We often talk about the need for a New Zealand citizen as head of state to represent our country to the world. This is a clear benefit of change, and something that becomes more and more obvious with the British government’s interests being very different to ours. At present, the UK government is seeking to build its relationships with its European partners in trade, but also with its military links to NATO.
King Charles III has provided us with an excellent example of why these interests are divergent. For the King’s first overseas trip as monarch, he’s off to France and Germany. The BBC comments:
“As head of state, the King's official visits are decided on [UK] government advice - and these symbolic first overseas destinations will be seen as prioritising stronger relations with European neighbours."
Some commenters are aghast that the King is not going to visit a Commonwealth member first, especially given that the British monarch is head of state of 14 Commonwealth member states. But the reality, as one New Zealand commenter noted, is that the British head of state is promoting UK foreign policy based simply on what the UK government considers to be its priorities:
His visit programme will follow FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office] advice on what’s best for promoting UK foreign policy. NZ is pretty much irrelevant in this and is not consulted. We are completely separate sovereign nations with our own separate priorities. Hence the need for a kiwi HOS promoting NZ values.
The fact is that Commonwealth relationships aren’t a priority. Even if Charles III considers the relationships with Commonwealth members to be important (and there’s some evidence that he doesn’t), as a constitutional monarch he does what the British government tells him to do.
All of this means that for New Zealand under the status quo we have the worst of both worlds - a monarch that makes us look like a colony, despite being an independent state, and lacking our own head of state.
A New Zealand citizen as head of state would mean we would be free to undertake important international relationship building through state visits without the nonsense of making our Governor-General out to be head of state when they are not (as an aside, when then Governor-General Dame Sylvia Cartwright visited Germany in 2005, the Germans had to check with the FCO and Buckingham Palace whether the Governor-General could be treated as head of state. )