Mallard Trevor: Royal Succession Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMallard Trevor: Royal Succession Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 02 July 2013. Volume:691;Page:11448. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):I rise to speak on this Royal Succession Bill as someone who thinks that at some stage we will move beyond having a monarchy. It is something that I think is important for our integrity as a country but it is something that I do not regard as urgent. I also think that there is something slightly unseemly about Parliament taking urgency on a royal succession bill. The idea that we are trying to get something quickly sorted out when there has been so long to have it sorted out is something that I do not think reflects well on us. If people in London look back if they have any consideration of what we are doing here—and I doubt that they are taking much interest in it at all—they will just ask the question about why this legislation could not have been dealt with properly in an ordinary time rather than as some urgent matter to be pushed through because of a current pregnancy. It does not look good and it reflects very badly on the Government’s organisation that we do it inwhat is an apparently hurried manner of this sort. This is especially true because it is now well over 18 months since there was an agreement made between Prime Ministers on the way forward on this.The next point that I want to make is that I am not one who believes absolutely that the King or Queen of England also has to be the King or Queen of New Zealand. I think that as an independent nation—a country with our own constitutional integrity—it is and should be open to us to choose to have a different set of rules for succession in New Zealand from those the people of the United Kingdom choose to have for themselves through their changes. That is why I think therefore it is important that this bill gets a full consideration at the Justice and Electoral Committee and I understand that that is to be the case; we are not going to have a shortened arrangement at the select committee.I think that does leave some questions as to what the hurry is all about. If the child is to be born before the legislation is passed then it is hardly going to be a matter of urgency for Parliament. Of course there is the terrible possibility of an accident or something that might involve three generations of the royal family and I can accept that it is important to get this sorted out as soon as possible but that is an argument for the bill being introduced and proceeded with at first reading earlier than now. So the first point is really a rejection of the need for absolute coordination between nations on the question of royal succession and the ability of New Zealand to assert its own rights in this matter.I do not think that any reasonable person will have an argument around the core part of this legislation and that is the abolition of precedence of younger brothers over older sisters. I think that it is something that was not appropriate in the past. It has been some time since it did actually apply in fact but I think that in the 21st century it is something that is just no longer appropriate. I think that whatever system we have the suggestion that males take precedence over females when it comes to succession is just wrong.It then comes to the next really fundamental question and that is the question of the relationship between the Queen of New Zealand and the Church of England. I just want to do a real underlining of those points. We are today discussing who should be the Queen of New Zealand but we are doing it in the context that that person is also the Defender of the Faith and the faith in this particular case is no church in New Zealand but is the Church of England. It is one of the points on which I think there should be reasonable debate—whether in fact New Zealanders could accept having someone who is a Catholic as their monarch. In this particular case we are talking now about the abolition of exclusions of people who marry Roman Catholics but I think it does open up the fundamental question about whether the King or Queen of New Zealand could be a Roman Catholic and whether we would automatically exclude someone on the basis of their religion. That is something that is quite serious.I know that in times past—not going back more than a generation or two—the antagonism was such that I am pretty sure that many New Zealanders would not think it was acceptable and I am pretty sure that most Catholics would not have been the slightest bit interested in being the King or Queen of England. Of course going further back—going further back—it was something that was common. So I just want to leave for the House on this particular issue the question of whether we want to tie our law so tightly that a person is automatically excluded from being the King or Queen of New Zealand because of that role also being the Defender of the Faith—i.e. the Church of England. In my view that goes too far.The next question is the abolition of the requirement of the Royal Marriages Act 1772 that all of the descendants of King George II must seek the Sovereign’s consent to marriage. We know that this does not happen now. We know that actually it is a much more limited group. What the bill does is to tie it back to the first six people in line tothe throne and require those people to have the Sovereign’s consent. I think this is a clause that also needs to get very careful consideration. We have got some rules around the freedom for New Zealanders to marry. I have a sincere question as to whether or not there should be a special role for a Sovereign to deny his or her children or grandchildren the right to marry the person of their choice. This has occurred on occasion. We have seen it occur and we have seen disaster. We have seen in the generation of the current Sovereign’s children a number of relationships that have not worked as a result of the people not being able to marry the person with whom they had what might be considered their primary and first relationship. That has not been healthy for that family and my question is whether we want to continue that sort of arrangement.I will support this bill going to the select committee. I look forward to the submissions. It is going to be interesting to see whether Government members are prepared to have a country that stands up for itself.