If there's one politician who knows what it's like to be sitting on a red peak right now it's the erstwhile Ocker shocker, the Mad Monk Tony Abbott.

Abbott's about as popular with his caucus at the moment as he is with his lesbian sister. He must be looking on in envy at the troubles plaguing his Kiwi counterpart, as Teflon John Key plays cat and mouse with Labour over whether the Red Peak design is included in the flag options we'll get to consider shortly.

If only his troubles were as inconsequential. But of course Abbott lives in a country that changes its leaders like we change our shoes. And there's a possibility the toes of those shoes could before too long become red peaks as Abbott faces a caucus vote on his continued leadership.

But here the shoe could be on the other foot for Key as he jousts with the man who'd like to give him the boot, Angry Andy Little.

Support for the Red Peak design for our flag being included in what would become the final five has been growing even though a survey of the final 40 saw it coming in at 39. More than 45,000 have supported an online petition to have it included and Key gave an indication that he could soften, providing Labour comes part of the way as well.

Labour would have to embrace the referenda process, which Labour says it's always done. It's just that it sees the choice being around the wrong way. Voters should be asked whether they want a flag change first, and then consider the options against the current one, in the second referendum.

If there was a vote against change first up then it'd save the cost of a second referendum, and that makes sense. But this is politics and sense doesn't always prevail.

Act's dutiful David Seymour put his bob's worth in, saying Red Peak should be in the options because he likes the symbolism he's now read about the design. The red triangle as a Maori meeting house, the white as Mt Taranaki, (surely more like Mt Cook) and the black and blue as night and day. Looking at it like that, he reckons would lead to a "boom, I get it moment."

There's a summer interpretation as well, red is the pohutukawa blooming in summer with the white, a sandy beach.

Seymour has rightly said in the past that the two silver fern Lockwood designs would make a vote impossible for someone who's colour blind.

So what harm would another one in the mix do? Well harm to Key's ego but then he has shown recently when he's forced into a corner, like with the refugees, that he can find his way out!