By Jon Stanhope
A new breast screen machine is currently being installed on Christmas Island. The old one broke down 15 months ago and it has taken the Commonwealth until now to get around to replacing it.
When the machine broke down in September last year the women of Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands were told by Commonwealth officers to travel to Perth, a distance of more than 2600 kilometres and at a round trip cost (with accommodation in Perth) of about $2000, if they wanted to have their breasts screened for cancer. Most women living in the two territories are working class and of Chinese and Malaysian heritage. Many do not speak English. Suffice to say most could not afford the trip and have not undergone breast screening for upwards of two years.
Christmas and the Cocos Islands fall under the definition of "colony" employed by the United Nations.Credit: Inger Vandyke
Imagine for a moment the response in any community on mainland Australia if the government announced that all local breast screen machines had broken down and the closest alternative service, until further notice, was 2600 kilometres away, say in Port Moresby, and could only be accessed by air at a cost of $2000.
The scenario is of course academic because, as we all know, it would never happen. The reason it wouldn't happen is because as a result of the uproar that would ensue the responsible Minister would likely be forced to resign, the senior responsible officer could expect, at best, to be transferred and the government would probably lose office.
The reason that the women of Christmas and the Cocos Islands have been treated with such apparent contempt is that as non-self-governing territories the people are denied the right to self-determination and those who administer and are responsible for the governance of the Islands neither live there or are accountable or answerable in any way to the local community. There is no democracy and there are no consequences for bad behaviour.
I can attest as a past administrator of Christmas and the Cocos islands that the cavalier and non-caring response of the Commonwealth to the absence of a breast screening service is consistent with the general attitude to the administration of the territories. To be blunt, I never found anyone from the Commonwealth with responsibility for the administration of Christmas or the Cocos Islands who I thought genuinely cared about the rights of the people who lived there.
That Christmas and the Cocos Islands come within the definition of "colony" employed by the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation should, I would have thought, have encouraged the Commonwealth to act as a model government for the territories.
As jaundiced as my experience in the Indian Ocean territories has made me I was still shocked by the decision by the Commonwealth to abolish self-government on Norfolk Island and to reduce it to the colonial status of the Indian Ocean territories. The residents of Norfolk Island, like those of Christmas Island, now have no say in or control over the decisions relevant to their day to day lives.
I was particularly disappointed that the push to abolish self-government on Norfolk Island, without exploring any alternatives, received strong support from my federal Labor Party colleagues including from the Northern Territory and the ACT. I know my disappointment is shared by many on Norfolk Island who, having regard to the leading and public role which the Labor Member for Canberra, Gai Brodtmann, had in advocating for the abolition of self-government, wonder, like me, how the decision of the ALP to support the cancellation of the democratic rights of Australian citizens living on Norfolk Island is consistent with the party platform or the core values of the party.
In a recent statement in the House of Representatives, Brodtmann detailed a litany of problems since the Commonwealth takeover.
This is some of what she had to say: "I'm concerned 15 months into the reform process) that we still have a whole range of issues that are impacting accessibility and equity for Norfolk Islanders. Since my visit in April last year, we are still dealing with the same issues. I've written not once but twice to the minister and government agencies to get these issues fixed, but they are still not fixed. My messages seem to be falling on deaf ears. The community still can't call the mainland without being charged for an international call; they still can't fly to the mainland without taking an international flight. Mail takes two weeks or longer to arrive. Centrelink won't accept Norfolk Island driver's licences as ID and the system won't accept Norfolk Island phone numbers or addresses. People are being asked to attend meetings in Gunnedah from Norfolk Island and Norfolk Island is over it and I am over it. I've been calling for these basic issues to be resolved for 15 months."
Brodtmann did not mention issues of somewhat greater moment such as the decision to close the operating theatre at the Norfolk Island hospital; the state of the local economy; the cancellation of direct flights to New Zealand; the drafting of legislation to vest in the minister the power to declare any development on Norfolk Island a project of strategic importance and exempt from the usual planning process or review; the ban on the importation of livestock; the disgraceful attacks on the culture and heritage of the Pitcairn people including the imposition of a new land rating regime designed to end a land tenure system maintained by Pitcairn families for over 160 years and the splintering of cohesion and unity within the community.
The issues of concern on Norfolk Island reflect, of course, the dismissive and flippant attitude that led to all the women of the Christmas and Cocos Island communities being without access to breast screening. If Brodtmann honestly believes that trashing basic democratic and human rights by denying entire communities any meaningful role or say in how their community is organised, administered or governed is "a reform", then it is perhaps unsurprising that she did not in her statement acknowledge or accept responsibility for her role and that of the ALP in facilitating all of the things about which she now complains.
Jon Stanhope is a former administrator of Christmas and the Cocos Islands, and a former ACT chief minister.