The Cook Islands dilemma
p. 35 · Read in the full issue
HOW much longer will New Zealand keep propping up the economy of the Cook Islands, the largest remaining vestige of King Dick Seddon’s fanciful attempt at Pacific empire building, which came under Wellington’s control a century ago?
In 1987, the former Labour government decided another 20 years would be long enough, and it started chopping direct budget ary support on the basis of a schedule that would see it phased out entirely by the year 2007. It was a unilateral decision, made on the basis of a review of the island chain’s economy from which the Cooks’ administration, peeved at a dispute over its representation, pulled out.
New Zealand went on to decide that, given the encouragement of a bit of deprivation, the Cooks could in time fund themselves from their own resources.
The Rarotonga government, which still
describes its economy as “extremely fragile” and is not convinced it can pay its own way, never endorsed the cutbacks and has been smarting ever since not so much, perhaps, from the loss of the money as what it saw as a lack of consultation.
New Zealand’s new National government, forcing self-reliance on its own people, at home, says the Cooks cannot be treated differently and is maintaining Labour’s schedule of cuts.
It would not be true to say that the issue has ruptured relations between New Zealand and its one-time colony, which has been self-governing “in free association” with its former master for more than a quarter of a century now. Normal ties continue and broad agreement is reached each year in consultations on the level of separate project and training aid, this year worth SNZS.6 million.
Talks on direct budgetary support (now down to $8.7 million, against $13.5 million 15 years ago) have effectively been shelved, but the issue is still there, festering away, a bone of contention and an unresolved cause of grievance. The two countries are about to have another go at settling the dispute amicably. New Zealand officials are looking again at the original macro-economic review of the Cooks’ economy that led to the 1987 decision, in the light of updated data. Some time this month both sides will get a new report to analyse and early in the New Year they will sit down to discuss it.
From a Wellington perspective, it is unlikely that the eventual outcome will change, even if the timing is amended.
The New Zealand government cannot make belt-tightening demands of its own residents (who include more Cook Islanders than there are left at home) without applying the same philosophy to its overseas aid programme . It would be irresponsible to continue pouring government money into Rarotonga at the expense of, say, Tokoroa, which has about the same population as the Cooks’ entire 15 islands. New Zealanders would object to being disadvantaged by what might be seen as unreasonable generosity to the islands.
The question really is: To what extent is the Cook Islands a part of New Zealand? The New Zealand government has made its decision. It is not suggesting that it cut budgetary support to Northland, the Gisborne-East Cape region, or the Chatham Islands, which are as under-privileged, disadvan taged and unemployed as the Cooks.
Rarotonga has, understandably, retained a dollar each-way stance. It wants self-government, “in free association”; it wants contact with the rest of the world it has actively sought such contact, encouraging and developing international ties since 1975 when it became an associate member of the Asian Development Bank, joining bodies like the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation and in practice undertaking its own foreign policy, though constitutionally this remains a New Zealand responsibility. (It wanted, under Sir Tom Davis, freedom to welcome United States Navy ships when New Zealand’s anti-nuclear policy denied access to New Zealand ports.) But it has shied from electing total independence independence that would give it full freedom, including, for instance, access to European Com munity aid monies that go to sovereign Asian, Pacific and Caribbean states; access that could
bring in vast sums of development money it so badly needs, currently denied because EC rules decree that the Cook Islands is not truly “independent”.
It has not done so because the present arrangement gives Cook Islanders New Zealand citizenship and therefore the ability to come here at will. That would not necessarily be taken away if the Cooks elected for independence, but given New Zealand’s current economic state and level of unemploy ment, it would be understandable if Wellington shrugged its shoulders at the prospect.
After five years as the Cooks’ representative in Wellington, laveta Short has identified the problem as one of attitude. He cites, with justification, a New Zealand Press that is only interested in bad news from the Cooks and a business community that would rather invest elsewhere.
He says the economic progress the Cooks has made average GNP growth of 7.3 per cent between 1982-87, compared with a little over 1 per cent in New Zealand is overlooked. He notes that the aid contribution to GDP has fallen from 44 per cent 15 years ago to 14 per cent. He says New Zealand, which exported 524 million worth of goods to the Cooks last year, while buying less than $4 million in return, gets, the better of the trading deal. While New Zealand’s budgetary support is now totally committed to education and health, most of that comes back to New Zealand in one way or another.
He says, again with justification, that New Zealand business has exploited the Cooks, which was a captive market, over the years. He asks why the Cook Islands International airline was forced out of business and why it is this month cheaper for him to fly from Wellington to Rarotonga via other parts of the Pacific than direct from Auckland.
He warns that the days the Cooks will continue to buy goods from New Zealand from building materials to soap and toilet paper more expensively than from elsewhere are numbered.
He says the Cook Islands wants to, and will have to, develop its trade with other islands, including French Polynesia, and New Zealand companies ignore that prospect at their own cost.
It’s a warning that goes much further than the debate about aid and one that, without due care and attention, could see, in 2007, a realignment of relationships that is not necessarily in New Zealand’s interests. □