Royal row over London trip

Feature

COOK Islands Queen’s Representative, Sir Apenera Short, is quiet and dignified, adored by his grand and great-grand children.

But lately, Sir Apenera has risked being seen as a vain old man by a public which has held him in high esteem ever since he

was appointed to the post of Queen’s Representative over five years ago.

Despite the nation’s strug gle with a flat economy and a government acutely short of money, with Cabinet’s bless

ing, Sir Apenera took a publicly funded trip of a lifetime to England to visit the Queen.

The trip was best described as an expensive junket, said some opposition members. Originally to cost taxpayers $67,000, prime minister Sir Geoffrey Henry quickly reacted to the ensuing strong public disapproval, instructing staff to reorganise Sir Apenera’s itinerary to

make savings. Cutting out six days that were to be spent in stop-overs in Hawaii and New Zealand reduced the trip’s cost to $39,000.

The Cooks is spending this much on the eight-day trip so that Sir Apenera can receive his knighthood personally from Her Majesty. The Government’s response

While there was much griping about the trip before Sir Apenera and his entourage left in early June for England, by,the time they returned, public and media attention had turned to other issues.

to calls for the trip to be cancelled was that an appointment had been made with Her Majesty and couldn’t be broken and the Queen’s Representative was entitled to go.

Although Sir Apenera’s trip was widely criticised, there was surprisingly plenty of support for it. On the AM radio’s talkback, 14 of the 21 callers gave it a big okay.

A number of callers said irrespective of the country’s economic problems, Sir

Apenera deserved to go because he’d raised the dignity of the post and served it well.

Another said the Queen’s Representative should go, thus making it known to Her Majesty how much the Cook Islands people appreciate being her sub jects. A couple of callers wrongly believed

that the Queen’s Representative’s office is given a yearly allocation by the Queen and as such would not be using taxpayer’s dollars to pay for the $38,000 trip. Sir Apenera was accompanied by his wife, secre

tary Charlie Tetevano and lady-in-waiting, daughter Akaiti Daniel.

While there was much griping about the trip before Sir Apenera and his entourage left in early June for England, by the time they returned, public and media attention had turned to other issues.

No doubt his grandchildren will hear stories about when their much loved Papa went to visit the Queen. ■