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CI Times Weekly | Current Issue 439|23 March 2012

PM wants young expatriates to return home
Cook Islands Prime Minister Henry Puna has called for young expatriate Cook Islanders in New Zealand to move back home. Puna wants young people with tertiary qualifications to return to Cook Islands, so they can assist in the nation’s development. He made the call during his visit to Cook Islands communities in NZ’s South Island.

Presenter: Geraldine Coutts-Radio Australia
Speaker: Edwin Pittman, Chief Executive Officer for the Cook Islands Prime Minister’s Support Office

PITTMAN: A large part of our population lives outside of the Cook Islands. In fact probably four or five times as many Cook Islanders live overseas as does in the Cook Islands. When the Prime Minister was in New Zealand he just wanted to make aware to young Cook Islanders in New Zealand that there are options, there are careers available to them in the tourism industry and other industries in the Cook Islands. We have a travelling population that travels a lot to Australia and New Zealand. We’d like to remind them that they do have a home and there are opportunities here in the Cook Islands.
COUTTS: What are the specific incentives that are to be offered to the young expats to go home?
PITTMAN: No there’s been no specific incentives apart from letting them know that it is their home, it is their country, it is their heritage, and to come back and enjoy it. The Cook Islands is a very good place to live and we have a very strong culture and we would like to encourage a lot of our own young Cook Islanders to come back, experience their culture and contribute to a developing small island country.
COUTTS: When you say go back Mr Pittman, a majority of those expats that you’re talking about are actually born in New Zealand and that is their home now and their heritage is simply the Cook Islands?
PITTMAN: Well we see it a little bit differently than that. We see them as Cook Islanders, we see them as our people.
COUTTS: Yeah but how do they see themselves?
PITTMAN: Part of the process I think from our side is putting it into their minds that they are actually Cook Islanders, and this is their homeland as well as New Zealand and Australia.
COUTTS: And who in particular are you targeting? What kinds of jobs are there that you want them to do should they go to the Cook Islands?
PITTMAN: There’s no attempt, we’re not targeting anyone in particular. The intent here is just to make Cook Islanders out there aware that there is an option here for them. There is an option and we’d like them to consider it seriously.
COUTTS: If you want them to consider that and you’re looking for tertiary educated expats though, there must be jobs that you’d like them to do?
PITTMAN: Well I think currently in the Cook Islands at the moment with a growing tourist industry our numbers continue to climb every year. If you look at the middle management and the service industries of the tourist industry, a lot of the positions now are filled by people from outside of the Cook Islands, because a lot of our own people have left to pursue other things in Australia and New Zealand. We would like to encourage Cook Islanders to consider coming back and filling those areas.
COUTTS: How easy would it be should someone take up this option and encouragement to return to the Cook Islands, I mean the portability of superannuation, benefits if they’re in government jobs, would they carry over?
PITTMAN: Well I don’t really know, the portability of superannuation is an issue that’s on the table at the moment. That has not been resolved, but as far as Cook Islanders coming here to work it would be very simple if they wished to return and there are jobs available, it’s a matter of them coming back like anywhere else and applying within the industry. And it’s as straightforward as that.
COUTTS: It seems unusual shall we say for a Cook Islands Prime Minister to have not made this visit before Henry Puna in some time, considering the number of Cook Islanders that live in New Zealand. Why is that?
PITTMAN: Well I think it’s correct to say that a Cook Islands Prime Minister has not made this visit to the South Island of New Zealand in a very long time, and certainly this administration has been in office for just over a year, and it certainly has been one of the intentions of the Prime Minister to do that within the first half of his current term. Now certainly in the North Island centres of Wellington and Auckland, certainly in Brisbane, this has happened, there have been consultations with the Cook Islands communities in those centres. There is certainly intention within the next 12 to 18 months that our Prime Minister would visit the Cook Islands communities in Sydney and also Melbourne, where there are very large Cook Islands communities.
COUTTS: And have you had any response from the younger Cook Islanders to return home?
PITTMAN: There was certainly on two occasions an indication of interest in the discussions with that that were held in the South Islands. But it’s probably a little bit early. I think from our side the Prime Minister’s intent there was in the very first instance to put it in the minds of young Cook islanders that there is an option here for them, and they should perhaps as the Prime Minister said, visit their families in the Cook Islands for a holiday and gauge for themselves what opportunities and whether they would like to return to the Cook Islands. So it’s a process, it’s going to take a little bit of time.

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