Our identity as Māori is attached to our akapapa and our akapapa is attached to land. Land, that has over time become more fragmented, smaller and occupied by often vacant land owners, but this is not about land tenure and absentee landowners, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.

Identity is also a legal issue as one must prove it when leaving the reefs and shores of the country we currently call the Cook Islands and entering another, like New Zealand. We must legally prove that we are who we say we are, and this is only found in our New Zealand Passport.

For us as a Realm country of New Zealand, we are entitled at birth to a New Zealand Passport, once our birth certificate is verified and a fee is paid that allows us not only entry and exit of the Realm of the Cook Islands but also as migrants, migrant workers and travellers.

When borders closed in New Zealand in March 2020 more than 300 Cook Islanders were caught in New Zealand, and in that moment, we saw just how many of our people utilise that New Zealand Passport to travel, work, study and receive medical and social support in New Zealand, Australia and around the world.

Our New Zealand passports are now required to carry a Cook Islands residency stamp that allows us the freedom to travel home without a return ticket and to stay as long as we decide. It also is the only mechanism in this global world that identifies us as Cook Islanders, outside of a Cook Islands birth certificate. Not a Cook Islands Māori, that is our akapapa, that identifies this, simply the legal entity that is a Cook Islander albeit sitting inside the passport of another country and another sovereign state.

And as the Cook Islands Games come to an end, we consider our athletes, rugby, league and other sports that face the dilemma of struggling to meet international requirements to prove they are Cook Islanders through their parents or grandparents, with these intergenerational allowances slowly becoming more strict and harder to verify.

This dual identity is problematic from the Olympics to the Commonwealth games, to rugby and league and other codes, when those born outside of the Cook Islands want to represent the country of their parents or grandparents’ birth. So, would a Cook Islands passport make this easier? Maybe so. However, whether or not this is reason enough to make it happen is ultimately for those at home to decide.

As a nation, next year we will celebrate 60 years of independent rule, in free association with New Zealand, with the United States currently the only country that has formally recognised our sovereignty. We are not members of the United Nations or the Commonwealth as they do not recognise us as sovereign, rather a realm country within the sovereignty of New Zealand; alongside Niue, which celebrates 50 years of independent rule and Tokelau which is a protectorate.

Niue made it clear this week during their 50-year celebrations that they have more immediate issues than independence, as they change the title Premier to Prime Minister, something the Cook Islands did in the 1970s.

Do we have more immediate and pressing issues than a Cook Islands passport, and is it top of mind for those at home or those of us beyond the reef. Because any decision around a passport will affect us also.

And as the resident population at home drops to around 15,000, with about 12,000 being Cook Islands Māori, the 2023 census in New Zealand count for Cook Islands Māori has grown from the 2018 figure of 80,000 to 94,760. Not that any consultation if at all on this issue will include those beyond the reef, as this decision will be made at home by a very small group of men and women.

I personally can see merit as well as challenges of such a decision, as I hold and use two different country passports, but the real question is what do the people of the Cook Islands want and have they been consulted on this critical decision, or will it be a decision made by the few on behalf of the many. Leaders lead at the vote and desire of their people – a vote and desire that should never, ever be taken for granted.