Republicanista

Of course, I am a republican. I don't believe people should hold any job in public life because of who their parents are. It offends me deeply that we have a Crown and not a People as our symbolic point of reference.

So I was pleased at this morning's Dom Post editorial, and pleased that Republican Movement people had a banner to make a point at the Supreme Court's opening yesterday. 

I would like to see us have a commission look into all the details that would be needing sorting should we have a republic, and a broad public conversation followed by a couple of referenda to make a call, somewhere around the middle of this decade.

The hardest question is whether we clip on a republican look to our monarchial constitution, or whether we have a more thoroughgoing look at the bonds of citizenship and affection that bind us together as a political community - and the role of the Treaty relationship in that new republic.

Just because a question is hard does not mean it should be ducked, so I am glad that the issue's on the table once more.

- Jordan

Comments

[Rob Davies]

Agreed. But how many important conversations can this country have at any one time? The government has made sure that next year, as well as an election, there'll be a forced defence of proportional representation, a debate that goes to the heart of our system of government.

I won't take the easy way out, as John Key has done, by jabbering on about the "organic" nature of this country's drift toward republican seas; I reckon it'll happen sooner rather than later. But I don't think it'll be a romp and I'm not sure I have the energy to promote republicanism as well as MMP.

I am a coward though. And I guess your post is hardly a call to arms. But I wouldn't think it would happen before the start of the next decade. Would it?

[Manu Caddie]

Have you guys posted m/any blogs about your views on MMP?

[Clint Heine]

I don't trust our politicians to change it Jordan. Both sides would meddle with it to suit themselves. Especially if they decided to replace the GG with a President.

[GNZ]

It will just be a expensive process to take a big risk of doing somthing very stupid just to make a inconcequential statement on inherited positions.