Informality In N.Z. Visit

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32235, 2 March 1970, Page 22

Informality In N.Z. Visit

(Neu: Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, March 1. I he Queen had expressed the wish that her tour of New Zealand be kept as informal as possible, and the organisers had done their best to ensure this, the director of the Royal visit and New Zealand Secretary to the Queen (Mr P. J. O’Dea) said today.

Mr O'Dea was speaking at; Auckland Airport before leaving for Fiji, where he is to; join the Royal Family on board the Britannia as a member of the Royal household He will travel as a member of the Queen's entourage: throughout the tour of New Zealand. Mr O’Dea, who has spent [the last nine months planning the tour, visited the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace last .year. It was then that they [expressed their preference foi informality wherever possible The general pattern of the tour would ensure that the Queen and her family would be able to mingle several times with the people of New Zealand, said Mr O'Dea. But there would be far fewer formal introductions and long sessions of hand-shaking than on previous Royal tours. Mr O'Dea said that he had I heard no protests from those' who might be denied a formal introduction to the. Royal visitors because of the; proposed reduction for formality. “The ones I have spoken; to seemed most understanding about it.” The most distinctive feature of the coming tour, he said, was that it would be the' first time the Royal Family had travelled together on anoverseas visit. Mr O'Dea said that the Royal visitors had expressed their appreciation of the three days free of official engagements at the Bay of Islands at the end of the tour. He felt sure that the public would respect the Queen’s wish that she and[ her family be allowed to enjoy [ their brief holiday in peace; and privacy. The public would, however,, have a chance to see the: Royal Family when they attended an open-air church service on Easter Sunday in!

the grounds of the treaty house at Waitangi. Mr O'Dea described his forthcoming voyage with the Royal Family in the Britannia as “an. opportunity for a two-way briefing.” “The Royal Family wilt be telling me what they hope to see and do in New Zealand, and I shall be telling them as much as I can about the tour, and about our country and its people,” he said.