CHATHAMS SUCCESS STORY
In 1990 the Chatham Islands faced a crisis. Thirty years on, new seeds are sprouting, thanks to the skills and expertise of the community, writes Hugh Rennie in an extract from his new book Chathams Resurgent.
On November 29, 1991, at Kaingaroa in the Chatham Islands (Rē kohu), a large crowd assembled for a reenactment of the first European arrival at the island.
New Zealand’s prime minister, Jim Bolger, presented the trustees of a new community trust with a cheque for $4 million. He confirmed that, in addition to the money, to be $8m eventually, ownership and control of government infrastructure assets on the islands would be handed over to the trust. A new episode in the history of the islands was under way.
For the first time in their history, the people of the Chatham Islands owned their own infrastructure. This was now within a trust whose board they would choose, with powers for economic development entirely independent of the government, and operating solely in their own interests.
How was it that, 150 years after the islands were claimed and taken by Britain as part of its New Zealand colony, the creation of the trust was needed? Finding the answer involves an exploration of the constitutional history of the Chathams from its seizure by proclamation in 1842, through almost 150 years of unusual and even improbable events.
Rē kohu’s history of human occupation goes back hundreds of years, with the first inhabitants being Moriori, then from around 1806 European as well. From 1835 it was colonised by Mā ori, who called the main island Wharekauri and overran Moriori.
In 1791 Lieutenant William Broughton of the Royal Navy, his ship blown off course, entered Kaingaroa harbour on the HMS Chatham and, in the quaintly irrelevant practice of the times, ‘‘claimed’’ the island for King George III of Britain. And then he left, after the first altercation in which an indigenous Moriori was to die.
In 1842 it was seized as a British colony, and brought within the boundaries of Aotearoa New Zealand by an arbitrary action in London. However, the actual presence of British authority was notional, on an uncertain legal base, and it was to be years before either local government or representation in Parliament was available to the islands.
While British law was said to apply, it was years before this was even partially a reality. The main objectives of
the colonial government were to protect customs revenues and gain land for Europeans.
Mā ori (and Moriori) resolutely asserted their independence, yielding only token authority to central government and rejecting some laws outright. In parallel, the islands were largely ignored by government before 1900, though a succession of magistrates, and later police, provided some form of British colonial
presence.
From 1868, the imposition on native title to land of the Native Land Court and its related legislation occurred, leading to protest, opposition and injustice. On several occasions, a gunboat was sent!
In 1900 Mā ori gained their own local government, the Chatham Islands Mā ori Council. There was still no other local council. The Mā ori council initiative flourished for a few years, only to fail from the same colonialism and lack of resources which the county council faced after the first council was elected in 1925.
After British seizure of the islands in 1842, there had been many decades in which the islands had no council, no representation in Parliament, and New Zealand governments had adopted a colonial dependency approach to the islands. However, the council struggled. By 1990 it was insolvent and its very existence was now in question.
Despite efforts of every local MP from the late 1960s, deep frustration had set in. It was even contemplated by islanders that Pitt Island could not continue to be occupied because of transport failures. Government officials suggested in 1961 that islanders should be taken off both islands and resettled, and in the 1980s some officials did so again.
In 1990, control imposed from central government had nearly broken community spirit. By then, authoritarian actions had been accompanied by decades of incompetence, waste and mainly just neglect. The
central
government in the 1980s had nationalised fishing rights (quota) for the region and so broken the islands’ traditional mixed farming and fishing economy. This was only the latest in a series of asset strips and plunder by outsiders which began with the European sealers around 1807.
At this turning point, the government decided to abandon its operation of the islands infrastructure. These assets would go to the new trust, together with an inadequate capital sum. At the start, only half would be paid. Officials stated bluntly that they expected the trust to fail. How could islanders succeed where central government had failed and the local council was paralysed and broke?
The answer then adopted – to hand its infrastructure over to the community – was highly unusual. Many doubted that islanders could succeed where central government had failed. However, the islanders, through the trust, took control. In a community already built on voluntary service, dozens of islanders stepped up in 1991.
Within a couple of years, the success of the trust was such that Parliament was told by minister Graeme Lee that ‘‘the islanders can be very proud’’. The second $4m of the capital sum was handed over. What had been a colonial dependency was well on its way to local control.
Even better, within a few years, the attitude of the New Zealand government began to change. It finally recognised the right of the islanders to have functional local government of the same standard as the rest of Aotearoa New Zealand.
The trust has gone on to demonstrate that the islands are an economically viable territory. In the last few years, government investment has recommenced. Funds for telecommunications, port, airport and other projects have been provided, exceeding $100 million – although they are really only ‘‘back rent’’ for over 150 years of neglect, and for past asset transfers to government from the islands’ resources.
On its establishment, the trust drew on initial support from some people in New Zealand – including some of the first trustees, plus experts in fishing and shipping, and professional support services in accounting and law. But those outsiders were there to serve, not manage or control. Unlike the central government control of the first 150 years of postEuropean government, power and decision-making were at last held by the community.
Today the trust is a multimillion-dollar business, still wholly in islands ownership and control. It operates core businesses in transport, ports, energy and other services. It administers a strategic portfolio of fish quota with which it supports islands fishers. It makes cultural and social grants. It draws its trustees from the islands community. The boards of its businesses have directors who are islanders, working with other directors recruited for their special expertise.
The trust provides the infrastructure within which islands enterprise has been able to grow. There is now a growing visitor industry with many participant businesses. The islands are the home of New Zealand’s third-largest airline, and have their own shipping company. Local development of food processing is under way.
The population has stabilised and is starting to grow. There are jobs for returning islanders. It is the home of iwi (Mā ori) and imi (Moriori) organisations with their own success stories.
Wholly independent of the Crown, and proven viable over the past 30 years, the trust shows how a community can use its own skills and expertise to advance the interests of its people, but only when that community holds the power to do so.
In 2022, many new seeds are sprouting – in food production, in fishing, in the visitor industry, in conservation, in renewable energy and more. New Zealanders, locked within their shores by the pandemic, flocked in unprecedented visitor numbers to Rē kohu and have come away with a new understanding of history, environment, and the values of small communities.
Could this success story be a lesson for other parts of the country misunderstood and neglected by Wellington?
Hugh Rennie is a retired lawyer, director and trustee. His involvement in the islands spans more than 50 years, and included 11 years as first chair of the Chatham Islands Enterprise Trust (1990-2001). Chathams Resurgent: How the Islanders overcame 150 years of misrule is published by Fraser Books, Masterton, and distributed by Nationwide Books (www. nationwidebooks.co.nz).