Islanders "Open
p. 24 · Read in the full issue
To Subversi "
Cook Islanders are “susceptible to indoctrination and perhaps subver sion”, and for this reason the NZ Government believes that people with certain radical views should not be allowed to visit the Cook Group.
NEW ZEALAND’S Minister of Island Territories, Sir Leon Gotz, said this in the NZ Parliament in August during a lively two-hour de bate on Government refusal to allow a former member of the Communist Party to visit the Cook Islands.
Another Government member, Mr.
A. E. Allen, who visited the Cook Islands recently, said the Cook Islanders were “as gullible a race as you’d meet anywhere”.
The debate developed out of a peti tion to the Parliamentary Petitions Committee from Mr. G. F. Mills, an officer of the NZ Government Tourist Bureau, seeking freedom of move ment within his own country.
The Cook Islands Resident Com missioner refused permission for Mr.
Mills to spend a vacation in the Cook Islands last year under the Cook Islands Immigration Regulations, 1939. No reason was given for the re fusal.
After hearing evidence from Mr.
Mills, the Parliamentary Petitions Committee unanimously recommen ded to Parliament that no action be taken on the petition—and the Parliament took no action.