Back home Wilson works as an early childhood teacher. Wilson, 23, is competing in her second Games – she is considered a rising star in the Norfolk lawn bowls community. One Norfolk Islander to march under the flag in Birmingham was Shae Wilson, who bowled her way through to the semi-finals. “They’re very proud people and very proud to represent their club, their sport and their nation,” says Yelavich. That’s particularly the case for descendants of the original Pitcairn settlers, who are represented in the team. “To march under our flag and sing our anthem, when all other rights and liberties have been stripped from the Norfolk Island people, it’s one of very few opportunities when we get to publicly represent under our flag,” she says. Susie Hale, a school teacher on Norfolk and mother of Ellie Dixon, the youngest bowler on the team in Birmingham, says that the Games are an important opportunity to be represented as Norfolk Islanders. He asked: “How long the Commonwealth intend to deny the people of Norfolk Island a say in the governance of their community and the same democratic rights enjoyed by the residents of, let’s say, Canberra?”
In a recent column, former ACT chief minister Jon Stanhope criticised the reforms for returning the island to “what is, in effect, colonial status”. Norfolk residents have even petitioned the United Nations, represented by eminent barrister Geoffrey Robertson QC, seeking to be added to the body’s list of non-self governing territories, which have rights to self-determination under international law. Some locals have advocated for Norfolk Island to break away from Australia and join New Zealand, which might permit greater autonomy (as it does with Niue and the Cook Islands). The end of self-government remains a sore point.
The island is represented federally through the Australian Capital Territory new-elected representative senator David Pocock visited recently. From 2016, Australian laws have applied to the island and travel between Australia and Norfolk is considered domestic. In 2015, self-government was abolished by the federal government, “to address issues of sustainability”, including financial difficulties, that had arisen. Nothing might have changed on the sporting front, but politically much has changed in recent years – making Commonwealth Games participation even more symbolically important for Norfolk Islanders. Norfolk Island bowling team member Carmen Anderson at a monument to mark the Women’s World Lawn Bowls Championships. “We’ve been in the Games before as an external territory of Australia – nothing has changed, it has remained the same.” “We’re part of the 72 Commonwealth nations,” she says.
The island has competed at every Games since and won two bronze medals the appearance in Birmingham is the island’s 10th Games. “Norfolk Island has participated in the Commonwealth Games since 1986,” explains the team’s chef de mission Sheryl Yelavich, an administrator at the local hospital.
Hence Norfolk Island joined the likes of the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Saint Helena, Turks and Caicos, Guernsey, Jersey, Isle of Man and Niue during the opening ceremony in Birmingham last week. This unusual status allows it to compete in the Commonwealth Games – which, unlike the Olympics, permit participation from certain non-state territories. In 1979 the islanders were granted limited self-government by federal authorities, with an elected assembly responsible for governance of Norfolk. Norfolk was governed from New South Wales for decades, and formally incorporated into Australia in 1913.
0 kommentar(er)
