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The mouse that roared
a request to the UN
From a Special Correspondent on
Norfolk Island
This is the first of two articles on Norfolk Island. The
second will be published tomorrow.
Australia's own
'Mouse that Roared* —
roared by writing to the
United Nations for help
in its battle with the
Australian Government
— is a most improbable
setting for such
dramatic action.
Only five miles by three,
Norfolk Island is hilly, rural,
and sleepy. Nothing much
happens from day to day. The
tourists wander the island on
foot or in a variety of hire
vehicles, take their
photographs, chat with the
locals, and try to avoid the
multitudes of wandering cows
which at all times have right
of way.
The greatest excitement seems
to be when a visitor, such as this
correspondent, falls off a motor
cycle and suffers what the locals
have named Honda-itis.
Even the news that Norfolk
Island Council has written to the
United Nations Committee of
Twenty-Four on Decolonisation
has generally been greeted with a
placid calm. "They won't even
get a reply", shrugged one local,
suggesting that for him that was
the end of the matter. .
But if passions are not running
high and the peasants have not
yet taken to the streets, there can
be no doubting the fundamental
seriousness with which the
islanders, and in particular their
elected council, are taking the
issues that led to the United
Nations letter.
Election
The immediate cause of the
action was the failure of the
Department of Administrative
Services to get a message
urgently to the Minister, Senator
withers. The council wants a
referendum which only the
Minister can authorise. An
urgent telegram had asked that
the Minister should grant a
referendum or give a sound
reason for refusing one and
wanted a reply in time for the
council's meeting last
Wednesday.
But Senator Withers, it seems.
was in his home State of
Western Australia helping Sir
Charles Court's election
campaign. Since previous
reuuests for a referendum had
either been refused or fobbed olf,
the council's patience was
exhausted — and the letter was
sent to the UN.
The demand for a referendum
stems from the proposals of the
Royal Commission on Norfolk
Island conducted by Mr Justice
Nimmo last year. Most of the
islanders agree with much of the
Nimmo Report, but there are
four points which, if
implemented, would
fundamentally change the
character and way of life of the
island. It is on these points that
the council wants a referendum
to find out what their
fellow-islanders want.
Taxes
The first point is that the
island should receive all the
social and welfare benefits that
the Australian Government
extends to its mainland citizens.
The second is that islanders
should pay for these privileges by
being subject to all Australian
taxes except sales tax.
The third point, on the basis of
"no taxation without
representation" is that islanders
should have a vote, and Mr
Justice Nimmo's suggestion is
that they should be incorporated
into the electorate of Canberra.
The final point — completing
the integration of the island witn
mainland Australia — is that all
laws of the Commonwealth
should apply to Norfolk Island
except those that expressly
exempt it.
On the face of it, a demand for
a referendum of islanders on
A cutting from last Thursday's edition of The Canberra Times. Help
A cutting from last Thursday's edition of The Canberra
Times.
such fundamental issues does not
seem unreasonable and many
locals arc genuinely puzzled by
the Government's reluctance to
authorise one. Perhaps the
answer lies in the remark made
by the Prime Minister, in an
interview on radio, that the
islanders do not seem to know
what they want.
Divided
The Nimmo Report itself is
remarkable in its tone of hurt
dignity. It so far departs from
the calm, judicial language one
expects of a Royal commission
as to refer to the "insulting"
comments about Australia made
during the commission's hearings
and to comment that many
islanders "put the worst-possible
construction on any acts done by
the Government for the public
benefit".
The line seems clearly to be
that the inhabitants of Norfolk
Island are a hopelessly divided
bunch of squabblers who, left to
themselves, will never decide
anything. The only solution is for
the wise men of the Australian
Government to step in and sort it
out.
And since it offends legal and
bureaucratic tidiness to have a
part of Australia living under
different tax and welfare laws
from the rest, the obvious
solution seems to be to make
Norfolk Island just another part
of the Commonwealth.
That the islanders are divided
on the issue is generally
acknowledged, but the locals see
nothing wrong with that. The
idea of some peculiarly
disputatious quality in the
islanders was pooh-pboed by Mr
Lyal Snell, a councillor and a
descendant of the Bounty
mutineers.
He pointed out that the
residents compose a small
community of some 1,600
people isolated by hundreds of
miles of ocean from the rest of
the world. Any such community
is likely to have its fair share of
feuds and disputes, particularly
when its composition is so mixed.
The population consists of
descendants of the Bounty
mutineers, who were transferred
here from Pitcairn Island in
1856; retired English people on
meagre British pensions: retired
Australians; people who came
here to pioneer the tourist
industry when air travel made it
a viable proposition (and who
often married locals); and people
who have gained permission to
settle on the island to operate the
shops and hotels.
No one will assert that any
one of these groups is opposed to
the others or united within itself;
but the inevitable variety of
interests adds to the degree of
dissension to be found in any
small community.
Mr Snelli and his
fellow-councillors, however, see
this not as a reason for
government to act as Big
Brother, but as all the more
reason for the holding of a
referendum. Public meetings,
says Mr Snell, get nowhere.
Many of the people are too shy
to speak their mind, while others
use the opportunity to raise old
feuds.
A referendum might settle the
issue — and this is the sole basis
for the council's approach to the
United Nations — but it is
difficult to guess what degree of
consensus might emerge.
Perhaps the saving grace lies in
the obvious and sincere respect
that the newer settlers have for
what they see as the historic
rights of the Pitcairn
descendants to "their" island.
Travelodge literature often
seems to represent the
Pitcairners as quaint yokels,
speaking a curious dialect. In
fact, many of the island's most
intelligent and articulate leaders
(and its most astute and
successful businessmen) come
from this group.
In their eyes, they were given
Norfolk Island by Queen
Victoria, and when the British
Government handed it over to
Australia in 1914 it was for the
protection, not the exploitation,
of their traditional way of life.
Whatever the legal and
constitutional rights and wrongs
of this point of view, there is no
doubt that it is strongly held in
the island. This is one point of
unity that should not have
surprised the Royal Commission,
nor should it have been
Dressed in 19th-cenlury costumes, two young Norfolk Island girls, play <Jn convict-built prison walls while awaiting the beginning of Bounty Day, when Norfolk Islanders re-enact the landing of their ancestors from Pitcairn Island — many of them descendants of the Bounty mutineers. In the background is what remains of ''Quality Row", now the administration buildings. Help
Dressed in 19th-cenlury costumes, two young Norfolk Island girls, play on
convict-built prison walls while awaiting the beginning of Bounty Day,
when Norfolk Islanders re-enact the landing of their ancestors from
Pitcairn Island — many of them descendants of the Bounty mutineers. In
the background is what remains of "Quality Row", now the
administration buildings.
none Help
surprising that government from
distant Canberra has sometimes
been seen as representing
Australia in the role of an
oppressor".
This tenderness towards the
original islanders causes some
hesitation among the strongest
opponents of Nimmo
proposals, for those with the
greatest need for the
social-welfare services that the
island now lacks are among this
group.
At present the only age
pension available is $15 a week
payable by the Administration
on the recommendation of the
council. The high cost of local
medical and hospital care can be
partly covered by health
insurance, but this does not
attract the Commonwealth
benefit. There are no benefits for
deserted wives, no child
endowment, no unemployment
benefits.
Not surprisingly, some of the
islanders who have seen these
benefits in action in Australia or
New Zealand, or who have heard
all about them from tourists, are
strongly in favour of having
them for themselves. If the price
to be paid is taxation, so be it. As
one islander said, "Why should
we be left out? Taxation is no
skin off our nose: it just means
the employers will have to pay
higher wages to make up the
difference".
Naturally, the employers do
not share this view. It would be
easy to dismiss the opposition to
the Nimmo proposals as a
reluctance to pay tax; and the
islanders happily admit that this
is part of it. But the problem
goes deeper than this. '
Prices
The island's sole economic
strength is tourism. In one way
and another everyone depends on
it. But, as Mr Steve McMullen,
the manager of one of the
leading hotels points out,
Norfolk Island has to compete
with such counter-attractions as
Bali, Hong Kong, Fiji, Tonga
and Samoa — and Norfolk is
much smaller and more
vulnerable.
To compete, says Mr
McMullen, Norfolk has to be
promoted as "the overseas
holiday where you don't leave
Australia" — and its prices have
to be kept as low as possible.
Since the import of goods by air
or by sea (carried on small boats
from the freighter over the bar to
the pier at Kingston) is very
expensive, the only way to keep
prices down is to keep labour
costs down.
At present this is possible.
Young men and women come
from Australia and New
Zealand for what they regard as
a working holiday on Norfolk
Island. They get low, but not
ludicrously low wages, free
accommodation and board, and
if they stay long enough they can
take their earnings home
tax-free. The system works so
well that Mr McMullen has not
had to advertise for workers for a
long time: the message spreads
by word of mouth and young
people write asking for a job.
But if income tax were
introduced, Mr McMullen
calculates that the wages bill of
the South Pacific Hotel alone
would increase by $52,000 a
year; and in an enterprise which
shows only a modest profit, as
most Norfolk hotels do, the
added expense could only be
reflected in higher tariffs. The
effect throughout the island
could be catastrophic.
Opponents of the Nimmo
proposals claim that the people
who are prepared to pay tax not
only fail to understand the
effects this would have on
Norfolk's economy, but don't
really understand the personal
impact either.
Many of them have never lived
under a tax system such as
Australia has. "They grumble
now about the $15-a-year
public-works levy", says Mr
Snell, "imagine what they'd say
if they were slugged for $15 a
week".
The public-works levy, a sort
of computation for contributory
labour, is one of a series of local
taxes and imposts that yield the
island's administration some
$1.5 million a year. Mr Bill
Blucher, the president of
committees of the Norfolk Island
Council and a Pitcairner with
impeccable credentials (his
grandfather was a Quintal and
his grandmother a descendant of
Fletcher Christian) believes that
the problems of the lack of social
welfare can be overcome if this
local income can be increased.
He points out that even now
the lack of formal welfare is
made up for, to a large extent, by
the islanders' tradition of
self-help. Whip-rounds for
people in trouble are common,
while the churches and
organisations such as Lions,
Rotary, the CWA and the
Sunshine Club are all active in
seeing that real distress is
alleviated. "We look after our
own" is a motto with real
meaning on Norfolk.
The council, however, would
like to see the people given more
security by right rather than by
favour. Mr Snell reckons that a
local income tax on the
Australian model would cost
more to administer than it would
raise, but sees real possibilities in
small indirect taxes or an
increase in those that already
exist.
The problem is that the
council has no power to raise
taxes itself. In fact it has no
formal power at all. Canberrans
will sympathise with the
problems of an elected council
that can do no more than advise
the Administrator — although,
unlike Canberra, Mr Blucher
claims that the council's advice
has rarely been rejected.
To be concluded tomorrow. '
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