THE PACIFIC: Cook Islands

From New Zealand, Michael Bassett writes:

"Margaret Mackenzie's report on the Cook Islands is interesting. I have been to Rarotonga several times, and to the tourist island of Aitutaki (40 minutes north in a small plane). The islands passed to New Zealand in 1901 and the centennial was celebrated last week. Helen Clark, NZ's Labour Prime Minister, went up there for 36 hours and was photographed strewn with leis, and sitting nervously on a stretcher carried shoulder high by several husky Cook Islanders.

Because the Cooks were part of New Zealand's "empire", they, along with Niue Islanders, always enjoyed free migration rights to NZ. These islands have bled into Auckland, where there are communities several times larger than the total numbers back at home. The Cooks which had a population of more than 20,000 at the end of World War Two are now believed to be down to 11,000. Open entry to NZ is much prized; Auckland is to many young Cook Islanders as exciting a destination as New York or London is to the average young New Zealander. Margaret Mackenzie is right about the decline in copra prices being a factor in economic decline, but tourism as well as a reasonably lucrative off-shore banking business, where (mostly) Americans hide their money for tax avoidance purposes, bring in revenue. The real reason why people leave the Cooks for greener pastures is a miniature version of why they also leave New Zealand, and Australia. In today's globalising world, people with internationally marketable skills are getting up and leaving from all corners of the globe in search of better opportunities and rewards , and there is little that can be done at home to prevent it. Sentiment restrains some, and both Australia, New Zealand (and the Cooks) are making efforts to tap into their diasporas, hoping that, while sons and daughters do well overseas, they'll flick work home or in other ways spare a thought for their countries of origin.

Coming back to the Cooks. Their rather lack-lustre government decided that their centenary last week might be a suitable time to seek a formal break in their ties with New Zealand so that they could become full members of the UN and of the British Commonwealth. It didn't seem to have occurred to Cooks' ministers that if they became fully independent then they would automatically lose their entry rights to NZ and have to negotiate quotas like all the other Pacific countries. Moreover, the aid which NZ directs their way would also need to be renegotiated. Helen Clark boarded her aircraft leaving some rather thoughtful officials on the tarmac.

I hope William Woo enjoys his stay. The weather is very pleasant in Rarotonga and Aitutaki between May and October. They turn into furnaces after that. I suspect that mid-year tourism will always remain one of the Cooks' big money earners. The lagoon at Aitutaki is one of the great small playgrounds of the world for boaties and fishermen and sunbathers. A small island to oneself, nodding coconut palms, and blue, blue water. Wonderful - for about three or four days, at which point anyone with any get up and go, gets up and goes".

Ronald Hilton - 6/18/01