I don’t have anything against the Royals, other than that they are representatives of a medieval lineage of elitism that has no place in the modern world, but apart from that, my boredom with them eclipses any social justice rage.
It’s sad that Will and Harry lost their Mum as tragically as they did, and their antics have entertained us for a couple of decades, but to me they are a polite obligation ignored for the most part because there are many other issues that demand our attention.
It is the distraction value of a Royal visit months before an election that is most annoying, If only John Key would welcome the 285 000 NZ children in poverty with as much urgency as he was meeting Baby George yesterday. Managing to borrow billions for the wealthy in tax cuts while selling off half our energy assets demands more criticism in an election year than giving Key puff piece coverage of him grinning inanely next to Kate, Will & George.
The only Royal in NZ is Lorde. Long live that Queen.
In terms of a Republic, my honest appraisal is that NZ as a culture is simply too juvenile to become a Republic. I think the loss of the Privy Council highlighted this.
The Privy Council was a British based external review of law that had exhausted all other options. The loss of it as our highest court in the land was a mistake in my opinion. The cases that are so egregious that the injustice of it sparks such passion to push the case up happens while those who caused the miscarriage of justice build their own careers within that system. We are so small a country, that it makes real justice against those gatekeepers who have risen through the ranks far more difficult. The interests become vested and the demands of justice ignored.
Take the Teina Pora case. The evidence is so overwhelming that the Police bullied a naive young brown kid into a confession that the only issue now at stake is how the Police manage to sidestep any responsibility for pinning the murder on a suspect they knew could never have done it.
Teina Pora’s case isn’t about justice, it’s about arse covering. The cops themselves know they went well beyond what they should have because after this case, the interview processes were changed so that nothing like this could happen again.
Teina Pora’s case shows what happens when the vested interests of the Police are allowed to outweigh justice. We are too small a country to sort it out amongst ourselves without the inherent bias of the status quo coming into play.
Where is the justice in that?
A court beyond the vested interests of those doing the prosecuting gave one final hope that even the most vested of interests couldn’t impact the final word and spirit of the law. The Lundy case will be its final example.
A clumsy defiant step towards Republicanism however is the kind of fist pumping self congratulatory hubris driven optimism of those with 4 or more rental properties standing around their gleaming $10 000 BBQs on their lifestyle block, so expect it within a decade.
We’re on the same page, Martyn, Baby George is even more boring than Boy George and putting the Privy Council in the privy was a pile of poo.
I doubt the royalist movement will die off any time soon, but if it does why can’t we just have a local monarch, as we already have a Maori King, and what about the leaders of iwi; can’t they be considered our lords and ladies (as after all the Maori were here first)? Of course, there is the idea we could become a republic and do away with a connection to the UK that is truly only cultural, as the days of the British Empire are over – as India determined when it dropped the monarchy and became a republic many years ago.
Notice Kate wore Red…Labour should capitalise on that.
She wore red to compensate for the fact that the rest of the monarchy are as Tory as John Key and the rest of the rich oligarchy in New Zealand the likes of Michelle Boag et al, who can afford $5,000 a meal fund-raisers at Antoine’s
p.s. Miss ‘Lorde’ said she loved the royal family Martyn.
Can you point to any decision in particular where the bench on Supreme Court have exhibited signs that they shared the same “vested interests of those doing the prosecuting”?
If anything, the decisions in Morse and large aspects of the Urewera 4 decision demonstrate the opposite. And I have no doubt that the Privy Council would have come to the same decision in the Dotcom case.
The real injustice here is in the refusal of the Governor-General on the advice of the Minister of Justice to pardon Pora.
Slight edit, what I should have said was the refusal of the Justice Minister to recommend to the GG that Pora be pardoned.
“NZ as a culture is simply too juvenile to become a Republic”. Yup, I have to agree.
Also, becoming a republic entails deciding how the head of state would be chosen. There seem to be only two possible methods: a contested election (groan) or an old mate shoulder-tapped by the PM. What a helluva choice. I prefer the status quo until we all grow up a bit. Great TV shot yesterday of three elderly royalty-obsessed women sitting in a bus shelter out of the weather – wind, rain and fog – made me think of the opening scene from Macbeth!
“A clumsy defiant step towards Republicanism however is the kind of fist pumping self congratulatory hubris driven optimism of those with 4 or more rental properties standing around their gleaming $10 000 BBQs on their lifestyle block, so expect it within a decade.”
I can just see it now, all the family wearing Huffer t-shirts, listening to Dobbyn’s greatest hits, while the Silver Fern flutters on the flagpole at the end of the deck …. nauseating.
Thankfully this royal visit is too far out from thev election to really make much difference for Key and his mates and most people will have forgotten it by then!
Wow, some excellent points Martyn, particularly on the Privy Council.
We don’t need the Privy Council of Law Lords or performing seals or whatever they are. We could do as well, or better, with a Law Council of Aotearoa (or something) of 5 or so members, elected by ourselves from candidates who have distinguished themselves in the practice of law. Peter Williams would be an obvious candidate. Arthur Taylor would be another. Annette Sykes would be great.
If we don’t cut the apron strings and start thinking about how to run our own country, we’ll always be too immature.
As for Teina Pora, no matter how much interview procedures are changed, ngati poaka will continue to fit people up until the consequences for themselves become unthinkable. Poaka involved in the Pora prosecution should be sentenced to periods of incarceration beginning with the length of Teina’s sentence. After all, it they’re honest little poaka, there’s nothing for them to worry about, right?
I have a very simple plan which would make future royal visits to our country even more popular: it’s called the PYOW plan. All the said royal would need to do would be to get out the old credit card and get on the internet. They’d find a lovely variety of tours and accommodation available, some of it ‘top class’. They could hire a pretty flash car, even with a driver if they so wished. I’m sure they’d get a few dinner invites from the PM and suchlike, but inbetween freebies there are a multitude of fine restaurants and cafes. These days you could probably even hire a planner to organise the whole thing for you.
I can vouch that the Pay Your Own Way plan works – I’ve used it all my life.
How much relevance does the royal family have for me? None whatsoever. But it’s clearly a photo-op for John Key and that’s all that matters to him. When is the last time he did a photo-op with a poor family in South Auckland??
I wonder if William and Kate have to shower after each photo op with our Prime Minister? The feeling of being used by him must be over-powering ,surely.
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