Republican Association of New Zealand

The Republican Association of New Zealand (NZRA) was a political organisation in New Zealand with the aim of supporting the creation of a New Zealand republic.

History

The Association was founded by left-wing activist Bruce Jesson in 1966, and gained wide publicity for its anti-royal activism, including the burning of the Union Flag and protesting during Royal visits. When the Governor-General Bernard Fergusson was awarded an honorary degree later in 1966 by the University of Canterbury, the NZRA and around 400 supporters tried to block Worcester Street (which was on the Governor-General's route to the university), chanting "We object to the honorary degree, the honorary degree" to the tune of The Beatles Yellow Submarine. Around 200 students counter-protested with a banner reading "We Love the Gov".[1]

In 1967, Jesson moved the Association to Auckland and founded the original Republican Party of New Zealand.

gollark: That seems meaningless and unhelpful?
gollark: Huh. Weird. That... probably breaks things.
gollark: What if I run them all with entirely identical stimuli on computers with very good error correction capabilities?
gollark: Interesting! What happens if you make an AI which gains a soul, and then copy its code onto a thousand other computers running it, or something?
gollark: ↑

See also

References
  1. Gavin Mclean (October 2006), The Governors, New Zealand Governors and Governors-General, Otago University Press, p. 281
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