The Cook
Islands is a self-governing state which established free association with New Zealand
in 1965. The suffrage in relation to Cook Islanders living outside the Cook
Islands has been an important issue in Cook Islands
electoral politics.
In 1965,
when the constitution and electoral laws were drafted, external voting was not
an issue and was not thought of. Some Cook Islanders lived abroad, mainly in
New Zealand and Tahiti, but there was no international air service, shipping
was irregular and expensive, and the Cook Islands principle of ‘rangatira ki te
ara’ implied that those who had gone away should not interfere in what went on
at home. In 1974, however an international airport was built, regular and
relatively cheap international flights were introduced, and at the same time
party political competition was intensifying.
The Cook Islands electoral system had provision for an
external seat from 1981 until 2003, and an overseas member was thus elected at
general elections in 1983, 1989, 1994 and 1999 (see Hassall 2001; and Crocombe
1979). The Legislative Assembly had 22 members in 1965, the number of seats
being subsequently increased to 24 in 1981 (with the constitutional amendment
the Assembly was renamed ‘Parliament’) and to 25 in 1991.
External
voting was established in 1981 through an amendment to the Electoral Act 1966
(Constitution Amendment (No. 9) Act) so that an ‘overseas constituency’ became
one of the legislature’s 24 seats. The Electoral Act of 1966, with amendments
as of 6 May 1989, Part II Constituencies, 5 (x), reads: ‘The Overseas
Constituency, being the islands comprising New
Zealand and all other Areas outside the Cook
Islands’. This means the whole world except the Cook
Islands. At that time the great majority of overseas Cook
Islanders were in New Zealand.
Article 28C
of the constitution provided for the election of a member for the overseas
constituency who was residing ‘in New Zealand
or elsewhere outside the Cook Islands’, who was a Cook
Islands citizen and who was enrolled as an elector in the overseas
constituency. Article 28 (b) provided for the election of a member by ‘postal
vote, special vote, or by vote cast at one or more polling places situated
outside the Cook Islands’. Voting was not compulsory, but registration was, and
failure to register was an offence liable to a fine not exceeding 100 New
Zealand dollars (NZD) (the currency used in the Cook Islands) on a first
conviction (although there is no evidence that this fine was ever imposed).
The seat
was established in the context of the growing number of Cook Islanders living
abroad but the specific voting provisions restricted the number of islanders
eligible to vote, since it only applied to those who had lived abroad for less
than three years and who intended to return home to live permanently. This
amounted to a small fraction of the total number of overseas Cook Islanders. It
was the result of a move by the Democratic Party (DP) then in power to restrict
the future influence of those whom they regarded as mostly loyal to the Cook
Islands Party (CIP). This legislation was passed following efforts by political
parties to mobilize external electors at general elections in 1974 and 1978,
which the Cook Islands courts had subsequently
found to be illegal. In those elections, the major political parties had
chartered aircraft to fly in those who were registered as ‘absentee voters’. In
the 1974 elections the DP chartered an aircraft to transport approximately 75
voters to Rarotonga, and in the 1978 elections
both the DP and the CIP chartered aircraft.
Both
parties now realized that the increasing number of prospective absentee voters
could swing the results of an election, and thus made elaborate efforts to
register voters who were resident in New Zealand. Democratic Party
voters paid for the charter air fares while the Cook Islands Party members were
told that their flights would be free of charge. After the CIP victory in 1978,
in which the ‘fly-in’ votes had been a decisive factor, the DP filed election
petitions, challenging, among other things, the legality of the votes won by
flying in voters at no cost or heavily subsidized by the CIP using government
funds. On 24 July 1978 the Supreme Court determined that eight of the CIP’s 15
seats had been gained by ‘unlawful conduct’ in that the CIP fly-in votes were
tainted by bribery and corruption. These seats were awarded to the DP, and the
CIP lost power. (High Court of the Cook Islands, Misc. nos 21, 22, 23, 24, 25,
26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 and 32.78, in the Matter of Elections of Members of the
Legislative Assembly of the Cook Islands,
unreported. See also Henry 2003.)
the
provisions—were too high, relative to the numbers of voters concerned, to make
it worthwhile. Even the administrators of political parties agreed that there
was too little interest among expatriate Cook Islanders to make the effort
worthwhile. Moreover, under the terms of the free association arrangement
between the Cook Islands and New Zealand, all Cook Islanders are New Zealand
citizens and are therefore entitled to vote in New Zealand elections; New
Zealand citizens can similarly move to Australia quite easily and take up
citizenship rights in that country.
In a the
general election of March 1994 voters were also asked at referendum whether the
overseas constituency should be abolished. Approximately 55 per cent of the
population voted in favour of keeping the seat, and the government thus took no
action to remove it. However, although on this occasion the voters agreed to
the continuance of the seat, public support for it declined within a few years.
In
practice, while there are more Cook Islanders living outside their home country
than in it, few have been motivated to register and vote in Cook
Islands general elections. Out of approximately 60,000 Cook
Islanders resident in New Zealand
and 45,000 in Australia,
only 737 registered as voters for the 1994 general election and some 569 Cook
Islanders abroad actually voted (Cook Islands News and ABC News, 18 September
2002). (In 1994 there were four candidates for the overseas seat.) The reasons
for the low registration numbers include a tendency for Cook Islanders to
describe themselves on official forms as New Zealand citizens or as Maori,
sometimes out of fear that they might be removed from these countries in the
same manner as Samoans and Tongans are (although this is based on ignorance of
the law, because Samoans and Tongans have less right of entry to New Zealand
than Cook Islanders).
In 1998 the
Commission of Political Review recommended a number of changes to the Cook Islands constitution, including reducing the number
of parliamentary seats to 17—a formula that did not include an overseas seat
(Commission of Political Review 1998). The future of the external seat
gradually became the subject of intense speculation. At the general elections
in 1999 three of the four political parties fielded candidates for the overseas
seat, although an inquiry that suggested that the overseas seat cost some
100,000 NZD each year was a factor in a large proportion of the Cook Islands public favouring its abolition. In 1991 the
High Court also ruled that candidates who are normally resident abroad are
ineligible to represent Cook Islanders in Parliament.
In 2000
there were an estimated 55,000 Cook Islanders in New
Zealand and another 30,000 in Australia. However, only 6,000 of
these were eligible to vote because they had been abroad for less than three
years.
In 2003
some 2,000 voters signed a petition calling not only for abolition of the
overseas seat but also for a reduction in the parliamentary term from five
years to three, a reduction in the number of MPs and a reduction in funding for
ministerial support. When the legislature voted in 2003 on whether to abolish
the overseas seat even its incumbent, Dr Joe Williams, agreed to its abolition.
The use of
‘flying voters’ was made possible by the vagueness of the definition of
‘ordinary residence’ in the constitution, but there was no constitutional
provision for external voting outside the Cook Islands, because when it was
drafted in 1964 there were few Cook Islanders in New Zealand and no air
service.
Following
the establishment of the external seat in 1981, a debate ensued about whether
Cook Islanders who had chosen to live elsewhere should have full representation
in the Cook Islands legislature, and the high cost of the public sector in
general (particularly in the context of the Cook Islands’ small and struggling
economy) brought into question the cost-effectiveness of the external seat. The
cost of administering the external seat has never been made public. A 1998
Commission of Political Review was unable to determine exact costs but
estimated that the costs of external voting—the salary costs, fares, living
costs and so on of the team of officials sent from the Cook Islands to visit
communities of Cook Islanders in New Zealand and Australia to advise them about the
provisions—were too high, relative to the numbers of voters concerned, to make
it worthwhile. Even the administrators of political parties agreed that there
was too little interest among expatriate Cook Islanders to make the effort
worthwhile. Moreover, under the terms of the free association arrangement
between the Cook Islands and New Zealand, all Cook Islanders are New Zealand
citizens and are therefore entitled to vote in New Zealand elections; New
Zealand citizens can similarly move to Australia quite easily and take up
citizenship rights in that country.
In a the
general election of March 1994 voters were also asked at referendum whether the
overseas constituency should be abolished. Approximately 55 per cent of the
population voted in favour of keeping the seat, and the government thus took no
action to remove it. However, although on this occasion the voters agreed to
the continuance of the seat, public support for it declined within a few years.
In
practice, while there are more Cook Islanders living outside their home country
than in it, few have been motivated to register and vote in Cook
Islands general elections. Out of approximately 60,000 Cook
Islanders resident in New Zealand
and 45,000 in Australia,
only 737 registered as voters for the 1994 general election and some 569 Cook
Islanders abroad actually voted (Cook Islands News and ABC News, 18 September
2002). (In 1994 there were four candidates for the overseas seat.) The reasons
for the low registration numbers include a tendency for Cook Islanders to
describe themselves on official forms as New Zealand citizens or as Maori,
sometimes out of fear that they might be removed from these countries in the
same manner as Samoans and Tongans are (although this is based on ignorance of
the law, because Samoans and Tongans have less right of entry to New Zealand
than Cook Islanders).
In 1998 the
Commission of Political Review recommended a number of changes to the Cook Islands constitution, including reducing the number
of parliamentary seats to 17—a formula that did not include an overseas seat
(Commission of Political Review 1998). The future of the external seat
gradually became the subject of intense speculation. At the general elections
in 1999 three of the four political parties fielded candidates for the overseas
seat, although an inquiry that suggested that the overseas seat cost some
100,000 NZD each year was a factor in a large proportion of the Cook Islands public favouring its abolition. In 1991 the
High Court also ruled that candidates who are normally resident abroad are
ineligible to represent Cook Islanders in Parliament.
In 2000
there were an estimated 55,000 Cook Islanders in New
Zealand and another 30,000 in Australia. However, only 6,000 of
these were eligible to vote because they had been abroad for less than three
years.
In 2003
some 2,000 voters signed a petition calling not only for abolition of the
overseas seat but also for a reduction in the parliamentary term from five
years to three, a reduction in the number of MPs and a reduction in funding for
ministerial support. When the legislature voted in 2003 on whether to abolish
the overseas seat even its incumbent, Dr Joe Williams, agreed to its abolition.
