Republicanism

The SST comments favourably upon the Maori Queen’s relevance to Maoridom, and contrasts it with the NZ/British Monrachy:

The Queen of New Zealand is an absentee sovereign whose continued role in our affairs is absurd, even grotesque. She represents inherited power and privilege, gross inequality and the provocations of primogeniture and the silver spoon.

Because Te Ata’s is a purely Maori institution, Pakeha do not need to take any position about its future. They do, however, need to decide the future of their own monarch. Only inertia and a kind of ossified sentimentality prevent us from doing so – and the lack of a courageous politician to lead the charge. In the meantime, the Pakeha monarchy will continue to die by degrees, through a slow decay of sentiment and a growing realisation that British aristocrats have no place in our constitution.

Naturally, I agree.