Editorial: Thoughts on a native head of state

The visit of Prince Charles over the past five days attracted more attention than most recent royal calls, the Queen's excepted. The interest no doubt had more to do with his wedding announcement than any revival of monarchist sympathy, but there might be a connection. The Prince's decision to marry Camilla Parker Bowles has not attracted the antagonism here it appears to have aroused in some quarters of Britain, and the difficulties of law and protocol that dog the wedding arrangements seem ridiculous at this distance. Perhaps that was the reason the couple timed the announcement for the eve of his Commonwealth tour. It is a pity he did not bring her along.

It is obvious to all the world now that the Prince of Wales is doing what he ought to have done 30 years ago, before his marriage to the late Princess Diana and all that followed. And it is quite possible that in taking that step, the Prince will revive the monarchy somewhat from the damage it suffered during the unedifying collapse of his first marriage and the response to Diana's death. With his decision to marry Camilla, the Prince has challenged some of the rules of England's royal tradition and he may have to overcome a few more before the wedding is over. He will manage that, and the monarchy will be better for it.

The interesting question for countries such as New Zealand is: what else might Charles change when he takes the throne? He will be aware of the feeling in countries such as this that it is time we had an indigenous head of state. Writing in the Herald on Tuesday, Chris Laidlaw recalled an after-dinner conversation in which the Prince understood that view and agreed that it would be much more sensible. According to Laidlaw the Prince remarked that the last thing he wanted was to be drawn into constitutional disputes in New Zealand or anywhere else and he could not imagine having to dismiss a New Zealand Prime Minister.

Nor could New Zealanders nowadays imagine any such thing. If the day comes, as it did once in Australia, that the head of state needs to resolve a political crisis, the decision should and would be taken in the office of the Governor-General. In fact, if not yet in law, the Governor-General is the head of state and it would seem a relatively simple matter to formalise the arrangement. It is likely that Charles as King would be happy to relinquish the title head of state of the former dominions. It is conceivable he would initiate the change.

At that point the republican debate would be settled - and settled without the pitfalls of a referendum. Australia's experience suggests that when the replacement of the monarch is put to a public vote, it will fail unless it is to be replaced by an elected position. That at least is the belief of republicans after the electorate there rejected a proposal to replace the monarch with a head of state appointed by Parliament. They now want a referendum that offers an elected head of state. They seem not always to realise the implications.

An elected position is inevitably a political position. It becomes a public contest that competing political philosophies would want to win. Parties would promote candidates and run campaigns. And it will happen that the head of state is elected on quite a different mandate from the elected Government. What happens then? It is a recipe for instability.

An elected presidency can work where it has executive powers and those are fairly clearly separated from the legislature, as in the United States. But those who want to graft an elected figurehead on to a Westminster parliamentary system do not suggest executive powers for the office. They simply want a home-grown head of state, a constitutional and ceremonial symbol who would be one of us. That can be done quite satisfactorily by appointment, as the Governor-General is chosen now. It would not take much to convert that post to head of state and it could be done in a way that preserves something of the heritage the royals represent. Visits such as Prince Charles has made could happily continue.