the monarchy

Harry from Waikanae

Now that the queen is dead it is definitely time for new zealand to dump the monarchy and become a republic.

Republican movement spreads

There are now 54 member states of the Commonwealth, but just 15 of those still have the monarch as their head of state.

They include Australia, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands, The Bahamas and Tuvalu and the UK.

The republican movement appears to be especially strong in the Caribbean, with the Bahamas' former attorney general Sean McWeeney stating last year that it was "inevitable" the nation would follow Barbados' lead.

Also last year, Belize's Minister Constitutional and Political Reform, Henry Charles Usher, reportedly told parliament: "Perhaps it is time for Belize to take the next step in truly owning our independence. But it is a matter that the people of Belize must decide on."

The Albanese government has committed to exploring the option of becoming a republic in its second term, with staunch republican and Assistant Minister for the Republic Matt Thistlethwaite telling A Current Affair earlier this year that "many Australians now believe that the time is right".

"We will begin the discussion during this term and hopefully, if that is successful, we can look to move towards an Australian head of state in our second and hopefully third terms of government," Thistlethwaite said.

Support for the monarchy has unassailably been falling. In May, 62 per cent of Britons said they thought the country should continue to have a monarchy, down from 73 per cent in 2012. Drill down. Look at the 18-24-year-old demographic and that figure falls to a precarious 33 per cent with a nearly equal number (31 per cent) reporting that they think the UK should have an elected head of state. Only just over half of Brits surveyed (56 per cent) said they thought the institution was good for the nation, a drop from 67 per cent a decade earlier. This year's polling also found that only roughly a half of respondents, 57 per cent, were proud of the monarchy But the royal family that awakens on Friday is one led by an untested King of middling popularity, with a queen who was once known as Britain's most hated woman, a family divided by a toxic feud and which has been buffeted by allegations of sex abuse. For King Charles III, , in Commonwealth countries like Australia the murmurings of the Republican movement are likely to become increasingly clamorous. There is, most obviously, the fact that the new Head of State, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith and Head of the British Armed Services is a man who, for decades, was simply not that well-liked.

Should New Zealand become a republic?

Former Australian prime minister Paul Keating has renewed the debate across the ditch, calling for his home country to become a republic.

Keating said in an interview that for Australia to "wait for Prince Charles to inherit this throne" was "deeply sick".

"What, are we going to end up with Charles and Camilla? For God's sake - we don't need [Prince William] and his lovely wife as our heads of state ... it would be a spoof, it's a spoof on everything we've tried to do with ourselves to get this far in our history."

Following a meeting with Prince Charles in 2013, former Prime Minister Helen Clark also suggested New Zealand should become a republic.

She said it would become increasingly "quaint" for New Zealand to have its head of state based elsewhere.





12 September 2022

A new poll shows New Zealanders' support for a republic growing, with most Kiwis saying they want to ditch the monarchy.

The poll, commissioned by NZ Republic, surveyed more than 1000 people over 18.

A large majority, 59 percent, said they were in favour of a New Zealand Head of State, while just 34 percent said stay with the Queen.