New Zealand unhappy about royal wedding gift auction

Jun 12, 2006, 13:46 GMT

Wellington - New Zealand's government has complained to Britain's Queen Elizabeth II about plans to sell the country's 1960 wedding gift to her late sister Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon, Prime Minister Helen Clark said on Monday.

Asked at a news conference if she thought the present of two silver kiwis - the flightless bird that is New Zealand's national emblem - should have been returned if they were not wanted, Clark said, 'I think that would have been nice.'

'But that is clearly not the decision that her heirs and successors have made,' she added.

Clark said the New Zealand government had expressed its concern to Buckingham Palace after learning last month that the nation's wedding present, along with those of the United States, Australia and the West Indies, had been advertised for auction.

'This may explain the Queen's intervention to ensure that proceeds went to charity,' she said.

Reports from London said that Queen Elizabeth had asked Lord Linley and Lady Sarah Chatto, the late Princess Margaret's children, to donate proceeds from the pair of silver kiwis and another 46 state gifts to charity.

The kiwis are lot 452 in a sale at Christie's auction house scheduled for Wednesday and the British Sunday Telegraph newspaper said they were expected to sell for about 600 to 900 pounds sterling.