False Start in Paradise

By Iaveta Short

In 1965, after sixty-five years under New Zealand control, the Cook Islands achieved self-government, beginning a politically turbulent period in the life of this tiny island democracy.

Led by the enigmatic Albert Henry, the early promise was left unfulfilled as Henry, attempting to build a self-serving empire, manipulated the political system and used Government funds to stay in power. This led to a major court battle where for the first time a government was overturned by a court decision. It ushered in another enigmatic leader, Sir Tom Davis, who had spent many years in the US with the NASA space programme. Davis changed the direction of the Cook Islands to a liberal, free market, open economy.

Decades of political seesawing followed as the Cook Islands tried to right its political and economic boat in the turbulent winds of a tiny democracy. Too often its mishaps and false starts resulted from lots of enthusiasm but little knowledge and experience running a modern democracy.

This book is an attempt to record many of the events and people that contributed to this enthralling, difficult and politically turbulent period in the short life of a tiny island democracy.

 

About the Author

Iaveta Short had a bird's eye view of the turbulent periods following self-government and was often in the middle of the clean-up. He was the first Cook Islander to graduate with a law degree from Auckland University and returned home to be in the midst of the difficult winds of change that followed self-governance. He was a minister in the Sir Tom Davis Government, High Commissioner for the Cook Islands in Wellington, and the go-to man to solve many of the problems of government across the political divide. He holds a chiefly (Mataiapo) title on Rarotonga and was awarded an OBE in 1995. He has retired from politics and public service and is a successful businessman on Rarotonga.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Moana Publishing
• Release date: Aug 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9780473497583

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Cook Islands — a Thumbnail History

By way of an historical introduction, I propose to provide an overview of the Cook Islands — named, of course, after Captain Cook, the famous British explorer and navigator who first mapped and recorded our islands in the charts of the British Admiralty.

Captain Cook did not, though, visit all our islands, nor was he even the first European to sail into these waters. More importantly still, as Cook Islanders know, our forefathers had already crisscrossed these waters a thousand years or more before Cook’s arrival in this part of the world.

Our Polynesian sea captains and taunga (experts) had charted our course to these islands using the stars and a host of celestial markers. The names given by our forefathers to these routes and celestial markers were passed down through the generations and today are reflected in the names of our mountains, landmarks, marae, and even our children. Names like Ikurangi, Takitumu, Rangiatea, Manureva are accorded to mountains, rivers, gorges, lakes and such natural insignias in Tahiti and the Tuamotus, Rarotonga and the other islands of the Cook Islands and all over Aotearoa New Zealand. Our history and genealogy were not written on paper but were retained in a life-form of oral traditional chants, challenges, pe‘e and songs, and genealogies handed down from generation to generation. Our taunga were the professors who taught specially anointed and gifted leaders selected for the task through their genealogy and natural acumen and abilities, and they memorised our history and genealogy and landmarks. Over many generations they established marae and sacred sites full of meaning and history. These were desecrated and done away with by the missionaries who saw this as an affront to their written word of the holy scriptures and today we lament their loss. Many untested, uncorroborated stories and histories of tribes and families and genealogies have become the basis of much of today’s record of our past history.

It is ironic, therefore, that we inhabit a small group of islands named by people living on the other side of the world. Today, we are one of the few Pacific Island states not known by an indigenous name. I believe a day will come when our leaders will have the courage to restore our true and proper name to these islands — Avaiki — the homeland of the Maori, the last discoverers of land on earth of the human race. We cannot be Avaiki Nui because that is all of Polynesia. Instead we are the ‘pito enua’, the centrepiece from whence our people migrated and inhabited the last land mass of the uninhabited world — Aotearoa.

So how, exactly, did we acquire the name? Well, that story starts in 1773 when the British navigator Captain James Cook visited Manuae and named the atoll Hervey Island in honour of Augustus Hervey, 3rd Earl of Bristol, and a Lord of the Admiralty. The name ‘Hervey Islands’ was later used to refer to the entire southern group, until 1824 when the islands were renamed as the Cook Islands by the Russian cartographer von Krusenstern, in honour of Captain Cook who had died at the hands of the Hawaiians, back in 1779.

A significant event with far-reaching consequences for these islands was the arrival of London Missionary Society (LMS) missionaries from Tahiti in 1821 and the rapid conversion of our people to Christianity — so rapid, in fact, that Cook Islanders became the ‘shock troops’ of the LMS as it spread the Gospel of Salvation in Jesus Christ to our neighbours Samoa, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and as far west as what is now Papua New Guinea. My own great-great-grandfather Taunga o te Tini was one of these who went to the island of Nifu in New Caledonia in the early 1840s for four years and then on to Manua in the American Samoa group for another thirty-odd years and survived to return to spend his last years back home in Rarotonga.

Religious influences were not the only forces at work in this part of the world. The nineteenth century was a period of intense empire building and land grabbing worldwide by European powers. Although the British had acquiesced in the French declaration of a protectorate in Tahiti as early as 1843, many islands in this part of the world remained unaligned, and by the 1880s with empire building at its height, those in the Cook Islands became increasingly concerned at French interest in expanding its reach.

On Rarotonga, worried English settlers, Protestant English missionaries and the ariki (chiefs) petitioned the British Colonial Office for protection against the Catholic French. History tells us that an improvised Union Jack was hoisted in a prominent position at the Avarua harbour to ward off the expected arrival of a French Navy frigate.

A British Consul (an Englishman residing on Rarotonga) was appointed in 1881 and his expenses were met by the local petitioners. His appointment was followed, in 1888, by the declaration of a British Protectorate over the southern group islands, still officially referred to as the ‘Hervey Islands’ by the Colonial Office in London. The northern group islands were subsequently included in the Protectorate to become what the Admiralty in London now officially referred to as the ‘Cook Islands’. In this way, the ‘Cook Islands’ became a country and we became ‘Cook Islanders’.

As the ‘Cook Islands’, our small, new country wasted little time forming its own Federal Parliament and shaping up, like Tonga, to remain an independent political entity under the protection of Britain. However, we remained an independent state for just twelve short years. By the late nineteenth century, it was not just big European powers that wanted to build empires — New Zealand had ambitions for an empire in its own backyard. And so, in 1901, at the instigation of the New Zealand Premier Richard Seddon (‘King Dick’), the boundaries of the British colony of New Zealand were extended northwards to include the Cook Islands.

This boundary extension was concocted between King Dick’s administration in Wellington and the Colonial Office in London. We were not the only Polynesians persuaded to join with New Zealand; over time, her imperial presence in the Pacific expanded to include Western Samoa, Niue and the Tokelau Islands.

From 1901, the fifteen islands of the Cook group became part of what is still — today — known as the ‘Realm of New Zealand’. Simply put, a micro-state of Cook Islanders ceased to be either a nation or a country; instead, our country and its people were absorbed, for over six decades, into a rather inept South Seas empire run by New Zealand as a colonial power still under the British.

For much of the first half of the twentieth century, our small group of islands slumbered; after an initial flurry of imperial interest in the economic possibilities of these new possessions, the realities of administering fifteen small, remote islands, lacking in resources, set in; we were left to our own devices, our men and women seen fit for very little but agricultural and subsistence labour.

Incredible though it may seem from today’s perspective, Tereora School established by the LMS in 1891–93 was closed in 1911. The LMS’s original plan was to teach native students to become missionaries and to carry the teachings of the Bible to ‘heathen lands’. The LMS had urged the New Zealand Government to take over the responsibility of running the school without much success. The New Zealand administration did not see the point of educating Cook Islanders to secondary levels. The LMS school doors were closed in 1911and remained closed for almost the next half century. Over that time, there was no other higher institute of learning on Rarotonga above primary school level.

However, while our people were left in this South Seas limbo, in the rest of the world, it was a tumultuous half century — and New Zealand found itself increasingly drawn into world affairs, despite its own antipodean solitude. It is useful, briefly, to outline the distractions that led New Zealand, so keen for a South Seas empire, to take so little interest in its Polynesian possessions for so long.

The first half of the twentieth century was, of course, marked by two huge, world-changing conflicts — the First World War and the Second World War. The Second World War, in particular, changed much for New Zealand which, until then, had depended for survival almost entirely upon the protective cloak of the British Empire and that country’s formidable naval power.

Up to and immediately after the Second World War, 80 per cent of New Zealand’s trade was with the United Kingdom — the ‘mother country’. However, by the end of the war, Britain had been eclipsed as a major world power by the United States of America. That resulted in a major re-evaluation of New Zealand’s role in the region and its strategic alliances. By the early ’50s, the Cold War, pitting western nations against the Communist Bloc, led to New Zealand cultivating stronger relationships with the United States.

Initially, New Zealand signed the Canberra Agreement in 1944, followed later by a wider protective defence alliance with the US and Australia — the ANZUS Treaty of 1951. In 1947 New Zealand finally adopted the 1931 British Statute of Westminster, which granted sovereignty to New Zealand over domestic and international affairs (a process similar to that under which, from New Zealand, the Cook Islands gained internal self-governing status). This was followed, in 1948, by the passage of the New Zealand Citizenship Act, which changed our status from British to New Zealand citizens.

The decades following the Second World War were great times for New Zealand. Until Britain joined the Common Market (the European Economic Community) in the early 1970s, the country enjoyed great prosperity; Pacific islanders came, for the first time, to be seen as a labour resource — and so began the exodus of our people to live and work in New Zealand.

When Britain joined the European Common Market in 1973, New Zealand determined to look increasingly to the Asia-Pacific region rather than Britain for its future economic survival. Accordingly, New Zealand began to take a more independent stand in the region, in particular with regard to Asia. It was a founding member of the Colombo Plan, which provided aid to Asian countries and study opportunities for thousands of students from Asia. In addition, New Zealand and Australia funded major infrastructure and construction projects (hospitals, schools, railways) and economic projects like mills and mines in Asia. New Zealand’s focus on Asia continues today — immigration and trade relationships are aimed squarely at anchoring New Zealand as a key factor in the Asia-Pacific region.

And what has this to do with the Cook Islands? Well, with hindsight, as a Cook Islander growing up in the 1950s, I believe this focus on Asia — and the close relationships of New Zealand, Australia and the United States — should be contrasted with New Zealand’s performance in the Cook Islands.

We were, let’s not forget, New Zealand’s ‘empire’. However, by the late 1940s and early 1950s, New Zealand’s Pacific territories — the Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau and Samoa — were regarded as a tiresome colonial folly and their people good for nothing but common labour. Not to mention that many Cook Islanders were recruited by New Zealand into the Armed Forces and many died in both the First and the Second World Wars. There was no tangible gain to be made by the Cook Islands from this sacrifice other than to show solidarity with our ‘mother New Zealand’.

Only a handful of students from the Cook Islands were given scholarships to attend New Zealand secondary schools. Indeed, New Zealand did not get around to reopening Tereora College until 1955–56 and even then, on a limited basis. I remember that when I left Rarotonga for New Zealand in 1958, the most senior class at Tereora College (the only college in the Cook Islands) was Form 4 (Year 10). Not until the late 1960s did it become a secondary school to Form 5 (Year 11). And the few who passed the New Zealand School Certificate examination were awarded scholarships to Fiji Medical School, or Avele College in Samoa to study agriculture, and some were sent to New Zealand to continue their studies to Form 6 and 7 and onwards to university or training college for teacher training — but the numbers were very small, between ten and twenty only.

School photo showing all of the Tereora College pupils

The first and newly-established Tereora ‘College’ 1957–58 with about 140 students from forms 2–4 (Year 10). After more than 70 years of New Zealand control, no secondary school had been established in the Cook Islands. This relegated Cook Islanders to a working/labouring class for New Zealand.

With the post-war focus on New Zealand’s economic reconstruction and development, the need to find new workers became a priority. New Zealand needed labour not only to fill the vacuum left by New Zealand men lost in the war but also to drive its future economic growth. New Zealand’s historic neglect of the Cook Islands and failure to build the Cook Islands economic base appeared to pay off as the resulting employment vacuum in their home islands provided an impetus for Cook Islands workers to migrate to New Zealand for work.

The Cook Islands education system of the time taught Cook Islanders only to primary and intermediate level (today’s Year 8), leaving them largely unskilled, able to communicate in only the most basic English, and fit only for unskilled, low-level work in New Zealand. And so, the creams of our population were recruited to work in factories in Auckland, Penrose and Papakura, the timber mills of Kawerau and Kinleith, the wharves of Auckland and Wellington, and the farms of the East Coast and the freezing works throughout the country even as far south as Invercargill and Bluff freezing works. Our young women were employed in factories, hospital laundries and kitchens or as house girls for wealthy families and on farms.

To put it bluntly, New Zealand’s failure to develop the Cook Islands economy and educate our people had relegated Cook Islanders in New Zealand to a labouring working class, ripe to be exploited by filling the labour vacuum that resulted in New Zealand’s participation in the two world wars. New Zealand was indeed a good colony of Mother England but a failure as a colonial power for her Pacific territories.

Left to its own devices, New Zealand might have been content to leave its island territories in this limbo for decades. By the 1950s though, fresh breezes were blowing through the South Pacific and the colonised world.

The United Nations (UN) was formed in 1945 after the Second World War in an attempt to resolve disputes between nations without resorting to war. New Zealand was a founder member of this new international body. However, the world at that time was a very different place from today, and the UN’s agenda soon put the spotlight on empires, colonies, and the security challenges that came with them.

Indeed, it soon became obvious that the new flashpoint for conflict and war would be, as in Vietnam, colonies mainly of European countries in Africa, Asia and many small islands, seeking to extricate themselves from the occupying European colonial powers. In 1960, therefore, the UN established a Decolonization Committee; its mandate was to drive forward the decolonisation agenda, wherever possible, across Africa, Asia and the Pacific.

I appreciate that the idea of decolonisation is generally viewed favourably. However, looking back at the events that played out in and around the Cook Islands during my teens and twenties, I now see New Zealand’s rapid embrace of decolonisation in a more cynical light.

After all, colonial dependency carried with it, for New Zealand, direct obligations to its Pacific territories — such as education, infrastructure, social welfare, housing and economic development. By 1960, its failure to meet these obligations over a period of decades meant there was a huge development backlog. I think that the official embrace of decolonisation provided the New Zealand Government an opportunity to bring those obligations to an end — in other words to allow New Zealand to bail out of its obligations after it has taken out for their own services the cream of the Cook Islands population for its labour force in New Zealand.

In other words, I believe New Zealand had, by the early 1960s, decided there was little benefit to it in the continuing relationship and it was in its own best interests to allow these islands to move on. I wonder what would have happened if the Cook Islands had gold or nickel or other valuable minerals on our lands. I am almost sure that like France in New Caledonia or Tahiti, New Zealand would have been a lot slower to cut the apron strings and set us adrift.

Today, of course, New Zealand benefits greatly from its relationship with the Cook Islands and Samoa. Nearly all of the Cook Islands annual overseas imports, totalling $200 million, come from New Zealand leaving a huge imbalance of trade, with our exports worth less than $2 million a year. Take out the Pacific Islanders from the New Zealand labour force and New Zealand would suffer. Additionally, there is our contribution to the cultural, spiritual and historical connection to the Kiwi fabric of life and the close affinity to our Maori cousins, the tangata whenua of Aotearoa. They came from us — they are part of us and we are part of them.

In return, New Zealand provides an aid programme to the Cook Islands and Samoa that is meagre when compared to the costs of the country’s military presence in the Middle East — I often wonder what on earth New Zealand is doing in the Middle East war zone when larger countries with larger armies and defence force (Malaysia, India, former colonies of Britain) have not bothered — or is this part of the price New Zealand pays for the US (ANZUS) umbrella of protection?

That, though, is hindsight; back in the early 1960s, other pressures were at work. The Western Samoans, in particular, had an uncomfortable relationship with their New Zealand occupiers. New Zealand had been quick to ‘liberate’ Western Samoa from the Germans in 1914, but New Zealand’s colonial record compared unfavourably with the former German administration and even descended to a bloody uprising in Apia. Not surprisingly, the Samoans were keen to throw out their lacklustre colonisers, so it was also no surprise that New Zealand decided to decolonise its own Pacific territories in a process that got under way with Western Samoa gaining full independence after a plebiscite in 1962.

In that same year, in an effort to comply with the directions of the United Nations Decolonization Committee, the then Minister of Island Territories Sir Leon Goetz visited Rarotonga to see what support there was for various future governance options. These were:

Full independence from New Zealand

Internal self-government while remaining associated with New Zealand via citizenship

Assimilation within New Zealand with representation in the New Zealand Parliament

Membership of a pan-Pacific or Polynesian federation (to be established).

After limited consultation, our people chose internal self-government. It was the logical choice, after all most of its working population was already in the New Zealand labour force. They would have been cut off from their homes if the people decided to accept full independence. To remain part of New Zealand and continue to be governed by a ‘superior race of European masters’ was also not an option having lived through over fifty years of it. As a result, the new constitution for the Cook Islands — the Cook Islands Constitution Act 1964 — was passed into law by the New Zealand Parliament. The Constitution was to come into effect in the Cook Islands after a general election in the Cook Islands and approval of the terms of the Constitution by the newly elected Cook Islands Legislative Assembly.

The first general election in the Cook Islands was held on 20 April 1965, and on 26 July 1965 the newly elected Legislative Assembly formally declared the country to be ‘self-governing in free association with New Zealand’. The Legislative Assembly then adopted the Constitution of the Cook Islands previously passed by the New Zealand Parliament as the supreme law of the Cook Islands and determined that the new Constitution would come into force on 4 August 1965. Thereafter, of course, 4 August has been regarded as our ‘Constitution Day’ celebrating Cook Islands self-government.

From 4 August 1965, the destiny of our small nation was placed firmly in the hands of our newly elected Legislative Assembly. Under our new Constitution, three separate branches of the state — the Legislative Assembly, the Executive (the Premier, a Cabinet of six Ministers and supporting government departments) and the Judiciary — were established to run the ‘internal affairs’ of the Cook Islands. To start with, at least, New Zealand continued to discharge the functions and responsibilities of Foreign Affairs and Defence.

After sixty-five years of being administered from Wellington, it was indeed time for celebration. Anyone who voiced any fear or trepidation about the new arrangements was regarded with some disdain. At last, our Maori people were once again firmly in charge of our own affairs.

Chapter 2

Legal Practice — Early Concerns

I was not, myself, directly involved in the transition from being part of New Zealand and under New Zealand control to self-government, for in August 1965 I was studying in New Zealand, attending Auckland University as a private student and halfway through my law degree. My first taste of self-government came later that year.

In December that year, I returned to Rarotonga on a TEAL (Tasman Empire Airways Ltd — later to become Air New Zealand) aircraft from Auckland. A reminder of how isolated we were in those days is that my journey from Auckland was a long, wearying series of island hops, routed via Nadi to Apia then Aitutaki and finally Rarotonga — all of this on a lumbering prop plane. But those of us able to fly did not complain — the only other option, in those days, was a seven-to-ten-day journey by ship.

I arrived to find the atmosphere in Rarotonga was one of euphoria and celebration with a huge feeling of ‘coming of age’. I remember there was a strong positive mood in the air but at the same time a sense of loss. ‘What do we do now?’ was one of the big questions hanging in the air. That, though, was a question for others — my own direction and priorities were clear; after a few weeks catching up with family and friends, I returned to Auckland via the same route and settled back into my law studies. I was a private student because I was not eligible for a Government Scholarship.

Iaveta Short in legal attire

I graduated with a law degree from Auckland University. I was admitted to the New Zealand Bar in 1969 and commenced practising law in New Zealand.

In 1968 I graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from Auckland University. Admitted to the New Zealand Bar in 1969, I then joined as a partner in a law firm in Auckland to put into practice what I had learned at university and gain experience in this exacting, sometimes confrontational, people-oriented profession.

My first involvement with Rarotonga as a young lawyer was assisting Neil McKegg of the law firm Martelli, McKegg and Adam-Smith. Although practising as a lawyer in Auckland, Neil was one of the McKegg family who owned Cook Islands Trading Corporation Ltd (better known simply as CITC and then — as now — the Cook Islands’ largest private retail trading company). He had spent much time, growing up, on Rarotonga and indeed became the managing director of CITC, returning to live in the Cooks. At that time, however, Neil was a senior partner in his law firm.

Neil and I represented Cook Islands landowners whose lands had been compulsorily acquired by Government as part of an ambitious scheme to expand and concrete the landing strip of the Rarotonga airport. The original airstrip had been built in the Second World War by the American government Pacific operation and the extension was designed to upgrade the facility to handle the jet aircraft of Air New Zealand’s fleet, with a significantly extended, concreted runway.

The New Zealand Government was responsible for developing and managing the project, the idea being that the completed facility would be operated by New Zealand’s Ministry of Transport. Under this arrangement, the airport lands (including the newly acquired areas) were taken by warrant by the Cook Islands Government for the purpose of an airport. The new airport would be built and paid for by the New Zealand Government in return for a lease to the New Zealand Government of the airport for twenty years. This also meant that during the twenty years, all landing rights relating to it would be owned and managed by New Zealand, which meant free landing rights for Air New Zealand.

The legal work involved several trips to Rarotonga; Neil and I went through the Land Court registers of title of lands to be taken by warrant and brought each title up to date — making sure any necessary succession orders and determinations of relative interests were up to date. With help from valuers, we settled on what we believed were appropriate compensation figures to be paid to the landowners. Two lengthy court cases followed in which the value of the land and improvements was assessed by the court and compensation paid to the landowners. This short legal assignment gave me an insight into the possibilities of island practice so I decided, in 1970–71, to return to Rarotonga with a view to establishing my own law office in Avarua.

At that time there was no lawyer in private practice in Rarotonga, but it was clear that not everyone was enthusiastic about my return. I remember one of my first impressions was a sense of foreboding among certain parts of the community and, in some cases, mixed feelings towards me and my plans. I was conscious that this was probably a reaction to rejoining my mother’s clan, she not being a supporter of the ruling Cook Islands Party government.

By this time, Albert Henry had been premier since the first elections. He and his administration had been in office for five years, but the mood of Rarotonga was uneasy, and there was, quietly, a growing divide in the community.

Perhaps this was to be expected, as Albert and his political party came from outside the normal power structure that had dominated Rarotonga and Cook Islands society for decades. Self-government had not simply rid us of colonial officials; it had been a complete overhaul of the governing structure in Avarua and Albert had learned his trade as a politician from years spent in New Zealand.

I was surprised and concerned at how prevalent and all-embracing this mood was. Albert’s government seemed to have increased tensions among people. I could sense the tension at public gatherings and there was an unfamiliar, and unsettling, air of secretiveness among people. It was, I remember, present at church gatherings, at community functions, weddings, funerals and other functions; I was no stranger to the dynamics of clan, village and community, but this was new to me — a creeping politicisation of our people.

Almost half a century later, it is hard, today, to remember how isolated we were in the days before jet travel, the internet and our huge connectedness from the rest of the world. Then, we were on our own, and in this isolated, otherwise quiet space, Albert’s regime was calling the tune and telling the story — quite literally. The Government ran the radio and newspapers and these focused almost exclusively on reporting what the Government was doing or intended to do. This was not a ‘free media’; it invariably presented news in a manner supportive of Government and disparaging of the hapless few Legislative Assembly members who formed the Opposition.

Worryingly, there was no neutral or middle ground. Either you came out as an active supporter ‘for’ the Government or you were considered an opponent. And five years into self-government, the term ‘Government’ had come to mean almost the same thing as ‘Cook Islands Party’ or ‘CIP’. Not surprisingly, among many people, there was a feeling of having been overwhelmed by government.

Chapter 3

Albert and the Cook Islands Party

The leader of Government, Premier Albert Henry, had enjoyed a chequered career, first as a teacher in the Cook Islands and later as a worker in all sorts of jobs in New Zealand, his last being in the sugar refineries in Auckland. Politics, though, was a lifelong passion of his. Albert was already a political activist when, as a young man, he first returned from New Zealand after schooling at St Stephen’s College. As a young teacher and quickly rising to become an acting headmaster of the Araura School with over 400 students on his home island of Aitutaki, he realised that his salary, like that of all other local teachers, was too low for him and his small family to live on. He requested a confirmation of his position as Principal and an increase of salary. No doubt the Resident Commissioner Hugh Ayson was troubled by such audacity that he ordered the reduction of Albert’s salary by about 40 per cent from twelve pounds to seven pounds ten shillings per month. Albert walked out of the job and migrated to Rarotonga with his family and got a job as a shopkeeper with AB Donald’s, one of the largest trading companies on Rarotonga. Similar demands by Rarotonga native Cook Islands teachers employed by the Government administration were equally suppressed. My father, another school teacher on Rarotonga, also lost his job by advocating for an increase of salary and had to leave for New Zealand to find employment. Always a man of the leftist views, here in Rarotonga, Albert became a leader in our country’s first trade union movement, the Cook Islands Progressive Association (CIPA), which was active back in the 1940s–50s.

The CIPA had the support of a large portion of the Cook Island population both in New Zealand and especially on Rarotonga and Aitutaki and indeed the other islands also. Its first and major objective was to purchase a schooner, La Reta, to carry island produce to New Zealand. It was not a venture welcomed by the New Zealand administration at the time, and yet it assisted in providing funding for the purchase of the schooner. The venture soon collapsed largely through inept and poor management and cronyism, but it was a worrying foretaste of what was to come with the CIP and self-government under Albert’s leadership. One advantage of the failed venture was that New Zealand saw the need for a cargo boat to freight Cook Islands produce to New Zealand and in the same year, 1942, it acquired the 800-ton MV Maui Pomare in an effort to shore up the Cook Islands fruit trade, which was heading for a collapse. In hindsight, the CIPA and the La Leta venture to some degree drove home to the Resident Commissioner Hugh Ayson and Wellington the need to do something positive for the Cook Islands, otherwise instead of becoming an asset for New Zealand it would become a drain on its budget and resources.

Following the failure of the La Reta venture, Albert took off to New Zealand for a period of what, in hindsight, had elements of self-exile. And so, while reforms of local government in 1957 gave Cook Islanders within the country a modicum of control in local affairs, Albert was refining his own political skills in New Zealand, all the while keeping a keen eye on the Cook Islands move towards self-government.

Albert was seen as a failure by the New Zealand Administration, which expected him to remain in self-exile in New Zealand to the end of his days. That too was the expectation of the local Cook Islands elite corps in Rarotonga at the time as they prepared to enter into the new era of self-government.

Instead, during the years of the discussions of the changes of the Cook Islands to becoming self-governing, Albert was very much up with the play. He worked from New Zealand and with co-workers on Rarotonga to organise a political machine, the Cook Islands Party, ready to take control of the discarded Cook Islands from under the New Zealand apron strings. In the first general elections in 1965 the Cook Islands Party, with Albert at its head, won by a landslide, taking all the Rarotonga seats in the process. This was no small achievement, for Albert was an outsider and his CIP took on the whole of the existing Rarotonga ruling elite. Albert himself could not stand as a candidate because the residential requirement to become a voter and be eligible to stand was three years. Albert had resided continually in New Zealand from 1942 and so was not eligible to vote or stand as a candidate. However, they worked out a simple interim plan by arranging for his sister Marguerite Story to stand for him and later vacate the seat when he was able to stand, and then was truly in control of the destiny of the islands, which he no doubt had long dreamt about. Among those who stood unsuccessfully against ‘the Party’ were traditional leaders the ariki and mataiapo, wealthy locals, long-established European traders and business people. This local elite had expected to waltz into the new structures of self-government they had devised with the help of New Zealand Minister Sir Leon Goetz and his officials.

New Zealand may have run the Cook Islands for 65 years, but locally an entire social, economic and administrative hierarchy of Cook Islanders and expatriates had grown