Archive - Jun 2009

The Dominion Post argues in an editorial that our national anthem, God Defend New Zealand should be changed. On Thomas Bracken they say:

He was enthusiastic about New Zealand, the land he immigrated to in 1869, he was an enthusiastic propagator of egalitarian ideas and, unfortunately for the All Blacks, he was an enthusiastic scribbler of schoolboy rhymes.

Personally I don't have a problem with God Defend New Zealand. It's our 'other' anthem - God Save the Queen - which grates with me. No, not just because it's about the Queen - because it's also a originally anti-Catholic tune.

Mayor of Waitakere Bob Harvey has called for Matariki, the Maori New Year, to replace Queen's Birthday as a public holiday:

“I have long been a supporter of the Matariki revival,” Mr Harvey says. “This is an event that only New Zealand can celebrate. It’s our very own. It is a festival born of our unique heritage, our culture, our land. It is more ‘us’ than our June public holiday, Queen’s Birthday.”

The Senate Committee considering Australian Greens leader Bob Brown's Bill for a plebiscite on an Australian republic has rejected the Bill. Instead, the committee has recommended that there is greater public education, and the Australians own the process "to the fullest extent possible".

While this outcome is disappointing, it's not exactly surprising. The Rudd government clearly wants to move the republic debate to its second term in office, perhaps after the end of the Queen's reign. However, should the succession issue be raised at the next CHOGM (which is likely, irrespective of who the British Prime Minister is in October) the debate will become unavoidable.

Alf Grumble reports the Queen is starting her own vegetable garden to help Her Majesty cut costs. Not a bad idea in a time of national need. Of course, when it comes to organic farming of vegetables and livestock, no-one knows better than Prince Charles, who owns the commercial operations of "Duchy Originals".

The man who might be New Zealand's King receives about NZ$250,000 (€119,584.0) in subsidies from the European Union. That's right, the very subsidies despised by New Zealand farmers* to keep their inefficient European counterparts warming their cattle in sheds every winter are been scooped up by someone who could be our future head of State.

Before Bill and Ben brightened election campaigns with their satirical take on the process, there was the Imperial British Conservative Party, a joke party promoting the return to the good old days of the British Empire. However, it seems one of their most prominent members, Ian Brackenbury - aka the "Wizard of New Zealand" - wasn't actually joking:

He was a strong believer in a constitutional monarchy and it held the key to a lot of New Zealand's problems, he said.

"There's a malaise here, I think they don't know what they are any more. This is a problem of identity that is striking New Zealand. They are trying to find things like buzzy bees and lamingtons, it's not the way to do it.

...your opponent has to resort to name-calling.

But seriously, "Republican losers"? Reading the comments, it seems Professor Flint's not fooling anyone. Aside from the name-calling, Professor Flint forgets that direct-election republicans were on the winning side of the 1999 referendum.

An interesting letter to the editor in today's Dominion Post.

Dear Sir

I read with dismay a report in The Dominion Post 25 May 2009 that top lawyers may get the QC title back and that the Attorney-General Chris Finlayson said his office was considering this move.

What a backward step this would be, already this National government has restored knighthoods and now they may restore the QC title. I thought this National government was going to be a progressive forward thinking government, not a government living in the colonial past. It seems that National can not just let go of Mother England's apron strings.

Perhaps the real reason that restoring the Queen's Counsel title is being
considered is that lawyers since 2007 who have been appointed to the