Jon Stanhope: the outgoing administrator of Christmas Island. Photo: Tony McDonoough

As administrator of Christmas and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands I have confronted human rights and other issues that render those that Australians dwell on in Canberra and elsewhere on the mainland as mere frippery.

Christmas and the Cocos Islands are very different to the rest of Australia. Not only are they geographically part of Asia, their history culture and people are mainly Asian. People of Chinese and Malaysian heritage constitute about 70percent of the population. The main religions are Islam, Buddhism and Taoism. There areone Christian church, three mosques and 16 Chinese temples. Up to a third of the resident population do not speak English either at all or with fluency. The most common language on Christmas Island is Mandarin, and on Cocos Island, Malay. On Cocos Island, English is rarely spoken by people of Malay heritage (about80 percent of the Cocos population) in the home.

The territories are incorporated into the Northern Territory for federal electoral purposes but federal members play no part in the administration of the territories and rarely, if ever, visit. Most residents regard their incorporation into the Northern Territory as tokenistic.

There are no democratic arrangements in place for state type purposes. Most services are delivered by Western Australian agencies under contracts with the Commonwealth. There is no input into the content of the contracts by residents of the territories, nor are the service delivery agreements under which the services are made publicly available. There are no annual reports, , on any services delivered or monies spent in the territories.

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All policy and budget decisions are made by federal public servants based in Canberra and Perth. Residents are not consulted about expenditure priorities. No draft budget is prepared and there is noestimates process.

There are no effective consultative mechanisms in place engagement of the local communities in policy development or resource allocation. There are massive gaps in services in areas like aged care, mental health and public health. Land management, economic development, waste disposal, environmental protection and community and social infrastructure is poor.

Despite having lived on Christmas Island for two years, it still comes as a surprise to me that in the 21st century, there are still Australian citizens who are denied the most fundamental right the right to be involved in the civil and political life of their community.

The territories were administered from the colony of Singapore prior to its independence. At that time, the two territories were hived off from Singapore and accepted by Australia.Before1958, Christmas Island, along with the Cocos Islands,reported on by Britain to the United Nations. It was consistent with article 73 (e) of the United Nations Charter, on the basis that Britain accepted that the territories were non-self-governing territories (otherwise known as colonies) within the terms of chapter XI of the charter.

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Christmas and Cocos Islands Australian colonies in all but name