Thomas Wynne: Through the reef of 1965, to the ocean of 1974 and deep waters of 2025, ‘Let US begin’
“And to you, the people of the Cook Islands, I say – let us begin.” – Albert Henry, Inaugural Address, 1965. These were the words of the Papa of our democracy, spoken in 1965 at his inaugural address. Words that still echo today, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.
And yet, we are not confined by the words of 1965 – they merely define the beginning of our nation’s pathway and signal both the challenges and opportunities that would soon arrive for our young country and remain with us still today.
When then Premier Albert Henry stood before our people on that historic day, he spoke not of power, but of grace and public support and sentiment. “I stand here tonight by the grace of God,” he said, “and the confidence shown in me by the Cook Islands Party.” It was not a speech of conquest but of covenant — between a leader and his people, and between a fledgeling nation and its future. A covenant he left for us all to manage with each other, with our people across the reef, with our region, with the world, and most importantly, with our constitutional partner, Aotearoa, New Zealand.
But he knew it was now a time to engage and to assume our rightful place at the table of nationhood. “It is the beginning of a new era... a period of challenge in which we cannot survive as mere spectators of events.”
How we walk that era, and with whom, has always been in our hands. But it must be done in a way that upholds mana, respect, and reciprocity, and honours the covenants that run deeper than pen and paper. Deeper than government-to-government, as they are covenants that run through the vaka of the past, from Māori to Māori, and people to people.
That was the heart of Henry’s vision: our agency. A Cook Islands people who would not wait for history to happen to them but who would shape it with mana, integrity and conviction. “Let us try for greater achievements,” he urged, “for prosperity and the success of internal self-government.” He knew the journey would not be easy. “There are no ready-made solutions,” he warned. But he believed in the people, in our people, their will, their spirit, and our nationhood.
Ten years later, that vaka sailed to Caracas. At the 1974 Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), now Sir Albert Henry stood not just as Prime Minister of a small Pacific nation but as a global advocate for small island states. In a forum where the rules of the ocean were being redrawn, he brought with him the same conviction: we will not be spectators; we will co-shape the ocean before us.
“The sea does not divide us—it unites us. It is not a barrier but a pathway to our future.”
By the ten-year mark, Henry was already speaking of independence in spirit and independence in resources — of the seabed minerals that lay below, of the wealth and future that rested not on land, but in the ocean that surrounded us. It was a profound reorientation: the ocean was not something to cross to reach another place; it was the place, our inheritance to properly manage and tiaki.
From land to sea, Henry saw sovereignty not as isolation but as integration and participation. And he was blunt: small island states had been excluded from earlier maritime negotiations. “That is why we are here now,” he said — why he left his tiny island home, to ensure our rights over our moana, to assert our voice in global law, and to define the Pacific not as empty space, but as ancestral and economic territory.
In 1965, he thanked New Zealand for its “unfailing assistance” and reached with his heart and voice across the 1,600 miles of ocean to our people in Aotearoa. There, he blew a prophetic pū—a turou—from the land we call home:
“To the many thousands of our people who have migrated to New Zealand in search of wider opportunities, I extend a special greeting. I should like to think that their children will eventually return to this, their homeland—to find here those very advantages which their parents had been obliged to seek elsewhere.”
And then, to you, the people of the Cook Islands—those hard-working, hope-filled people—he said, “Let us begin.”
Albert Henry believed that one day, those children would return, joining the ‘Ai Ka who kept the home fires burning. And today, we see it happening. Our hearts and skills, our vaka, and our children are turning home again to do what Albert Henry called us to do.
So at 60 years as a country, Let us begin to build together stronger.
Let us begin to support each other more.
Let us begin to work together as we never have before.
And let us begin to build a future for our children, where they will thrive and prosper, not only in the many islands outside the reef that we occupy, but also in that sacred place we call home. Have a wonderful 60 years celebrations - “Kua kite au I toku turanga, e Avaiki toku – I know who I am; I have a homeland.”
Written by Thomas Tarurongo Wynne | Published in Editorials, Opinion