NZ to provide Niue air service

■ EW ZEALAND’S Foreign Minister, Russell Marshall, has told the Government of Niue that Wellington wants its aid money spent more productively, following a re cent visit to the island. Mr Marshall flew to Niue to talk with Premier Sir Robert Rex about the almost SNZIO million given in aid last year (close to $5OOO per nead of population) and to discuss pos sibilities for a new airlink following the grounding of Air Nauru.

The New Zealand concern is that Niue’s population remains stable; the is land is still home to 2000 people, but about 10,000 Niueans are living in New Zealand and Niue loses approximately 10 per cent of its population each year through emigration. It is feared that the absence of an air link will encourage more people to live as the shortage of

imported goods grows.

At the moment, Air Samoa is provid ing a temporary service from Pago Pago but the aircraft does not have adequate cargo capacity and the island needs a more direct link with New Zealand, both for passengers and export com modities. A New Zealand aviation con sultant to Wellington flew to the island with Mr Marshall’s party, and is ex pected to report on how tne air link can be re-established.

Air Nauru, even if its passenger certi fication is restored, may not wish to reopen services to Niue; they can hardly have been profitable, and Nauru is fac ing a touch economic future in which it cannot afford the luxury of an interna tional airline flying low-density routes.

The problem for the aviation consul tant is that few other airlines are likely to be interested small aircraft cannot carry the quantity of both imports and exports the islanders need carried by air, while the existing strip is too short to accommodate a fully laden Boeing 737, the smallest feasible aircraft in terms of freight and passenger capacity.

Air New Zealand is now owned by a

Brierley Investment-Qantas-Japan Air

Lines American Airlines consortium and will be assessing its routes on totally commercial grounds, while Ansett has pulled out of services to Vanuatu and between the Cook Islands and Auckland (routes that offer far greater passenger potential) on the grounds that they were uneconomic.

The other essential element in keep ing people on Niue is that sufficient jobs be created for them: the Govern ment’s answer to date has been to swell the public service to the stage where three people are employed for every job. Plumbing, health and dental ser vices are all free of charge and the Gov ernment has been known to lend equip ment to private users for nothing, so

there is neither opportunity nor incen tive for private companies to establish themselves.

New Zealand is donating SNZ33 mil lion to Niue over three years to fund the Niue Concerted Action Plan, and the minister’s visit came soon after the New Zealand Audit Office made public its concern about how aid money is spent on the island, especially in regard

to preferential treatment given by Pre

mier Rex over business loans.

A government review team has re mained on the island to examine how the $lO million given so far has been spent, and officials say the main prob lem on Niue is a “boom-and bust” men tality in which agricultural production is neglected when prices drop. There is no long-term market view: a coconut

creaming factory, for example, has been

closed for several months. There is con siderable scope to increase production

of agricultural goods, particularly taro

and tropical fruit, but trie air service to New Zealand will need to be restored before that can happen.

Mr Marshall found there are indi viduals and groups wanting to set up businesses, but they have not been able to obtain the loans that were part of the New Zealand aid scheme. There are also people who want to develop the island's tourist industry ... but this

again hinges on regular air services.

New Zealand has also urged that Niue speed up its system of land title review: until all ownership is fully identified, plans to free land for freehold title and commercial use cannot go ahead.

While Mr Marshall has been diploma tic about his visit, there is no question that the government is concerned about the aid money’s fate. “When the busi ness community spoke to me . . . they made a bid for some assistance for the

growers’ co-operative, for example, and

I said there was enough money coming from New Zealand as it is,” he says.

“There is a tendency, I think, to do

things very inexpensively. They have 4

per cent [interest on] housing loans and it’s easier to get a loan if you work for the Government than if you work for the private sector.

“There is a tendency to let people have government services and equip ment for nothing . . . Now, I made it very plain that from New Zealand’s point of view, that’s nothing but

freeloading on the system.”

Mr Marshall told Pacific Islands Monthly that one option may be to ex tend the runway on Niue, and to have an aircraft calling there as a stopover on a more major route; perhaps even once a fortnight. “I think they ve given up waiting for Air Nauru to come back to the party that’s a naive belief. □