Jim’s Australiana Spot – 2UE - january 30, 2010

End of an Era for the most AUSTRALIAN non Aussie place in world!

Norfolk Island is about to lose it's independence.... pay tax and conform to Australian laws ... the world economic slump is about to change the nicest little nation in the world! This is PART one of a new series ..... Our Early Settlements

Norfolk Island was settled  on March 6th 1788 - the convict settlement lasted 1788 -1814 and it provided food for the starving colony of NSW .... the town there was the original SYDNEY...the HMS Sirius sank there

Questions

The fascinating history of Norfolk Island :
• Polynesian settlement - The island was settled and abandoned 500 yrs ago.
• Captain Cook 1774 - discovered the island on his 2nd voyage.
• Masts and flax for sails - the navy thought Norfolk Is would provide them - but both ventures proved a failure.
• Second convict settlement - 1814 -1847 - Hell in Paradise. There were 3 convict mutinies and in 1834 Father Ullathorne reported that, when he told the convicts who wa to hang and who was reprieved, those about to die 'thanked God' and those reprieved 'wept for sorrow'. The Island was abandoned in 1847.
• Pitcairn resettlement - after a plea to Queen Victoria in 1856 many of the descendants of Tahitians and the Bounty mutineers, were resettled on Norfolk - the Naval vessel HMS Morayshire arrived with 194 persons. 'Bounty Day' is 8th of June - the day the Bounty was commissioned and also the day the Pitcairn Islanders landed on Norfolk Island.
• Constitutionally it is separate colony of the British Crown, supervised by Australia, the residents of Norfolk Island are not represented in the Australian Parliament but has limited self-government administered by Australia, ALL ABOUT TO CHANGE.

FACTS
• The Norfolk phone book has everyone's nick names.
• Norfolk Islanders almost voted NO to television
• They pay no tax and have no social security
• Norfolk has its own resident poet  - Archie Bigge
• Population is 2 100 Education is NSW system

Jim is taking a group to Norfolk Island for the Country Music Festival, history and poetry in May -
for more information - click here

Kingston	Cemetery Bay

Norfolk Pine
Archie Bigge

For more than a million years they stand Planted with care by Father Time, Tended with love by nature’s hand A beautiful tree, the Norfolk pine. And through their branches the white birds play As above they soar and twist and climb While deep below the rich moist clay Holds fast the roots of the Norfolk pine. In the year of seventeen seventy-four Captain Cook, explorer fine, Walked the untrodden forest floor And he told his king of the Norfolk pine. ‘I have,’ claimed he, ‘in my travels vast ’Neath a southern sky where bright stars shine Found a suitable tree for the yards and masts Of His Majesty’s ships, in the Norfolk pine.’ The settlers came from a distant shore With a strange new sound in a bygone time The voice of man with his crosscut saw As he took for his use the Norfolk pine. And in anguish nature’s hands were wrought, Be patient, friend, said Father Time. But man took all and he gave back nought Though it served man well did the Norfolk pine. Then a new generation of man was born And he looked to the future beyond his time Then he planted the hills that before were shorn And he planted the valleys with Norfolk pine. Thus he looked at the forest with different eyes, At the beauty there of a tree so fine As it speaks to the wind with a gentle sigh, A beautiful tree is the Norfolk pine.

Tune in to hear Jim on 2UE every Sunday at 12.30 pm