A rigging-resistant republic plan
My plan for the People’s Republic of Aotearoa was flawed. I’m sorry. Let me try to put it right. It isn’t easy creating a constitution.
Last week I proposed the captain of the White Ferns as our new head of state. I chose a woman because women are nicer than men. I chose a sportsperson because sportspeople are almost royalty already. I chose a cricketer because cricket is synonymous with decency and fair play everywhere in the world except Australia. And I chose the captain, partly because she would have qualities of leadership, but mainly because no captain is in the job for long and a rapid turnover reduces the risk of corruption.
Little would be required of the head of state apart from opening and closing parliament and pinning medals on the deserving. The rest of the time she should just play cricket. As with the current royal family she would be a repository for power, rather than a user of it.
My proposal proved contentious. Emails poured in. Several correspondents, to my surprise, thought I was joking. Others thought my scheme unnecessary. They had a simpler idea. All that was needed, they said, was to have a governor-general just as we do now but change his or her title to president.
That is all very well, I replied, but a governor-general has to be appointed, and that opens the door to corruption. Enemies of the state could infiltrate the appointment process.
It may sound far-fetched, but it has happened in the US. At least one hostile foreign power interfered with the 2016 presidential election. And once they’d got the greedy, vain and venal Trump elected, bad actors all around the world went to it. We still don’t know exactly which countries got what they wanted out of Trump, but the list of likelies includes Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey and, of course, Russia.
Meanwhile, other dark forces set about getting right-wing judges onto the
Supreme Court. To do this they corrupted the senators that appoint them. It’s a longterm strategy to undermine a democratic republic. And it is working. o if even the States can succumb to corruption, we would do well to learn from its travails. And by now you will have spotted the flaw in my proposal from last week: the White Ferns captain is appointed every bit as much as a governor-general is.
So if, say, Russia wanted to corrupt us, it would have only to infiltrate the selection panel at NZ Cricket.
In the light of which I would like to amend my proposal: our head of state should not be the captain, but rather the White Fern with the highest batting average.
The beauty of this new arrangement is that it can’t be rigged. No-one appoints a batting average. You can’t score runs by bribery.
Better still, the countries that might wish us ill do not play cricket. So if, say, the North Koreans wanted to install a puppet president in Aotearoa they would have to coach her to bat better than any girl born here and then somehow render her a citizen, none of which is going to happen. The system is incorruptible.
And thus, with our best batswoman as perpetual figurehead, the good ship Aotearoa would be able to sail confidently out from under Britannia’s skirts and into the brave new waters of independence. It warms my heart to think of it. And if, as I hope, my proposal is adopted, I shall spend my dotage in contentment knowing, as Othello put it, that I have done the state some service.
S