I agree with today's protest held to coincide with Prince William's opening of the new Supreme Court building in Wellington. The protesters, who unfurled a banner proclaiming "it's time for a republic!" made a very strong statement about where a growing number of New Zealanders (including me) stand on this issue.

While support for a republic has not yet reached a critical mass, an increasing number of of New Zealanders (around 40 percent according to some polls) are in favour of electing a homegrown head of state. This is a vast change on the situation that prevailed nearly 20 or 30 years ago when the majority of New Zealanders favoured a continuation of our monarchical status.

How things have changed. Two decades of royal family scandals, New Zealand's transition to being a multicultural society and a Britain more concerned about its place in the European Union (EU) than in the Commonwealth have all served to fray the links that once bound us to the Windsors and their predecessors. Furthermore, we now have a deepened sense of cultural identity and independence as New Zealanders given that we don't look towards 'Mother England' as home anymore.

This not having to kowtow to a distant power is best illustrated in the previous Labour Government's decision to establish an independent Supreme Court as this country's highest court, replacing the London-based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. So, isn't it ironic that Prince William has today opened the most significant symbol to date of our growing formal independence in the form of the new Supreme Court building?

To the best of my knowledge, no commentator I have seen has commented upon this irony (yet).

Therefore, would it not have been a better use of New Zealand taxpayer's money for us to have gotten the Governor General Sir Anand Satayanand to open the complex? Better still, why not the Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias or Attorney General Chris Finlayson? But no, we have had to resort to getting a British royal prince to do it.

The one thing I will commend William for addressing on this visit though is the issue of republicanism. Media reports published today have stated that William will touch on the issue within the New Zealand context through making reference to his family's desire to serve this country only for so long as they are wanted. The prince's aides must be congratulated for placing this issue in one of his speeches in acknowledgement of today's protest, rising public support for republicanism and next month's parliamentary debate on Green MP Keith Locke's Head of State (Referenda) Bill.

Tomorrow, young Wills leaves for far more deeply republican Australia. One of his visits will be to Melbourne in the state of Victoria. I hope that one of William's aides has pointed out to him that Victoria was one of the few states to vote for a republic in the 1999 Australian republic referendum. Most significantly that state has recently decided to abolish all references to 'the Crown' in legal proceedings.

After his quick sojourn downunder, I wonder if William will be pondering as to whether he will ever get to serve as New Zealand and Australia's head of state. Perhaps this visit might awaken him as to how the British royals are now viewed in their most distant independent realms.