Voice of the Australian flag, although it is meant to be red.

Larry Hannigan voice of the Australian Flag.
https://larryhannigan.com/voice-of-the-flag/
Our opponents in this debate like to rewrite history and pretend that our current national flag - the blue Australian ensign - has been our national flag forever and that people have "fought and died" for it. This is one of their prime arguments against change, and they use it very emotively. They ignore the Red Ensign, despite its overwhelming use in Australia and overseas during the first half of the 20th century.

There are many problems with this argument. The first is that the blue ensign became Australia′s national flag only in 1954. Prior to that date, its use by ordinary citizens was strongly and actively discouraged. The blue flag was not some glorious and romantic flag of the people, but an instrument of Government, much like the Coat of Arms.

This meant that the public didn′t officially have a flag to fly other than the Union Jack, which is what many people did. In this official vacuum, if anyone wanted a more Australian symbol they used the red ensign as a de-facto Civil Flag. It was not strictly correct, but it happened at every level of the community, including the Armed Services.

The second problem with this argument is that members of the Armed Services in Australia never "fought and died" for a flag anyway. They fought and died for our country - a subtle but important difference.

The third problem is that there is a wealth of pictorial evidence which proves that the red ensign was the flag which both the public and members of the Armed Services overwhelmingly related to and "adopted" as Australia′s de-facto national flag prior to 1954. This period of course includes both World War I and World War II.