Another consideration is how the flags look when there’s no wind, hanging limply. I can’t immediately find an image of this, but from a graphic I saw on TV yesterday, the solely black and white flags became unrecognisable, while the ‘red and blue’ and ’ black and blue’ ones would still be obviously ‘New Zealand’.
It grew on me too, in the end. 
I don’t like the process, I feel like they’ve railroaded us with the illusion of choice.
Henry Kissinger once joked that, in writing a foreign policy memo for Nixon, he would present three options:
- Launch an immediate, full-scale nuclear strike on the Soviet Union
- Negotiate an immediate U.S. surrender to the Soviet Union
- The policy initiative Kissinger favored
Now now, be nice or we’ll ship all your dole bludgers back to you.
Phil Plunkett wasn’t trying very hard. 
No, I also like it a lot. That’s one case where four (not three, not two) colors works very well. Sadly, I’m not Kiwi, and I think I missed this thread this summer.
Perhaps they could join New Zealand for a Polynesian Jack-Off 2016.
That’s pretty reasonable.
Not that it matters in modern heraldry, with modern dyes, but in traditional western European heraldry those are, more or less…
Argent
Sable
Gules
Vert
Azure (variant of; such as the midnight blue on USA flags)
Azure (cerulean)
Orange, sometimes taken as Tenné
Or
Purpure
Brunâtre, or Tenné
…um, Vair? (not really; grey looks like a faded version of something else, and Vair is a pattern; but there are a very few devices with “silver” distinct from “white” so it’s possible).
I would happily add pink (and call it something like Carnation), but remember that some pinks look a lot like faded red/purple, and it would be seen by some as a variant of Gules or Purpure.
There’s also a teal that’s used a lot in Chinese color design, and considered distinct from both “green” and “blue.”
If two countries with Elizabeth II as their Queen go to war, is she required to attack herself? Can NZ claim dibs on her right hand, and Aus her left?
“Mullet” actually means “star” (or at least, the things with points all around that we also call “stars”) in heraldry.
This has already happened, sort of. In 1983, the US invaded Grenada accompanied by forces from several Caribbean states. Both Grenada and some of the invaders were Commonwealth Realms.
Here’s CNN on the start of the voting, along with some very funny alternative flags. The kiwi with a frickin’ laser beam coming out of its eye is my instant fave: http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/20/asia/new-zealand-flag-vote/index.html
Better than the kiwi with a rainbow coming out its ass? I don’t think so 
Let’s take a vote…
Well, now we know what’s going head to head with the current flag:
Nice. I was half-expecting one of the joke flags to win.
Love it.
Pretty good IMO.
I don’t know. It’s too much like, “We couldn’t agree on one thing to put on our flag, so we put two.”
What, no laser eyes?