second flag referendum were released on 30 March. Photo: Electoral Commission

The preliminary results had also shown that the current flag won with 56.6 percent compared to 43.2 percent for the Lockwood flag.

Mr Lockwood said today he thought the 43.2 percent result was better than those suggested by some of the polls before the referendum.

He told Checkpoint with John Campbell he wouldn't have changed anything about his design, which he put forward after seven or eight different iterations.

"There's a lot of different opinions on the design, generally for subjective reasons, but I still think that a lot of people got behind it - nearly a million people."

Mr Lockwood said the referendum had got people talking about change and he had enjoyed the process "immensely".

The first referendum, held in November, had allowed people to choose a flag design from five options to be pitched against the current flag.

The government was estimated to have spent $26m on the flag change project.

Get the RNZ app

for ad-free news and current affairs