Norfolk Island: Bounties lost, we need a Pacific solution

Remote Norfolk Island will be ­offered as an alternative offshore holding centre for asylum-seekers.

Remote Norfolk Island will be ­offered as an alternative offshore holding centre for asylum-seekers under a plan that will heighten tensions on the lush Pacific Ocean outcrop.

The scheme will be put to Canberra’s man on Norfolk, former Howard government minister Gary Hardgrave, in a last-ditch ­effort by residents to save a way of life that began with the mutiny on the Bounty.

The Weekend Australian can reveal that Mr Hardgrave’s term as island administrator will be extende­d until next March, after the Australian government rejected demands by residents that he be recalled.

A former speaker of the disbanded­ island legislative assembl­y, John Brown, released a joint submission yesterday detail­ing how the housing of asylum-seekers in empty tourist accom­modation would revive the island’s fortunes on the eve of the boom being lowered on self-rule.

The plan was a “win-win” for the island and the Australian governm­ent as it comes under international pressure over condit­ions in the controversial detention centres on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

“Australia clearly has a problem with offshore processing and we have a problem with money,” said Mr Brown, who also heads the local chamber of commerce. “We can help each other.”

Mr Hardgrave rejected the proposal sight unseen, saying it smacked of “get-rich-quick” schemes that had come and gone on Norfolk, as its mainstay of tourism faded. “That’s one of the problems with the place,” he said.

The proposal has echoes of one floated in 2009 by the island’s then chief minister, Andre Nobbs, to charge the US to transfer terror­ism detainees from Guantanamo Bay. That iteration of Norfolk Island’s Pacific solution went nowhere, after Australia imposed a veto before the Americans had a chance to warm to the idea.

For the sake of his fellow islander­s, Mr Brown is hoping his plan has legs. From July 1, the ­island’s 1374 predominantly Australian residents can access Medicare and Australian social security benefits under the new deal with Canberra. But many are fuming about paying income tax for the first time and losing a say that’s been exercised on the island for nearly 170 years. The battle over Norfolk’s future has pitted the pugnacious Mr Hardgrave against the descendants of the Bounty mutin­eers who are used to calling the shots here, in splendid isolation, 1400km east of Sydney.

Mr Nobbs, 50, said there was no proof islanders would be better served by the Australian government. A sixth-generation Norfolk man, he can trace his linage to ­mutiny ringleader Fletcher Christian. Flanked by his wife, Kim, 45, and their children, Izak, 11, and Alicia, 8, Mr Nobbs said islanders would not give up their identity when the “takeover” happened.

“For years Australia did not want to know about this place,” he said. “I am ... disappointed, disgusted by what’s happened.”

A supporter of integration with Australia, businessman David Porter, said people were reluctant to voice support for the deal. “The ... culture on Norfolk Island is for hairy-chested men with tough sounding names to intimidate. I am not going to say too much.”