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Australian Police flags

Last modified: 2016-03-05 by ian macdonald
Keywords: australia | police |
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Flags at the National Police Memorial

An Australian National Police Memorial has been established in Canberra on 29 September 2006. The various police forces of Australia are represented with their respective service flag at the site. See the National Police Memorial website for some photographs of the site.

The Australian Federal Police site has further information on the National Police Memorial and the ceremony held there. Firstly, the arrangement of the flags were described as follows:

"[T]here are nine flagpoles from which fly the Australian National Flag and the flags of the eight Australian police jurisdictions in an order of precedence according to their officially recognized foundation dates. The police jurisdictional order of precedence, as seen by the observer, is South Australia (1838), Victoria (18 January 1853), Western Australia Police (1853), New South Wales (1862), Queensland (1864), Northern Territory (1870), Tasmania (1898) and the Australian Federal Police (1979)."

Secondly, there is a gallery of images from the ceremony with plenty of flag spotting opportunities and which forms part of my references. (The page requests limited viewing of the images in full size due to bandwidth concerns.)

The ceremony also highlighted the fact that some of the police services may have different flags for hoisting on poles and for parades (see paraded flags in Photo 5 by Terry Browne).
Herman FMY, 24-25 February 2007


Design analysis of Australian Police flags

The following are some simple flag design analyses with regard to the flags of the Australian police services. This is based on the observations from the National Police Memorial event. I'm not sure if it is useful but I suppose some quantitative generalisations within a limited context are observable this way, but at the expense of details and qualitative concerns.
Herman FMY, 26 February 2007

General-use service flag design type

  1. Plain: Tasmania Police
  2. Bicolour
    1. Equal horizontal: New South Wales Police, Queensland Police
    2. Unequal vertical: Northern Territory Police
  3. Triband, vertical: Australian Federal Police – plus a border
  4. [British] Ensign-styled: South Australia Police, Victoria Police
  5. Complex: Western Australia Police

The bicolour is the most used design for general-use service flags with three cases, although one case within is unique in orientation and proportions. This is followed by the [British] ensign-styled design with two occurrences. Plain-field, triband, and complex designs have one occurrence each.>).
Herman FMY, 26 February 2007


Parade flag design type

  1. Plain: New South Wales Police, Tasmania Police, Western Australia Police
  2. Bicolour
    1. Equal horizontal: Queensland Police
    2. Unequal vertical: Northern Territory Police
  3. Triband, vertical: Australian Federal Police – plus a border
  4. [British] Ensign-styled: South Australia Police, Victoria Police

For the parade flags, the plain-field design is the most frequent with three cases. The ensign-styled and bicolour designs see two cases each. Triband design is apparent in only one case.
Herman FMY, 26 February 2007


Design of parade flag as compared to the general-use service flag

  1. Similar or Equivalent: South Australia Police, Tasmania Police
    1. but with cords and tassels: Northern Territory Police, Queensland Police
    2. , Australian Federal Police
    3. but with fringes, cords, and tassels: Victoria Police
  2. Different: New South Wales Police, Western Australia Police

Six services uses parade flags that resemble the general-use service flags. Two services have separately designed parade and general-use flags.
Herman FMY, 26 February 2007