Keeping politicians in check
The New Zealand Herald reports that Maori King Tuiheitia has used his "supreme power" to dismiss the head of Waikato-Tainui's parliament (Te Kauhanganui), Tania Martin. We make no comment on whether the King was right or wrong to do this, but the use of his power to dismiss an elected official is relevant to the New Zealand republic debate. No-one disputes that there should be checks and balances on our elected representatives, the question is what checks and what balances, and whether they are effective or not.
In the case of the British monarchy in New Zealand, it's difficult to see how an absentee head of state could ever hold our politicians to account. In fact the history of the Commonwealth over the last 50 years shows us that the Queen will not intervene, even when specifically asked to, as was the case in Australia in 1975. This means in the extremely rare instances when the reserve powers are used, it will only ever be the Governor-General who will exercise them, not the sovereign.
The problem with that is that the Governor-General is appointed by, and as we know from Papua New Guinea in 1991, can be instantly dismissed by the Prime Minister. As the Australians, Canadians and Solomon Islanders know, this creates a "Mexican stand off" between Governor-General and Prime Minister.
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In my opinion there is an inherent need to have numerous checks on the government. I do not like the idea of our head of state being elected by parliament, I would rather they be held accountable to the people of NZ. While I don't think we need to go as far as the US, I think our head of state needs enough and no more than that, executive powers to keep the government in check. While I do feel the power of Veto should exist somewhere, I think that should be held by the Supreme Court.
The onus needs to be on the Government to prove to us that it is acting legally... not as it currently stands where we must prove that they are not.
It is very interesting that the Maori King has dismissed the head of Waikato-Tainui's parliament. This confuses me, especially with the republic debate.
If NZ was to become a republic would this change to a republic not concern all 4.4 million NZers? According to the last census the Maori population of NZ is just over 14% (over 616,000 people) and if atleast a 1/6th of them are part of tainui then you have a little over 100,000 people of whom the republic of NZ can mean nothing too as they still have there own tribal king that they look too internally.
Currently we have the Queen of England as our monarch, yet those who hold loyalty to Tainui, also have a King.
I do not want to throw the cat amongst the pigeons but if we do away with one monarchy, should not all monarchs be removed?
Hi Mat,
The point of this post was to discuss the reserve powers of the monarch and their use. Whether Tainui-Waikato keep their monarchy is of no interest to us; however I would note that they technically don't swear loyalty to the Maori King in the same way as we (when required) swear allegiance to the British Queen.
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