Will New Zealand Inevitably Become a Republic, ‘Just as Britain Will Be Blurred into Europe’?

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn pushing for a republic, then prime minister of New Zealand, Jim Bolger, once stated that ‘the tide of history is moving in one direction’; more recently, former prime minister and self-confessed monarchist, John Key, described republicanism as inevitable, though unlikely to be realised in his lifetime. However, while this idea that republicanism is inevitable appears to transcend the political divide, it lacks popular support from the public and remains a marginal political discourse. In this paper the author challenges this sense of certainty through a discussion of organised republicanism in New Zealand. The author raises questions for the republican project that tend to lie outside the parameters of debate: how do republicans approach the symbolic dimensions of republicanism? What would a move to a republic mean for the Crown? Does changing the head of state have implications for the Treaty of Waitangi? How well does republicanism evoke national values and identity? Without confronting these challenges, republicanism is by no means a certain thing.