No protester at Parliament

Press, 27 February 1986, Page 3

No protester at Parliament

By

PATRICIA HERBERT

in Wellington The most formal of the Queen’s duties on this i Royal tour, the official opening of Parliament, was discharged yesterday without a protester in sight. This was because of precautions taken by the police who charged two persons with breach of the peace and detained them for the duration of the ceremony. They were removed, according to a police spokesman, because it was “obvious they were going to cause problems.” In the event there were none, and the proceedings went without a hitch — testimony to the benefits of detailed planning. About 1000 people turned up to watch the occasion and Wellington turned on a sunny day, , marred only by a light wind threatening to become gusty. The Queen was in full regalia and glittered with diamonds. She arrived precisely on time at 2.30 p.m. to take a Royal salute from the naval guard of honour. It is apparently customary for British Monarchs to satisfy themselves of the loyalty of the Armed Forces before entering the Parliamentary domain — a custom that harks back to the seventeenth century and the Stuarts when relations were strained and Charles I executed. When the Navy had finished its turn, Sir Charles Bennett — commander of the Maori Battalion in North Africa from 1942 to 1943, New Zealand’s High Commissioner to Malaya from 1959 to 1965, and a former Labour Party president — welcomed

the Queen on behalf of all New Zealanders. His speech was followed by a waiata, a rendition in both Macri and English of “How Great Thou Art.” Then the Queen, escorted by the Usher of the Black Rod, went through to the Legislative Council Chamber where she requested the attendance of the members of Parliament. Led by the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, and by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr McLay, they filed in and took their seats for the Speech from the Throne.