The Britishness of the monarchy is one of its major staying powers in New Zealand. Why is this? Opinion polling clearly demonstrates that a large segment of the public still sees the monarchy as intertwined with our relationship with the UK, our cultural identity and the very idea of our country as an independent state. Around one-third of New Zealanders, (not surprisingly the same proportion who support a republic according to a number of opinion polls) understand that a republic has little to no impact on our actual contemporary relationship with the UK - while a number of British government officials really wish we wouldn’t hang on to their institutions.
The “Britishness” of the monarchy in New Zealand is denied by the official campaigners to keep the monarchy, who instead focus on the fact that legally, the monarchy is now separate in New Zealand (and the other “Commonwealth realms”). While this is absolutely true legally, it is undeniably false culturally, and perhaps more importantly to a significant proportion of the voting public.
Lord Ashcroft asked a number of questions along these lines in his excellent Unchartered Realms polling on the monarchy in May this year, published just before the coronation of Charles III. As you can see above, a large number of New Zealanders - 41% - think that without the monarchy, our relationship with Britain would be weakened, while a sizeable number - 34% think it would make no difference. Lord Ashcroft asked a further question - whether the monarchy makes the public in New Zealand feel warmer towards the UK. The results were instructive: 65% said yes, the monarchy makes them feel warmer, while 35% said less warm. This is a clear sign a significant proportion of the support for the monarchy comes from positive feelings the British monarchy creates towards the United Kingdom:
Many will recall from polling during the New Zealand flag referendum campaign that unsurprisingly a large number of people actually questioned why New Zealand would want to see itself as independent, despite this being the legal reality.
Polling from UMR in February 2016 before the second flag referendum showing significant proportions of the electorate did not think New Zealand is an independent sovereign nation and not a British colony.
This earlier polling confirms Lord Ashcroft’s polling in that a significant proportion of respondents to the question of New Zealand’s independence disagreed with the statement that as an independent sovereign nation, it was time to change the flag. Not only does a chunk of the public think that a republic compromises our relationship with the United Kingdom, but they actively don’t believe New Zealand should be independent, or at least see itself as such. The simple fact is our relationship isn’t built on the British monarch being our head of state, so it would not change.
The lack of change in our relationship with the UK should New Zealand become a republic is what British diplomats (including the UK’s High Commissioner to New Zealand no less) have been saying for some time - that there would not be a change in our relationship with the United Kingdom, and that doing so would not change any of the key elements of the relationship - visas, free trade and our (limited) defence ties.
We would go further - a New Zealand citizen as our head of state would signal the maturing of our relationship with our former colonial power. An acceptance of the legal, defence and geopolitical reality that Aotearoa is now independent of Britain and does not need the token link of the monarchy to the United Kingdom.
Privately, we know that the British government would rather they could make greater use of the British Royal family as a “soft power” for the United Kingdom. That is the sole purpose of Royal public relations tours. The so-called “realms” complicate this by ensuring the Foreign and Commonwealth Office must tip-toe around issues specific to each realm, trying to prevent (often unsuccessfully) difficult issues of colonialism and indigenous or slavery compensation from being raised.
Take the “apology” by Queen Elizabeth II to the Waikato-Tainui iwi in New Zealand as an example - the Queen only signed into law the act of our parliament that contained the apology, which was itself delivered by the Governor-General. Tainui wanted the apology to be delivered “Queen to Queen”, but because of the other Commonwealth realms - with their own issues of indigenous rights to deal with - the British government made it clear that this would not be possible.
The simple fact is that the British monarchy is, well, British. And that means that first and foremost the institution represents Britain to the world. Further to that, a significant chunk of the New Zealand public actually likes the institution for that fact, and the apparent relationship with the UK that flows from that. There is plenty more that could be said about what that tells us about New Zealand’s maturity as an independent state, our poor regard for ourselves and the insecurities that go with it. But for now it’s worth remembering that fundamentally, support for the status quo is based on a misunderstanding of the realities we face in the world today - for that reason alone, we should change.