Australia takes over Norfolk Island

NORFOLK ISLAND – Despite strong opposition over the past year Australia yesterday legally removed political autonomy from Norfolk Island.

Under Canberra’s new plan, Norfolk will now be run by a regional council under New South Wales jurisdiction.

It comes as the opponents to the plan intensify their push for international rights bodies to investigate what they call Canberra’s illegal actions.

The Norfolk administrator, Gary Hardgrave has dismissed the opponents of the take over as a minority.

But over the past year the group Norfolk Island People for Democracy had strong backing at public meetings, for a referendum it ran, and on social media, and most recently in its push for the United Nations to list the territory as a non-self-governing territory.

It also launched a case at the UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva and another with the International Court of Justice.

After today Hardgrave – who is an intensely unpopular figure on the small island – will stay on as Canberra’s official but he will have to deal with a regional council of which three of the five members support Norfolk Island People for Democracy.

Protests were expected to reach boiling point yesterday.

A tent city has occupied the grounds of the old parliament building for the past two months, and a protest march was planned for the afternoon.

Opposition group Norfolk Island People for Democracy, whose members comprise more than half the island’s population, says residents have been stripped of their self-determination.

President Chris Magri says the island does not necessarily want to become an independent state, but to retain its self-governance as an external territory of Australia.

“Our preference is for self-government in free association with Australia,” Magri says.

“It would be similar to the relationship the Cook Islands enjoys with New Zealand. That’s what we aspire to.”

But the island’s administrator, Gary Hardgrave, says the reforms are aimed at giving residents access to federal services, like healthcare and welfare, for the first time.

The island’s New Zealand-born residents will now have to apply for a visa to remain there.

- PNC/RNZI