Dear Editor, I write with palpable gloom and deep concern about this subject matter (Referendum needed to decide UN membership, says Elikana, Cook Islands News, April 6). We need to sift through the issues carefully and be able to anticipate the full consequences.

First, we are already members of a large number of UN bodies such as WHO, UNESCO, F.A.O, … to name some. This has worked satisfactorily without the need to take further steps or change.

What bothers the most is the thinking behind this. Let us ask questions, what is wrong with New Zealand continuing to handle our external affairs? They have done it satisfactorily for over half a century. We don’t have the diplomatic infrastructure, finance, military force and skilled experts to run it.

Is our Prime Minister uncomfortable with good security provided by New Zealand? I see this as the prelude to seeking full independence!

Our relationship with New Zealand is the envy of all Pacific Islands, especially Tahiti – French Polynesia. I witnessed the dawn raids and Sunday afternoon arrests of Pacific Islanders from Tonga and Samoa, some torn away from the dinner table on Sunday afternoons after church, many being elderly people, at the peak of overstayer raids in the 1970s, when I was a Police Senior Sergeant in charge of the Watch House where arrests are processed at the Auckland Central Police Station.

Many of us are on New Zealand pension or superannuation, some on Australian pension. Many of those pensioners live in NZ or Australia and some back here.   At a guess, I believe two thirds of our people live in NZ, Australia and the rest of the world. Only 25 per cent live here. The risk of severing our ties with New Zealand is spellbinding stupidity and senseless. 

Compare the cost of having an office and residence in New York. Add to that a car, staff, salaries and operational costs in US dollars. The costs of running our Wellington High Commission will be nothing in comparison.

Mr. Prime Minister, if you ever touch the button of full independence, you will wish you were living on another planet! We will fight you by every lawful means possible. We will call on all Cook Islanders in NZ, Australia and the world, to run a massive petition. The right to this petition will be based on citizenship and not under the strictly controlled Electoral Act. I ran the biggest petition ever conducted by Cook Islanders in NZ in the 1970s, to stop a move by the then Premier to declare full independence from NZ. We won! And we will win again! We totally oppose the membership and if it is to be tabled, we will file an international petition against it, we don’t want to take up the membership – it is totally unjustified.

The final question I wish to ask is, is this another attempt to create an illustrious, glamorous high paying job for a chronic egotist who refuses to go home and retire?

Our gratitude must be extended to the Pukapuka MP Tingika Elikana. You are our constitutional protector! Keep up with the good work my friend.

Kia toa! Kia kaha!                                                           

Yours sincerely,

Norman George    

Former but still ferocious MP