Blog posts on books in the republic debate. For our book reviews,
click here.
Onward with Executive Power: Lessions from New Zealand 1947 - 1957 is a book that should make monarchists very nervous. Written by Harshan Kumarasingham, it critically appraises the first ten years of New Zealand's constitutional development following New Zealand's adoption of the Statute of Westminster in 1947, specifically focusing the on the abolition of New Zealand's upper house, the Legislative Council, in 1951.
Opening with a foreword by Dame Margaret Clark, the first chapter looks at the constitutional politics of adopting the Statute of Westminster 1931, and the overriding "pragmatism" of New Zealanders. New Zealand's economic and military status depended on the United Kingdom, and therefore the constitutional links were protected by the country's leadership.
The inability to activate or project the governor-general’s legitimate constitutional powers meant the incapacity and impotence to provide an effective form of executive horizontal accountability, which allowed the prime minister and cabinet to have undisguised supremacy over the state.
Realising Secularism: Australia and New Zealand is to be published in March 2010.
The New Zealand Law Journal has given a fairly even handed review (not online sadly) of
The New Zealand Republic Handbook in its latest edition.
Salient editor Jackson James Wood reviews
The New Zealand Republic Handbook:
The New Zealand Republic Handbook sets out to be exactly what the title leads you to expect.
The Herald on Sunday reports Alison Quentin-Baxter and Dundee University Law lecturer Janet McLean have received funding from the
New Zealand Law Foundation to produce a new book on the powers of the Queen and Governor-General.
The book, which will take spend three years examining "strengths, uncertainties and inadequacies in the country's constitutional arrangements that will be published as a book." Interestingly, the Cabinet Office helping Quentin-Baxter in recruiting a legal Research Assistant who will be based in the office and have access to its files.
Former Governor-General Dame Cath Tizard thinks the research is "very positive":
Professor Matthew Palmer speaks with John Roughan of The New Zealand Herald about his new book, The Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand's Law and Constitution. The son of former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer argues in the book for a number of changes, but also argues:
None of this, he insists, should happen unless it follows a well-informed public discussion and is approved at a referendum. He has a proposal for the method of public discussion too. It should be led, he suggests by a "citizens' assembly" consisting of two representatives of each electorate randomly selected who would be paid to study the proposal, hold public meetings.
I recently acquired a copy of the above book, but haven't had the time to start reading it properly. It does appear to be one of the better books on the issue, with a proper analysis of the monarchy's future. While it's written with a pro-monarchy slant, and in the context of Great Britain (it only mentions in passing that the Queen is also head of state of 16 other Commonwealth countries - that's how much we matter to the monarchy), the book looks closely at the questions arising from Prince Charles succession to the throne, and the future of the monarchy. It even takes a look at the "alternative to the monarchy", that is, a republic.
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