Finally! The new New Zealand flag has been chosen and it’s a good one

A flag with silver fern on a blue and black background and red stars will grace the new New Zealand flag. 

A recent referendum was delayed because of late and overseas voting, but the preliminary results were released last week. 

The country had five options to choose from (some of which were very weird) and a similar flag to the original was voted on under New Zealand's preferential voting system, where the public ranked the flags in order of their favourite.

The winning design will go into a head-to-head battle with the existing flag for a second referendum in March 2016 to decide if New Zealand will officially change it's historic flag. 

“We now have some time to consider the two flags side by side and have a good think about which one of them best represents us as a nation now and into the future,” deputy Prime Minister Bill English said.