Design of the Australian flag

The flag of Australia.

A New Zealand design?

New Zealander William Stevens, a ship’s officer on the SS Taieri, was one of five competitors whose design was selected as a winner of the Australian flag competition in 1901. The five entrants reportedly submitted almost identical designs – showing ‘a Union Jack in the left hand top corner, a six pointed star beneath it (representing the six federated states of Australia), and the Southern Cross on the fly’. Newspaper reports at the time remarked that if the people of New Zealand changed their mind and decided to join the Commonwealth of Australia all that would need to be done to the flag would be ‘to place a seven-pointed star instead of a six-pointed one beneath the Union Jack’. A seven-pointed star was adopted in 1908 in any case, to represent the Territory of New Guinea and any other future territories. Stevens, and the other four competitors – all of whom were Australian, received 40 pounds each.