Half Lives, And Thinks

Nimmo’S Norfolk: How The Other

Eight months after the release of the Nimmo Royal Commission re commendations, the future political, social and economic organisation of Norfolk Island still hangs in the balance.

Two recommendations in partic ular continue as topics of frequently heated debate among the island’s 1 600 residents the imposition of income tax at Australian mainland rates so Norfolk Australians do not remain a privileged group subsidis ed by mainland Australian tax payers, and Norfolk’s incorporation with the electorate of Canberra so its residents have a vote in the na tional parliament.

The taxation proposal is the more

controversial and provokes highly

emotive public relations and in spired language from island busi nessmen ominously predicting the end of the so-called unique “Nor folk way of life”. However, their motives for condemning the Nimmo proposals are suspect when it’s pointed out that most are wealthy, some are millionaires, and all would have a lot to lose in personal and company tax payments.

Many of Norfolk’s annual 20 000 visitors are overwhelmed by the is land’s natural beauty and the casual conventions of its residents and un wittingly support the campaign against radical change. What they are not told by the anti-Nimmo ac tivists however, is that Nimmo’s re commended changes will continue to preserve the island as a naturally conserved holiday retreat from Australian and New Zealand big city bustling, while at the same time providing presently non-existent social welfare services comparable with those received by needy Australians.

Such changes would undoubtedly benefit the vast majority, although the anti-Nimmo propaganda refutes the need for Australian welfare handouts such as the aged pension and unemployment benefit with the bland assertion that the Norfolk community looks after its own aged, and the claim that there is no real unemployment on the island any way.

What do wage-earners and the “under-privileged” on Norfolk Island think of the Sir John Nimmo Plan? Fran cis Rolley, a New Zealand journalist, who worked for several months in the kitchen of a Norfolk hotel, supplies some of the answers.

But the propaganda omits, tor ex ample, to suggest a browse through the police records for instances of old Norfolk residents who lived alone, died in their homes, and whose bodies were not discovered for days, sometimes more than a week. An indictment indeed of the “frequent” visits and attention now given the Norfolk needy. At best, it is a chancy system relying on the ar bitrary good graces of relatives, neighbours, and friends who may not always co-ordinate their efforts to the recipients’ needs. It is told how little gifts a bunch of bananas here, a dozen eggs there, the odd pumpkin or sometimes a piece of meat mysteriously ap pear on aged folks’ doorsteps. But even if such occurrences were the regular rule, as the anti-Nimmo ac tivists would have you believe, rather than, in fact, a sometimes ex ception, the lack of a centrally co ordinated system leaves the aged with the risk of becoming vegetarians if arbitrary providers neglect the meat, or perhaps open ing the front door to an avalanche of

bananas if glut conditions on the is land suggest the same “little gift” from each and every well-meaning

helper.

The unemployment issue also re quires explanation such as it doesn’t get in the propaganda. There’s no one out of work on Norfolk because those without jobs are ushered off the island if they cannot find an employer within 30 days. Even if their job-seeking is successful, they must obtain a six-month work per mit allowing limited temporary re sidence which is issued at the dis cretion of the local administration, subject to revocation, and condi tional on the worker remaining in the job for which it was issued.

Since tourism is Norfolk’s only major industry, those fortunate enough to find a job before they are kicked off the island usually end in a mundane and menial occupation at a hotel, guest house, restaurant, or shop working in what most regard as slave labour conditions for as long as 48 hours, six days a week in return for women’s wages as low as $4O with men receiving a minimum $6O.

Admittedly, some employers pro vide live-in accommodation and meals, but many workers regard one small room and three daily servings of perhaps left-over food from yesterday’s guests’ menus as quite

inadequate.

An impression of the standard of the live-in accommodation some times provided may be gained from the fact that some workers who choose to live elsewhere and pro vide their own meals receive as little as $lO extra in their paypackets.

The work permit system lends it self to collusion between employer and administration officials, since without a permit there can be no job and without a job first there’s no permit. The fluctuating fortunes of the tourist industry, subject as it is to high and low seasons, has been the downfall of many a Norfolk itinerant worker.

Hotels, for example, suddenly finding themselves with high staff to-guest ratios can sack their employees with little or no prior

Francis Rolley

notice. International Labour Organ isation conventions don’t yet apply to Norfolk and there are no trade union branches on the island through which unfairly treated workers may seek redress.

Nimmo recommends that ILO worker protection be extended to Norfolk, thus giving rise to another source of opposition from island business owners. But the problems of a summarily-dismissed employee would even go beyond the interna tional organisation’s influence.

A quaint local Norfolk admin istration ordinance which clearly appears to restrict the right of an Australian taxpayer to seek work in a part of his country compels an employee to leave the island for at least three days before returning to take up another job, even if he, somehow, obtains a work permit for his new occupation.

Since Norfolk is isolated by hundreds and hundreds of miles of open sea in all directions, and its only transport link with the outside world is by air, the airline fares forced on the unfortunate employee are formidable, and this is doubtless

intended by the administration as a restraining control on ambitious employees whose job-changing might otherwise endanger occupa tion rationalisation on the island.

A federal electorate of Norfolk with about 1 000 adults on the roll is impracticable and discriminatory against the vote-value of mainlan ders, so Sir John Nimmo made the best of a bad selection of alterna tives by recommending Norfolk’s inclusion in the electorate of Can berra.

The anti-Nimmo advocates claim with some reason that their political voices would be lost among the needs of the far greater number of national capital voters. However, the Liberal member for Canberra, John Haslem, who recently visited Norfolk, has given assurances that island residents “could not have a better member if Nimmo’s re commendation is adopted” and says he hopes “to have the opportunity of occasionally going across to the is land to represent the people there.”

In the context of the less practical alternatives, Norfolk Australians might not be unfairly compromised on this recommendation.