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PRO-REPUBLICAN Labour Prime Minister, Helen Clark is all ready to welcome the Queen on her visit next year and says the publicity will be good for New Zealand.
The Queen will visit New Zealand in October next year.
Prime Minister Helen Clark said that the Queen would visit New Zealand after the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Brisbane.
"The five to six day visit provides an appropriate opportunity for New Zealand to mark the impending golden jubilee of the Queen's reign in 2002," said Helen Clark.
A visit by the Queen was a significant event that attracted enormous international publicity for the host country.
"It is an opportunity for New Zealand to present itself as the dynamic 21st century society it is today. The Queen's programme will be organised to reflect that."
The royal visit will undoubtedly rekindle debate over New Zealand becoming a republic.
Helen Clark said in February that she believed New Zealand would one day be a republic but was in no rush to cut ties with Britain. It was something for people to discuss in the future.
She was quoted in a Sunday newspaper at the time as saying that, while in part she wanted to keep the Queen as head of state - probably because her own culture, background and education was British - "that does not stop me seeing objectively that the monarchy is absurd."
"I mean, we are 12,000 miles away from where the head of state resides. How does any of that make sense?"
New Zealand should be looking at moving from a head of state based in London to something uniquely New Zealand, she said at the time.
But turning New Zealand into a republic was not a priority for her as Prime Minister.