Charlie

While I should really identify as a republican, or at least I've always thought I should, the idea of a president and another layer of centralised government holds no appeal at all.
Whereas having our head of government on the other side of the world, not doing anything and leaving the exercise of their powers to the governor general, and not costing us any money, seems very pragmatic.  Pragmatic in the same sense that democracy was said (by Churchill) to be the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
It never seemed unreasonable to pay the hosting costs of the Windsors, when they visit.  Murray McCully was happy to have reasonably large sums spent on VIPs that most people have never heard of for the Rugby World Cup.
What grates is that we are, apparently, not allowed to know anything of the costs for the upcoming visit by our future King.  That's not an issue that relates to the usefulness or otherwise of the monarchy, it's the common courtesy of our government telling us what they are doing with the money we pay as taxes.
The Prince of Wales could at least have the decency to fly on a commercial flight, rather than demand we charter a plane for him.  The commercial flight will be coming here, and there's no need for the extra greenhouse gases a charter flight will create.


Split Enz - Dizrythmia, 1977