Cook Islands

This review covers the two-year period from July 2018 to June 2020 and tracks a range of ongoing and emerging concerns. Election politics, climate change, homosexuality law reform, and ocean management all drew attention during this period. The impacts of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (covid-19) also made their mark on the Cook Islands this time around.

When the period began, the results of six petitions lodged after the June 2018 election had not yet been decided. However, the outcome of the petitions had little effect on the overall result, with the Cook Islands Party forming and maintaining a coalition government. They were able to win over the support of the One Cook Islands Party and two independent election winners. George Maggie, Rose Toki-Brown, and Robert Tapaitau were offered cabinet positions, which effectively gave the incumbent government the majority to govern by adding 3 more seats to its previous 10. With its 11 seats, the Democratic Party failed to strike the necessary deals to secure a governing majority (cin, 7 July 2018).

One petition that was not quickly or easily resolved concerned the seat of Atiu. The late Nandi Glassie, deposed politician and former minister of health, began the review period by contesting his election defeat by first-time candidate Te-Hani Brown. By November 2019, the Tengatangi-Areora-Ngatiarua seat would be contested three times, following two elections and three legal battles. However, an unfortunate turn of events saw the seasoned statesman withdraw, too ill to contest the seat for a third time (cin, 8 Oct 2019). Instead, the Democratic Party fielded June Baudinet, fifty years the senior to her younger opponent. Nearly eighteen months since the June 2018 general election and many months without representation, it was the independent candidate Te-Hani Brown who won three-quarters of the votes. She was finally elected to represent voter interests as a member of the Cook Islands Party coalition (cin, 15 Nov 2019).

Despite adversity, Glassie kept busy and established a new political party: Cook Islands United Party. In his speech launching the party, he called for political reform, stating, “It is [about] looking for a new system of government. A new paradigm shift. A new democracy that suits us today, not yesterday” (cin, 27 Nov 2018). Similarly, ex-politician, traditional leader, diplomat, and lawyer Iaveta Short, who led the 1998 commission to review the Cook Islands political system, echoed the call for reform. In his 2020 memoir, Short wrote that he believed the reforms recommended back in 1998 remained relevant more than twenty years later. He pointed out that in adopting the Westminster system of Parliament, the Cook Islands had also taken on the troubles of such an arrangement, whereby “the two-party, first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all system was divisive and concentrated power for a small number of people whose inclination was to hold on to power at all costs” (Short 2020, 348). Adopting a nonparty system, such as those taken up by English Channel Islands—the Isles of Man, Jersey, and Guernsey—was proposed (Short 2020). Such a system would involve electing constituency representatives to a legislative body to govern as committees without party affiliations. Whether these calls get taken seriously remains to be seen. It is more likely, as Short contended, that a lack of political will and understanding will continue to prevail (Short 2020, 351).

Glassie also kept busy as he continued to pursue a PhD through the University of the South Pacific. His study examines the Cook Islands public sector reforms from 1995 to 2015. His research found that public sector reforms in 1996, which included downsizing an oversized public service in response to the financial crisis of the 1990s, also had negative impacts. The loss of skilled personnel, the privatization of services, and low staff morale resulted. The detrimental effects of these reforms saw many families migrate overseas. Twenty years on, Glassie warned of a potential repeat of the crisis if public sector performance was not managed properly to address funding shortages, capability gaps, structural inefficiencies, system and process inadequacies, and poor work practices. He pointed out that the number of public...