John Key, the 53-year-old prime minister of New Zealand since November 2008, is a conservative leader and the head of the National Party in his country.

He studied commerce at the University of Canterbury and management at Harvard before he turned to politics and also worked overseas as the head of global exchange at Merrill Lynch.

While in power, his government implemented a GST rise and personal tax cuts, and during his second term, the Key government announced a policy of partial privatisation of state-owned assets. In foreign policy, Key announced the withdrawal of New Zealand Defence Force personnel from their deployment in the war in Afghanistan, signed the Wellington Declaration with the United States and pushed for more nations to join the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership.

Controversy is not an alien word to New Zealand’s agnostic but church-going prime minister, who has a mixed record on social issues, is a strong supporter of his country’s relationship with Australia and US, believes in global warming and even though he claims to be a monarchist, thinks that New Zealand will inevitably become a republic.

New Zealand, this country of 4.5 million people, was originally part of the colony of New South Wales, and under different historical circumstances could have easily become just another Australian state; however, eventually it became a separate colony in July 1841 and a dominion within the British Empire in 1907.

History and culture though have fostered such a powerful relationship between Australia and New Zealand that, even today, New Zealanders have special rights and privileges in Australia.

It is within this framework that we need to examine the latest news that comes from the neighbouring country this week, in relation to a referendum before 2017, where New Zealanders are to vote on a new flag.

New Zealand’s conservative Prime Minister John Key says the existing flag, the one that looks so similar to the Australian flag and led former Australian PM Bob Hawke to be greeted in one of his official overseas trips by a New Zealand flag, is out of date and does not represent the country’s identity.

“The design of the New Zealand flag symbolises a colonial and post-colonial era whose time has passed,” Mr Key said in a speech on Tuesday this week.
“The flag remains dominated by the Union Jack in a way that we ourselves are no longer dominated by the United Kingdom,” he stated, making his comments in the lead-up to an election on September 20, to the centenary of the ANZACs, and a month before a visit to Australia and New Zealand of the heir to the British throne and future head of Australia and New Zealand, Prince William.

John Key’s remarks this week and the visit of Prince William next month is a good opportunity to take up publicly again, not only the issue of changing the Australian flag, but also the republican argument -even though the current government and the current prime minister are staunch monarchists and the way referenda have to be won in Australia, by obtaining a majority of voters and states, makes this task extremely difficult in the foreseeable future.
As I have stated in the past, without wanting to forget the historical ties of Australia with the United Kingdom or forget the ‘British’ hegemony of this country as manifested in its language, culture, and institutions, the time has come for us to re-open again, with bipartisan support and minimalist objectives, the issue of Australia becoming a republic.

If the country is to mature politically, democratically and symbolically, it has to recognise institutionally at the highest level of the land, not only its British ‘origins’ and past, but also its recent history, its present dynamism and its future directions, as currently defined by Aboriginal, British and multicultural Australia.

However, the republican fight in Australia, if it is to be successful, needs to define the issue of becoming a republic with a lot of respect for our British past and at the same time, with a lot of determination for our twenty-first century identity, geostrategic needs and perspectives.