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Thoughts on Monarchy

Entry 2236, on 2022-09-09 at 13:03:29 (Rating 2, Politics)

I'm no royalist and I don't like the concept of monarchy, but I would freely admit that Elizabeth II did a great job as Queen. I think it is possible to admire a person without necessarily agreeing with that person's role, and despite incredible pressure from numerous crises and changes in the underlying way the world works, she always seemed to be disciplined and dignified while still showing elements of humour and warmth.

OK, so that is my "nice" introduction, because it is not good to speak uncharitably about people who have just died, especially those who have wide support from so many. But it seems unlikely that Charles III will be viewed with the same level of admiration as the Queen was, so it is logical to ask: where to from here?

Elizabeth II was officially head of state of New Zealand, and even though that was primarily a ceremonial role only, it still had significant symbolic importance. The question now is, do we want to continue to have a hereditary leader from the opposite side of the world as our head of state, especially if Charles doesn't turn out to be quite as inspiring as the late Queen?

It might seem somewhat lacking in compassion to be talking about this so soon after the Queen's death, but this might be exactly the time we should be looking at the issue. Actually, maybe we should give it a month or two so that the initial sadness that many people are experiencing has worn off a bit and the subject seems a bit less ghoulish.

New Zealand is in the minority of previous British colonies in not converting to a republic or similar state structure. We are in good company though, with modern, well governed countries like Australia and Canada also being in that minority group. Of course, when I say "well governed" that shouldn't be interpreted as meaning I am a big fan of leaders like Justin Trudeau, but I mean those countries are politically and economically stable, and not subject to significant hardship through famine, war, or civil unrest.

So which model should we follow? Do we want a president, like the US and many other countries? Well, looking at the quality of presidents around the world it might be tempting so say no, but at least presidents have a greater commitment to the country they preside over, and actually live there instead of about as far away as you can get. And, of course, presidents are elected - theoretically on merit - so the people have some choice over who it is, rather than having a leader inflicted on them merely through the accident of that person being born into a particular family.

We shouldn't let the good job the Queen has done fool us into thinking that having a monarch as head of state is a good idea. It's quite possible that if we had anyone else in that role we would have rejected the monarchy and become a republic already. And it is possible that Charles will be a good king, although I doubt it. It's likely that he won't do anything too stupid, but that is a different thing from being an inspiring leader.

The US famously has three sections of government where we effectively have only one. Basically, New Zealand is a unicameral legislature. The reason the US has a more complex system is so that one part of government can't gain excessive power because the other two will prevent anything too radical being enacted. The fact that even a maverick leader like Trump didn't go completely out of control shows the stabilising effect of this system.

But here in New Zealand there is a substantial amount of discussion around how our current government is carrying out several anti-democratic actions, and how many of those were not part of their announced policies at the previous election. This government is, to some extent, out of control, and a bicameral system might have moderated this.

In fact, thanks to our electoral system, we usually have a moderating influence built-in, because - except for the current one - we have never had a government formed from just one party since we implemented the MMP electoral system. Looking back, we can see how New Zealand First controlled some of Labour's more extreme ideas in the previous government. Of course, NZ First is a centrist party, and this can go the other way too. If the next government is a coalition of Labour, and radical parties like the Greens, and the Maori Party then I dread to think what sort of crazy stuff could happen.

So we need a way to control the power of government, and the monarchy had no real role in that, although there was the one case where Gough Whitlam's Australian government was dismissed by the Crown. But that involved a quite extreme situation, and is never likely to happen again, so what alternatives exist?

We could set up a system similar to what the US has, or maybe we should look more towards what Switzerland has, where referenda can be called for any significant change which might be opposed by the people. These referenda seem to occur a few times each year, and have quite good participation - often over 50%. I don't know the details of the Swiss system, so I am not suggesting we copy it completely, but it seems to me that binding referenda are the most democratic way to support or reject radical change.

Of course, many will say that referenda just give the "ignorant rabble" a chance to put their poorly informed opinions into action, but that sort of already happens when they vote, and surely the majority - ignorant or not - should be in control in a properly functioning democracy.

I like simplicity, so I propose a few basic changes which could make the government here better without making massive adjustments to the system...

First, remove the British monarch as head of state, but don't replace them with anything new. The role is basically symbolic only, so it doesn't really need to exist, and an office similar to the current governor-general could take that place, just for ceremonial purposes. We are not a British colony any more, and as an independent country we should have our own government, not borrow someone else's.

Second, get rid of the threshold where new parties have to reach 5% of the vote before they gain any representatives in parliament. Sure, you might get the odd "crazy" voted in as a result, but it also gives sensible new parties a chance to gain a fair place in government, even if it is just as an opposition party. And it increases diversity of perspective, and everyone thinks diversity is good, right?

This should also give smaller parties more support, because many people now don't vote for small parties since they don't think they will reach the threshold. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy: voters don't think the party will reach the threshold, so they don't vote for them, so they don't reach the threshold.

With more smaller parties in the mix we get more diversity of opinion, more smaller parties involved in coalitions, and the big parties will have less ability to carry out poorly considered policies without much resistance.

Third, we need a way for the public to stop out of control governments - and I would include the current government in this category - from acting against the wishes of the majority. Currently this can be done at the next election, but a lot of damage can be done during the three years a party is in power, and many policies can be difficult to reverse, even after a different government comes into power.

The obvious way to do this is with binding referenda. These don't need to cost much if they are done on-line (more on that later) and frivolous examples of these could be prevented by requiring a petition which 10% of the voters have signed to initiate a referendum, or something similar.

I think, if we had this in place, several current government actions could be stopped, and more critically, the people in power probably wouldn't have even proposed them in the first place, because they would know they will be vetoed through the referendum process.

For those who say on-line voting is problematic, I say sure it is, but so is any other form of voting. Most people do banking on-line now, and if they trust that to the internet, surely a mere election shouldn't be too hard. And people with no computer or other device could just go to polling booths like we have now to vote. This would be so much simpler since it would involve only a small proportion of voters, not them all like it does currently.

We already have referenda now, but they are non-binding and only happen at general elections. By making them more straightforward and frequent people would soon get used to having a genuine say in how the country is run, and maybe some of the cynicism we currently see regarding politics might be reduced.

So it seems to me that we have an opportunity to do things better. Sure it is a big change, and we have to wonder will it be accepted? But we switched to a new voting system in the 1990s here and that has been largely accepted. Although there are definitely some people who would prefer to go back to the old system, ironically they are often the same ones complaining about the excessive power the government currently has, which in every other election has been reduced by MMP.

So it can be done, and I think we should start planning soon. Get Elizabeth's funeral out of the way first though, otherwise it might seem like it is in kind of bad taste!

Comment 1 (7296) by Allan on 2022-09-10 at 19:42:17:

Had you considered that perhaps we should take advantage of making the Maori King/Queen our head of state?

Comment 2 (7297) by OJB on 2022-09-10 at 20:28:22:

No I hadn't considered that. Never likely to, either!

Comment 3 (7298) by Ken Spall on 2022-09-11 at 08:23:29:

I see no reason why we can’t make changes to our form of government, such as citizens referenda, and still have the king as a symbolic head of state. I also think a formal binding (without racial favouritism) constitution should be considered.

Comment 4 (7299) by OJB on 2022-09-11 at 11:07:14:

Well sure, of course we could do that, but why would we? Does the British monarch really have any relevance to us any more? On the other hand, I do have to say that there is a danger in changing our government structure: more recognition of the Treaty of Waitangi (actually whatever BS they can dream up which isn't even in the Treaty) for example. Maybe we are better off to stick with what we have!

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