“It is an interesting coincidence that, as we in Canberra have been apoplectic about being denied a democratic say in access to euthanasia, that the Commonwealth government quietly suspended the Norfolk Island Council for three years,” writes JON STANHOPE. 

EMERITUS Prof Roger Wettenhall AM, who enjoyed a long and stellar academic career at the University of Canberra, has died just short of his 92nd birthday. 

Roger was deeply respected and admired and was held in great affection by those of us who worked with and knew him. He will be dearly missed.

In 2016 I enjoyed the privilege of co-authoring with him a paper published in the “Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration”.

The paper was titled “Governance Challenge: Australia’s Indian Ocean Island Territories”. At the time of writing that paper I had not long returned from a term as administrator of Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and was genuinely touched and humbled when Roger asked me to collaborate with him on the paper.

Roger and I shared a long-term interest in and connection to the governance of small island territories and nations. Roger and I had, before writing about the Indian Ocean territories, also published, in February, 2015, an article in the “Public Sector Informant” section of “The Canberra Times” titled “We’re not listening to Norfolk Islanders as their democracy is quietly stolen”. 

Much of Roger’s scholarship and writing in his academic career was related to the governance of small, isolated territories and nations. Roger would, in conversation and his writing, refer to these places as “monuments to 19th century British-style colonisation” or as “the surviving relics of the British Empire”. In an essay he published in the “Island Studies Journal” in 2016, under the heading “Decolonizing through integration: Australia’s offshore island territories”, he characterised Norfolk, Christmas and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands as emanations of Australia’s coloniser phase and questioned whether Norfolk, Christmas and the Cocos Islands continued to fit the definition of a colony. I believe they do.

However, regardless of whether they satisfy the formal definition of a colony, Australia is so derelict in meeting its responsibility to the residents of these places that the point is primarily one of academic interest.

I, too, have a long association with Norfolk Island including a term in the early 1990s as official secretary and deputy administrator.

Therefore, I know how sorely Roger will be missed by those Australian citizens who are residents of these non-self-governing “relics of the British Empire” who yearn for a right to a genuine say in the management and governance of the places they call home

It is an interesting coincidence that in the last few months, as we here in Canberra have been apoplectic about being denied a democratic say in access to euthanasia, that the Commonwealth government quietly suspended the Norfolk Island Council for three years. 

In other words, the people of Norfolk Island, having in 2015 suffered the repeal of self-government, have had no say for seven years in the formulation or delivery of state-type services such as health, education, justice, the environment, let alone euthanasia, but now also have no say in issues such as mowing the grass, filling in potholes or collecting the garbage. 

The council is now run by public servants from Canberra while the delivery on Norfolk Island of state-type services, such as health and education were, at the end of last year, hand-balled by the NSW government to Queensland. 

I assume the embarrassment of acting in the role of raj, in what is to all appearances a colony, proved too much for Gladys and Co. The change of overlord and service provider has, of course, caused massive disruption to the residents of Norfolk Island while it appears that the government of Queensland didn’t even blush when offered 20 pieces of silver, by the Commonwealth, to step in and take over the task of lording it over the locals.

It is reasonable, I think, for each of us to stop for a moment and ask ourselves how we would react if we were advised that a unilateral decision had been taken thousands of kilometres away by people we didn’t vote for or employ that (say) the existing ACT school curriculum was being abandoned and that full responsibility for educating our children had been transferred somewhere else. What do you think we would think or do about that? 

However, there are no options available to the people of Norfolk Island. They have, unlike the residents of Hong Kong, no democratic rights at a municipal or state level. None. Absolutely none. 

Admittedly, they are required to vote in the electorate of Bean, here in Canberra, in Federal elections. Unfortunately, the only community of interest that exists between our two communities is that neither of us has any interest in the other. Canberra does, of course, provide the public servants who dictate to the people of Norfolk Island how they are to live, so we do have that connection.

On that note, I was recently in conversation with a friend on Norfolk Island and asked him what it was like living in a part of Australia, the nation that invented the fair go, in which you have absolutely no say in how your community is governed and your life regulated? 

He told me that it was upsetting and at times very unsettling. He said, for example, that he had recently got out of bed in the middle of the night to answer the call of nature and on the way to the toilet stopped in a mild panic unable to recall if he first needed to ring someone in Canberra for permission!