The head of state debate has been spasmodic and at times a schizophrenic feature of our political discourse for over a quarter-century. Jim Bolger’s 1994 call for a New Zealander to replace the Queen as our head of state by the year 2000 may not have dated as well as Oasis’ Definitely Maybe released that year, but the debate - and critically our sense of nationhood - has evolved as the end of the Queen’s reign draws ever nearer.

In recent weeks, as conservative commentator Liam Hehir notes in his column, the scandals swirling around Prince Andrew have brought the entire institution of the British monarchy into question. It has been similar to the last time the Royals were in the news for all the wrong reasons, the 1990s when the future of the institutional was in doubt. Amazingly it even became a minor issue on the campaign trail in the United Kingdom, with both the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition facing questions about what they would do with the institution were they to win the UK’s general election.

As anyone watching the brilliant if sometimes historically inaccurate Netflix series The Crown will see, the fortunes of Britain’s Royals have certainly waxed and waned over the past century. And while a large swath of the Commonwealth of Nations are now republics or have their own heads of state - in fact, the majority of members marching in the Commonwealth Games - that has little to do with the trials and tribulations of the Royals.

Those trials, like The Crown, are a useful reminder of the British monarchy’s fundamental problem for an increasingly post-colonial and confident Aotearoa New Zealand: the institution simply is not ours. That this statement will no doubt cause some readers unease is in itself a sign of the monarchy’s contemporary irrelevance. The Crown demonstrates that the British monarchy is a touchstone of British identity, which until at least the 1970s was inextricably bound up with New Zealand’s identity. This is something now oddly denied by some supporters of the monarchy, asserting that the Queen’s title as “Queen of New Zealand” has patriated the monarchy and made it Kiwi as. Bro.

The other argument, which Liam eloquently makes, is that the monarchy’s illegitimacy is, in fact, its strength. Because the Sovereign has no legitimacy, the unlikely circumstances of an unlikely constitutional crisis, we don’t have to worry about a monarch interfering or acting as some sort of constitutional stop-gap in a way that favours either the left or right of politics. This contrasts with an elected head of state who will do, well, who knows what.

In fact, we don’t have to worry about the Sovereign interfering at all. In the numerous constitutional crises that have occurred throughout the Commonwealth during the Queen’s reign in “Commonwealth realms” (Commonwealth members where the Queen is still head of state), the familiar pattern is that the Queen does not intervene. From Pakistan to Fiji to Grenada to Australia, the Queen has steadfastly refused to intervene (although, a court case working its way through the Australian courts at the moment may just prove the Queen knew her governor-general was about to sack prime minister Gough Whitlam). On these precedent alone it’s clear that we cannot depend on the Sovereign to intervene.

The Queen has left the Governor-General to do all the donkey work of our head of state, without actually being head of state. The office of Governor-General is today our head of state in all but name: she or he undertakes all the constitutional and symbolic functions a head of state, including since the 1990s representing New Zealand to the world, because the Queen herself said she could hardly do that job while being the UK’s Queen. We are, as Helen Clark put it, a de facto republic. Change is therefore relatively simple for New Zealand to achieve, and the assertion that highly improbable circumstances will lead to a highly unlikely constitutional crisis, as a result, are just that.

A New Zealand head of state could easily be created by first putting in place a clear selection process in parliament, acknowledging that we now have proportional representation and so requiring a super-majority resolution (say three-quarters) to choose the next Governor-General. This mirrors the appointment of other constitutionally important offices. Then, following legislation recasting the Crown as the People and Government of New Zeland, and ensuring the Treaty of Waitangi Te Tiriti o Waitangi is protected as our founding document, a referendum on republic status would be held. The Governor-General would become a New Zealand head of state, with the appropriate title - Samoa provides a guide here, simply naming their head of state O le Ao o le Malo, or head of state.

The end of the Queen’s reign is an inevitably we must all prepare for. Out here in the south Pacific, it won’t be too hard for us to make some adjustments to ensure we make the position of New Zealand’s head of state our own. The great thing for New Zealand is that we’ll still be able to march at the Commonwealth Games, watch a season 15 of The Crown, and perhaps even the latest Royal scandal. All it takes is a little less insecurity about our place in the world and a little more confidence in ourselves.