Up Front

with the Editor

The descendants of the Bounty mutineers who these days occupy Norfolk Island (as well as Pitcairn) don’t now claim that Norfolk was given to them by the British Crown as an independent territory.

The discovery in 1963 of the original of a document read to the Pitcairners by Captain Fremantle, RN, shortly after their arrival in Nor folk in 1856, helped blow out that furphy. Contrary to popular belief, the document has nothing to say at all about Britain ceding the island to the new arrivals.

Nevertheless, Norfolk Island was in 1856 promulgated by the Crown as a “distinct and separate settlement”, and the islanders still like the way that phrase rolls smoothly off the tongue.

“Distinct and separate”. The spirit of the mutineers burns to this day, despite the fact that as long ago as 1914 the island was made an Aus tralian territory.

Revolt has never been far beneath the surface. Not the kind of revolt that calls for clandestine meetings, in flammatory speeches and bombs in cars—but revolt against imposed authority. The history of Norfolk Island since before the turn of the century is studded with royal com missions, petitions to the Queen, de mands for referendums, objections to Administrators or Federal Govern ment ministers, to certain laws or ordinances. The common basis is the islanders’ defiance of the authority imposed by Australia without proper consultation with them.

Three recent examples of this are the decision to cut off Norfolk Island as a tax haven (which in May was confirmed by the Commonwealth Treasurer), the moves to establish an animal quarantine on the island for the benefit of the Australian main land, and the decision (which over night became a fait accompli ) to transfer Australia’s control of the island from the Department of Ex ternal Territories to the Department of the Australian Capital Territory.

The whys and wherefores of these decisions don’t matter here. The point is that the islanders believe that yet again they are being imposed upon from the outside.

Legally Norfolk Island might be a

territory of Australia (although some islanders would dispute that), but none of them believes that the island was meant to be an Australian colony.

Don’t be surprised if the recent noises of revolt on Norfolk turn out to be in earnest this time. There are serious moves afoot to have the re lationship between Norfolk and Aus tralia defined once and for all.

Norfolk is not an island state, such as Tasmania; nor a dependency and an electorate, such as Lord Howe Island; nor an integral part of the Commonwealth, such as the Northern Territory.

Norfolk is outside the Common wealth Constitution, which gives it only a backhanded reference in sec tion 122, when it says parliament may make laws for the government of any territory, and “may allow the rep resentation of such territory in either House of the Parliament to the extent and on the terms which it thinks fit”.

Norfolk Islanders don’t have the vote, or a seat in parliament, or pay Australian taxes. Without claiming to be a constitutional lawyer, I can’t see that Norfolk is anything better than a colony dignified by the title of territory, and which may or may not get a fair deal, depending on what the Australian parliament “thinks fit”.

And what is the future of this colony?

There’s also a growing view on Norfolk that the time has arrived for the islanders to decide what they want and go after it boots and all, if necessary by direct appeal to#the United Nations.

It certainly is time.

Exactly two years ago in this column I commented that Norfolk had to do some serious thinking about where it was headed politically, and I named some of the alternatives. I also asked whether the Common wealth had thought through some of the political problems associated with Norfolk.

In view of Prime Minister Whit lam’s well-publicised aversion to Aus tralia having colonies, and his moves to review the Australian constitution in its entirety, he now has the oppor tunity to discuss the future with Nor folk’s pioneers before they send up the Jolly Roger again.

Stuart Inder