The year under review was a fateful one for Norfolk Island, and indeed for the entire Pacific Islands region, as it marked the unprecedented recolonization of an island territory by its administrative power without the territory’s consent, an anachronistic act going against the current of decolonization of the past six decades and comparable in modern history only to the reactionary French policies toward its Pacific possessions from the late 1950s to the mid-1980s. Australia’s recolonizing policies sparked an outburst of Norfolk Island nationalism and a well-organized resistance movement struggling both locally and globally for the restoration of democracy to the island community. A British colony settled in 1856 from Pitcairn Island by the descendants of the Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian partners (some of whom later returned to Pitcairn to become the ancestors of that island’s current inhabitants), Norfolk Island became a dependent territory of Australia in 1914, and six decades later Australia initiated steps toward the island’s decolonization by granting it a large degree of self-government in 1979, an arrangement similar to other autonomous dependent territories in the region.

However, the 2008–2009 global financial crisis hit the island’s mainly tourism-based economy particularly hard (after earlier disruptions including miscalculated investments in a locally owned airline in 2006), and from 2010 onward, the local government’s budget operated at a deficit. This necessitated annual subsidies from the Australian federal government ranging from a $3.2 million in 2011 (us $2.4 million) up to a $7.5 million (us $5.6 million) in the 2014–2015 financial year. Under the 1979 statutes, Norfolk Island was not allowed to borrow money in order to cover deficits without Canberra’s permission, which was not forthcoming. In 2010, Australia first refused to provide the requested budgetary subsidy but then agreed to it on condition that Norfolk Island paid Australian federal taxes and accepted financial oversight by federal officials, which the local government agreed to under protest (C Nobbs 2016b).