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Does the monarch cost the Kiwi taxpayers?
Do the taxpayers pay the monarch any money as their monarch? I've recently found out that the monarch costs the british taxpayers 37.4 million pounds every year. Does this apply to us as well? do we pay the monarchs?
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Slight correction
Just to point out that the monarchy costs the British taxpayer considerably more than £37m a year, more like £183m by our estimate. It is only an estimate as the government doesn't reveal all the figures.
See http://www.republic.org.uk/royalfinances
Cheers
Graham
Hi Lewis,Thanks for your
Thanks for your reply, I can send you a copy of the essay once I have had it marked and it has come back to me, so that might take a month or so.
In the mean time, where can I find the information that relates to those additional costs regarding Government House. Also where did you get the info about the irish government?
I'm slowly building an air tight case on why the monarchy is finished once the debate kicks in again, but you know how these universities are, they always want references so if you could point me in the right direction on this, it would help me out greatly.
Thanks
Steve
No worries.The New Zealand
The New Zealand Figures, including the stuff about, Govt. House, are in 2009 - 2010 Budget Estimates.
The Irish figures are from their 2009 budget.
The costs issue is really irrelevant, it's a counter-argument to change. However taking to its logical extension we ought to abolish Parliament, because it costs us lots of money.
LJH
Chair of the Republican Movement
Hi there,I'm writing an
Hi there,
I'm writing an essay on the monarchy and I had a look at this document from the dpmc, I could only get the figure of $5 million, either I'm really bad at maths or I'm reading the document wring....
"Support services to the Governor-General and maintenance of the two Government Houses will be produced within the sum of $3.546 million. $3.516 million is to be funded from revenue: Crown, and $30,000 from revenue: other. An appropriation of $798,000 is also administered under permanent legislative authority (the Civil List Act 1979) for the purposes of meeting the Governor-General’s salary, allowances and travel. An appropriation of $2.15 million for investment in Government House and $475,000 for depreciation for Crown assets has been included in the 2007/08 Estimates."
Can you tell me where the other $5 million is coming from?
I'm on your side regarding the monarchy, its time we ditched them and so I'm not trying to discredit what your saying or anything like that, it's just that I can't see any other mention of Taxpayers outlay other than that quote.
Thanks
Hi there Steve,The "other"
The "other" $4 million relates to the year on year costs of Government House. Since this cost will add up over 6 or so years of the upgrade, it's worth including as an expense for comparison's sake.
Lewis Holden
Chair of the Republican Movement
In relation to comparison of
Sure - but the point is the
Chair of the Republican Movement
Why not? Government House is
By de facto head of state, we simply mean the person who does the Queen's work. Sure, that has largely been overtaken by the Prime Minister in the diplomatic arena. But then, New Zealand is a small country and needs our Prime Minister to recognised overseas.
Chair of the Republican Movement
By 'de facto head of state'
The PM does a lot of the practical work of foreign relations that other countries heads of state do. When there are top-level negotiations, they would typically be between both prime ministers or between head of state and an executive president.
We could have a "bicycling president" paid an MP's salary and expected to provide their own house and use a suitable venue (Auckland Town Hall? Te Papa? Premier House? Logan Brown? for any public functions)
See our page on costs. New
This is a fairly common argument, but again it doesn't stand up to close analysis. Since the Governor-General represents the Queen in New Zealand, the cost of their office should be seen as part of the cost of the monarchy. The most recent Annual Report of the Department of Prime Minister and the Cabinet (2008) - who provide support to the Governor-General - puts the cost of the office of Governor-General (including the upkeep of the Government houses in Wellington and Auckland) at around $11 million a year. This compares with the cost (in New Zealand dollars) of the President of Ireland ($6.7m), a country of similar population size to New Zealand with four million citizens.
The other expense the New Zealand taxpayer picks up with the monarchy is the cost of Royal Tours, which are fairly infrequent (every five or so years). According to the Department of Internal Affairs 2001 - 2002 Annual Report (PDF - see Vote Ministerial Services), the last Royal tour in 2002 cost the New Zealand taxpayer around $1m.
In any case, the cost of the monarchy is hardly a good reason to keep it. There's no point keeping something because it's cheap, particularly if it doesn't provide New Zealand with a head of State of its own. Instead, the New Zealand taxpayer pays for the upkeep of an office that does everything the head of State is meant to do anway. So why not simply make the de facto head of state the actual head of state?
Chair of the Republican Movement