Changing of the guard
This country will become a republic – but there’s no hurry.
Republicans had better not hold their breath: they’ll probably turn a royal shade of blue. It’s a paradox Lewis Carroll could have written for his arch contrarian, the Queen of Hearts, that what protects the monarchy is probably the very system that has robbed it of its powers: democracy.
Opinion polls suggest there’s not firm majority support here for becoming a republic, but even if there were, that majority desire would be only the first baby step.
As Al Gillespie, a law professor at the University of Waikato, says, there are probably as many types of republic as there are people with opinions on republicanism: a new system couldn’t simply be imposed on us by Parliament but would have to gain majority public support. And that’s one marathon multi-choice exam.
“Would we have an elected president with veto power? Or an appointed president with some power? Or no more power than the Governor-General? We would need to work out what checks we needed on the Executive, and there are lots of options for that.”
What about having an upper house, or vesting more authority in the judiciary? The electoral system would need re-examination in light of any of these decisions. And all this would almost certainly have to be debated within the frame of a written constitution – another project of infinite variability.
“If we can’t even agree on changing the piece of fabric that’s our flag, it doesn’t look very hopeful,” Gillespie says, though he believes we are badly overdue a written constitution.
As it is, neither major political party has republicanism or constitutional reform as a priority. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she expects to see New Zealand become a republic in her lifetime, but it’s not on the Government’s to-do list. Opposition leader Simon Bridges wouldn’t put it on his, either, if National retook the Beehive.
“I’m a reluctant monarchist,” Bridges says, “in that, to repeat what Winston Churchill said about democracy: it’s the worst possible system except for all the others. I’m totally opposed to the idea of appointing people on the basis of heredity. But it pretty much works for us.”
Neither the Queen nor the GovernorGeneral has any actual power, nor means to acquire any, Bridges says. It’s a cheaper, lower-key office to maintain than a presidency would be. And that’s much more in tune with the average Kiwi’s aversion to swagger.
The generally supposed alternative, a democratically elected president, would entail “a Helen Clark or a John Key coming back – and that really doesn’t do a lot for me”, Bridges says.
An elected, or even appointed, president would, with or without more power than today’s Governor-General, inevitably develop a popular power base. The more popular the president, the more moral influence she or he could wield: power vested only in a single personality is “not the Kiwi way”, Bridges says.
Sir Michael Cullen points out that a republican structure could put unpredictable pressures on Parliament and/ or the government, and many voters already dislike the unpredictability of MMP.
“My reasons for being somewhat relaxed about the continuance of the monarchy is that while [the Queen] is the titular head of state of New Zealand, we still have New Zealand legislation, and that’s not going to change,” the former Deputy Prime Minister says. “I just don’t see any merit in the contention that somehow we’re not grown-up because we still have ‘mummy’.
“I doubt whether Canada feels that way – and it has much more reason than we’ve ever had to revisit the issue. And if you look around the world, those countries that have symbolic monarchies do rather better than those that don’t in terms of human rights.”
Like Gillespie, Cullen envisages divisive debate over key issues in a mooted transition to a republic, with the risk that bitterness and lack of broad acceptance would linger.
However, most politicos agree there’ll be no stopping the republicans among us giving the massive project a kick-start once the Queen dies.
“If we can’t agree on changing the piece of fabric that’s our flag, it doesn’t look very hopeful.”
It won’t be lost on Commonwealth watchers that among the controversies engulfing Baroness Scotland are a likely obligation for the secretariat to pay £500,000 ($975,000) in compensation for her unfair dismissal of a staffer and £338,000 spent on refurbishment of her grace-and-favour Mayfair digs. The British press have reported both displeasure from the Queen at the way she is running the organisation, and threats from the Government to curtail Britain’s contribution.
Born in Dominica, the one-time barrister, who was Attorney General in Gordon Brown’s Labour Government, has been a strong advocate of the Commonwealth’s potential as a trading bloc, but the risk is that excruciating details such as her new £309 toilet seat will resonate more readily with the public.
NO OBVIOUS BENEFIT
The Commonwealth is a hard sell, given it has neither constitutional power nor immediately obvious benefit to most people. International law expert Al Gillespie, a professor at the University of Waikato, says that in the current scheme of things, the Commonwealth sits fathoms beneath Five Eyes (the security grouping of New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the UK and the US) in its power over our lives, and is considerably less effective a disciplinarian than the United Nations. “It’s like a large family with lots of strange cousins: we know each other, but we haven’t got power over each other. Its sanction is just a soft slap.”
Gillespie believes the Commonwealth has enduring value as a prominent champion and exemplar of democratic freedom and as a repository of experience. “As Kiwis, we tend to want to reinvent the wheel, do everything ourselves. But often there’s someone in the Commonwealth we could learn from.”
Britain bestowed ( or imposed) parliamentary, legal and other functional systems on its territories, and many countries usefully refined them: Australia, for instance, pioneered the centralised documentation of property ownership. As a country with a long history of stable, corruption-free elections, New Zealand is often called on to help with elections in other member countries.
At the very least, what began as a colonial club has grown into a sort of qualityassurance association. Countries such as Mozambique and Rwanda have joined, and others including Palestine, South Sudan and even, it is speculated, Israel are interested in joining, without having been British territories. These developments underline the perceived value of being included in this particular bloc.
Former senior diplomat and MP Paul Foster-Bell says that estimates vary, but it’s generally accepted that doing business with a Commonwealth country carries an average 19% advantage in returns over trade with non-members. That’s because the members all have dependable and well-established legal systems and functional law enforcement; enforceable property rights, backed by efficient record-keeping; and modern communications and technology, not least the option of speaking English. All are held, by membership of the bloc, to labour-force and human-rights standards and, increasingly, to environmental standards as well.
Perhaps most telling is the Transparency International corruption index, published annually: six of the 10 least-corrupt countries on the latest list are Commonwealth members. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that countries with constitutional monarchies score so well,” says Foster-Bell. “When you have a head of state who doesn’t have to seek office or raise money but has only light powers, that removes a potential layer for corruption to develop.”
He says that applies to countries outside the Commonwealth, including Japan, Sweden and the Netherlands, all of which remain monarchies.
FUTURE-PROOFING
If there were any doubt that the palace and 10 Downing Street were in future-proofing mode, it was dispelled with the Queen’s unprecedented formal request for Charles to succeed her as head of the Commonwealth. This was done with the foreknowledge of British Prime Minister Theresa May, but was still risky politics. India, for one, is increasingly uneasy that the Commonwealth is so closely tied to the royal family – and there’s no rule that it must be headed by a royal.
The Queen managed to get the 53 leaders to do two things that no politician ever wants to do: one, make a controversial decision they didn’t have to make yet; and two, lock themselves and their successors into a decision that may not, when the time arrives, still be politically palatable. No one but the leaders can know how this played out inside Windsor Castle,
“When, say, Tuvalu faces rising sea levels, the whole group can become a megaphone for that. It’s not just a tiny voice on its own.” “It’s like a large family with lots of strange cousins: we know each other, but we haven’t got power over each other.”
where the decision was made in the hearing of leaders only. But India cannot have been alone in its discomfort. Both the Australian and New Zealand prime ministers have expressed support for a republican future and Canada must steer carefully round activism for the sovereignty of Quebec.
Chogm’s unanimity is not something the royals can comfortably rely on, even now. Charles is a highly recognisable and globally significant next head, but the future of the Commonwealth is in its own hands, not those of Britain or the monarchy. It’s a crowded mantelpiece of increasingly assertive and querulous birds.