After lingering just short of a majority for years, 60% of kiwis now support a republic:
New Zealanders appear to have experienced a groundswell of republicanism as a new poll shows nearly sixty per cent want a Kiwi head of state.
The poll shows 59 per cent of New Zealanders wanted to change the centuries-old system of Government, compared to 34 per cent who favoured the next British Monarch becoming King of New Zealand.
Undecided voters remained unchanged on seven per cent over the last three polls.
But while this shows that we'd win a referendum for a republic if it was held tomorrow, realisticly we're a long way from that point. While there's public support, its mostly abstract, without a huge desire for immediate change. And while the conventional wisdom is that that will change when the current incumbent dies, I don't really see it as making the problem seem more urgent (instead it will simply increase support for change). The upshot: if we want this to happen, we need political parties to commit to it, rather than just waiting around for the "inevitable" republic which never comes.
