No one in New Zealand can be bothered to declare independence

The prime minister of New Zealand, Chris Hipkins, has said he wants his country to end constitutional ties with Britain and become a republic. Speaking just days before he attends the coronation of King Charles, Hipkins said: “Ideally, in time, New Zealand will become a fully independent country, will stand on our own two feet in the world, as we by and large do now.”

Hipkins, who replaced Jacinda Ardern as Labour leader in January, told a press conference in Wellington on Monday that while he imagined it would eventually happen, he was not planning any moves for the country to become a republic. “I’m on record as being a republican. You know, I think I’ve never made any secret of this. But I’ve also indicated it’s not a priority for me. It’s not something I intend to push,” Hipkins said.

New Zealand likes its national identity, but has a latent existential angst about whether it has that identity entirely nailed down

Lest anyone think this is a frank, even bold, admission, or departure from the norm, Hipkins’s remarks in fact amount to a reiteration of the same sentiments Kiwi prime ministers have voiced for years: it is inevitable, but there are no plans; a republic is a certainty, but not a legislative priority. When it comes to being subjects, New Zealanders usually want to get off the subject.

In 2016, former New Zealand prime minister John Key said, “I don’t think there’s any chance New Zealand is going to become a republic anytime soon. In fact, I would be amazed if New Zealand becomes a republic in my lifetime. And I’m hoping to live a long and happy life.”

Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Ardern said that her government would not be initiating any steps toward transitioning New Zealand to a republic. Ardern admitted she thought New Zealand would eventually head down that path, probably within her lifetime, but that there were more pressing issues for her government to contend with.

“There’s been a debate, probably for a number of years,” Ardern said. “It’s just the pace, and how widely that debate is occurring. I’ve made my view plain many times. I do believe that is where New Zealand will head, in time. I believe it is likely to occur in my lifetime. But I don’t see it as a short-term measure or anything that is on the agenda any time soon.”

New Zealanders have quite an independent mindset, but when it comes to the fundamentals, they are wanly reticent and ambivalent about change. They couldn’t even be motivated to change their national flag, despite it being almost indistinguishable from the Australian one. In 2016, voters were asked to choose between a new silver fern flag and the existing one. The final decision was to retain the current one, by a vote of 56.6 percent to 43.1 percent.

The country is in a fairly unique position, given the structure of its founding Treaty of Waitangi. The treaty, signed in 1840, was an agreement between the British Crown and a large number of Māori chiefs. Today it is widely accepted to be a constitutional document that establishes and guides the relationship between the Crown and Māori. New Zealand is self-governing, but the King retains a largely ceremonial role as head of state and is represented there by a governor-general.

In an era of rising post-colonial discourse and imperialist revisionism, this abiding, resilient and practical partnership is an integral part of New Zealand’s republican debate. The Crown has been a partner in decades of settlements with various Māori tribes, so there has always been the spectre of disruption if the Crown were to be removed from the agreements.

Since 1975, when a Waitangi Tribunal was set up to address Māori grievances, successive governments have worked through claims about Crown breaches of the promises given in the treaty. In many instances this has involved commercial and financial redress: a cash payment from the Crown and often the transfer of properties, or a right of first refusal for future land purchases.

In 2018, Jacinda Ardern said, “The most important thing for New Zealand is we have a very special arrangement and relationship via our Treaty of Waitangi, and the relationship between Māori and the Crown, so before any conversation like that occurs, that is something that will need to be resolved within New Zealand.”

The many different facets of the Crown currently at work in the treaty reconciliation processes would be potentially difficult to replicate; replacing the Crown would have to mean designing a constitutional process that gives that relationship its appropriate central place. New Zealand would need a new language of statehood to differentiate between the state, nation, community and the government of the day.

An interesting quirk of this is that, in polling, Māori voters are more likely to support the country becoming a republic than European, or “Pakeha,” voters. It is hard to know though how such sentiments would change if push came to shove, and a proposed alternative constitutional framework were held up to scrutiny.

Preference for retaining the monarchy comes down to a number of things. One is the country’s redoubtable, generally older and more conservative demographic who consider the monarchy intrinsic to national identity. On a simpler level, lots of people like reading about the royal dramas in women’s magazines and retaining the monarchy, by some vaguely contrived association, makes the drama more palpable. At a deeper level still, with New Zealand being a relatively small country, many feel a pleasant twinge of relevance whenever a jetlagged royal ambles about touring a jam factory or inspecting a dialysis machine.

At the deepest level, New Zealand likes its national identity, but has a latent existential angst about whether it has that identity entirely nailed down. For a generation, New Zealand has resided in a liminal, transitional space. The crown remains not so much something esteemed as a kind of adequate enough default, a societal connective tissue, that seems less relevant or relatable in a country that has become more multi-cultural.

Becoming a republic will, as prime ministers John Key, Jacinda Ardern and now Chris Hipkins have stated, probably happen. It’s just that no one’s especially bothered about getting on with it.

This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.