Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 32, Number 9, 1 September 2015 — Happy Birthday, Cook Islands [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Happy Birthday, Cook Islands

Carly last month, I was part of a delegation from OHA that included

I Maui Trustee Hulu Lindsey and CEO Kamana'opono Crabbe that traveled to the Cook Islands. We were guests of Prime Minister Henry īuakeu Puna. The occasion was to celebrate his country's 50th year of self-determi-nation and independence from New Zealand and its Constitution. What this small nation

has achieved in a half century under a status called free association is absolutely remarkable. Cook Islanders are responsible for every facet of their lives but defense. That burden (kuleana) remains with New Zealand. Our Cook Islands 'ohana has a high standard of living. Residents pay no property taxes, and medical and dental care is free. So is education. It does not have a welfare system. Homelessness is nonexistent. No one owns land. Everyone is a tenant passing through and the tenant ties a family has to 'āina goes back eenturies. Genealogy is paramount as proof of koko is what binds one to the land forever. The country has a less than 10 percent unemployment rate. The concept of separation of church and state is foreign to Cook Islanders. God and prayer are a fundamental part of all state events. The Prime Minister, his Communications Director and Paka Worthington (our hostess with the mostest) cautioned us that the Cook Islands are not utopia. It does have its challenges. A big one is convincing its young adults who have left to study or work abroad principally in New Zealand or Australia to eome home to live, work, raise families and play. In a January 20 15 message, this is what Prime Minister Puna had to say to his people: "This will be an inclusive celebration and you, the people of the Cook

Islands, will help decide what it is we treasure most about our homeland. In 2015,

we will celebrate the differences and familiarities between us that makes us who we are from Tongareva to Mangaia and of course our other islands New Zealand and Australia. We will take time to flag our milestones. Both our successes and failures. In 2015 we will sing and dance, and we will ehoreograph and compose, we will lauah and we will

cry, we will eook and we will share. Because that is who we are. We will mark our 50th birthday with a yearlong celebration that will bring Cook Islanders together and strengthen our resolve for the new challenges and new opportunities that we face. In the rambling thoughts of our first Premier Albert Royle Henry, 'No one in the tribe to be left out, no one in the village to be forgotten."' What really caught me at the 50th CONSTITUTION DAY CELEBRATION on August 4th at Constitution Park was Prime Minister Puna's focus on this objective: "To serve all the people of the Cook Islands with honesty, transparency, accountability, effectiveness, efficiency and integrity." It caught me because these are virtues I have been and will tirelessly advocate for as long as I'm blessed to be OHA Chair. For one, as a Board we will hold ourselves to the highest standards of ethics, transparency and accountability; two, we work closely and in a trusting relationship with our CEO, his executive team, and their hard-working as well as committed staff; and three, that we remind ourselves always that, as Trustees, we are here to serve our Mission and you our people by putting their success ahead of our personal feelings. If we are to Ho'oulu Lāhui Aloha, Build a Beloved Nation, these are three guiding principles we must serve by. ■

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Rūbert K. Lindsey, Jr. Chair, TrustEE, Hawai'i