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Category: Cook Islands crisis

  • MIL-Evening Report: Nearly half of Kiwis oppose automatic citizenship for Cook Islands, says poll

    By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist

    A new poll by the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union shows that almost half of respondents oppose the Cook Islands having automatic New Zealand citizenship.

    Thirty percent of the 1000-person sample supported Cook Islanders retaining citizenship, 46 percent were opposed and 24 percent were unsure.

    The question asked:

    • The Cook Islands government is pursuing closer strategic ties with China, ignoring New Zealand’s wishes and not consulting with the New Zealand government. Given this, should the Cook Islands continue to enjoy automatic access to New Zealand passports, citizenship, health care and education when its government pursues a foreign policy against the wishes of the New Zealand government?
    • READ MORE: Other Cook Islands reports

    Taxpayers’ Union head of communications Tory Relf said the framing of the question was “fair”.

    “If the Cook Islands wants to continue enjoying a close relationship with New Zealand, then, of course, we will support that,” he said.

    “However, if they are looking in a different direction, then I think it is entirely fair that taxpayers can have a right to say whether they want their money sent there or not.”

    But New Zealand Labour Party deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni said it was a “leading question”.

    ‘Dead end’ assumption
    “It asserts or assumes that we have hit a dead end here and that we cannot resolve the relationship issues that have unfolded between New Zealand and the Cook Islands,” Sepuloni said.

    “We want a resolution. We do not want to assume or assert that it is all done and dusted and the relationship is broken.”

    The two nations have been in free association since 1965.

    Relf said that adding historical context of the two countries relationship would be a different question.

    “We were polling on the Cook Islands current policy, asking about historic ties would introduce an emotive element that would influence the response.”

    New Zealand has paused nearly $20 million in development assistance to the realm nation.

    Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the decision was made because the Cook Islands failed to adequately inform his government about several agreements signed with Beijing in February.

    ‘An extreme response’
    Sepuloni, who is also Labour’s Pacific Peoples spokesperson, said her party agreed with the government that the Cook Islands had acted outside of the free association agreement.

    “[The aid pause is] an extreme response, however, in saying that we don’t have all of the information in front of us that the government have. I’m very mindful that in terms of pausing or stopping aid, the scenarios where I can recall that happening are scenarios like when Fiji was having their coup.”

    In response to questions from Cook Islands News, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown said that, while he acknowledged the concerns raised in the recent poll, he believed it was important to place the discussion within the full context of Cook Islands’ longstanding and unique relationship with New Zealand.

    “The Cook Islands and New Zealand share a deep, enduring constitutional bond underpinned by shared history, family ties, and mutual responsibility,” Brown told the Rarotonga-based newspaper.

    “Cook Islanders are New Zealand citizens not by privilege, but by right. A right rooted in decades of shared sacrifice, contribution, and identity.

    “More than 100,000 Cook Islanders live in New Zealand, contributing to its economy, culture, and communities. In return, our people have always looked to New Zealand not just as a partner but as family.”

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Former New Zealand PM Helen Clark blames Cook Islands for crisis

    By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific presenter/producer

    Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark believes the Cook Islands, a realm of New Zealand, caused a crisis for itself by not consulting Wellington before signing a deal with China.

    The New Zealand government has paused more than $18 million in development assistance to the Cook Islands after the latter failed to provide satisfactory answers to Aotearoa’s questions about its partnership agreement with Beijing.

    The Cook Islands is in free association with New Zealand and governs its own affairs. But New Zealand provides assistance with foreign affairs (upon request), disaster relief, and defence.

    Helen Clark (middle) . . . Cook Islands caused a crisis for itself by not consulting Wellington before signing a deal with China. Image: RNZ Pacific montage

    The 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration signed between the two nations requires them to consult each other on defence and security, which Foreign Minister Winston Peters said had not been honoured.

    Peters and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown both have a difference of opinion on the level of consultation required between the two nations on such matters.

    “There is no way that the 2001 declaration envisaged that Cook Islands would enter into a strategic partnership with a great power behind New Zealand’s back,” Clark told RNZ Pacific on Thursday.

    Clark was a signatory of the 2001 agreement with the Cook Islands as New Zealand prime minister at the time.

    “It is the Cook Islands government’s actions which have created this crisis,” she said.

    Urgent need for dialogue
    “The urgent need now is for face-to-face dialogue at a high level to mend the NZ-CI relationship.”

    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has downplayed the pause in funding to the Cook Islands during his second day of his trip to China.

    Brown told Parliament on Thursday (Wednesday, Cook Islands time) that his government knew the funding cut was coming.

    He also suggested a double standard, pointing out that New Zealand had also entered deals with China that the Cook Islands was not “privy to or being consulted on”.

    Prime Minister Mark Brown and China’s Ambassador to the Pacific Qian Bo last year. Image: RNZ Pacific/ Lydia Lewis

    A Pacific law expert says that, while New Zealand has every right to withhold its aid to the Cook Islands, the way it is going about it will not endear it to Pacific nations.

    Auckland University of Technology senior law lecturer and a former Pacific Islands Forum advisor Sione Tekiteki told RNZ Pacific that for Aotearoa to keep highlighting that it is “a Pacific country and yet posture like the United States gives mixed messages”.

    “Obviously, Pacific nations in true Pacific fashion will not say much, but they are indeed thinking it,” Tekiteki said.

    Misunderstanding of agreement
    Since day dot there has been a misunderstanding on what the 2001 agreement legally required New Zealand and Cook Islands to consult on, and the word consultation has become somewhat of a sticking point.

    The latest statement from the Cook Islands government confirms it is still a discrepancy both sides want to hash out.

    “There has been a breakdown and difference in the interpretation of the consultation requirements committed to by the two governments in the 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration,” the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Immigration (MFAI) said.

    “An issue that the Cook Islands is determined to address as a matter of urgency”.

    Tekiteki said that, unlike a treaty, the 2001 declaration was not “legally binding” per se but serves more to express the intentions, principles and commitments of the parties to work together in “recognition of the close traditional, cultural and social ties that have existed between the two countries for many hundreds of years”.

    He said the declaration made it explicitly clear that Cook Islands had full conduct of its foreign affairs, capacity to enter treaties and international agreements in its own right and full competence of its defence and security.

    However, he added that there was a commitment of the parties to “consult regularly”.

    This, for Clark, the New Zealand leader who signed the all-important agreement more than two decades ago, is where Brown misstepped.

    Clark previously labelled the Cook Islands-China deal “clandestine” which has “damaged” its relationship with New Zealand.

    RNZ Pacific contacted the Cook Islands Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment but was advised by the MFAI secretary that they are not currently accommodating interviews.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –