It does beg the question: has our nominal head of state and her now-extensive family been reduced to the role of elaborate sideshow, kept purely for ritual and entertainment value, or is having a royal family of some greater intrinsic worth to us as New Zealanders?
Most Māori would probably say it was, if only because "the Crown" is the entity their ancestors signed the Treaty of Waitangi with. And just as those old chiefs saw themselves making an agreement with Queen Victoria herself, so Te Tiriti is generally seen as something which arches above mere colonial politics.
But this is a fiction, especially as Britain's highest court, the Privy Council, is no longer New Zealand's highest court.
And since the reigning monarch can no longer (with very limited exceptions) intervene in parliamentary business or the making and breaking of laws, any "appeal" to Her Majesty is a theatrical, not actionable, gesture. At best she might refer the matter back to our Parliament or Supreme Court.
So the vaunted connection is in name only: "The Crown" resides here, as the government of Aotearoa.
Does it matter? It shouldn't. Because, as the Waitangi Tribunal ruled in 2014, rangitira did not sign away their sovereignty when they signed the Treaty, so despite the British thinking it was a deed of annexation, as is now recognised it was actually a partnership agreement.
All the people Te Tiriti represents are those, and only those, who together inhabit this country. We are the ones who must decide exactly what our partnership looks like, and how it will work – now, and for the future.
This means moving beyond historical breaches and the so-called "grievance industry" to focus on building co-management models; to become, as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said recently, true partners in the quality of life we enjoy. Broadly, such is the aim of the newly-created Ministry of Crown-Māori Relations.
But Parliament (aka government) represents everyone; it cannot be said to be only "the Crown".
So perhaps some additional mechanism is needed to best define what non-Māori also aspire to on "their side" of the agreement. At worst, its existence alone could act as a safety valve for racial tensions; at best, as a unifying force.
Whether we're big enough yet to use such forums for positive change instead of endless bickering is moot. But if Māori can do it, why not Pākehā?
Still, I hesitate to support a republic completely divorced from royalty because offhand I'm struggling to think who I'd want to see as president.
Perhaps we could give Harry citizenship, and the job.
*Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet. Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's.
