Prominent Cook Islander lays out plan for political reform

Former Cook Islands MP Iaveta Short says the Westminster parliamentary system, imposed by New Zealand, is not the right fit.

The lawyer, former cabinet minister and diplomat, has written a book called "False Dawn in Paradise."

In it he shares his views on a political system that doesn't work as well as it should.

Short said the Cook Islands had too many seats and at least one electorate with less than 100 voters.

"How do we bring democracy into a tiny little population?

"So what we need to do is go out to other countries with small, tiny small islands, countries like that, or even in the Channel Islands, and learn from them and then re-adjust our political system."

Short said the Channel Islands organised their government in a less adversarial way.

He said the party system as it had s evolved in the Cook Islands was not what was needed in small nations.