Taking on

Norfolk Island

Taking on another dimension

On June 8 each year on Nor folk Island, throngs of tourists snap pictures as the Pitcairn people, dressed in nineteenth century clothes, re-enact the arrival of their forebears on their new island home in 1856, writes Ed Howard.

Among visitors this year was Hiroshi Aoki, Oceania rep resentative for the giant Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun. He was capturing Norfolk on film and in words for his newspaper’s 7.2 million subscribers.

He sampled Tahitian fish and kumera pie at the tra

ditional open-air picnic, He

toured low-duty shops where

tourists and locals spend well over SAI million a year on

Japanese photo equipment, watches, hi-fi and motor cars.

And he watched attentively as the Norfolk Island Council and Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs Bob Ellicott wrestled with the key political question on Norfolk these days: how much real authority would the Island’s forthcoming

Legislative Assembly be al

lowed to exercise? To what extent will Norfolk policies continue to be formed in Can berra?

One point in the meeting had direct significance for the readers of Asahi Shimbun. Mr Ellicott announced the planned visit of a first assistant secretary from Australia’s

Department of Primary Indus

try to begin discussions on how Norfolk’s 200-mile economic zone will be used, and who will get the net benefits.

Until now relations between Japan and Norfolk have been based on the island’s existence as a small but appreciated

‘duty-free’ market for luxury

tourist goods.

Relations between island

traders and Japanese suppliers

have been cordial and pro ductive. Japanese manufac turers supply around 80% of Norfolk’s motor cars; 85% of radio accessories including hi-fi components; 80% of watches; and well over half of

all photographic equipment.

The beauty of the Japanese product,’ says local business man Ken Nobbs, who runs the island’s main camera store, ‘is that they stand by it. Their guarantees begin not when we import the goods, but when our customers buy them and the guarantee is reliable.’

Fluctuations in the exchange value of the yen last year

brought some marketing prob

lems. The rate topped 300 yen to the dollar early in 1978 and later tightened to almost 200 to the dollar.

At the same time, Australia was cancelling its customs duties on cameras, watches and radios. Norfolk Island duty on these items remains at 8%, 17% and 8%, respectively. As a re sult, the saving Norfolk could offer visiting Australians dropped from about 50% down to 15%-25%. At least one large

shop got out of the camera and hi-fi business altogether.

But the island’s turnover in such products has held up reasonably well despite the

pessimism particularly

among New Zealand visitors, who make up more than a third of Norfolk’s 20 000 visitors each year.

As a modest but worthwhile market, and a spot with a colourful history, Norfolk has been worth a small place on Japanese maps of the Pacific.

But the advent of 200-mile economic zones introduces a major new element. Norfolk is no longer a dot in the ocean, but a 320 000-sqkm circle of fishing grounds, and that’s a real attraction.

Ownership of the zone is in

dispute. Australia has signalled

its intention to lump the area into its Australian fishing zone on the ground that Norfolk is a territory under Australian ad ministration. But the Norfolk island Council says the zone belongs to the island, and for mally declared so on March 7. ‘The council declares,’ read the resolution, ‘that it regards the sea and seabed within 200 nautical miles of Norfolk Island as being an economic zone which is an integral part of Norfolk Island . . . Council asks the Commonwealth Government to make known the existence of this declaration to anyone interested in exploit ing the resource of the zone.’

In May the Australian De

partment of Primary Industry

stated that the Norfolk zone was Australian and the benefits would go to Australia. The

Department of Foreign

Affairs’ current stand is that Norfolk is ‘an integral part of Australia’ although the island has never been ceded to or annexed by Australia.

Unless the Commonwealth agrees to some formula by which the net benefits of the Norfolk zone will be allowed to remain with the island itself, Australian licences for Japan ese fishing in the zone will be regarded by Norfolkers as li cences to deprive them of their resources.

Japan’s attitude on the islanders’ stand, is not yet clear.