by Keith Locke
Britain’s current dilemma over the discriminatory nature of royal succession will hopefully stimulate a similar debate in New Zealand. The timing is good, now that my Head of State Referenda Bill – to see whether Kiwis want to stay with the monarchy – has been picked from the Private Member’s Bill Ballot.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has recently pointed out how anachronistic and outdated the current laws of succession are. He wants to change rules that give the first-born son of the monarch preference over an older daughter, and prevent Catholics from marrying into the Royal Family. Mind you Catholics are still to be banned from the Throne itself. Gordon Brown doesn’t want to offend the Anglican Church, which since the 17th century has been headed by the reigning Monarch.
For many New Zealanders it won’t sit comfortably that we are still caught up in a system that discriminates on the basis of religion and gender! It’s hardly in tune with our human rights legislation.
Our Prime Minister has been quizzed on the matter at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM) in Trinidad and Tobago.
John Key said New Zealand would follow any change in Britain with legislation to remove discrimination against women and Catholics. Gordon Brown had been expected to bring the matter up officially at CHOGM because he needs a buy-in for the law change from the 15 other nations who have Queen Elizabeth as their head of state.
Each of these countries needs to change their succession laws in exactly the same way. If even one country stayed with the present rules it could end up with a different Royal as head of state – if for example, Prince Andrew if Prince William disqualified himself by marrying a Catholic.
All this highlights the relevance of my Head of State Referenda Bill, which would enable Kiwis to vote on whether we still want our head of state living on the other side of the world, or whether we want that person to be based in New Zealand. My bill, as pulled from the ballot, proposes a two-stage referenda process between the present system and two republican alternatives, one being a directly elected president and the other being selected by 75% of Parliament.
For more on info my Bill check out this website:
http://www.republic.org.nz/headofstatebill
Published in Justice & Democracy by Keith Locke on Tue, December 1st, 2009
Tags: CHOGM, Gordon Brown, head of state, human rights, john key
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
NZ needs a fresh start like no where else.
We need to get rid of our Apartheid-by-Stealth Regime and live equally as New Zealanders – irrespective of Racial History.
Until this is done we will remain a colony in shackles frozen in time and space
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Certainly the gender discrimination should go. Arguably our human rights legislation is already offside with the English rules.
Trevor.
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Why should our head of state have to be an Anglican?
This type of royalty is premised on the throne being an agent of (anointed by a holy apostolic succession priesthood claiming authority from the kingdom of God) divine right rule, it’s anachronistic and has been since all citizens were able to vote.
In Britain all citizens are referred to as subjects of this throne – and it’s based on regarding the British state as a Crown possession of the Church.
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I’ve always had a problem with the British (and hence our) tradition over many centuries of the Head of State being decided by either conquest or inheritance.
FFS, if Britain and the US lose their so-called War on Terror, Osama bin Laden may become our King under that tradition.
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Toad,
Appointment via conquest is the most widely used system on earth and is promoted reguarly by this party.
Democracy is naught but the appointment of individuals via conquest over others. The central point of democracy is ‘my army is bigger than yours’, ‘I hold more power than yourself’. It is the way of the world. Force is legitimacy and the only source of such legitimacy.
If Osama can gain enough support/force to rule over us then he is welcome to do so. If the resistance is so small that it allows him to do so then he has legitimacy by virtue of being able to do so.
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Thats what happens when you study logic without studying ethics.
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CHOGM may actually have been worth attending, for once.
HM being geriatric, the ‘heir and spare’ both being divorced, adulterous and so on, why not Queen Anne II?
(Assuming some dastardly event like Prince William falling out of the sky in a helicopter/ falling in love with a muslim/ accidentally shooting his brother in some sort of drunken nazi revelry/ … choose your own putative disaster…)
Why, when the aristocracy are so patently only fit for selling tabloid newspapers, hasn’t this option been taken a long, long time ago?
Republican may just be the way forward for Britain; possibly better than the pagan ‘King for a year’, then culled at the next harvest festival. (google “Fisher King” if you don’t get that.)
Certainly, we should be capable of running our own country by now; we became a Dominion in 1909, so we’ve had a century to get used to the idea that we are a nation. The sun set on the Empire a long time ago; so should it set on the British Commonwealth, a relic of colonisation that we should gracefully, and speedily, shed.
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SPC,
Studied ethics. Saw it for what it was; absolute bullsh*t.
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Beliefs and values (and the formation of them) are as powerful a force as logic in the way people reason. And all people reason before they vote.
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SPC,
Beliefs and values are more powerful than logic as in our society emotion rules and few people have any half-decent logical capacity. That, however, does not change the fact that such things are absolute bullsh*t nor does it even dent my arguement as to force.
The plentitude of illogical, emotion governed, sheeple is why our world is so eternally dysfunctional.
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sapient everyone lives under the delusion that their own opinion is more reasonable than that of others – we only co-exist because the only way for there to be ethical resolution of this dilemma, is one man one vote. Thus no one has the abilty to force others to agree with them.
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Now all the important issues to the Greens have been definitively sorted its time to concentrate efforts on some pesky sideshows. FFS. With numerous environmental crises across the globe worsening and the Kiwi populace largely in a state of smug indifference, is this really what Green voters deserve? This campaign is as useful to our planet as debates on the colour scheme for Easter Island moai would have been to that doomed culture. Momentarily fascinating but ultimately a distraction from vital issues.
How about the Green caucus and the wider party spend some time distinguishing between the core environmental challenges that must be met to sustain our/any civilization and what would be nice if and when those battles had been won? If you have had this discussion and this issue passed muster, Green voters will have no reason to believe their representitives have a clue.
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Good grief. Who really cares about having the Royal family. They are largely irrelevant. On the other hand I have an infinite preference to have a Governor General over a President. Look at the damage Key and Hide are wreaking here in NZ. Imagine if one of them were President.
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“How about the Green caucus and the wider party spend some time distinguishing between the core environmental challenges that must be met to sustain our/any civilization and what would be nice if and when those battles had been won?”
Note that it is specifically Keith Locke who has chosen this as being an important issue. The Green Party caucus as a whole has not identified it as a priority issue.
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If Key goes to to Copenhagen, he’ll be ‘Johny-come-lately’.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Unfortunately Blue Peter’s version of everyone being treated equally is that the rich get an even more god given right to absolute wealth at the cost to those of us who actually do some work instead of shuffling money around the planet while we still have a planet.
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While it is true that many, if not all, live under the delusion that their beliefs are more rational than those of others, few can show such. I have repeatedly shown that, to the closest approximation of knowledge possible (i.e. with the fewest assumptions possible), ethics is absolute bull. We can be more certain of this than we can of the existence of ourselves.
The ability of one to force another to agree with their sentiments lies in their ability to manipulate the mind of others. This ability is identical regardless of dictatorship or democracy.
The resolution of differing opinions such that society may exist is by no means limited to one-man-one-vote, throughout history such has been allowed through far less democratic systems. In fact, it has been proposed that a dictator better allows such when the population is poor and starving than does democracy. Though the benefit of a dictator may be doubted it is none-the-less true that many examples exist where-by non-democratic societies have prospered.
No, one-man-one-vote is not the only ethical resolution. It may be the only resolution under your ethics but as I have shown repeatedly; ethics are totally arbitary. You may consider it the only ethical resolution but many would consider a more ethically acceptable resolution to totally wipe out those whom think otherwise. Ethics is arbitary and thus democracy’s claim to being the only ethical resolution is arbitary also.
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As to republicanism, I am not really fussed either way. The system as present works and to change it would be to induce a vast volume of complexity. I would like to see us move that way eventually but before that we must deal with the issues surrounding ti tiriti. I do, in fact, see a move to a republic as an important part of such resolution; the role of head of state being played by a board of ‘kaitiaki’ appointed by tiriti signatories.
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Sapient, anyone can show anything to themselves, that’s the nature of self-perception (delusion) of logic. Is there any such thing as measurable pure logic, does not imperfect perception provide sufficient ground to question trust in anyones ability to discern pure reason?
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As to the issue of Greens sticking with environment issues – the party arose out of the Values Party – which was not a single issue party. It came to emphasise the importance of the environment.
Republicans, Treaty activists, social justice/human rights activists, social liberals, drug reform activists, economic reform activists, feminists, conservationists etc all had common cause in Values and yet accepted the growing importance of protecting the environment, not to negate other issues but to prioritise one.
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SPC,
Everything that we may claim to know is based on assumption. Even the previous assumption assumes our logic valid; something which, assuming our observations are valid, we know is not always true.
The knowledge that requires the least assumption, however, is the assumption that our logic is valid as all other assumptions are based on this assumption in addition to other assumptions. Thus assumption based purely on logic is that about which we can be most certain; the best approximation of real knowledge. The possibility of flawed logic being something we must live with just as we must live with the possibility that we exist not.
The position which I hold is one that I came to independently but has been come to independently by many since, at least, the time of Socrates. This position has never, in this time, been successfully challenged and has always managed not just to ward off those whom would attempt to show it wrong but has shattered, via logic, those whom would attempt to do so. As far as a theory may be supported this one has been. More so than any other theory to date. More so than any other theoretical theory can even be theoretically supported.
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So you argue that logic is more true than reality, for reality is not known perfectly, and so the one claiming awareness of pure logic possesses the only knowable truth. It’s a point of view I suppose.
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SPC,
I argue that one cannot know that ones logic is valid and that one cannot know that their perception of reality is true. Since the assumption of ones logic being valid is the only assumption in reasoning via pure logic there is less room for error than any assumption as to the nature of the world as that assumption involves both the assumption that ones logic is valid and that ones perceptions are true; thus introducing more potential room for error.
Scientific theories, even when supported by all evidence and put into doubt by none, may be questioned on the grounds of logic and on the grounds of reality. The theory I suggest may only be questioned on the grounds of logic and requires far less inference and assumption.
To know entails justified true belief. While anything may be true we may never justifiably believe anything and thus we have no claim to real knowledge.
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You’ve become more reasonable during this debate and then you get a demerit point. The injustice.
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SPC,
Not more reasonable; same position, more explanation.
I get lots of demerits, I aim for a 1:2-3 ratio.
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Keith you fool.
We currently have the best system. A figure head that doesn’t cost us anything much and is largely uninvolved in our politics, and importantly is at least currently seen to be reasonably capable of being the nearest thing we have to a politically neutral arbiter for when our government way oversteps the line.
Just what do you think it will cost us to equip and fund our own head of state, with a suitably lavish official house, staff, and private army of security, transport etc.
We’ll end up with a partisan head of state with no protections at all (We’d surely need to reintroduce the upper house to restrain both Govt and HoS should they have the same political inclinations.)
Talk about sending the country to hell in a gas guzzling, carbon spewing v8.
Your demented. It ain’t broke, so don’t try to fix it. (Or is “fixing it” your intention).
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There is nothing to stop the Governor General from becoming the agent of our true sovereign the collective of the citizens of our democracy. Name the people sovereign (in place of the Crown) and continue as we are appointing a Governor General as we do now. The Crown continues (made anew inheriting the old estate in full) and so does the office of Governor General as its agent.
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Nonsense DLR. Your arguments are based on logical fallacies.
A figure head that doesn’t cost us anything
Wrong. The Governor-General costs New Zealand taxpayers around $11 million a year, not including upgrades to Government House at around $46 million.
much and is largely uninvolved in our politics,
Indeed the Queen isn’t. She’s not involved at all in our politics, and has never intervened in any of the Commonwealth states she is head of state of… which goes to contradict your next point:
and importantly is at least currently seen to be reasonably capable of being the nearest thing we have to a politically neutral arbiter for when our government way oversteps the line.
If you can give us one example of where the Sovereign has actually intervened when a Government has “stepped over the line” I’d be glad to hear it. No examples or precedents exist – instead there is a litany of coups and broken governments where the Queen was head of state – Pakistan, Sierre Leone, Rhodesia, Grenada, Fiji, the Solomon Islands… the list goes on.
The idea that the Sovereign is a neutral arbiter is a myth. Moreover, since the Prime Minister appoints and can fire the Governor-General, they’re rarely neutral either – you either end up with a Mexican stand-off (as happened in Papua New Guinea) or the Governor-General firing a government with the confidence of the house and forcing an early general election where none is needed (as happened in Australia).
Just what do you think it will cost us to equip and fund our own head of state, with a suitably lavish official house, staff, and private army of security, transport etc.
Our Governor-General already has all of these things – yet costs New Zealand taxpayers more than the President of Ireland ($8 million per year). Wrong again.
We’ll end up with a partisan head of state with no protections at all
Wrong again. The Commonwealth countries that retained their Parliamentary systems of government have remained stable and democratic – it’s the ones who don’t that tend to fall apart. More importantly by electing the head of state, rather than allowing the Prime Minister to choose whoever they want for the role of Governor-General, you’re actually introducing a real check on Government that currently doesn’t exist.
If a head of state were to step over the line, which I doubt since you’re likely to have someone of the same gravitas as a Governor-General take the office, then Parliament could remove them. The threat of such removal would force anyone occupying the office to act in a non-partisan way, but be enabled to intervene (unlike the Governor-General) when a crisis arose.
Talk about sending the country to hell in a gas guzzling, carbon spewing v8.
Err… no.
It ain’t broke, so don’t try to fix it. (Or is “fixing it” your intention).
Nope. The monarchy is broken. Our parliamentary system isn’t. Becoming a republic is about fixing our irrelevant, constitutionally useless head of state.
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What a lot of hot air tonight. Sense a few professional academics in the mix surely.
The current state of play is comparitively benign.
Again, god help us if we ever get a President.
President Banks, Hide, Brash or Key.
Let’s get on with something that is actually important.
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The thing is we can and should cut the cord as soon as possible, but a debate about formalising a new head of state arrangement (whether chosen by 75% parliament vote, or by choice of the Supreme Court, or by a public poll) and associated constitutional change is a matter for some debate and over a process which will take some time – even to just agree on going ahead with such a process.
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Why bother SPC. It’s just intellectualism at it’s worst. Bit like the flag debate….again why bother.
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I would imagine that, given more than 1/3rd support a republic, more than intellectuals support this.
It’s a matter of self-determination and necessary for the development of nation-hood.
Add to that the baggage of the existing system – religious supremacism, male chauvinism, pandering to colonial cringe knighthoods, unmerited leadership over others status from birth which is anathema to democratic sovereignty and equality. These are principles upon which the democracy (over which the corrupt relic sits like some debauched mocking Leviathan) is based and they are slighted by the current system.
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What was the quote along the lines of stuffing about whilst Rome burnt?
Rampant industrial dairying.
The BS about ACC being broke and why it needs to be sold off.
Global warming and Copenhagen
Adult education trashed
Anti-democratic behaviour and the subversion of legal process in the house. Rodney had no right to prejudge Auckland and disenfranchise all Aucklanders.
Privatisation, privatisation, privatisation.
and where on earth in importance does republicanism and monarchism come in all of this. What a waste of time and space when so many more important things could be looked at.
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My proposal in light:
The house of representives stays as it is presently, minus the Maori electoral seats.
An upper house is formed with no ability to propose legislation. This upper house is appointed by the the Maori signatories to te tiriti o watangi and is known as the kaitiaki. The method of appointment of kaitiaki members is entirely at the whim of the afformentioned signatories and may be opened up to non-tiriti signatories and pakeha should the signatories desire such. The kaitiaki has placed with them all the lands and peoples of NZ. The kaitiaki may give or deny ascent to legislation in its role as protector and guardian of the lands and of the peoples. A major role of the kaitiaki would be in preventing discriminatory laws and preventing environmental destruction
A constitutional court is formed tasked with ensuring that no legislation passed by parliment is contradictory to the constitution. This court would also mediate between the Kaitiaki and the parliment in the case of disagreement and would ensure that both were acting within their constitutional boundries.
Legislation may be given ascent even if the kaitiaki vetos it should a super-majority in the house be present or should the constitutional court rule that the kaitiaki is over-stepping its contitutional bounds. Should a super-majority within the kaitiaki choose to veto legislation this may not be over-ruled by a super-majority in parliment in the absence of post-legislative referenda.
The kaitiaki could potentially hold the ability to grant allodial title over a peice of land to a group should that group pay the full value associated with such title. The granting of this title allowing an independant state to be formed.
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What does tangata whenua mean?
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