KINGSTON – The Australian government is to introduce legislation next week to strip Norfolk Island of the autonomy it has enjoyed for nearly 40 years.

Under the changes Norfolk’s legislative assembly will be temporarily replaced by an advisory council, before local government elections in 2016.

Norfolk Island has for many years been tax free but from July next year the islanders will pay personal and business tax while they will be able to access social security, Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

New South Wales will administer education and health services while the Commonwealth will provide police.

Australia’s assistant regional development minister Jamie Briggs says the changes are long overdue and it is not sustainable to ask a community of just 1800 to deliver local, state and federal services.

He claims there is overwhelming support on Norfolk for the changes but the island’s chief minister Lisle Snell disputes this, saying 700 people signed a petition backing the status quo.

He says Norfolk Islanders need to have a voice on issues that affect them, such as health, social welfare, policing and education.

But local journalist Wally Beadman, who has lived on the island since 2004, fully supports the action being taken by Canberra.

“There was never an easy answer to this but I think a closer relationship with Australia, underpinned by tax and welfare, is probably the basis on which to build a better Norfolk.

“Because what we have been doing for the past decade or so has patently not worked, and people can say the Commonwealth hasn’t let us but at the end of the day, if you are a national type government, the responsibility ends with you.”

A member of the Norfolk Island parliament says democracy has been shipwrecked on the island with Canberra deciding to go ahead with plans to curb its autonomy.

The Norfolk Island culture minister, Robin Adams, says Australia announced its decision just three hours after the island’s parliament had voted to hold a referendum to give the locals a voice in determining any changes.

She says the 18 of March 2015 will go down in the history books as a day of shame – the day Canberra removed a democratically elected government.

Adams says this not because of failures of governance but because of a perceived need to strengthen the Norfolk Island economy.

She says if a true democratic process was being followed, the next step that should happen is allowing a referendum.

The way Australia went about releasing the information has also angered some on the island.

A Norfolk resident, Louci Reynolds says they have a sense of finding out about the end of autonomy through a text.

She says Canberra could have at least sent someone to explain it to the people.

“It wouldn’t take that much would it? A bit of communication, a bit of PR skills for somebody to do that.”