A Norfolk Island Editor

Takes The Lid Off

Allegations of “shameful” and “shabby behaviour” by members of the Australian Administration in its dealings with Norfolk Island which could result in “vastly greater potential loss to Commonwealth revenues” were made at a hearing of the Australian Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence in Sydney at the end of July.

The allegations were made by Mr Edward Howard, editor of the Nor folk Island News, in a statement given in camera to the committee.

Mr Howard also made a long writ ten submission, and gave a 20minute address to the four Senators who comprise the standing commit tee.

The following is a verbatim re port of Mr Howard’s address: “Australia’s correct understand ing of Norfolk Island, and Australia’s relationship with Nor folk Island, are crucial to Australia’s foreign affairs and defence relationships with all other islands in the South Pacific.

“The people of the South Pacific have little of the sophistication of Sydney, Canberra or Melbourne, but they are not stupid. They are very canny at believing what they see rather than what they are told.

“If France says it is a friend and supporter of the people of the South Pacific, we pay no attention to what France says we simply observe what France does. We observe France insisting on the preposterous claim that New Caledonia and the Society Islands are actually integral parts of metropolitan France.

“We observe France suppressing the normal desires of New Caledo nians and Tahitians to be self governing. We observe France using the South Pacific as a garbage dump for testing nuclear devices. And we know that France is not a friend but an arrogant, imperialist nation, con cerned primarily with its own ad vantage.

“In exactly the same way, people in the Pacific measure Australia’s true attitudes toward the Islands by observing how Australia in fact

behaves toward its own Pacific ter

ritory.

“The Islands of the South Pacific are well aware of one another. Our differing problems and aspirations are discussed with great intelligence in one of the world’s outstanding magazines, Pacific Islands Monthly.

Newspapers criss-cross among the Islands. We visit one another, and we talk. There are periodic con ferences, and informal sessions long into the night afterward. We corres pond, and we read one another’s of ficial reports.

“How does Australia behave, in the South Pacific, when Australia has plenary power to behave any way it likes? That question is the true test. I am a loyal Australian and I am sorry to tell you that Australia is failing that test in a shameful man ner.

“Norfolk Island is, very simply, governed as a colony of Australia, by a resident Administrator, and a group of public servants and a Min ister in Canberra who know very lit tle of the island, and none of whom has the slightest willingness, let alone inclination, to live their lives on Norfolk.

“The attitude of some of our rulers in Canberra is reflected in a comment made by the head of one of the various commonwealth depart ments having responsibility for Nor folk in recent years. His view of

Norfolk is well known on the island.

He said, Norfolk Island is a painful, pustulent pimple on the backside of this department, and I would gladly undergo equally painful surgery to have it removed.’

“The attitude of our current resi dent Administrator, Mr Desmond Vincent O’Leary, is reflected in his recent importation of a Mercedes- Benz motor car. He does not require such a car on Norfolk, but he plans to take it back into Australia duty free at the end of his tour of duty on the island.

“Every person on Norfolk pays full and heavy freight costs on every bit of food, clothing or other

Administrator O'Leary

necessities imported; but the Ad ministrator twice solicited, and finally received, a disguised reduc tion of about 40% in the bill for shipping his Mercedes from Sydney.

It should be noted that the Adminis trator has direct control over many matters that can affect the prof itability of a shipping line serving Norfolk Island.

“On Norfolk, customs duty is our main source of public revenue, amounting to about three times the amount of our yearly $126 000 grant from the Commonwealth.

Even a pensioner pays import duty on a new pair of shoes. But the Ad ministrator evaded the payment of over $1 000 of Norfolk customs duty on his new Mercedes by in forming the Collector of Customs that he was immune from duty, which he is not. It should be noted that the Collector of Customs is an officer directly under the control of the Adminstrator. The evasion of customs duty on Norfolk Island is analogous to the evasion of income tax in Australia.

“On Norfolk everyone pays lighterage charges for anything brought in by sea. The Adminis trator refused to pay $2O-odd of such charges on his new Mercedes not because he is exempt from them, which he is not, but because his word is law on Norfolk Island, and his only supervisors are 2 000 km away in Canberra.

“All of these facts are common knowledge on Norfolk Island, but to my knowledge no one until now has been willing to state them publicly.

To do so would be to risk many kinds of retribution from the Ad ministrator, who has very wide powers affecting the daily life of ev ery person on the Island.

“Far more important than this shabby episode is an unyielding, in sistent pressure not only from the Administrator but from our Depart ment in Canberra and from our Minister, Sen R. G. Withers, to force through a sweeping set of per manent changes in Norfolk Island’s form of government even though more than two-thirds of the electors of the island have solemnly and in dividually declared themselves to be opposed to these changes.

“Individual declarations by the great majority of the island’s elec tors were handed to the Minister last month on Norfolk Island by our senior elected-representative, the

chairman of committees of the ad visory Norfolk Island Council. The Minister said they were ‘totally, completely and utterly valueless’ and he left them behind when he left Norfolk Island.

“The changes being pressed by our governing authorities are con tained in the recommendations of the recent Nimmo Royal Commis sion Report. They would terminate Norfolk Island’s 121-year status as a separate and distinct political enti ty, with its own system of laws, taxes and benefits. Contrary to the ex pressed wish of the great majority of the island’s electors, the Nimmo recommendations would politically integrate Norfolk into mainland Australia just as France so ar rogantly insists that New Caledonia and the Society Islands are integral parts of metropolitan France.

“It is an astonishing fact that no clear, sensible reason for ending Norfolk Island’s separate status has yet been stated.

“Two main reasons are given in the Nimmo Report itself, but neither one of these is capable of withstand

ing scrutiny.

“One is that Norfolk Island is a heavy financial burden on Australia, and that Norfolk, therefore, should have no say in its own future. The logic and the morality of this statement are offen sive to anyone who believes in dem ocratic government and the

financial data on which it is based are partly inaccurate, partly irrele vant and partly sheer imagination.

Norfolk Island is not a heavy finan cial burden on Australia, it never has been, and there is no reason it ever should be.

“The second reason given by the Nimmo Report for terminating Nor folk Island’s separate status is the belief that Australia is obliged to make Norfolk uniform with the mainland because of a recent High Court decision in the Berwick case.

I submit that any competent and un biased legal authority will assure you that the Berwick decision obliges Australia to do no such thing; it merely affirms Australia’s power to establish whatever form of government may appear most sensi ble and effective on Norfolk Island.

“Yet in the statements, the answers to formal questions, the policies, the parliamentary remarks and the personal behaviour of the commonwealth authorities who have control over Norfolk today, it is unmistakably clear that they are relentlessly determined to imple ment the Nimmo recommendations, ignoring the expressed wishes of the majority of the island’s electors.

“The most recent and ominous in dication of this determination is a set of events that may reflect a scur rilous policy. I say may because the facts have been obscured and I do not know. Continued on p. 79

“In the preparation of Norfolk Is and’s 1977-78 Budget, which is lone under the direction of the Ad linistrator and the department, it ppears that the island may face a eally substantial deficit for the first ime in its history. Members of the Jorfolk Island Council are distress d by this and are determined to ring the budget back toward bal nce but they have informed me bat the Administrator has been bstructing their access to normal nd essential financial information, ntelligent, reasonable people on Jorfolk are concerned that there lay be a deliberate policy to abotage the island’s financial self eliance and so create an apparent eed for an Australian take-over.

Mile such a fear may sound far- Jtched I would say that it is not roundless, and I believe the ossibility should be openly and im artially examined.

“What could be the real reason ar insistence and haste to terminate Jorfolk Island’s separate status dthin a few months, when it has roved generally practical and workable for over 100 years? People n Norfolk have asked themselves lat question again and again with ut being able to find a credible nswer.

“After months of watching, listen ig and reflecting, a plausible ex lanation has at last been discerned, regret to say that it entails shabby ehaviour such as that evidenced by

Mr O’Leary in the importation of his Mercedes, but on a vastly greater scale and at vastly greater potential loss to commonwealth revenues. I wish to describe this set of cir cumstances in detail to the commit tee, but I am prepared to do so only in camera. The evidence will re quire about one hour.” [Mr Howard, at the end of his ad dress, did in fact give sworn evidence in camera for an hour.] “I will conclude these remarks by returning to the committee’s terms of reference.

“If the South Pacific is important to Australia’s foreign affairs and defence, Australia should be build ing genuine and durable friendships in the region.

“My former beloved country, the United States, learned to its great sorrow that genuine friendship can not be bought with gifts or forced with military deployments. It can be earned only by behaving as a ge nuine friend behaves; understand ing, listening, caring, sharing mutual enjoyments and concerns, appreciat ing and tolerating each other’s differences, and respecting each

other’s individuality.

“Friendship does not have to be costly. Australia will not deceive the people of the South Pacific by enter ing a gift-giving competition with the USSR.

“The essential starting-place for Australia to build South Pacific friendships is Norfolk Island, Australia’s own relation in the Pacific. Australia’s actual conduct

there will speak more loudly, and be heard more clearly throughout the Pacific, than all the fine phrases and all the handsome gifts in the world.

“If Australia’s present course of actions in respect to Norfolk Island is allowed to continue unaltered, and if Australia in fact makes sweeping changes in Norfolk Is land’s form of government that are contrary to the expressed wishes of the majority of the electors of the is land, Australia will be observed to be, like France, an imperialist nation in the Pacific.

“I am certain Australia’s foreign affairs and defence relationships in the Pacific would suffer severely as a result. I therefore wish to end these remarks by calling on the members of this committee, in carrying out its responsibilities, to take such actions as may be necess ary and possible to initiate an im partial, thorough and principled in vestigation of Australia’s relations with Norfolk Island and to en sure that such an investigation is conducted free from any influence by those who are now governing the island not as friends but as masters.

“The people of Norfolk Island respect and appreciate Australia, and wish always to remain closely and loyally linked with Australia.

“The relationship between you and us can be, and should be, a source of pleasure and nourishment for us both. But at present you are on a course of crushing Norfolk Is land, and if you do so neither we nor the rest of the Pacific will ever forget it.”