Quing's birthday weekend

"While I am definitely keen on us making the move [to a republic] as soon as practical, there are national conversations we need to have first, and one of those is around what we do about having "head of state" (a.k.a. king, queen or president). I question what we actually need a separate head of state - particularly an elected one - for at all.

The most common suggestion is simply to transfer the duties to the "Governor General" - a title which is already a misnomer as it has had no relevance to the actual governing of the country in decades. The responsibilities as they stand are purely ceremonial/diplomatic/social and actually I would be fine with the idea of codifying that as a (suitably titled) position for conveying and upholding the mana all peoples of Aotearoa on the public stage, as long as it doesn't become just another plum political appointment for MPs who are past their use by date."

Full post at my Dreamwidth journal