Not necessarily. Our Governor-Generals are appointed by political parties but are very apolitical, the process could be done in the same way for a president. It doesn’t have to be done the way the US or France does it.
Interestingly, I have seen the monarchy topic pop up again a couple of times recently in NZ as a right-wing coalition party is trying to get a referendum on our treaty. The Treaty is what complicates breaking off our relationship with the Crown, so it’ll be interesting to see what unexpected issues arise from the whole messy debate.
I’ve always thought that as soon as one of Canada, Aussie or NZ becomes a republic, the other two will follow. But who knows?
100% agree. Whole thing needs a trim! NZ had a referendum a while back to reduce number of MPs, but of course the subsequent governments chose it ignore it.