That Australia should adopt a new National Flag

To begin, I think I should start off with a little bit of history of Australia. Before European explorers came and settled in Australia, there were the many hundreds of indigenous tribes. The indigenous peoples of Australia had initially come to Australia between 40,000 to 60,000 years ago. Since the first years they arrived, the Indigenous Australians lived as a hunter-gatherer society, this type of lifestyle continued on for all the way up until European settlers arrived. In their time in Australia they made no inventions, had not discovered the wheel, had no concept of "Agriculture", they did not build any permanent settlements, they invented no form of written language, destroyed much of Central Australia's forest and turned it into dry bush land. In general they made very little advancement from their initial culture when they arrived in Australia, in fact their biggest achievement can be said to be their cultural stories and oral traditions. The only reason the indigenous population of Australia survived was due to it's extreme isolation. When European settlers came in they attempted to establish good relations with the native Aborigines, however they were met with hostility from various Aboriginal tribes. Conflicts between the settlers and indigenous people killed many native Aborigines, disease however killed many more. Eventually, the British took control of parts of Australia and began building cities, roads and farms. It was around this time that the continent of Australia came out of the Stone Age. Since the founding of the colony, it was used as a penal colony, Irish and British criminals were sent to Australia by the shipload to build up the wealth and strength of the colony. There are many written accounts of the troubled times that the settlers went through, and it stayed like that up until the gold rush. The gold rush saw many more immigrants come into Australia, people from the UK, Germany, America, China and many other countries all came to dig for gold, this enriched the nation so much that population multiplied by many times. The gold rush economic boom period was a defining moment in Australia's history, and was the focal point for much of Australian Culture, many famous figures including Ned Kelly and Banjo Patterson, came out of this period. The boom of the gold rush eventually came to an end, however it left behind some of the greatest and most advanced cities of it's day, cities like Melbourne and Sydney were far greater than anything seen in most of Europe. When the economic boom came to an end, it left behind a strong feeling of nationalism among most Australians, this eventually led to the Federation of Australia, and in turn, the development of a flag. The flag chosen was the winner of a competition in which there were 32,823 entries. The winning entry was very similar to the flag that is used today, however the star in the original flag is 6 pointed (1 point for each state), while the modern flag has 7 points. This flag itself has been used in both world wars, and many other wars in which Australia has fought. Okay, now that that's out of the way I will get onto my points on why we don't need or want a flag change. Point 1: A large majority of Australians do not actually want the flag to be changed[1], these are the veterans of wars in which they have fought under the flag for Australia. To change the flag would be a spit in the face to all the men who have died for our country. These are also the ones who grew up under the flag, the same study reports that in fact the youngest of Australia (under 18) have by far the highest rates of support for retaining our original flag. Is it fair for us to change the flag when those who will be living under it the longest don't actually want the flag to change? The statistics are clear, Australia does not want a new flag. Point 2: The current Australian flag has a unique culture behind it. When people living outside of Australia see it's flag, they don't just see the blue ensign and a couple of stars, they see the culture that makes Australia what it is. Changing the flag would leave a cultural hole behind, unlike the red ensign used in Canada which was largely an icon of the British, and not made by or for the Canadian people. The modern Canadian flag has been around since before a clear "Canadian" culture existed. In other words the Canadian culture developed under their flag, the same could not be said about Australia if it adopted a new flag now. I hope this gives you some ideas consider, I will save some of my other points for the next round. [1]http://www.roymorgan.com...