The Riddle of Norfolk Island

When I was a little girl who collected stamps, some of the most beautiful and intriguing examples to come my way were from Norfolk Island. There were pictures of birds and butterflies and shipwrecks and, loveliest of all, an engraving of a sea-girt, pine-forested landscape that appeared in a multi-coloured series of stamps ranging from a ha’penny to two shillings in value. My aim, of course, was to collect all the different colours.

At the bottom of each stamp in this series was the proud wording ‘Founded 1788’ – the same year as Sydney, my hometown. I had a vague understanding that Norfolk Island both was and wasn’t part of Australia, that its history was entwined with ours but that it was also somehow separate and different.

I loved the Norfolk Island stamps, particularly the ideal landscape represented in that classic engraved series. One day, I thought, I would like to go there.

It took more than 40 years, but finally, this month, I did visit for a week’s holiday with my husband. Not a travel-writing assignment – just a bit of R&R, tinged with the glamour of those long-ago stamp-collecting memories.

We had to check whether our flight was international or domestic (the terminals at Sydney Airport are separate). Definitely international, but online advice varied as to whether a passport was needed. I’m glad I didn’t rely on the Australian Government information that ‘Passports and visas are not required when travelling to Norfolk Island from the Australian mainland’ (www.regional.gov.au), because it turned out that passports were indeed demanded.

Once at the airport we checked in, received a gate number, and confidently followed the sign that said ‘All Gates’. At the Smartgate, though, our passports were refused. A kindly airport employee came over, looked at our boarding passes, and told us that we had to go to a special gate, because this was a domestic flight. Really? A domestic flight leaving from the international terminal?

The ‘special gate’ we were sent to had no electronic passport scanners, just good old human passport control. The woman at the desk asked our destination, and when we told her, her face went hard. ‘Have you been there before?’ We said no, her lips tightened and she made a kind of ‘Hmm’ noise, before subjecting us to the closest facial scrutiny we have ever experienced at any airport in the world.

You honestly would have thought we’d said we were going to Syria or Afghanistan, not a little island halfway between Vanuatu and Auckland that’s a favourite holiday destination for Australian retirees.

On arrival at Norfolk Island, things stayed weird, although they were a lot more relaxed. We’d been instructed on the plane that we should mentally substitute ‘Norfolk Island’ for ‘Australia’ when completing our landing cards. First: what kind of official advice is that? And second: easier said than done!

By the time I’d finished with it, my card was a real mess. How long will you stay in Australia? 7 days. Where will you go when you leave Australia? Australia. What is your address in Australia? A hotel on Norfolk Island. What is your permanent address? A house in Australia. On it went, a tissue of absurdities. I thought the official on the incoming passport desk would be sure to reject it, but she just waved me through with a smile.

In our hotel room, we turned on the television to find that all the advertisements were from Alice Springs or elsewhere in the Northern Territory. Never have I felt so tuned in to the lifestyle of our desert regions. My Australian mobile phone not working, I purchased a SIM card from Norfolk Telecom so I could call family at home. My daughter informed me that my calls appeared to be coming from the Australian Antarctic Territory.

Visiting Norfolk Island was turning out to be the most geographically incoherent experience of my life. I decided to try to find out if the place made any more sense politically.

The answer is not really. You get the sense that something is up as you drive past the Centre for Democracy in the town, Burnt Pine, drop in to the tent embassy at the Kingston historic area, or notice the many green-and-white Norfolk Island flags flying from homes all over the island.

Depending who you talk to, Norfolk’s present political situation is either a dastardly plot or a bureaucratic nightmare. Basically, the island’s financial problems during the GFC ten years ago raised questions about the sustainability of the self-government they’d enjoyed since 1979. In 2015 the Australian government passed legislation, which came into effect in 2016, revoking Norfolk Island’s right to self-govern and imposing a Canberra-led administration.

Let’s just say that the Norfolk people aren’t happy with the new order, and there’s a definite David-versus-Goliath feeling in their attitudes towards Canberra. This antipathy doesn’t extend to visitors from ‘the mainland’, who are warmly welcomed, but it does apply to our national anthem. Norfolk Islanders refuse to sing ‘Advance Australia Fair’ and remain faithful to ‘God Save the Queen’ – meaning Victoria, the monarch who allowed their ancestors to settle the island.

It’s certainly not my place to offer an opinion on the new political arrangements, many of which boil down to issues of compliance (on taxation and industrial relations, for example). The only comment I will venture is that if, like the inhabitants of Norfolk Island, I was told I must vote in Australian Federal elections but that I had been assigned to the electorate of Bean in Canberra, I’d be astonished and angry. How the voters of Norfolk Island are supposed to feel that this gives them any real representation in the Australian parliament is a mystery to me.

I dropped in to the Post Office to see if the Norfolk Island stamps were still as beautiful as ever. Alas, they are no more – since 2016 Australia Post has subsumed the island’s philatelic service. (Although, to be fair, there are some lovely new Australian stamps with Norfolk subjects.) But the gorgeous scenery that captured my attention in those old-fashioned stamps I collected as a child is, in reality, even more stunning than I’d imagined.