Elizabeth is not one of us

The Sunday Start Times has an editorial on the Monarchy.  If I'm ever elected to Parliament, I'm happy to lead on this cause!  I've said before on this blog that I would find it very distasteful having to swear allegiance to the Queen.  I want to swear allegiance to the people of New Zealand.

Hat tip: Kiwiblog.

Her death marks another huge difference between the two cultures. The Maori Queen was genuinely close to her people. The Pakeha Queen is not. The Queen of New Zealand is an absentee sovereign whose continued role in our affairs is absurd, even grotesque. She represents inherited power and privilege, gross inequality and the provocations of primogeniture and the silver spoon. She represents a class system that is alien to New Zealand's deepest expressed values if not necessarily to the reality of our increasingly stratified society.

Dame Te Ata never lived in a splendour of palaces as Elizabeth does. While Te Ata continually toured the Tainui marae in the annual round of the poukai, the Pakeha Queen visits her colony once in a blue moon. Tainui at least can fairly claim that Te Ata was one of them. Elizabeth is not one of us.

Because Te Ata's is a purely Maori institution, Pakeha do not need to take any position about its future. They do, however, need to decide the future of their own monarch. Only inertia and a kind of ossified sentimentality prevent us from doing so - and the lack of a courageous politician to lead the charge. In the meantime, the Pakeha monarchy will continue to die by degrees, through a slow decay of sentiment and a growing realisation that British aristocrats have no place in our constitution.

 

Comments

[tim barclay]

The whole notion of a monarchy is absured including Dame Te Ata who by all accounts acquitted herself appropriately. People seem to want some nice person wearing nice clothes shaking hands and saying absolutely nothing of consequence at all. I have no need for such flummery. But there is no need to make rude comments about Queen Elizaboeth whom god knows has suffered many fools with good grace and good manners including some of your MPs.

[Craig Ranapia]

*sigh* I've long said that republicanism is it's own worse enemy, when it actually comes to a rational and temperate debate over what will probably be the most profound constitutional change in our lifetimes. It's also rather distasteful of the SST to try and play it out over Te Atairangikaahu's coffin - also rather ignorant, considering that Maori, boradly speaking, are highly ambiguous over republicanism when the status of the Treaty of Waitangi comes into it.

[Moz]

If we do have to have a monarch can't we have one of our own? I mean, there's good historical precedent for it and all. Either we steal... ... ah, appropriate... I mean, "borrow" the Maori monarch, or couldn't we just buy one of the high quality second hand royalty that Europe has so many of? After all, that's how the British got theirs... I mean "ours".

[Craig Ranapia]

Ah, so "inherited power and privilege, gross inequality and the provocations of primogeniture and the silver spoon" are fine, as long as we don't import them? As I said, the day republicans want to get serious I'm there.

I expect this kind of Jingoistic noble savage bollocks from the SST - after all, its terminally dumbed down to a tabloid with pretensions in all but format. But fundamental constitutional change is a serious issue that requires serious debate, and this is not the kind of 'leadership' that argument needs.

[Tony]

Craig. I agree with you. But that's not what I'm about. There are plenty of academic intellectual articles discussing the intricacies of the debate.

At the end of the day, when I have this debate with people, it is the symbolism and history and emotion that people on both sides refer to not the constitutional intricacies. The campaign will go nowhere if that is the extent of the campaign.

Just like nuclear free - it needs its academics and intellectuals, but it also needs people to put the debate into an emotional context.

I don't know how old you are Craig, but going by the "The Perfect Age" programme I'd have to say you are 30-40 (mediating between the generations...)

[Tony]

I guess the question is what is leadership. My experience of the Civil Union campaign gave me a few examples. Tim Barnett knew the issues inside out. He provided the framing, the intellectual argument, the strategy. Then there was the leadership of Georgina Beyer, who through her rhetoric and emotion gave speeches that inspired and motivated people to get active and get involved in the campaign.

The republic movement will need a combination of different kinds of leaderships.

[Craig Ranapia]

Tony:

I take you point, after all my republican sentiment is largely based on a visceral revulsion (as a Catholic and someone who believes in the essential separation of religious and political institutions in a civil society) that New Zealand's head of state - and his/her spouse - has to meet a religious qualification imposed by the British Parliament in the 17th century! A religious qualification, need I add, that it would be flat out illegal to impose on our legislators, judiciary or civil servants. If that works for the UK, that's fine. It's just not where I see New Zealand going.

I certainly don't want constitutional reform being run like a post-grad seminar on constitutional theory - though that's part of the picture. As a temperamental conservative, I believe in evolution not revolution, and thinking though what you're going to build on the ruins of what you've knocked down before you swing the wrecking ball.

But I don't think it has to go to the other extreme, and operate on the rhetorical and intellectual level of the British tabloids. Let's do what's right for New Zealand, not because we think Prince Charles is a weirdo love rat with creepy sons. Reason without emotion is a sterile, cruel thing; but emotion untempered by reason is just as destructive. There's got to be a happy medium in all things.

Another point. I certainly don't hold much water for the Kingitanga - which is, IMO, as irrelevant to the lives of most Maori in the 21st century as the House of Windsor. Just as the tribal leadership models - every bit as rotten with "inherited power and privilege, gross inequality and the provocations of primogeniture and the silver spoon" - are becoming less relevant and powerful over time within Maoridom.

But, above all, Te Atairangikaahu is a human being. There is something in me that just says 'stop', when people start playing politics over an open grave.

And, FWIW, I'm 34. Though I feel less like a 'mediator between the generations', and more like someone born out of time and on the wrong planet entirely. :)

[Lewis]

Well said Tony.

Craig - I agree. A serious constitutional discussion is what's needed. I've put together a website on the issue:

http://www.headofstate.org.nz

[PabloR]

The Maori Queen doesn't represent all Maori! She represents the Kingitanga, mostly Tainui, but not exclusively and not every member of Tainui. My Nga Puhi in-laws couldn't give a damn about who the next Maori "monarch" is, he won't make any difference to their lives!

[Craig Ranapia]

Thanks for the link, Lewis. Much food for thought.

[Tony]

Thanks Lewis.

Craig, thanks for your toughts. I particular liked this: "Reason without emotion is a sterile, cruel thing; but emotion untempered by reason is just as destructive. There's got to be a happy medium in all things". I will keep this quote in my mind.

[Kiwi in Zurich]

Try living in a non-commonwealth country and try explain to the locals that yes the Queen in right of New Zealand also happens to be the Queen of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland and that, well, yes, we are independent. By about that part of the explanation the Swiss are looking at me somewhat incredulously...

[Tony]

Yes, I too have had that conversation with people overseas!

[Michael]

So who is "The Pakeha Queen"? As far as I am aware, the Queen of New Zealand is Queen for all New Zealanders, regardless of race, gender, age, height, location, etc.

I would rather have an absentee Queen who stands for all of us, than a local President chosen by only some of us.

[Lewis]

Michael - Nonsense. The Queen might be Queen of New Zealand, but she is not a New Zealand Queen. The Act of Settlement 1701 specifically states that one certain English family - so long as they aren't Catholics or female where there's an older male. So the Queen of New Zealand doesn't "stand" for any of us, Her Majesty stands simply for her inherited position.

Secondly, we already have a local president, de jure, chosen by the Prime Minister: The Governor-General. Republicanism is about reforming both offices.

[Brian]

Lewis: Get your facts straight; GG "de jure, chosen by the Prime Minister" Have you ever read the Cabinet Manual; Letters Patent; or Bridled Power?

Appointment to the Office is made by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister to the Queen. The Prime Minister's advice is the result of a decision by Cabinet; by convention the Leader of the Opposition is also consulted on the appointment.

The GG is the personal representative of our Head of State, Queen Elizabeth II of New Zealand.

NO republic; the people of this fair land don’t want one.

[Lewis]

Brian, look up the term "de jure". You'd find that what I'm saying is factually correct - while the Queen does indeed legally appoint the Governor-General, in truth the appointment is made by the PM. The "decision by Cabinet" is nothing more than a rubber stamp on the PMs choice, as for the "consultation" with the Leader of the Opposition, it is just that "consultation" - i.e. the PM tells the leader of the opposition. How on earth could Keith Holyoake have been appointed to the office if the consultation mattered? It doesn't, if anyone is not being honest here, it is you.

[Lewis]

Opps - my apologies, I've got my "de" prefixes mixed up - I meant "de facto".

[Brian]

Yep; 'de facto' was what I thought you should have said :)

[Michael]

Lewis - You should update your copy of the Act of Settlement - recent amendments make the first born, regardless of gender, who becomes Monarch.

Besides, that Act doesn't apply in NZ (although we do follow the British Royal Family sucession). Elizabeth is Queen of New Zealand due to an Act of our own Parliament.

[Lewis]

No Michael, the Act of Settlement hasn't been amended. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_Settlement_1701#Present_debate

The Act is a New Zealand Act, per the Imperial Laws Application Act 1988 and the Constitution Act 1986, which basically states whoever is Head of State in the UK is Head of State in New Zealand, under the Act of Settlement.