A spoilt, petty, self-pitying, meddling plonker for a king.

Prince Charles wants to be an activist king, claims a new book, Charles: The Heart of a King by Catherine Mayer. The book describes an intemperate fool whose court is so dysfunctional and riven with petty rivalries that the author compares it to Henry VIII's as described in the Hilary Mantel book Wolf Hall. 

Charles is strongly partisan in his political views and has meddled in public issues as broad as British architecture and climate change. The fact that he knows little about the topics he pronounces on does not seem to deter him. It is obvious that he has little understanding of the modern constitutional role of the monarch, which his mother has defined and so ably maintained for six decades. That role is primarily one of political neutrality. The monarch is meant to sit above the hurly-burly of political debate and only act on the advice of her ministers in whom Parliament has confidence.

I've made no secret in previous posts that I am a republican. It galls me that the role of New Zealand's head of state is handed down as an inheritance in a family that lives on the other side of the world. However, I do appreciate the superb job that Queen Elizabeth II has done in the role. She is a constant in an ever-changing world and undoubtedly a factor in maintaining the peaceful, stable, relatively prosperous, democratic nation that is New Zealand. You get the impression that she never says or does anything that is not carefully considered. 

Charles could not be more different in style to his mother and just as Queen Elizabeth has been a force for stability in her realm, Charles's ill-considered, confrontational meddling will be very destabilising. The only positive thing that is likely to come out of his reign is the end of the monarchy itself. Kevin Maguire, associate editor of the Daily Mirror summed him up beautifully as "Spoilt, petty, self-pitying, meddling and a plonker – Prince Charles is a gift … for republicans.”

Charles is an idiot, but for a republican like me, he might prove to be a useful idiot.

Royal Tour Reminds Us the Queen Should be our Last Monarch

You are no doubt already aware, irrespective of which country you are reading this in, that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are visiting New Zealand at this time. I have seen feature articles about the visit in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal and even in Spanish language newspapers, hence my certainty about your knowledge of their visit. The royal couple have brought their infant son, George with them. The Duke and his son are third and fourth in line to the throne of New Zealand, which as a former British colony shares its monarchy with other British Commonwealth nations.

Most New Zealanders support the monarchy out of sense of tradition and probably because they find it provides a reassuring continuity in a rapidly changing world. I don't, for the simple reason that I find it offensive that a family from the other side of the world is qualified by virtue of its blood line to be the heads of state of New Zealand and my own children aren't. Our constitution conventions say that in respect of the right to occupy our top political office, all New Zealanders are second class citizens.

I cannot understand why we retain this vestige of feudalism in the 21st Century. The members of the royal family have no qualifications to be our heads of state other than their ancestry, an ancestry incidentally that is full of despotic thugs who practiced every manner of heinous crime known to mankind - ethnic cleansing, genocide, mass torture - to maintain their grip on power. And this is not all ancient history - the wealth of the current royal family came from the wholesale theft of Catholic lands and other property after the so-called Glorious Revolution. 

I have a fond spot for Queen Elizabeth II and think she has done as good a job as any modern monarch could, but I think the institution should die with her. Charles, her heir, has proven himself unfit for the job, with his ill-advised, partisan meddling in political matters such as the climate change debate and his admiration for despotic Islamic regimes. And the idea that William and his son George have some sort of legitimate claim to be head of state of New Zealand, or any country for that matter, is utterly ridiculous.

Secret process is no way to select a head of state

Jerry Mateparae has been chosen as New Zealand's next governor general to replace Anand Satyanand. He is a former chief of NZ defence staff and is the current head of the NZ Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), our electronic spying agency.

By all accounts, Jerry Mateparae is an enormously capable man with a proven track record of good leadership. Not only that, he appears to be a thoroughly decent fellow. Everything a country would want in a head of state (actually, a proxy head of state because the person who actually holds that role doesn't even live in New Zealand - more on that later).

The first issue I have with his appointment is the appointment process itself. The process is secret, carried out by a small cabal of senior public servants under the direction of the Prime Minister. While in recent years under MMP, the PM has consulted leaders of other political parties, there is no requirement to do this. I find it incredible that in the 21st Century the people of New Zealand have no say directly in the selection of their head of state.

The second issue I have is Jerry Mateparae's current role. In his role as head of GCSB he is answerable to the Prime Minister as minister in charge of the security services. In a few months time, the Prime Minister technically will be answerable to Mataparae. The Queen's representative in New Zealand may be called upon to sack the PM at some point (as the person in this role in Australia did in respect of their PM in 1975 - and let's leave aside the issue of whether it was justified or not for the sack of the argument). What prospect is there of Mateparae sacking the man who appointed him and to whom he previously reported as a public servant? Also, the governor general fulfils another important constitutional role as the final signatory on all legislation. By convention this is seen as a rubber stamp to Parliament but there is always the prospect that the governor general might strike down a particularly odious piece of legislation. Such as the Search and Surveillance Bill currently before Parliament. Again, what prospect is there of the governor general taking the side of the people of New Zealand against the Prime Minister who appointed him. And bear in mind that Mateparae would have contributed to the Search and Surveillance Bill as head of GCSB.

All of this brings me to the real problem. New Zealand is still a monarchy with the actual role of head of state being a hereditary position held by a family living on the other side of the world. The current incumbent, Elizabeth Windsor, has done a pretty reasonable job as our head of state. Her son, Charles Windsor, who will be our next head of state, is a bumbling idiot who I am sure wouldn't be in any position of leadership if he was selected on his own merits. Under our current system, no New Zealander can serve as the actual head of state, no matter what the selection criteria.

In America, every child is taught that they could grow up to be President. In New Zealand, our own children are not deemed worthy to ever aspire to our highest office. As a New Zealander, I find that situation highly offensive.

It is high time we fixed this antiquated, feudal system of determining who the head of state of New Zealand should be. We must abolish the monarchy, become a republic, and allow ourselves to elect our head of state.