Government and religion in New Zealand

But, the Catholic bishops also objected strongly that “to suggest that matters of religion and belief belong only in the private sphere undermines the right of churches to seek to influence public opinion and political decision making”.

This is feigned injury. In our democracies, everyone is free to voice their opinions within the restraint of defamation. In the secular state, as Joris De Bres correctly inferred, no private belief, religious or otherwise, should be identified with the state. It is for that reason New Zealand is not Iran, nor is it an atheist state. Secular means government disassociation from belief, but not government disrespect of, belief.

The other controversy was when a TV presenter questioned the citizenship status of the Governor-General, Sir Anand Satyanand, in an interview with the Prime Minister, John Key. The comment was very offensive but indirectly raised the question of who can be New Zealand’s head of state. The Republican movement’s Lewis Holden soon pointed out that New Zealand’s head of state, under the present constitutional arrangements, “must be an English-born UK citizen”.

The question that follows is: when are New Zealand and Australia going to grow up and fully cast off their irrelevant monarchist ties thereby realising themselves as republics which recognise the contemporary diversity of their citizens?

Republics celebrating diversity is the image we should be presenting to our increasingly powerful, regional Asian trading partners, but instead, we continue to present as outposts of white European, mainly Christian, privilege.