Brian Rudman writes that Prince William wants to visit for the World Cup but we all know which team he won't be supporting.
Prime Minister John Key has repeated assurances that New Zealand would support moves to amend the 1701 British Act of Settlement, thus allowing the first daughter of the British monarch to become Queen of New Zealand.
Which is all very nice, but he's chickened out of any commitment to a
much more important test - insisting that any future New Zealand head of state should swear at his investiture to support the national rugby team.
If anything highlights the truly bizarre nature of our constitutional arrangements, it's the discussion going on in high places about how to smuggle a future King of New Zealand into his future realm on a "private visit" so he can barrack for enemy rugby players.
As nations go, we New Zealanders hardly wear our patriotism on our sleeves. We cringe at the hand on heart, salute-the-flag excesses of our American friends, and smirk at the "ozzie ozzie ozzie, oi oi oi" brashness of our cuzzies across the ditch.
But we do manage a small head of steam when we send the All Blacks off to do battle, and expect our leaders to display their loyalty to the men in black. All our leaders, that is, except our constitutional head of state and her heirs and successors. And at the present time, one in particular.
Prince William, second in line to inheriting the New Zealand kingship, wants to swan in from his British home later in the year to attend the Rugby World Cup. We all know which team he won't be supporting. At the last rugby world cup he first supported Wales when they lost to Australia. Then in the finals he cheered on England as they went down to South Africa, then headed off to the Paris nightclubs with the English players and his brother Harry to drown their sorrows in French champagne.
Labour leader Phil Goff has thrown a spanner in the works over the trip by raising a long-standing rule that members of the royal family don't drop in to their most distant South Seas realm on the eve of a general election, for fear of over-exciting the natives and affecting the results. The worry is that the warm fuzzies the royals bring out in us will rub off on the government of the day and give them an unfair advantage. Mr Key, who the polls show is doing pretty well in the popularity stakes without any help from the royals, is trying to sidestep this convention by arguing the proposed visit is not "official" and that members of the royal family "are welcome to visit New Zealand at any time on a private visit".
Just how a prince of the realm, trailing a new bride and a jumbo jet load of British media in his wake around packed rugby stadiums, can be described as being on a private visit is a conundrum best left for the constitutional lawyers. But you can appreciate why Mr Goff is frothing. He knows the pre-election mileage Mr Key and his ministers will be able to milk as they suck up to the newly-wed royals. He also knows the backlash he risks from celebrity-chasers and royalists alike if he gets the blame for forcing the trip to be cancelled.
The irony, of course, is that the pre-election Rugby World Cup circus is not of Mr Key's making. It was Labour Prime Minister, Helen Clark who headed the drive to have the tournament in New Zealand on the eve of a general election. She just didn't survive long enough to reap any potential rewards.
The Prime Minister's support for a repeal of the succession laws that give precedence to a male heir over a female is hardly revolutionary. It just acknowledges how discriminatory and illegal this requirement is under New Zealand law.
It's not clear whether the Government also supports the repeal of the discriminatory religious conditions requiring a King or Queen of New Zealand "to join in communion with the Church of England". The 1701 Act of Settlement also insists our head of state may not be "reconciled to, or shall hold communion with, the See or Church of Rome, or shall profess the popish religion". Nor shall he or she "marry a papist." Undoubtedly the last requirement is behind the future king's bride-to-be, Kate Middleton's "secret" meeting with the Bishop of London, to be confirmed into the Anglican faith. Like most of her contemporaries, she had been a non-church-attending "nothing," until now. But with her future husband one day to be Supreme Governor of the Church of England, needs, it seems, must.
All of which is quaintly archaic, and something a tradition-bound European monarchy seems willing to live with. But it's hardly the appropriate job description for the head of state for a young, multicultural, secular democracy, on the other side of the globe. We don't care if they're male or female, Catholic or atheist. But surely it's reasonable to expect they at least root for our side.
