NZUSA Concern For Cook Islands

The New Zealand University Students' Association is planning to send a six-man working party to the Cook Islands at the end of 1964. This was one of the decisions made at winter council in Dunedin.

The Association also advanced a number of other recommendations, among them measures for improving relations between NZ Government and the Islands. It was felt that more information should be available to Cook Islanders, and the Council recommended statements of policy at village level, and that the establishment of a free press be encouraged. A recommendation that a bureau be established to advise on living and employment conditions in New Zealand was also passed.

The Council was impressed by the present efforts of the Government to improve conditions in the Island Territories, but felt that there were other measures that could also be used. A member of the Cook Islands Legislative Assembly could visit New Zealand at least once a year to help publicise the Islanders' problems and conditions.

A Pacific Islanders' Welfare Division in New Zealand, possibly attached to the Department of Maori Affairs, and the establishment of a tuna fishing industry were also mooted.

"God gave Noah the Rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time."

—James Baldwin.