KEY POINTS:
Mike Moore is absolutely right; except where he is completely wrong. He has identified a serious issue facing New Zealand today.
However, the solution he proposes to this problem is fallacious and dangerous. Recent constitutional changes have indeed been based on political expediency, ideological agendas, and an ironic desire to do what Australia does.
No one with the best interests of Aotearoa at heart could support changes based on such divisive or ill-conceived ideas. He is right to worry that the great constitutional structure of our country is being undermined.
However, his recognition of this problem seems to have triggered in him a panicked response. He proposes that to combat the erosion of our constitution, New Zealanders ought to deliberately abandon it. The baby and the bathwater are both headed for the window!
In reality, developing a new, republican constitution will only further the very problems he raises in his article.
Moore's desire to see measured, deliberate change is rational and sensible. Unfortunately, if the changes desired by those in power are dangerous, whether they are implemented slowly or quickly is of little concern.
The supporters of a New Zealand republic in the present Government have shown us, by their actions as much as their words, what their republic would look like. They have surreptitiously and systematically dismantled key elements of our constitution to create a new structure of government which the public does not support and which will give politicians extraordinary power.
New Zealanders should not be under any illusion. Moves to republicanism have been made with stealth.
To date we have seen the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council, and the renaming of "Queens Counsels" to the meaningless title "Senior Counsel".
The General Salute of the armed forces has been taken away from the Governor-General and assumed by the Prime Minister. Even the portraits of our Head of State have been removed from our overseas embassies.
Each underhanded change has been justified with the absurd claim that the removal of our current constitutional monarchy will make New Zealand a more open and mature society. Such changes show a slow grab for power, and a disregard for tradition and democratic values.
While Moore thinks a constitution and republic would solve this dismantling, it is much more likely that the new constitution would merely codify these very tendencies. In the Government's continuing grasp for power, as shown for example, in their restriction of free speech through the Electoral Finance Bill, we can see the inherent problems a republic would bring.
Republics do not prevent these abuses, they legitimise them. A constitution freezes the thinking and prejudices of those who wrote them.
In the US thousands of people die because the outdated "right of the people to keep and bear arms" is in their constitution. It was included with the best of intentions, and may even have made sense two centuries ago. However, it now gives gun supporters tremendous legitimacy in that country.
The sacrosanct American Constitution is seen as largely infallible. This is an error made by many supporters of a written constitution. Written constitutions are designed to be inflexible; if they are easily amendable, they are self-defeating.
The people who are destroying the present constitutional conventions are the very people who would be spearheading any new republican constitution. Is the duplicity and underhanded methods they have displayed to date the sort of principles we would like to thrust upon future New Zealanders?
Mike Moore's belief that a written constitution will stop abuses of power by the Government is ridiculous. Governments around the world intent on abusing their authority amend their constitutions, or simply ignore them. A constitution has no soldiers with which to enforce its principles against the Government.
Moore is right about the need to end the erosion of our constitutional principles. However, to do so requires all New Zealanders to better understand their current constitutional arrangements.
This country has been blessed with 150 years of democracy and stability. The system which delivered it is strong and resilient.
Instead of rejecting it, we should re-claim it, and all the benefits such a monarchical system brings. In a republic, stability is replaced by the rigidity of a written constitution. In our current system, stability grows from the flexibility of the structure.
It is a stability compatible with the gradual evolution Moore supports. The threats to our constitutional structure so far do not warrant a change to a republic or a formal constitution. Instead, they highlight the need for us to protect and promote the system that has brought us so much good for so long.
In his sensible desire to avoid a banana republic, Moore would have us create a lemon. New Zealanders would be wise to reject both.
* Sean Palmer is completing a doctorate in political studies on the monarchy and the implications of a shared head of state at AUT. Simon O'Connor has a background in political philosophy and an interest in constitutional issues.
