Prince William is off to Dubai to represent the United Kingdom at Expo 2022. Fair enough, Wills is a British Royal, paid for by the British taxpayer, so it’s not surprising he’s doing the work of the British government. This raises once again though the fact that while we have a British monarch as our head of state, we deny ourselves head of state representation on the global stage. And sure, the Queen has the title Queen of New Zealand - but we know that in reality that doesn’t really mean anything.

Just before another world expo 30 years ago in Spain, when our pavilion was attracting huge crowds, the issue of who to send to represent New Zealand came up. The Queen’s advisers stated that the Queen cannot travel abroad in her capacity as Queen of New Zealand. This confirmed to the late Dame Cath Tizard, then our Governor-General, that the Governor-General was free to do so. But as Dame Cath notes in her autobiography Cat Amongst the Pigeons, that doesn’t mean that she was treated as a head of state.

A clear advantage of having our own head of state is that we would have a ceremonial office to undertake ceremonial duties, such as those William will undertake for the British government. It is an assertion of our independence on the world stage that also means the Prime Minister is freed from such diplomatic work.