King Charles’ coronation: Governor-General says lessons learnt after Phil Goff’s blunder

By RNZ

Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro says lessons have been learnt following the breach of tikanga at an event leading up to King Charles’ coronation.

High Commissioner to the UK Phil Goff caused offence to Kīngi Tūheitia at an event for the New Zealand delegation in London, after forgetting to perform a karakia and telling the delegation that no one in the room had experienced a Coronation before.

Kiro was part of the New Zealand delegation in London for the festivities and said having a powhiri brought people together.

“I think there’s been lessons learnt, there were time constraints that were obviously a factor, the Prime Minister had a very very busy schedule, the High Commissioner obviously was trying to accommodate that.

“But you know I make no apologies for the fact that I think that having a pōwhiri to acknowledge all of the people who come together to represent New Zealand at the High Commission is a good thing to do.”

Kiro said there were powhiri at the High Commission for the state funeral of the Queen and for the Commonwealth Games.

“I think that helped to bring people together and it was a shame things didn’t happen in the same way.”

Asked for her thoughts about the public’s mood for New Zealand to become a republic, Kiro said that she had a very clear role which was simply to uphold the constitutional arrangements.

“New Zealand is currently a constitutional monarchy, I mean if they should decide to change that then that would be entirely up to the public and the government to decide, so I will uphold basically whatever arrangements are agreed to and other than that I have no opinion on it.”

Kiro said the coronation was an amazing moment in history.

“There was real ceremony, there were things that obviously were personal and important to the King, for example the music of which there was a lot.”

It was a moment to celebrate and to bring together the leaders of the world, she said.

Kiro said she had lunch with the King and other members of the royal family.

“The King is clearly full of his relationship with New Zealand and will I believe make a statement to the people of New Zealand thanking them for their best wishes and for the celebrations that went on to mark his coronation.”