Big changes in Pitcairn government

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HILL: When the Bounty mutineers and their descendants were discovered by Britain, their first constitution was written for them in 1838 by a Royal Navy Captain. It gave Pitcairn women the right to vote, and insisted on education for all children between the ages of six and sixteen. There have been other constitutions in 1893 and 1904, but there's a dispute over whether these latest changes amount to being a completely new blueprint for one of the smallest territories in the world. The Director of the Pitcairn Islands Studies Centre in the United States, Herb Ford, believes it does, and suggests they move Pitcairn in a more democratic direction. But he says the real question is whether this British plan will be widely accepted by the 55 inhabitants.

FORD: The key to the whole thing is can they make some decisions on the island on their own without the Governor in Wellington either throwing out their decisions or making new decisions for them without even contacting them, in other words, will they be able to say and do things for themselves that they can count on or not.

HILL: Does this mean it's a whole new constitutional set up, the last time they changed their constitution was in 1904.

FORD: I could believe that, interestingly enough the Commissioner for the island Leslie Jaques, its been quoted in Auckland has been island for months and months working with the Pitcairn people to bring this to the place where it would be acceptable as a constitution.

HILL: Does the British still want to administer Pitcairn, it was already evacuated once in its history, it's only a handful of people not even a hundred people, do they still want to have this position in the middle of the Pacific.

FORD:There's a thing called the Pacific Economic Council, and if you want to be a member of that you have to have a viable entity in the Pacific ocean and the United Kingdom only has one viable part of the Pacific ocean and that is Pitcairn island and I think they want very much to stay a part of the Pacific Economic Council.

HILL: So Pitcairn is a good excuse for them to stay in the PEC?

FORD: Yes I think so, I think they're using Pitcairn, there's every reason in the word to think they're holding on to it for some reason, because they've been pouring tonnes of money into the island, they've done a new landing, a new road, new infrastructure into the islands, thousands if not millions of dollars.

HILL: The British administration insists the changes they're introducing to Pitcairn are to bring it's laws into line with European standards of governance and human rights. Chris Harrington, a spokesman for Pitcairn Governor George Fergusson, says it's not accurate to suggest they add up to an entirely new constitution.

HARRINGTON: The Governor himself, Mr Ferguson has made that very clear, this is not a new constitution but they are significant changes and they're important changes to the rules if you like for the Pitcairn islanders.

HILL: What are the reasons for the changes?

HARRINGTON: Mainly to bring the courts and the judicial structure that affects them into alignment and secondly we want to make the rights guaranteed under the European Convention on Human Rights, we want that legislation to go through and be effective for the islanders.

HILL: There's only about 55 or 60 of them on the island, you're pouring quite a bit of resources into a fairly small place why is that?

HARRINGTON: Well things have to be done properly, the 55 islanders they are entitled to a correct and proper constitutional arrangement and that's what they're getting.