The Christmas Island Experience

In last November I was lucky enough to be invited to Christmas Island to help deliver an economic development workshop with Cassandra Stepanicev from Cranbrook. Simon Millcock, the Economic Development Officer for the Indian Ocean Territories split his role between organising the workshops as well as being part of the delivery team. As a triumvirate this worked very well as we had had the experience of undertaking the Mukinbudin workshops together previously.

 

The ubiquitous red crab

 

The harbour and surrounding townsite



While Christmas Island has some challenges ahead it proved to be a fantastic place to visit. Every person who heard I was either going or had been immediately asked about the red crabs, which was my major thought as well, but interestingly, there about 30 different types of land crabs on the island an significantly more than that in the oceans around the island.

The trip to the island was interesting in itself, with an international flight effectively needed without actually leaving Australia. The flight goes via the Cocos-Keeling Islands, which also ahve a fascinating history, and are the only place I know that has a golf course that goes directly across an airport.

We were lucky to even land at Christmas Island as it was covered by thick cloud when we arrived. Fortuitously this lifted for just enough time for the pilot to get the plane down before rolling in again.

We went straight to the Christmas Island resort from the airport, with an introductory set of discussions commencing almost immediately on arrival. The resort is in the process of being renovated after having been closed for most of the years since the casino license was removed. This renovation is one of the tangible benefits of the immigration centre, with much of the money being used having been earned through providing services to the department of immigration and the contractors operating the immigration facilities. 

Just outside my room - at the resort



Next morning the full workshop was undertaken, with representatives also joining us from the Cocos-Keeling Islands due to the two communities being part of the same territory - the Indian Ocean Territories. Meetings between the Department of Regional Australia and a range of entities from the islsnds had follow up meetings all afternoon and the next day, which provided an opportunty to explore the island .


The original Governor's residence


Luckily for us Simon's wife also does some work as a tour guide on the island and offered to show us around. This included a trek through some amazing countryside - the waterfall we ended up at was just amazing while the wildlife was spectacular.

  

As part of the week we also toured the main detention centre and the phospate mine operations (which are currently the only two real industries on the island). For all the bad press the detention facilities get I was exceptionally impressed with the way all people working within the facilities conducted themselves, with real empathy for the situation of the detainees obvious.

The phosphate operations were interesting, especially having grown up in a mining town myself. The issue facing the island is that these operations have a finite life, which is rapidly drawing to an end and the island urgently needs to find alternate economic drivers that are able to maintain a standard of living on the island. With the ongoing uncertaintly regarding the future of the detention facilities the urgency for alternate industries is exacerbated.

After spending the time in a proveledged capacity I found that both Christmas Islands and Cocos-Keeling Islands have something that many other places really struggle with - a definite point of difference. The remoteness however makes this difficult to easily leverage. There is also a long transition for the local populations to understand where they fit from a tourism perpsective.

Cocos-Keeling Islands appear (admittedly this is predominantly taken from flying over them) suited to a relaxed resort style approach. The beaches and climate, along with the multiple islands open up a range of opportunitie sin this area. In addition it is also starting to carve out a reputation as a kite-surfing destination.

Christmas Island on the other hand has a topography that appears set for adventure tourism, with fantastic, wild walk trails and a rugged coastline just crying out to be explored.

The difficulty for both is the cost of getting to the islands. This counts out  much of a backpacker or budget clientelle and means that a more premium product is required, which again is difficult to deliver straight up as well as requiring significant resources to put in place and maintain.

All in all there are a range of opportunties open to both communities which seem to be matched by the challenges facing them.