We often hear that by becoming a republic, we’ll end up with a “poiticised” head of state. Experience throughout the Commonwealth shows us that this isn’t the case.
Like many others this argument relies on presupposing the kind of republic New Zealanders will choose. In general, supporters of the monarchy mean one of four things when they argue the head of State in a republic will become “politicised”:
That the head of state will have wide executive powers (as in Presidential republics);
That the head of state will be a current or former member of Parliament (the “President John Key” argument);
That the head of state will interfere with the day-to-day running of the government, in a partisan way (for example, a head of state associated with the Labour Party might somehow frustrate a National Government’s legislative program).
That the head of state will have a policy agenda.
Supporters of the monarchy claim the office of Governor-General is ‘non-political’. What they actually mean is that the Governor-General is ‘non-partisan’. The Governor-General is a non-partisan political role.
The office is part of the political and constitutional structure of a country and is therefore ‘political’. It is ‘non-partisan’ in that, by long established convention, it cannot show favour to any one political party or group. It’s worth remembering that the same argument was made in the 1960s against appointing a New Zealand citizen as Governor-General: the public feared that a local Governor-General would mean partisan decisions when it came to the reserve powers. That hasn’t been the case.
Governors-General are appointed by the Government of the day, and so their appointment is always a political decision. Appointees often have links to the Prime Minister of the day. Despite these political appointments no-one has ever argued that the appointments were failures. The appointees all upheld the neutrality of the office. A New Zealand citizen is more than capable of upholding these conventions as head of state.
It is highly unlikely that New Zealanders will choose a presidential republic, or a US-style presidency. The office represents the state above and beyond changes in Government. The person who fulfils the role will be expected to act with great mana and dignity.
If we don’t want to have a sitting MP or former Prime Minister as head of state, then we can easily put rules in place to prevent it. For example, when Barbados became a republic in 2021, their legislative changes included provisions preventing sitting or former members of parliament from being elected to the position of head of state. Aotearoa could easily do the same.