Under MMP, the role of the Governor-General becomes more visible, because the choice of Prime Minister will no longer be as clear as what it was under FPP. Although MMP does not imply a more activist Governor-General, in some cases the Governor-General has to exert personal influence to secure agreement on who should govern. In a few cases, the Governor-General may employ the reserve powers to protect the constitutional order. However, that does not mean that the Governor-General has to exercise the reserve powers frequently. In most cases, the visible role of the Governor-General does not result from the use of the reserve power but from personal influence of the Governor-General.
　　A de facto “localised monarch”
　　As mentioned above, with the localization of the Governor-General, New Zealand’s constitutional system has absorbed all the powers of the United Kingdom Crown into the local Governor-General. Accordingly, Andrew Ladley describes the New Zealand system as a de facto ‘localised monarchy’.[49]However, to be an effective de facto ‘localised monarch’, the New Zealand’s Governor-General has to overcome some limitations from the office of the Governor-General.
　　By convention, the Governor-General is expected to act as a neutral umpire and a non-partisan upholder of the constitution. The role is not to be “king-maker” but to confirm the verdict of the people via their elected representatives in Parliament.[50] As we know, due to the succession of the Crown, the Queen enjoys a total freedom from party ties and the complete absence of a party history, which constitute a good safeguard for the Crown’s neutrality. By comparison, the Governor-General does not exert the influence of long-standing Monarchs such as Queen Elizabeth II. The problem of the Governor-General’s neutrality firstly arises from the appointment of a Governor-General.
　　At present the Governor-General is effectively appointed by way of prime ministerial nomination. Traditionally, the Governor-General comes from such groups as the judiciary, politics and the military, all public institutions. However, the danger of prime ministerial nomination is that, on occasion, this might result in a political appointment. Some New Zealand’s instances are the appointment of Sir Keith Holyoake, Sir Paul Reeves and Dame Catherine Tizard. Of those, the most noteworthy is the appointment of Sir Keith. He was a former National Party Prime Minister and still held Cabinet office at the time he was nominated.[51]In practice, such political appointments are very harmful to the Governor-General’s neutrality, which would demean the office and jeopardize its efficiency in a crisis.
　　It might be argued that it is preferable to appoint a figure without a political history to the Governor-General. However, there is still a risk from the nominated without partisan background. A good example is the appointment of church dignitary Peter Hollingworth as the present Australian Governor-General. Critics doubted whether it was wise to blur the lines between church and state by appointing a cleric as viceroy.[52] Another suggestion is for the House of Representatives to appoint the Governor-General by a weighted majority, for example two-thirds or three-quarters of MPs.[53]Arguably, this system would be likely to produce a person of a type different from that of past Governors-General. A more likely danger is that a Governor-General appointed by Parliament might act politically as a rival of the ministers and not on ministerial advice.[54] Consequently, it is also harmful to the Governor-General’s neutrality.
　　In order to preserve the Governor-General’s neutrality, a better course would be to nominate a Governor-General’s candidate through a wide negotiation, particularly seeking the consent of both government and Opposition. If Ombudsmen are only appointed with the consent of both Government and Opposition, the same ought to pertain to the Governor-General.[55] Philip Joseph suggested that a convention for ensuring multi-party consultation could be adopted by resolution of the House of Representatives.[56]
　　With the development of parliamentary democracy, a fundamental change in the characteristics of the monarchy is that the exertion of the sovereign’s role, more and more, depended upon the personal influence rather than the reserve powers. And the extent of that influence, would depend upon the sovereign’s assiduity in studying and understanding government policy.[57] In this respect, the present Queen with her long experience as Head of State has ample expertise at her disposal to enable her to exert her influence on government business. By convention, a New Zealand Governor-General serves as Head of State for 5 years, in some cases for an even shorter period. So the Governor-General does not have the time to accumulate the political acumen imputed to the Queen: to build the reputation, to display the qualities, and to acquire the appropriate knowledge and experience. An alternative might be to nominate a candidate with ample political experience as the Governor-General, but in practice it seems nearly impossible to find such candidate without partisan background. To exert the personal influence, the Governor-General should work hard to perform the duties of the office, namely, to perform all functions effectively and completely. In addition, to be fully informed is also important. On this point, the Letters Patent 1983 explicitly state:

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