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Spam filters?

The spam filters have been doing their job too well recently, so we've had to adjust the filters to allow more comments. Unfortunately, a few trolls seem to have got through. Nevermind.


For some reason, the last five posts on the blog have all been titled as questions. Why's that?

The dangers of poorly-proposed polls and referenda

The dangers of poorly-proposed referenda on republicanism appear to have been well demonstrated by our Australian brothers and sisters.  Following Queen's Birthday Weekend, Sydney's Daily Telegraph published this column by David Penberthy.

Why become a republic?

I mentioned in a recent post that I was going to reflect on the question of why we should become a republic.  That reflection included referring back to Lewis' great contribution, The New Zealand Republic Handbook.  I believe I now have the workings of an argument together.

Appointment of the Maori King looks decidedly democratic

While still catching up on the weekend's news, I read a little about the fuss generated when Ngapuhi leader, David Rankin challenged calling Tainui's leader, Tuheita, the Maori King.

It's all about presence... a presence of identity!

Welcome back, all.  I hope everyone had a great Queens Birthday weekend break.  I had a good one down in Christchurch, catching up with various university friends.

The Involuntary Monarch

After my earlier blog post about the Swedish King, Carl XVI Gustaf, I got talking with a close Swedish family friend about the Swedish monarchy.

Sweden's embattled King

Our close Scandinavian friends, the Swedes (who, in my humble opinion, seem very like NZers), are getting annoyed with their scandal-hit King, as summarised in this Swedish English-language news article.  Now, opinion polls are indicating that a decreasing proportion of the public support him.

Is our PM our only effective Head of State?

An American TV station, Fox 29, recently published this article on its website containing a list of the world's top female Heads of State.  At No. 1 is Australia's Prime Minister, Julia Gillard.  But hang on, I immediately thought, Julia Gillard isn't Australia's Head of State.

I'm filling in for Lewis

Hi guys,

My name's Mike and I'm currently in between jobs.  Having some time on my hands, I offered to fill in for Lewis during his much deserved break overseas.  As far as I know, he and his new wife got away safely last night and I'm sure you'll join me in wishing them a happy time away.  

Comments set to moderate

Comment has been sent to moderate again, due to continued spamming. Our apologies while we get this fixed.

Comments re-opened

We have turned off comments moderation, as it seems the upgrade to a spam filters has worked. Comments should now appear as you make them.

Website crash

The news yesterday caused our website to crash around 9:30pm last night, due to a back up of requests. We had to restore things back to our most recent back up, which means some content posted yesterday had to be restored. Our apologies for e-mail messages sent more than once.

Spam attack

Lots of spam coming through today, so we've temporarily suspended anonymous comments.

Update: Everything seems to be fixed. As you were.

Facebook / Twitter connections

We've had issues with the Facebook connections which we're sorting out - there will be a new share feature and TweetMeme for your reading pleasure.

Website offline for maintenance

New Zealand Republic will be offline from late tonight until early tomorrow morning. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
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