There is always plenty of room at the table to eat. This is something my grandmother and mother have always said, and more importantly, they practiced what they preached, which is how we have lived our lives, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.

It is what we have shown and taught our children, and will continue to be the value for our ina and mokopuna when it is their turn to invite others to eat also.

Be it food, culture, our language, or simply providing a column or opinion piece in the Cook Islands News, I am clear there is always room for those who want to speak and provide comment also. Please do, as the discipline of writing 800 words a week, to put yourself and your thoughts, your feelings and opinion into the public domain is a skill one develops overtime. However, I have chosen to never develop a thick skin as some have done to counter the criticism, sometimes critical and sometimes cruel and unkind.

A thick skin will not feel the sometimes-necessary counter agreement, counter thinking and other points of view, like those expressed this week on my writing a column. I appreciate the time taken and appreciate the point of view and question, and again, invite this anonymous writer to put pen to paper, and your name as there is room at this public table for more.

And speaking of being at the table, our Minister for Foreign Affairs (Tingika Elikana) spoke to Radio New Zealand on the question again of United Nations membership and the relationship we have as a sovereign nation – well at least it is a definition recognised by the largest democracy in the world, the United States of America, and ourselves.

As we as a country forge our own path and have done since our arrival from Iva, Tahiti, Samoa, and other parts of the great Moana nui a Kiva, we get the opportunity to consider what those 70 nautical miles beyond the horizon looks like and the dreams for a generation fast coming behind us and not even born yet. The question we face is: Should we lash our Vaka to the likes of organisations like the United Nations, or should we sail instead with our constitutional partner Aotearoa, or should we simply sail alone?

Aotearoa New Zealand joined the UN on June 26, 1945, as one of 51 countries to sign the UN Charter in San Francisco at its birth and as a member it has had the opportunity to vote on critical matters that have affected the world including climate change, indigenous rights, world conflict and its role as peacekeepers.

New Zealand has made it clear with Lange, Clark, Key and Ardern that any discussion on our United Nations membership will potentially affect our New Zealand passport as a right of birth, and for that reason alone, there is little if any appetite from our Cook Islands people no matter where they reside, for change.

But my question is why? Not why should we change this, but why is it mutually exclusive, why must one counter the other when so many of us have dual nationalities and dual passports. Dual identities as Australian, Samoan, Philippine, Canadian, Fijian and Irish as well as citizens of the New Zealand and the Realm of the Cook Islands. There are so many examples of where we use and utilise both citizenships alongside each other, one not taking away from the other, rather we add value and celebrate the global citizens that we are, proud of each flag we fly and of the countries our passports identify us to and from.

Whether we favour changing these settings or not, our nation sails towards the inevitability of these questions time and again, as we join the International Monetary Fund, join with nations like Saudia Arabia, and culminated in the United States’ recognition of the Cook Islands and Niue as sovereign states in September 2022.

And these systemic shifts globally, the countries of the Moana vying for our allegiance and above-and-below-the-ocean resources, are at the forefront of the challenges facing us all as Cook Islanders of the Moana. So what table will we and our people eat from and who will sit at that table with us?