A TikTok user has reignited the passionate debate over the design of the Australian flag.
Jack Toohey, who shares videos as @fleetwood_jack, posted a clip that showcased five alternate designs that have been offered up in recent years as an alternative to the current flag.
He shares images of each flag’s design, as well as details on what they represent and who came up with them originally.
The current Australian flag features the Union Jack, the Commonwealth Star and the Southern Cross.
However, there have been many calls over the years to include First Nation Australians and Indigenous elements to the country’s flag.
The five designs Jack shares in his video are The Reconciliation Flag, the Down Under Flag, the Sunburnt Flag, the Golden Wattle flag and John Joseph’s Untitled Flag.
The Reconciliation Flag was designed in 2013 by John Blaxland and incorporates the Southern Cross and a seven-point Commonwealth Star with dots representing 150 Indigenous and migrant languages spoken in Australia.
This design is the closest to the current flag, but also acknowledges Indigenous Australians, with a red boomerang being pictured in a fragment of the Union Jack.
The Down Under Flag was designed in 1986 by Friedensrich Hundertwasser and features a red semi-circle on top of a blue background with the seven-point Commonwealth star.
It is meant to represent Uluru upside down – a play of the notion of a “land down under.”
The Untitled Flag was created in 2006 by John Jospeh, and replaces the Union Jack with a circular Indigenous painting.
The Sunburnt Flag was designed in 1988 by Stephen Berry and takes inspiration from the famous Dorothea McKellar poem “My Country,” which contains the phrase, “I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains …”
The design features a red base and yellow sunrise, as seen on the current Aboriginal flag, as well as a blue sky and the Southern Cross.
The Golden Wattle flag was designed in 2015 by Jeremy Matthews, and draws inspiration from the country’s native flower.
The seven points of the Commonwealth Star in the middle of the wattle point refer to the individual states and territories that make up Australia.
While some of Jack Toohey’s TikTok followers thought our current flag was just fine, most commenters agreed it was time for a change that included representation for Indigenous Australians.
Many felt that a modern Australian flag should reference both Indigenous history and culture, and reference to Australia’s colonial history.
Image credit: Shutterstock/TikTok @fleetwood_jack
