Where are the Norfolk Islands

Mayor Canberra will lead Norfolk Island - but not all natives are lucky.

The Norfolk Iceland Legislation Amendment Bill, which eliminates the restricted forms of self-government Norfolk Iceland has had since 1979, was adopted last weekend by both buildings of the Australia Parliament. Adoption of this law represents a significant change in the relationship between the islet and the continent, putting Norfolk under similar governmental agreements to the other off-shore jurisdictions of Australia and expanding Australia's legislation, welfare and tax to the islet.

On May 8, a previous weekend, 70% of the island's electorate said "yes" to a loose vote in the municipal ballot, underlining the right of the archipelago to self-determination and the wish to consult on its own state. Although the vote is not mandatory, many of the island's 1,400 inhabitants interpreted the outcome as a firm rejection by the Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development, Jamie Briggs' assertion that most islanders are in favour of the elimination of self-government.

Norfolk's changes of government are part of a broader, long-standing battle between the islanders and Canberra. What are the roots of these fights? Norfolk's insulation ensures his own geographical segregation from the continental Australia - but it has also kept a certain amount of geographical and ethnic detachment. It is a result of his historic position as home to the Pitcairn Islanders, a group of Anglo-Polynesian descendents of the HMAV Bounty rebels who were relocated to Norfolk in 1856.

It was a UK area when this group established itself and stayed so when the Australia States merged in 1901. It was relocated to Australia in 1914, but the Pitcairn settlers' offspring maintained for centuries a greater sense of identity with the United Kingdom than with their Aussie neighbors.

Today the Australians and New Zealanders are also the major part of the people. Many Norfolk people are more deeply linked to the continent of Australia through educational, domestic or working relationships. I have been a scientist on Norfolk Iceland for many years and I often listen to people's distrust of the state and its plans for the Isle.

The distrust of Australia stems from recent and long-standing government conflicts between island residents and continental government agencies. Norfolk Island's politics since the advent of the Pitcairn Islands have been strewn with such conflicts, the most profound of which is a 150-year dispute over the initial terms of the Pitcairners' estate of Norfolk.

In 1856, when the Pitcairn Islands were relocated to Norfolk Islands, the leader of each of the families received a free crown of lands and more was distributed to married pairs over the years. Whilst the people of the islands now largely agree that these early crown subsidies to their forebears are presents, they have long discussed among themselves and with various Aussie and UK civil servants on the central issue of whether Queen Victoria, the highest authorities in the UK state, also gave their forebears the whole of Norfolk Island's terrain when they populated the islands.

Since 1857, some inhabitants of the islands have argued for greater territorial sovereignty over the rights and governance of the islands, arguing that all of Norfolk was initially given to their forefathers and that it should be localised and supervised by those for whom it was made. These allegations were reiterated in 1896, when the degree of self-government they had since the end of the occupation was lifted, and again throughout the whole of 1896-1914, when the UK authorities gradually delegated their power over the isle to Australia against the will of the fellowship.

This assertion was persistent because the people of the island thought that there was a official assignment deed. It is said that this paper was taken from the Pitcairn colonists shortly after they settled here. Speculation about its contents has fueled the islanders' original belief that Norfolk was theirs. It was not found and the allegations of the island' s inhabitants have been rigorously disproved by the Canadians.

In spite of the restricted shopping outside the municipality, these demands were of strategic importance for the municipal administration's assistance, which was eventually given to the isle in 1979. Norfolk lsland self-government emerged from the Canberra legislators' conviction that the Aussie regime could not properly meet the policy needs of an isolated country that had been geographically removed from the center of a state.

As a result of a certain level of civic and economical independence and involvement, the self-government has overcome riots in the management of the islands and kept "Australian society" (including Australia's taxes, social assistance and government) at bay. Obviously, Norfolk Islanders now have more direct issues with the GOA than they did more than 150 years ago, such as whether last week's changes in leadership are affecting their long-standing system of transfer of land ownership and domestic operations.

As with any sound policy communion, there have always been great differences of opinion on government. Whilst the recent discussion on the islands futures has concentrated on the present day challenges, such as fiscal stability, improving infrastructures and the arguments for and against the extension of Australia's taxes and service to the islands, Norfolk Islanders do not view these changes in a culture void.

In spite of the undoubtedly strong relations between the people of the islands and Australia and the increasing need for a stronger economy on the continent, a complicated story is behind the changes in government in Norfolk over the past few weeks. Especially for the inhabitants of Pitcairn, these changes are a reminder of long-standing conflict dating back to the settlements of their forebears.