Originally Posted by
MickG0105
Do you have a reference for that contention regarding the judging criteria because that matter is generally disputed. There were no judging criteria published by either the Federal government nor the Review of Reviews, a monthly journal that ran a competition for a flag design at the same time.
Flag Competition Documents Review of Reviews October, 1900 Designs for a Federal Flag
They even mention that although a flag design without a Union Jack could technically be submitted it had a small chance of being successful.
One of their criteria was “kinship with Empire”.
So whilst technically you could submit a non Union Jack flag, anyone with half a brain in 1900/1901 knew from the competition brief and the prevailing political culture at the time knew a new flag design that did not have a Union Jack or another symbol denoting being a part of the British Empire was not going to go far in the selection process, so why even bother submitting an entry without one.
To me that was hardly a free and open choice.
Were we even an independent nation in 1901? A lot of historians would regard Federation as just the colonies joining together as one under the same system of British rule. It wasn’t until 1930 that Australian could decide who their Governor General was going to be, as opposed to one selected by the UK. It wasn’t until 1931 that the power of the British parliament to legislate for Australia was mostly removed. It wasn’t until 1986 that it was fully removed, and the appeal to the Privy Council was removed. There’s also technically some reserve powers in the Constitution that technically the Monarch can exercise in regard to Australia, it’s just by convention that’s never happened, so legally and practically it’s an unknown.
It be other nations like Canada, Singapore, India, South Africa etc that removed the Union Jack from their cantons all did so decades after 1901. The culture, the political will to change these symbols changed throughout the 20th century. So to me it’s fairly obvious that short of a war of independence any Australia symbology created as a result of Federation in 1901 was going to adhere to the standards of the time, which meant symbols of the British Empire.
Just like state and territory flags.
The flags that were created for the states pre mid 20th century all featured a Union Jack.
From the 70s onwards, the flags created for places like the NT, the ACT, Christmas and Cocos Islands and Norfolk Island all omit the Union Jack.
I think it’s obvious had the National flag have been created later in the century it would have featured a non Union Jack design.