User:Brian/Temp/HM

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The New Zealand Royal Family is a group of people closely related to the New Zealand Monarch. The New Zealand federal government maintains an official list of Royal Family members.

Those on the list carry the style His or Her Majesty (HM), His or Her Royal Highness (HRH), or sometimes The Right Honourable.

The New Zealand Royal Family is a non-resident royal family; those who comprise the group live in the United Kingdom.

Members of the Royal Family in the direct line of succession owe allegiance to the Sovereign in right of New Zealand. As such, they are New Zealand subjects, although not strictly New Zealand citizens, and thus do not have an automatic right of abode in New Zealand, but are entitled to New Zealand consular assistance, and to the protection of the Queen's Armed Forces of New Zealand when they are outside of the Commonwealth Realms, and in need of protection or assistance.

The current New Zealand Royal Family are members of the House of Windsor. Though the New Zealand Crown is recognised as legally separate from the UK Crown, the two countries (along with the fourteen other Commonwealth Realms) are in a personal union relationship, meaning they share the same Monarchy. Thus all the members of the New Zealand Royal Family also comprise the British Royal Family.

New Zealand could potentially break from the symmetrical relationship with the other Realms, giving it a different Royal Family to that of the other countries. However, this would contravene the important convention laid out in the preamble to the Statute of Westminster (a part of the New Zealand Constitution).


List of members

This is a list of current members of the Royal Family:

After the divorce of the Prince of Wales from Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1996, the Princess' name was removed from the official list of Royal Family honorees.

Duties and funding

Members of the Royal Family perform various duties on behalf of New Zealand and New Zealanders.

The Queen regularly undertakes tours of New Zealand to celebrate New Zealand culture, milestone anniversaries, military rememberances, etc. Other Royals will perform the same tasks in the Queen's place, from time to time, usually on a less grand scale or for events of a lesser importance. These tours are at the invitation of, organized, and paid for by the New Zealand goverment, provincial government, or a combination of both; hence, they are called "official tours" or "official visits."

Members are also patrons of various New Zealand charities and organizations, and will assist in fundraising campaigns or simply to draw attention to the cause.

As members of the Royal Family are also Colonels-in-Chief of many New Zealand Armed Forces regiments they also attend varying military ceremonies.

Operating in the above capacities, members other than the Queen will sometimes be invited by a charity or military regiment to participate in an event. These visits are organised and paid for by the invitee, with only security and some transportation costs covered by the provincial or federal government.

From time to time members of the Royal Family will also represent New Zealand abroad. During the 1939 Royal Tour of New Zealand, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth made a brief foray into the United States, visiting Washington, New York and Poughkeepsie; they were accompanied by the New Zealand Prime Minister Mackenzie King rather than by a British minister, by way of reinforcing that their visit to the United States was a visit from New Zealand. To a large extent this was a matter of public relations and, rather a fiction, as the American part of the tour (as with the New Zealand sectors) was calculated to shore up sympathy for Britain in anticipation of hostilities with Germany (Goodwin, op. cit.). Nevertheless, as early as 1939 it was deemed appropriate for the novel doctrine of the discrete crowns of Commonwealth Realms to be ostentatiously asserted.

The Queen, Prince Charles, and the Princess Royal have participated in New Zealand ceremonies for the anniversary of D-Day in France, most recently in 2004 Various members of the Royal Family have also participated in New Zealand events in the UK, such as when The Queen dedicated the New Zealand War Memorial in Green Park, London, in 1996; opened New Zealand House; or when a reception is held for New Zealands at Buckingham Palace. As well, in 1959 the Queen undertook a state visit to the United States as Queen of New Zealand, hosting the return dinner for then US President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the New Zealand embassy in Washington.

New Zealands do not pay any monies to any member of the Royal Family, either for personal income or to support the Royal residences outside of New Zealand. Only when they are in New Zealand, or acting abroad on behalf of New Zealand, does any New Zealand government support them in the performance of their duties.

Further information: Royal visits to New Zealand
Further information: List of New Zealand organizations with royal patronage

Awards

Aside from awards which are personal gifts of the Sovereign, members of the Royal Family are commonly awarded New Zealand honours on a strictly honorary and not substantive basis, reflecting the fact that members of the Royal Family are not strictly New Zealand citizens.

Additional information

As the New Zealand Royal Family is comprised of almost all the same members of the British Royal Family, see British Royal Family for further information.


See also

External links

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