The Governor-General’s roles have changed

Press, 27 October 1977, Page 20

The Governor-General’s roles have changed

The first of three articles in which ANGUS ROSS, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Otago, looks at the historical background to the appointment of Sir Keith Holyoake.

The year 1977 has seen so much ' public interest in the appointments of new Govemors-General in Australia and New Zealand that it seems appropriate to review the historical circumstances which explain current practice. While the New Zealand Prime Minister may not have been consciously following Australian precedents in recommending to Her Majesty that she should appoint Sir Keith Holyoake to be her representative in this country, action taken in Australia and other countries of the Commonwealth provided ample precedent for what Mr Muldoon has done. The way in which the office of Governor or GovernorGeneral has changed provides the first clue to an understanding of the appointment procedure. In colonial days a Governor really did govern. Governor Fitzßoy is reported to have concerned himself with the minutiae of administration to the extent of indicating the style of printing to be used on a notice board prohibiting bathing on certain beaches. With the introduction of responsible government in 1856 and the consequent transfer of real power to the Premier, the powers of the Governor declined. Nevertheless, the Governor remained important because he was appointed bv British Government to be its agent in the colony as well as the personal representative of the British monarch of the day. In his capacity as agent of the British Government. the Governor acted as the channel of communication between the two Govern-

meats, Colonial and Imperial, and all correspondence, had to pass through his hands. The inauguration of a series of Colonial (later Imperial) Conferences meant that Colonial Premiers regularly got the chance to speak for themselves in London. Although in 1918 the Imperial War Cabinet ruled that Dominion Prime Ministers had the right to communicate directly with the British Prime Minister, nothing much came of the ruling. In 1926, however, the Imperial Conference decided that, as a result of the theoretical equality in constitutional matters with the United Kingdom to be enjoyed by the Dominions, the GovernorGeneral of a Dominion should be the representative of the Crown and “not the representative or agent of His Majesty’s Government in Great Britain or of any Department of that Government.” In New Zealand, where loyalty to the Crowm and Empire was equated with an extraordinarily conservative attitude to constitutional change, the GovernorGeneral continued, throughout the 19305, to combine the functions of representing both the British Government and His Majesty the King. Even after Sir Harry Batterbee. the first British High Commissioner to New Zealand, arrived in Wellington in March 1939. the old svstem under which the Governor-General acted as the channel of communication continued officially until February 1, 1941, the end of

Lord Galway’s term of office as Governor-General. From around 1921, the British Government normally consulted a Dominion Government or Prime Minister as to the acceptability of a certain person or offered a list of three names from which the Dominion leader could make his choice. But the British Government had the final responsibility in making the appointment of a Governor-General. After the 1926 Imperial Conference it was felt that the old system of appointment was out of date and should be replaced by one whereby a Dominion Prime Minister should advise the monarch directly on the subject. But the 1926 Conference had not made any specific recommendation on whose advice the King should act when apnointing a Governor-General to a Dominion. This omission was remedied in 1930 when the Imperial Conference endorsed certain recommendations made by its Committee on Inter-Imperial Relations. As no law was ever enacted on the subject these recommendations should be seen as the formal, if not mandatory, doctrine on the subject. The principal clauses are therefore worth quoting as they constitute the rules which have been observed ever since. They stated: “1. The parties interested in the appointment of a Governor-General of a Dominion are His Majesty the King, whose representative he is, and the Dominion concerned. “2. The constitutional practice that His Majesty acts on the advice of responsible ministers applies also in this instance. “3. The ministers who tender and are responsible for such advice

are His Majesty's ministers in the Dominion concerned. “4. The ministers concerned tender their formal advice after informal consultation with His Majesty.” In keeping with her conservative stance on such matters, New Zealand remained outside the new dispensation for the next decade, preferring to continue the old system whereby the Secretary of State for the Dominions referred three names to the New Zealand Government which then made its choice, in 1934, Lord Galway. In Australia, however, the Scullin Labour Government of 1930 went so far as to nominate an Austraian as Governor-General. This swing away from the traditional practice of appointing a distinguished British service leader or political figure, usually a peer, was a distinct innovation, in keeping with the rules endorsed by the 1930 Conference and with the stirrings of a new national spirit in some Dominions. New Zealand secured the appointment of Sir Bernard (later Lord) Freyberg as Governor-General shortly after the Second World War, but he was, despite his close links with this country, not bom in New Zealand. With typical caution, New Zealand waited until 1967 before appointing a New Zealand-born Governor-General in the person of Sir Arthur Porritt. But even he had lived most of his adult life in England and returned to that country when his term of office expired. Onlv with the appointment of Sir Denis Blundell, did we have as our top citizen a New Zealander bom in and normally resident in this country. (Tomorrow: Australian precedents for a “political” appointment)