Australia’s Assault on Norfolk Island 2019–20: Procrustes Ascendant

Norfolk Island, an external territory under the authority of Australia, enjoyed a large measure of self-government from 1979 and for the subsequent thirty-seven years. In 2016 the Australian Government abolished that structure against the wishes of the great majority of Islanders expressed at a legally constituted referendum, and imposed a regime with much reduced island autonomy – in what internationally regarded human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC deemed ‘a heavy-handed act of regression’.

This book, the third in a biennial series, brings together articles and letters written over 2019-2020 and covering some, but not all, of the problematic issues that have emerged for the island as a consequence of the Australian Government’s 2016 takeover. Issues considered here include: the removal of legislative powers, unrestrained immigration, disarray in biosecurity arrangements, problems of revenue raising, education, the democratic deficit, and the justice system. The governmental takeover is seen to be inflexible, colonialist and damaging to the island, with the island’s democracy, cultural integrity and sustainable future its victims.

written by Chris Nobbs