Norfolk Island ready to mutiny once again

A half-forgotten bequest by Queen Victoria has been invoked in a bitter struggle over self-government between Australia and one of its farthest-flung island territories.

Norfolk Island, a subtropical outcrop in the South Pacific, is about to celebrate the 150th anniversary of its settlement by descendants of the notorious HMS Bounty mutineers.

But plans by Canberra to claw back some of the island's jealously guarded powers of self-government have left the 1900 inhabitants in mutinous mood once again.

Norfolk, once renowned as the most ghastly penal colony in the British Empire, has enjoyed autonomy since 1979.

It has its own flag, customs service, international telephone code and internet domain name. It lies closer to New Zealand than Australia and Australians have to carry their passports when they visit.

Furious locals say Canberra has no right to interfere in their affairs because in 1856 Queen Victoria bequeathed the island to their forebears, the Bounty descendants, who had outgrown the even more remote island of Pitcairn.

The more militant islanders are calling for outright independence, although Norfolk covers only 40sq km.

There are no ports, no industry, cows are given right of way on the winding country lanes and the island's nearest neighbour is the French colony of New Caledonia, 800km away.

Around half the islanders speak a language called Norfolk, a sing-song mix of 18th-century English and Polynesian, which evolved among the mutineers and their Tahitian lovers.

"I reckon we could go independent," said Ric Robinson, the president of the Society of Pitcairn Descendants and the husband of the island's most famous resident, Colleen McCullough, author of The Thorn Birds.

"Australia's thugs and bullies are trying to rape our democratic rights. They have no right to impose their will. Constitutional lawyers are saying that we may technically still be a British colony," said Mr Robinson, whose great-grandfather came to Norfolk in the 1860s.

"I don't want to see the people here forced into something they don't want to do," said Ian Wilford, 53, a panel- beater from New Zealander who has lived on the island for five years and identifies strongly with the locals' resentment of Australian meddling.

"This is a wonderful place to live and I don't want to see it ruined."

Some locals mutter darkly that Australia is only showing interest in the island because of the rumoured existence of huge seabed deposits of oil and gas within its exclusive economic zone.

Australia argues that the island is unable to raise enough revenue and faces bankruptcy within two years.

Islanders pay no income tax; the Government instead raises funds through a customs duty on all imports.

"Norfolk Island's current governance and financial arrangements are clearly unsustainable and action is required to avoid insolvency," the minister for the territories, Jim Lloyd, told the islanders in a letter last week.

Bureaucrats in Canberra are crunching the numbers and are expected to deliver an ultimatum by the end of the year.

Australia has set out two likely scenarios, the most radical of which would result in the Legislative Assembly being stripped of its powers and reduced to the status of a local council.

Islanders would have to start paying income tax, which they say would cripple local businesses and harm the tourism industry, the main employer.

They fear they would become, in effect, an offshore suburb of Canberra.

A group of islanders has launched a challenge of Australia's authority in the High Court.

"We don't want to be governed from afar," said Chris Magri, 38, a businessman. "Our understanding was that Queen Victoria gave the island to us. We still have great affinity with the monarchy."

Despite being one of half a dozen dependent territories administered by Australia, Norfolk Island retains many of the trappings of a British colony.

The national anthem is God Save the Queen, rather than Advance Australia Fair, and the Union flag stands beside the Norfolk Island flag in the island's nine-member Legislative Assembly, a magnificent former military barracks built by convicts in 1832.

Many islanders regard Australia as a foreign country and cherish their idiosyncratic ways.

The handful of surnames brought by the Pitcairners are shared by so many islanders that the local telephone directory lists people by nickname, including Cane Toad, Dar Bizziebee, Lettuce Leaf and Carrots.

Television was not introduced until the 1980s and the island's mixture of Tahitian and British cuisine boasts dishes such as periwinkle pie.

The distinctiveness of Norfolk's history and culture has fuelled islanders' anger towards Canberra's plans to strip their autonomy.

"It's a smack in the face," said the New Zealand-born chief minister of the island, Geoff Gardner, whose office displays a portrait of the Queen beside Norfolk's distinctive green and white flag.

"Australia is saying 'bugger you, Norfolk, we're going to do it our way despite 26 years of successful self-government'. It's heavy-handed and completely unnecessary.

"We should be given the opportunity to determine our own destiny by holding a referendum."

A referendum would not be without precedent - four years ago islanders decided not to adopt mobile phones after the issue was put to the vote.

Complicating the row, however, is the fact that some islanders believe the Legislative Assembly is unable to manage Norfolk's finances.

They say roads and other infrastructure are dilapidated and want Australia to take control of health, education, taxation and revenue.

"The laws that apply to the rest of Australia should apply here," said Alice Buffett, 75, a former minister.

"We've only had self-government since 1979 - it's just a case of putting the genie back in the bottle."

Numbers by nickname

Norfolk Island boasts the world's only telephone directory to list people by nickname.

The telephone book is dominated by the surnames brought by the early Pitcairn settlers in 1856. There are 38 Christians (after Fletcher Christian), 30 Quintals and 36 Buffetts.

In the words of the local Norfolk language, a mixture of English and Polynesian, the aim is to "faasfain salan bai dems nikniem" - to find people quickly by their nickname.

They include: Beef, Cane Toad, Carrots and Chilla Dar Bizziebee, Duck and Diesel Honkey-dorey, Kik Kik and Grin Lettuce Leaf Mutty, Moose, Morg, Moochie and Moonie Onion, Oot Pinky, Pumpkin, Paw Paw, Pigdog and Pusswah Smudge, Smudgie, Snoop and Snapper Tarzan, Toofy, Wiggy and Yarm