On 10 February 2021, the Assistant Minister for Regional Development and Territories (Minister) announced a Public Inquiry into the Norfolk Island Regional Council (NIRC). The Minister has appointed Ms Carolyn McNally as the commissioner to hold the Inquiry.

The Inquiry will inquire into whether, since 2016:

The department engaged a consultancy to establish economic baselines and develop a modelling tool to monitor the Norfolk Island economy now and into the future. The consultancy engaged directly with the department and the Administrator of Norfolk Island, who convened an on-Island working group, to identify and gather suitable data to inform the project. The tool allows the department to input, extract and publish economic data for Norfolk Island in a manner that is interactive and freely available to the local community and other stakeholders.

The department engaged Commonwealth Grants Commission (CGC) staff to undertake a costing of Norfolk Island services and its capacity to raise state and local government revenue (the ‘2019 Norfolk Island Inquiry’). CGC staff have reviewed financial and economic data for 2017-18 and used this information to calculate the amount of annual expenditure, including infrastructure costs, required to provide state-type government services, local government services and support for state-type government business enterprises on Norfolk Island.

The department funded two separate Norfolk Island economic analysis projects—the Monitoring the Norfolk Island Economy project and the Commonwealth Grants Commission 2019 Norfolk Island Inquiry—which established baselines to monitor the local economy and provided estimates of annual expenditure and revenue for services on Norfolk Island respectively.

Media Release

19 September 2016

Saturday 17 September was 2016 Australian Citizenship Day. Australian citizenship is an important common bond for all Australians and lies at the heart of a united, cohesive and inclusive Australia.