Governor-General a check on Govt.

Press, 15 May 1985, Page 28

Governor-General a check on Govt.

PA Turangi The office of GovernorGeneral provided an important constitutional check on the Government, said Sir David Beattie, the present Governor-General, in an interview. “Nearing the end of my term, I can see the importance in New Zealand conditions of the Governor-Gen-eral providing an adequate check and balance in the Government’s deliberations and moves,” he said. Sir David said that before he took up the position of Governor-General, he held talks on the constitutional aspects of the office with the former Governor-Gen-eral of Australia, Sir John Kerr, and the former Australian Prime Minister, Mr Gough Whitlam, who were

locked in a constitutional crisis in 1975. “I met Sir John Kerr and the (former) Australian Prime Minister to hear their views on what was a very significant and traumatic milestone in the viceregal area and very soon realised that the major difference between our two countries lay in their bicameral system as opposed to our unicameral one,” he said. The key point was that there could be no blocking of supply, the money needed to run Government, under the New Zealand one chamber style of Government, “so a similar contretemps would not arise.” In that there was a direct parallel to the Royal stance in the United Kingdom where, although there was a

bicameral system, the House of Lords also could ■; not block supply, he said. “The system here is tried ■ and tested and works rea- ■ sonably well in our con- J text,” said Sir David. Of Waitangi Day and its implications, Sir David said it was his feeling that New Zealand had achieved a degree of national maturity through the events sur-; rounding the Waitangi cele-. brations of recent years. ' He noted that many of ; those who had denounced ■ the Treaty of Waitangi as a ? fraud in the first couple of - years during which he had ; been associated with it had - changed their stance to ad-( herence to the treaty — > perhaps with some modifi-. cations — and now saw. virtue in enshrining it in Bill of Rights.