In 1994, the Privy Council held:
“The obligations of Her Majesty, the Queen of England, under the Treaty are now those of the Crown in right of New Zealand.”
This significant decision made clear that despite the Treaty of Waitangi being signed by a representative of the British Crown, by 1994 the party to the Treaty was the “Crown in right of New Zealand.” In the years following New Zealand’s adoption of the 1931 Statute of Westminster in 1947, we slowly created a legally separate Crown in right of New Zealand.
In a recent interview with Woman magazine, the outgoing Governor-General has asserted (again) that:
“…the way our country was founded with a coming together of the Crown and Māori in the Treaty of Waitangi, the Crown is represented by my earliest predecessor, Governor Hobson and that connection has continued”.
Only the connection hasn’t continued, and the Privy Council’s ruling demonstrates that. The same is true with becoming a republic. As Professor Philip Joseph remarked earlier this year:
"Were New Zealand to become a republic under a new head of state, the above sequence [from the Privy Council] would simply be repeated. The obligations and responsibilities initially undertaken by the Crown in 1840 would pass from the Crown in right of New Zealand to the new head of state in the republic."
It seems the Privy Council’s ruling should be required reading for future Governors-General.