June 2007 newsletter

In this edition: Celebration? What celebration?, Queen's Birthday poll, NZers reject Queen's title, Scots to challenge monarchy's discrimination, The Way Forward by Jordan Carter, quotes in the republic debate from Spoken, our first poll and YouTube video.

Celebration? What celebration?

EVERY YEAR THE QUEEN is pleased to hand out New Zealand honours on the occasion of the celebration of The Queen's Birthday - or so Government House tells us. The honours are the most important feature of New Zealand's Queen's Birthday holiday in June. They fill the long weekends' papers with biographies and general pats-on-backs for deserving New Zealanders.

The Queen, wearing the Order of New Zealand sash.

But the bit about the "celebration" of the Queen's birthday is not accurate in New Zealand. We may wish the Queen all the best, but New Zealanders simply do not celebrate the Queen's birthday. City and district councils are more focussed on organising events for Matariki - the Maori new year - than they are to mark a day which actually is not even the Queen's actual birthday. It is incredibly difficult to find any local authority with events for Queen's birthday weekend that have anything to do with the Queen or the monarchy.

The only event close to a celebration of the Queen's birthday the Republican Movement is aware of was a Auckland medical students graduation party. The focus of the party was more to do with celebrating England than the Queen - invitees were told they should be ready for the "English accent competition", and a chance to try good old English fare - chips and gravy, fish fingers and scones. The association of the monarchy to New Zealand's links with Britain would surely be of great disappointment to supporters of "New Zealand's monarchy" - not because links with Britain are a bad thing, but because putting forward the reality that the Queen is first and foremost Queen of Britain is something many supporters of the monarchy avoid.

Poll question: What did you do on Queen's Birthday?

You'll need to have signed up to our website to vote. Results will be published in the July edition of REPUBLIC.

NZers reject part of Queen's title

A POLL BY Research New Zealand has found New Zealanders are opposed to a state religion - and part of the Queen's official title.

"The poll results show the monarchy is out of step with New Zealand's secular values" said Lewis Holden, chair of the Republican Movement.

While the Queen is Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Her Majesty's position has no religious relevance to New Zealand. The Queen's title states that Her Majesty, as Queen of New Zealand, is 'Defender of the Faith' in New Zealand law.

Clearly the monarchy is out of step with New Zealanders' desire to keep religion separate from the state - and we should either change the Queen's title, or create a New Zealand head of state with no religious qualifications for office.

The Queen's title, under the Royal Titles Act 1974 is "Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith"

Scots to challenge monarchy's discrimination

SCOTLAND'S NEW NATIONALIST first minister, Alex Salmond, is set to challenge new British prime minister Gordon Brown on the monarchy's discrimination against Catholics, reports The Scotsman. Currently, no Catholic or anyone married to a Catholic may serve as Britain's head of state.

The challenge serves Salmond's Scottish National Party and its political gambit - to annoy Westminister at every turn and highlight Scotland's lack of independence from Britain's parliament. But as for the monarchy itself, removing the discriminatory provisions of the Act of Settlement - the law which governs the succession to the Crown - won't change much.

The change would also be legally difficult to bring about - the preamble of the Statute of Westminster 1931, adopted in New Zealand in 1947, states that the Commonwealth Realms must agree with each other over changes to the succession to the throne before making changes. This was what killed a previous Bill put forward to the House of Lords in 2005. Any change in the succession would no doubt spark the republic debate in many of Her Majesty's Realms, something the supporters of the monarchy want to avoid.

The Case for a Republic

This month we look at proposals to elect the Governor and Governor-General, and why they do not go far enough.

SIR GEORGE GREY was never one to give up. He tried twice to make the Governor of New Zealand an elected office. His first attempt, in writing the 1852 constitution, was rejected by his nemesis the Colonial Office. Apparently they did not want to give up control of what was at the time the most important office in New Zealand politics. Later in 1887, as a Member of Parliament, Grey moved his Election of the Governor Bill which was defeated by a mere two votes. How things might have been different had the Bill passed.

Fast forward to January 2006, when political columnist Colin James, directly echoing Grey's views, put forward a proposal to elect the next Governor-General. James suggested this would more democratic than having the Prime Minister appoint someone.

This suggestion clearly irked Professor Cox, chairman of the Monarchist League, who wrote a response to Colin James' article. Professor Cox claimed that an elected Governor-General would have a "mandate" and thus disrupt the government, and would "upset the fine balance" of our constitution. He forgot to mention that this is not the case in Papua New Guinea or the Solomon Islands, where the Governor-General is elected by parliament, or any other parliamentary republic with a ceremonial head of state. There is also the clear contradiction from the supporters of the "If it ain't broke don't fix it" proposition, in stating that New Zealand's constitution is finely balanced. If our constitution really is finely balanced, surely that implies there is some need for reform of the checks and balances within it.

But reform of the office is what is Professor Cox's implied in his article. His arguments against Colin James election proposal were simply empty speculation, it was suggested - without any sense of irony - that the role of the Governor-General needed an "update". Exactly how the role should be updated was not explained, but the suggestion itself shows the real issue with James' proposal: electing the Governor-General does not go far enough, if we want to have an effective head of state, we need to update the role.

Simply electing the office will not raise the position above its current de facto status as New Zealand's head of state. It would only make it more democratic, but that misses the point. What would really update the role would be to recognise that the Governor-General as New Zealand's head of state de facto, and make the office our actual head of state, abolishing the role of the Sovereign. The office would need to be renamed to acknowledge its uplifting, and we would have to work out how to elect the office - but the role of the Governor-General certainly needs an update. It should be recreated as a New Zealand head of state

Next month, we'll look at the parallels between the dominion debate and the republic debate.

Video: The Future King of New Zealand FOLLOWING SUGGESTIONS for promotional videos from members, the Republican Movement has created our own YouTube channel. Click here to see more. Our first video looks at the future King of New Zealand - as usual, all feedback is welcome.