TOKELAU: NZ accused of being behind referendum
Updated
A New Zealand opposition Member of Parliament has accused the country's foreign ministry of being behind efforts to persuade the people of Tokelau to vote for self-determination. The opposition National Party's spokesman on the Pacific and former New Zealand diplomat, John Hayes says the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade engineered the requests from the Tokelau administration to hold two referendums. Both of them failed to receive the required two third majority. The latest one which was held last week fell short by 16 votes. Mr Hayes says it is lawyers and bureaucrats in Wellington who want Tokelau to change its status.
Presenter: Bruce Hill
Speakers: John Hayes, New Zealand's opposition National Party spokesman on Pacific Affairs,
HAYES: Because they want, the lawyers and the prime ministry, want to see New Zealand removed from the UN's decolonisation list and previously of course we've had Cook Islands and Niue and we're sitting there with Tokelau and from a tidy legal minds point of view, it's an untidy arrangement.
Now this arrangement has involved the use of New Zealand taxpayer money through the aid program to try to induce the people of Tokelau to head off in this direction. Fortunately, sufficient Tokelau islanders or Tokelauans have had enough commonsense to resist the temptation and the carrots being put in front of them and I think that's very sensible. Because, what we're finding is that the activities of the foreign ministry in providing this inducement has created the exact same arrangement as occurred in the case of Niue, where you turn everybody into public servants using the aid money, you put everybody on a pay roll.
Some people in a small community don't try and favour with the boss and so they don't get put on. They pack up and leave. It's exactly what's happened in Tokelau. We've dropped the population from somewhere over 1,500. The latest census suggest that there's 1,153 or less. That move of people really staggered the administration on Tokelau, because they didn't really realise it was happening around them, but it's exactly what happened on Niue.
And the reality is that 1,000 people, a small secondary school, doesn't have the surplus cash to pay to send people all around the place. Now, the three Ulu have been doing a lot of travelling, Fiji, Korea, all sorts of places in the last six to 12 months and this is what happens. They consume huge amounts of money, turning their back on the needs of the people they actually represent. And those needs revolve around education, medical issues, infrastructure and integrity systems.
HILL: But the administrator of Tokelau, David Payton, a New Zealand diplomat, says that this whole push for self-determination has come out of requests by the people on Tokelau, that.....
HAYES: Oh look, the foreign ministry engineer these requests, but I don't think that's the truth at all.
HILL: How do they engineer them?
HAYES: Ah, with the inducement of money and through successive administrators who are actually employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So they come along and they push the ministry of foreign affairs agenda.
HILL: Well, they've lost two of these referendums on the trot now. Do you think it's likely they'll have a third one eventually?
HAYES: Oh, I think it's a very good time to sit back and have a cup of tea and let the people of Tokelau settle down and move forward in their own time and in their own way.
HILL: What do you think the ultimate solution should be for Tokelau?
HAYES: I don't want to impose my views on the people of Tokelau. That's for them to decide. But I would like to see a process that's even handed, that doesn't involve financial inducements or somebody else's hidden agenda and let the people themselves decide over time. I think the people of Tokelau need to be left alone.
