One of the common arguments against change you’ll hear is “The Queen has no power, so why worry?”. It’s an oft-repeated statement that assumes the impetus behind our campaign for a New Zealand citizen as head of state is some kind of major constitutional reform, driven by a misunderstanding of the status quo. Recently I’ve come across this argument in a thread on our Instagram feed, which became circular very fast: sure, the Queen has “no power” in the strictly constitutional sense. That’s not the point though.
When it comes to Aotearoa, the Queen’s only constitutional activity, appointing the Governor-General on the advice of the Prime Minister, is bound by centuries of slowly developed constitutional conventions. It’s the Governor-General who performs all of the donkey work of New Zealand’s head of state, and for that reason, we describe them as our de facto (in practice, but not in law) head of state. Legally, the Governor-General’s ability to bestow executive power on the Prime Minister is derived from the monarch. In that sense, the Queen is all-powerful and a plain reading of our core constitutional documents (such as the Letters Patent 1983 or Constitution Act 1986) creates a lot of misunderstanding.
“....a Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief who shall be Our representative in Our Realm of New Zealand, and shall have and may exercise the powers and authorities conferred on him by these Our Letters Patent, but without prejudice to the office, powers, or authorities of any other person who has been or may be appointed to represent Us in any part of Our Realm of New Zealand and to exercise powers and authorities on Our behalf.”
As the Cabinet Manual outlines, the core principle of our system is democracy, and therefore the “Queen reigns, the government rules, so long as it has the support of the House of Representatives.” So while in documents such as the Letters Patent or Constitution Act the Sovereign may appear all-powerful, constitutional reality is that power now resides with an elected parliament.
Why then worry about the Queen’s constitutional power? The answer is, we don’t. The issue with the British monarch as our head of state is mainly about the “soft” power that that entails, that is largely its symbolism: in a nutshell, we’re an independent country yet have someone else’s head of state as ours. In the British context, it’s clear the Queen and the Royal family has used their residual powers - again mainly “soft” powers - to protect their interests.
The classic example was the Scottish independence referendum of 2014, where the British government used the Queen to influence the vote. More recently it’s been revealed that the British parliamentary process known as the “Queen’s Consent” has been used to influence legislation that affects the Royals financial interests. And that’s just what we know about. We also know, thanks to The Palace Letters, that at the very least the Queen knew about Australia’s governor-general, Sir John Kerr, was thinking about sacking the Prime Minister and did nothing to dissuade or caution him; at the very worst the Queen, through her private secretary, advised Kerr on what course of action he could take.
The Queen’s soft powers are just part of the reason we believe New Zealand ought to have a citizen as head of state.