For a kiwi republic

Yesterday was Queen's Birthday - the day we officially mark the nominal birthday of our distant monarch - and I thought it would be an excellent day to declare my support for a New Zealand republic. Unfortunately, I got distracted by sedition, so today will just have to do.

Why do I support a republic? Firstly, because I find the very idea of monarchy absurd. Thomas Paine, talking of the hereditary positions of the House of Lords, remarked that

[T]he idea of hereditary legislators is as inconsistent as that of hereditary judges, or hereditary juries; and as absurd as an hereditary mathematician, or an hereditary wise man; and as ridiculous as an hereditary poet laureate.

The same applies to the idea of a hereditary head of state. Quite apart from questions of talent, which admittedly matters far less now that monarchs reign rather than rule, political legitimacy stems from the consent of the governed, not who your parents were.

Secondly, because I want a political system that reflects that fact - that political legitimacy and authority stem from the consent of the governed. In a monarchy, legitimacy and authority flow from the top down, from birth, from tradition, or even supposedly from god. Currently, our democratic traditions are crufted on to this - the monarch has been forced, by threat of execution and having their sock budget cut off, to appoint as Ministers only those who hold the confidence of Parliament. But legally, their authority derives not from that Parliament or the people who elected it, but from the mystical source of the monarch. The only way of changing this is to do away with the monarchy, and replace them with a Head of State whose powers and authority are in turn derived from the people.

Thirdly, because for all practical purposes we already are one. While their authority supposedly derives from the monarch, our Governor-General is in practice appointed by the Prime Minister. While they have a theoretical power to refuse assent, it has never been used in New Zealand, or in the UK since 1708 - and any attempt to do so would result in a swift declaration of Parliamentary sovereignty. We should end the pretence and the myths, and instead adopt a constitution that both reflects political reality, and implements proper safeguards against abuse.

Despite the frothings of monarchists, a New Zealand republic would not mean "President Helen" exercising absolute power. The most common proposal for a republic is simply to twink out the monarch and Governor-General and replace them with an appointed or elected President exercising exactly the same powers. If we're not afraid of Silvia Cartwright or Anand Satyanand, then we have no reason to fear any republican successor. Neither would it mean an end to the Treaty; a republican government would inherit the obligations of the Treaty, just as it would inherit the obligations of membership in the UN and WTO, and indeed the entire corpus of New Zealand law. A change in constitution does not mean a legal and foreign policy tabula rasa.

But like most New Zealand republicans, I'm not in any hurry to change. The present monarch is distant, emasculated, and in consequence, fairly harmless, and any change mostly symbolic. More importantly, a constitutional change of this magnitude needs to be approved by the electorate, through a series of referenda, rather than imposed from the top down. So I'm content to wait until the numbers are there. According to the Holden Republic's collection of polls, support for a republic is slowly growing, and like most, I think we will eventually get there. The only question is when.