Henry Puna Calls New Zealand's Involvement In Cook Islands Politics ‘Improper'
The former Cook Islands prime minister says the 'special nature' of the relationship between the two nations must be 'underpinned by respect'.
Caleb Fotheringham, in Rarotonga
Former Cook Islands Prime Minister Henry Puna says he thinks it is 'improper' for New Zealand to involve itself in the 'domestic affairs' of the island nation and issues between the two countries should be resolved behind closed doors.
Puna has become the new president of the Cook Islands Party, the same party that Prime Minister Mark Brown leads.
When asked whether he became president of the party because of the current state of the relationship between the Cook Islands and New Zealand governments, Puna said his interest was domestic, 'to see the Cook Islands Party become stronger and remain united'.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has challenged Brown to hold an independence referendum' following agreements the Cook Islands signed with China in February that Wellington feels it was not consulted on.
Puna said Peters' comments are in the minds of the Cook Islands people.
'Given the special nature of our relationship with New Zealand, it must be underpinned by respect.
'I think it is a bit improper for New Zealand to be involving themselves into our domestic affairs. I don't think that is respectful of our relationship'
Puna said he wants the Cook Islands and New Zealand to talk about 'these slight complications' in private.
He said it 'was a bit tough' that New Zealand paused $18.2m in development funding last month while meetings between foreign officials were still taking place but said it was New Zealand's call.
Puna said the Cook Islands Comprehensive Strategic Partnership was very similar to a partnership agreement New Zealand signed with China in 2014.
'So really, there is nothing unusual about it, but you will also notice that security is not an issue in that agreement, for obvious reasons.'
When asked why it was obvious, Puna said the Cook Islands was mindful of New Zealand's and its other partners security concerns. But he added that security in the traditional sense is not a big issue for Pacific leaders.
'For us, security really is about being safe from the effects of climate change, and not with the traditional army, armed activities, that New Zealand and the others are concerned about.'
Puna said he 'would have quite happily signed [the agreements with China]' if he was in Brown's place and he signed a similar agreement, while also making a state visit in 2013.
He said there are opportunities with China. One is the Cook Islands and China are halving the cost of a $6m interisland vessel.
'Our government raised that with New Zealand years ago, and it was flatly rejected that, you know, they wouldn't help,' Puna said.
The New Zealand government has said the Cook Islands can not have United Nations membership while it remains in free association.
It was something Puna wanted while he was prime minister and for a period it was floated by Brown.
'I had a conversation with the legal office of the United Nations, who told me quite openly that, in their view, we were qualified to be admitted as a member of the UN,' Puna said.
'But given our special relationship with New Zealand, I decided to raise the issue with Prime Minister John Key and the officials in Wellington at the time, their response was very clear. They didn't agree with it, so we didn't push it.'
The Cook Islands is currently celebrating 60 years of self-governance in free association with New Zealand.
Puna said he was proud of where the country has come.
He said a major achievement over the past 60-years was building the international airport. It unlocked tourism in the country, which underpins the economy.
For the future, Puna wants the economy to be the focus.
'Everything else will fall into place and I'm confident that we have the makings of, you know, a growing and a sound economy…these nights watching our young ones on the stage at the auditorium, performing with pride. I have a lot of confidence in our future, in the hands of our young people.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scoop
31 minutes ago
- Scoop
Henry Puna Calls New Zealand's Involvement In Cook Islands Politics 'Improper'
Caleb Fotheringham, in Rarotonga Former Cook Islands Prime Minister Henry Puna says he thinks it is "improper" for New Zealand to involve itself in the "domestic affairs" of the island nation and issues between the two countries should be resolved behind closed doors. Puna has become the new president of the Cook Islands Party, the same party that Prime Minister Mark Brown leads. When asked whether he became president of the party because of the current state of the relationship between the Cook Islands and New Zealand governments, Puna said his interest was domestic, "to see the Cook Islands Party become stronger and remain united". Foreign Minister Winston Peters has challenged Brown to hold an independence referendum' following agreements the Cook Islands signed with China in February that Wellington feels it was not consulted on. Puna said Peters' comments are in the minds of the Cook Islands people. "Given the special nature of our relationship with New Zealand, it must be underpinned by respect. "I think it is a bit improper for New Zealand to be involving themselves into our domestic affairs. I don't think that is respectful of our relationship" Puna said he wants the Cook Islands and New Zealand to talk about "these slight complications" in private. He said it "was a bit tough" that New Zealand paused $18.2m in development funding last month while meetings between foreign officials were still taking place but said it was New Zealand's call. Puna said the Cook Islands Comprehensive Strategic Partnership was very similar to a partnership agreement New Zealand signed with China in 2014. "So really, there is nothing unusual about it, but you will also notice that security is not an issue in that agreement, for obvious reasons." When asked why it was obvious, Puna said the Cook Islands was mindful of New Zealand's and its other partners security concerns. But he added that security in the traditional sense is not a big issue for Pacific leaders. "For us, security really is about being safe from the effects of climate change, and not with the traditional army, armed activities, that New Zealand and the others are concerned about." Puna said he "would have quite happily signed [the agreements with China]" if he was in Brown's place and he signed a similar agreement, while also making a state visit in 2013. He said there are opportunities with China. One is the Cook Islands and China are halving the cost of a $6m interisland vessel. "Our government raised that with New Zealand years ago, and it was flatly rejected that, you know, they wouldn't help," Puna said. The New Zealand government has said the Cook Islands can not have United Nations membership while it remains in free association. It was something Puna wanted while he was prime minister and for a period it was floated by Brown. "I had a conversation with the legal office of the United Nations, who told me quite openly that, in their view, we were qualified to be admitted as a member of the UN," Puna said. "But given our special relationship with New Zealand, I decided to raise the issue with Prime Minister John Key and the officials in Wellington at the time, their response was very clear. They didn't agree with it, so we didn't push it." The Cook Islands is currently celebrating 60 years of self-governance in free association with New Zealand. Puna said he was proud of where the country has come. He said a major achievement over the past 60-years was building the international airport. It unlocked tourism in the country, which underpins the economy. For the future, Puna wants the economy to be the focus. "Everything else will fall into place and I'm confident that we have the makings of, you know, a growing and a sound economy…these nights watching our young ones on the stage at the auditorium, performing with pride. I have a lot of confidence in our future, in the hands of our young people."
Scoop
13 hours ago
- Scoop
'System Just Sucks': Political Scientist Says Māori Being Deterred From Voting
Pokere Paewai, Māori issues reporter A Māori political scientist says reports people have been removed from the electoral roll or shifted off the Māori roll could discourage some Māori from voting. Political scientist at Victoria University Lara Greaves was blunt in her assessment of New Zealand's voting system, calling it difficult to navigate, particularly when it comes to updating or changing enrolment details. "This system just sucks," she said. Past surveys have shown that a significant minority of people don't have a good understanding of the electoral system at all, she said. "So I think this whole system is set up in a way that is quite confusing, quite hōhā and quite bureaucratic and a bit annoying overall." Over the last several days social media has been awash with people checking their voter details only to find they are no longer enrolled or that they cannot find their enrolment details. Lloyd is a voter on the general roll, he checked his enrolment status on Thursday was unable to find his details and had to reenrol. He told RNZ it was like there was no record of him at all. "It just seemed very inflexible considering you want everyone to vote ... I hope they get on [and] start advertising and telling people 'please just go and check and you may have to do this from scratch and we're sorry' or something." Lloyd said he has been voting for about 30 years and last checked his voting details prior to the last election in 2023. Adding extra steps to the enrolment process just makes it that much harder, he said. "I just think they should fix the system so it's a little bit smarter and easier." Lloyd's kōrero follows that of Taryn Utiger, who told RNZ she had been put on the dormant roll despite updating her enrolment details three weeks prior. "They were like, yup ka pai you're on the Māori electorate roll, everything's good to go you will be able to vote in the local body elections and the referendum. I was like cool, thought that was the end of it, everything confirmed. Then I logged in last night and nothing." Greaves said there are realistic barriers between Māori enrolling to vote, including a lack of knowledge among poll workers about the Māori roll and a legacy of colonisation that has discouraged Māori from participating in the electoral system. "We know that there are barriers out there, and the barriers and perception of barriers do cause lower trust, lower trust in democracy. We go back decades and we can see that there have been a lot of barriers for Māori voters," she said. "All of this is contributing to a culture where people think 'hey why would I even bother voting they don't want my vote.'" Greaves said as the facilitator of New Zealand's democracy the Electoral Commission needs to be sufficiently staffed, especially in its IT department. "Could we just invest in an IT system, could we invest in a computer system, could we invest in more people on the ground and get better results. Democracy does need money, it does need investment, it does need personnel to run it and that doesn't seem to be the case at the moment." When a system has inequities those inequities tend to affect Māori, Pacific people and migrant communities more, she said. The Electoral Commission have said there were no technical issues with their online system. Its deputy chief executive of operation Anusha Guler said it was likely some people had been moved to the "dormant roll" because they had not got in contact with the commission for sometime. According to the Electoral Commission 2023 General Election Report, the dormant roll contains voters who have been removed from the main roll for their electorate because they no longer live at an address and have not updated their enrolment details. At the election, there were 96,406 people on the dormant roll and of those, 86 percent were on the general dormant roll while 14 percent were on the Māori dormant roll. Between 31 July and the 2023 election day, just under 78,000 people moved from dormant rolls to the main roll. Speaking to media yesterday, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said he was also concerned but the Electoral Commission had said there was no issue and if people were experiencing them, they should contact the commission directly.
NZ Herald
13 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Israeli troops fire warning shots as UN aid convoy looted in Gaza
The result, according to humanitarian officials, is that conditions for vulnerable residents who live inside Gaza remain dire – with little of the aid being sent in reaching those who need it most, while injuries and deaths are rising during attempts by the United Nations to distribute food – because Israeli troops open fire to keep swelling crowds away from the convoys and from Israeli checkpoints. The Gaza Health Ministry has recorded at least 209 deaths among people seeking aid since last Saturday, when Israel announced it would allow more food deliveries into the enclave, in part, Israeli officials said, 'to refute the false claim of deliberate starvation in the Gaza Strip'. The world's leading body on hunger crises said this week that 'the worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out' in Gaza. At least 154 people have died of malnutrition since the start of the war, the vast majority of them in July, according to local health officials. 'There's going to be a period of these scenes of mobbing aid convoys until an adequate and consistent level of aid is flowing in,' said Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International and a US official overseeing humanitarian efforts during the Biden and Obama administrations. 'That is an inevitable and unavoidable outcome of the level of deprivation that the Israeli Government has imposed on Gaza through the blockade this spring.' On Friday, the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, and special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff visited Gaza to assess the situation. 'This morning I joined @SEPeaceMissions Steve Witkoff for a visit to Gaza to learn the truth about @GHFUpdates aid sites,' Huckabee posted on X. 'We received briefings from @IDF and spoke to folks on the ground. GHF delivers more than one million meals a day, an incredible feat!' The 100 million meals delivered so far, however, amount to less than one meal per day per person in Gaza. Many of the products must be cooked and therefore require fuel and water, which are not readily available. A former Israeli military official, who has knowledge of the operations in Gaza, acknowledged that there was a 'total breakdown of order' caused by an Israeli military campaign that dismantled Hamas but never installed an alternative governing body. Criminal gangs are rampantly looting and ordinary civilians believe every aid truck they encounter may be their last, the official said. UN officials said while some of the looting is being carried out by armed gangs, the vast majority of people hauling food from the trucks are desperately hungry civilians trying to feed their families. 'Without a ceasefire, people are under so much mental stress thinking, 'This might end soon, this is my one chance to get what I can for my family',' said the former Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the situation in Gaza. 'When Israel says we're going to let the aid enter now, at this point it's great PR, but it's too little, too late.' Although Israel and other foreign governments announced they would airdrop food beginning on Saturday, the aerial missions do not deliver a volume that changes the humanitarian situation in a significant way, officials say. Another effort, the food distribution centres operated in southern Gaza, has also been marred by chaos and shootings. More than 1000 aid seekers have been killed, including by Israeli gunfire, near the sites since operations began in May, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The UN's struggle to get its aid into Gaza is particularly concerning because UN agencies long ran the largest food distribution network in the territory. In March, after a temporary ceasefire, Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza, halting all aid. When Israel came under pressure to lift the siege, it sidelined UN operations in favour of the US-backed GHF, saying that UN aid was being diverted by Hamas – a claim disputed by Western and UN officials. Today, hundreds of community kitchens and warehouses across Gaza that were once supplied by regular UN convoys have not been allowed by Israel to restart, said a UN official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive, ongoing negotiations with Israel. Mona Qadoum, a 45-year-old mother of five in Gaza City, said she is surviving on canned lentils she saved from aid packages she received before the Israeli blockade in March. She ran out of flour, which now sells for more than US$10 ($17) for 450g, and oil, which sells for US$25 a bottle. She blamed looters for stealing aid shipments and selling them for exorbitant prices on the market. Two weeks ago, she began to beg for food. 'They say aid trucks have entered Gaza, so why hasn't any of it been distributed? You tell me,' Qadoum said from her mother-in-law's home, where she lives after selling her tent to buy food. 'Only the looters and thieves have taken anything.' UN employees and Israeli officials and soldiers who spoke to the Post agree that the situation on al-Rashid St is typical of almost every aid delivery in recent days and weeks. But they offer different reasons for the system's breakdown. UN officials say one problem is that they have been refused permission from Israeli officials to use other, less crowded routes; Israel has issued displacement orders for about 80% of Gaza's territory and marked those areas as closed military zones. As a result, UN convoys can only travel into Gaza through two routes – one in the north and one in the south – that go through crowded areas, UN officials say. And although Israeli authorities have approved more aid trucks since last Saturday, the convoys usually are permitted to depart only late in the day, when huge crowds have already gathered along the known routes, further raising the prospect of looting. For months, the UN and humanitarian partners have pushed Israeli authorities to open more border crossings. As the crisis worsened, Israel provided UN agencies with written assurances that by the end of June more border crossings would be opened, at least 100 trucks per day would enter Gaza, and no Israeli forces would be present along convoy routes or distribution warehouses, the UN official familiar with ongoing negotiations said. But none of it materialised. A video taken this week from a UN aid convoy in southern Gaza – and published by the office of the UN humanitarian affairs co-ordinator – shows hundreds of Palestinians crouching along the side of a dusty road as gunfire strafes the ground, close to their feet, keeping them back. It's not clear whether the shooting comes from Israeli military positions. As the UN cars approach, the shooting pauses and the civilians, mostly teenagers and young men clutching empty sacks and backpacks, immediately swarm the convoy. Other people involved in transporting aid say that driving along known routes is so dangerous they have to careen at high speeds down crowded, potholed roads. Sometimes, drivers on Gaza's main artery, Salah al-Din Rd, hit people as they try to veer through a line of looters hurling rocks and firing guns, said Bilal Abu Mugheisab, 35. Abu Mugheisab works for his family's trucking and security company, which he said has a subcontract to provide armed escorts for trucks ferrying goods for World Central Kitchen and the United Arab Emirates, among other donors. 'Some people throw themselves in front of the trucks, putting their lives at risk,' Abu Mugheisab said. 'People may get run over by these aid trucks. Drivers can't see a thing, and that's how accidents happen.' He said it would be safer to drive down another road instead of Salah al-Din, but he had no choice: the other road fell within Israel's no-go zone. Israeli officials, in response, say that they cannot easily approve new routes in combat zones. They say the UN, citing humanitarian principles governing neutrality during armed conflicts, has turned down offers from the Israel Defence Forces and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which employs private security forces, to protect its convoys. 'They say the Israeli offer will harm their neutrality, but they're the ones picking sides and then complaining about the Israeli side,' an Israeli official said. Still, the proximity of IDF positions to aid convoys means Israeli troops frequently fire toward crowds or other armed groups that are not aligned with Hamas but seek to maintain order, exacerbating the security situation, UN officials and Palestinian witnesses say. It is often difficult to discern between armed members of local clans and Hamas militants, and Israeli troops are routinely instructed to fire on any armed actors who approach aid trucks, the former Israeli military official and an Israeli special forces unit commander said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the press. On Monday, two days before the massive mob overran the UN convoy on al-Rashid St, a similar bout of violence took place on the same coastal stretch, just blocks away, according to two witnesses. Ahmad Maher Abu al-Qarayer, a resident of northern Gaza, said armed local security forces – a combination of people working for the Government, police and local clans – ran into the IDF no-go zone about 6.30pm to arrest a gang of organised looters who had set upon a truck convoy carrying goods from the World Food Programme and even opened fire on them. Moments later, a missile from an Israeli drone struck the security forces, killing more than a half-dozen of their men, Qarayer said. 'In a moment, everything was turned upside down,' recalled Mohamed Tamous, a volunteer with the Gaza civil defence force and a paramedic who was also at the scene. Tamous was shocked, he said, because the Israelis appeared to intentionally target people securing the convoy but allowed people to 'storm in and loot the aid'. In response to questions from the Post, the IDF said it 'struck several Hamas terrorists who were waiting for aid trucks to reach northern Gaza in order to loot them', without providing proof that its targets were Hamas. 'Hamas is doing everything in its power to prevent the successful distribution of food in the Gaza Strip,' the military said. Qarayer, who witnessed the drone strike Monday, said he was 'lucky': the 33-year-old was strong enough to pull 10kg of rice from the trucks amid the carnage and run back home to his six children. 'But some people can't go to grab any aid,' he said. 'There are injured people, children and elderly people.' Despite the chaos and the danger, Qarayer said he was considering going back soon to wait for another UN convoy on al-Rashid Rd. 'I don't have any flour. Maybe I'll go back and try again,' he said. 'Whatever happens, happens.'
