I heard Dean Knight on the radio the other day talking to Kathryn Ryan about republicanism and it reminded me to do a quick post on Knight’s earlier but excellent blog post about models for an indigenous Head of State in New Zealand. I think Dean’s piece is an excellent primer on the issue of what kind of Head of State you’d want to have. Of real interest is that Knight pulls in arguments from well-respected legal beagles Andrew Ladley and the Palmers about possible options. I am interested in Ladley’s idea of a ’soft republican model’ (i.e. converting the current GG position into Head of State) versus the ‘hard republican model’ (going to whole hog on designing a new Head of State role). Personally, I’d go with the soft republican model if only to advance republicanism and yet minimise the risk of disruption. Our constitution is such an organic and delicately balanced thing, I would be worried about effecting too much change at one time. But that’s me - risk averse.
Tags: republicanism
