Cook Islanders head to the polls

Transcript

The Cook Islands go to the polls next week and continuing de-population has been raised as a key concern for people.

Data from the latest census in 2011, says the population is just under 15,000 people but some say a lack of job security and overseas employment offers mean that figure is now much lower.

Daniela Maoate-Cox reports.

The Pasifika Director at New Zealand's Massey University, Dr Malakai Koloamatangi, says the declining population is a perennial issue that has a widespread effect.

MALAKAI KOLOAMATANGI: The issue affects other sectors, for example the economy relies very heavily on tourism, nearly 68 percent of GDP, and that must be weighing on people's minds.

The Cook Island Workers Association president, Anthony Turua, says there aren't enough opportunities for the working population and people are attracted overseas by job offers.

ANTHONY TURUA: There's been a lot of recruiters that are coming, especially in the mining sector, the building sector and also the meat processing unit. So these are the kind of recruiters that are coming to recruit our young people but we need to retain our own people in the Cook Islands and workers want to know what incentive is there.

The Finance Minister Mark Brown, says depopulation is mainly a problem for the outer islands and better infrastructure needs to be developed.  

MARK BROWN: What we have to try and do is stimulate economic activity in these very remote outer islands to try and encourage people to earn a living here. So things like the pearl farm, investment in our airports and ports to ensure that shipping and air services are more reliable and more regular and also cheaper.

Mark Brown says the population on Rarotonga is stable and data from the 2011 census appears to support this statement. It says in 2010, six percent of residents had lived overseas in the past year compared to 17 percent five years earlier. But the Cook Islands Democratic Party president, Sean Willis, says indigenous Cook Islanders are still leaving Rarotonga and the stable population number is maintained by immigrant workers who are filling the gaps.

SEAN WILLIS: They can't tell me that Rarotonga's stable. If they're leaving the outer islands to come and stay in Raro, people are still leaving the Cook Islands to go to Australia, New Zealand or elsewhere and then replaced in hotels by Fijians.

Anthony Turua says workers need better training so they can fill jobs that are currently dominated by foreigners, like accountants and doctors. He says the next government will have to offer incentives, such as guaranteeing work for returning Cook Islanders to make the country a desirable destination for work.