PROBLEMS IN PARADISE—I Integration suggestion not popular in Cook Islands

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33215, 3 May 1973, Page 24

PROBLEMS IN PARADISE—I Integration suggestion not popular in Cook Islands

(By

CEDRIC MENTIPLAY)

The main stream which flows to the sea of emergent nationhood is a turbulent one at best. In our own New Zealand part of the Pacific, internal self-government has come to Niue and the Cook Islands. Soon the administration of both of these groups will pass from Island Territories to Foreign Affairs—but in the case of the Cooks, at least, questions which have remained unanswered down the years are ever more insistently demanding solution.

The New Zealand Minister of Maori Affairs (Mr M. Rata) was quoted in an Auckland article recently as saying that the Labour Party woula offer the Cook Islands full integration with New Zealand. This did not receive much publicity in this country — but when the Prime Minister (Mr Kirk) visited the islands last month those who were with him detected a seething undercurrent of unrest and suspicion concerning New Zealand intentions.

The Cook Islands have i always been a special case. [ They consist of 15 islands,! some volcanic, some mere i atolls, scattered over 850,0001 square miles of deep Pacific! Ocean. Their total land area] is less than 100 square miles, some of which is coral and volcanic stone. Their population would be about 20,000 people. The proposal, as told to me by several Rarotongans, would be for the Cook Islands to be given two seats in our! House of Representatives, j which would then administer: the Cooks from Wellington. On a population basis, Cook Islanders would be entitled to only one seat — but the widely-scattered nature of the “electorate,” stretching over 15 degrees of longitude and 11 degrees of latitude, might justify a second member.

No reference to any such promise or proposal was made by Mr Kirk during his visit to Rarotonga and Aitutaki. He talked separately with the premier (Mr A. R. Henry) and the Leader of the

(Opposition (Dr T. R. A. i Davis) — but politically his i only statement concerned the ; coming transfer of depart- ■ mental authority from Island Territories to Foreign Affairs. It is possible that the matter |of Cook Islands integration | will not be raised again. Island feelings The fact is that the idea of the islands going back under New Zealand’s protective cloak is not popular with either political party leader in the Cooks, though some anti-Henry members favour it. ; To Mr Henry, complete independence, with his Cook Islands Party in charge, is just a few months away. He has thought so much of this that a member of the Henry family has recently been in Japan, seeking finance for various undertakings. It is understood that the response was not encouraging — as international financiers have a habit of asking for collateral to cover loans that might be made. Most Cook Islanders are aware, however, that semiindependence for the Cook Islands, which have been selfadministered since 1965, has not meant a lessening of the burden borne by the New Zealand taxpayer. The Cook Islands still receive about | $2,300,000 from New Zealand 'annually, plus other help the cost of which is difficult to | assess. I Would integration with I New Zealand ease this burden? The reverse is likely. If the Cooks were regarded as part of New Zealand, the annual assistance bill, in Ministry of Works and Department of Agriculture assistance to the outer I islands would climb to more than $15,000,000 a year. I The Democratic Party obtained 46 per cent of the vote in the last election, but has only seven members in I the 32-member assembly. I The Leader of the Opposition (Dr Davis) rejects the [proposition of integration in I even firmer terms than does Mr Henry. Dr Davis, a Rarotonga-born Islander with some Welsh blood, gained his medical degree at Otago University, worked as medical officer to the Cook Islands, was in charge of that service in 1949, and gained fellowships to Sydney University and the Harvard School of

Public Health. He returned to Rarotonga only a few months before the Islands election—but is not displeased at the result. When I saw Dr Davis, at his home on Rarotonga, it was the day after the “ umukai ” (feast with island dancing) at which the island people welcomed our Prime Minister (Mr Kirk) and his party. Speaking at the feast, Mr Henry referred to his .impending departure for New Zealand with Mr Kirk, and made a sort of puckish, barbed joke about Dr Davis and the Cook Islands Party carrying out a coup d’etat in in his absence. “I would never consider a coup,” Dr Davis told me. “This idea was put before me many times after the election —a taunt, apparently in the hope that I would have bad enough feeling to say something suggesting that it was a good idea. I would never conceive of such a thing. We are in the British Commonwealth, not in South America." Pressed for his views on integrigation, Dr Davis at first avoided direct comment. This reminded me that 25 years ago, as a young doctor in the Island Territories Department, actively cleaning up Island diseases and establishing a centralised medical system which has been outstandingly successful, he was something of a thorn in the side of the administration. The Tom Davis of today has matured. He has learned to wait and to hold what he and his party have. He has provided the Government party with an effective Opposition—and there is always another election, though the Government party hold the purse-strings of power. “I would rather the Cook Islands suffer from the mistakes of another Cook Islander, even though it’s Albert Henry, than suffer from the mistakes of people who have very little to do with us here locally," Dr Davis said at length. “This covers my thinking on the project of joining with New Zealand. “I am very unpopular on this. Large proportions of anti-Henry people, and therefore pro-Democratic Party people, feel that this is the way to go. I do not know how much Matiu Rata was speaking for the New Zealand

Government, and how much for himself. It has caused a few problems here.” He paused, obviously troubled. “After this meeting with you I have to go and deal with it in one or two places. I may not be able •>

Later he said: “My view is that I would be an absolute traitor if I took what we have now—whether we lik& it or not— discarded it, and went back to what it was before. Things haven’t changed that much. We are only 20,000 people. We would have one member in the New Zealand House. Who cares for that?” Perhaps the decision has already been made. This week Island Affairs officers are examining the “nuts and bolts” of a partial transfer of the Cook Islands to Foreign Affairs—hardly a preliminary to integrigation. But the two-way strain can still break an Islands party.