Norfolk Island’s 2,210 residents – many of them descendants of mutineers from HMS Bounty – have presented a petition to the United Nations accusing Australia of trying to “re-colonise” their tiny South Pacific island.

Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson flew to New York from London to deliver the petition on Monday in a last-ditch attempt to help Norfolk retain its status as an autonomous territory.

Norfolk Island is 1,500 kilometres east of the Australian coast and was settled by the descendants of Fletcher Christian and other Bounty mutineers in 1856. It has governed itself since 1979.

But the Australian government signalled last year it would end the island’s local administration, and has already closed down its parliament, paving the way for rule from the its capital of Canberra.

A regional council is planned and elections are scheduled for the middle of next year.

The volcanic island covers just over 34 square km in the Pacific Ocean, between New Caledonia and New Zealand. It was mapped by the British navigator and explorer Captain James Cook in 1774, and was occupied just 40 days after a convict settlement was established in Sydney in 1788.

In 1852, it became a prison for convicts who were sentenced to particularly harsh discipline. Jail ruins, barracks and the gravestones of executed convicts now form part of the island’s World Heritage area.

Robertson told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation there would be consequences for the islanders.

“They will be forced to sing Advance Australia Fair over their preferred national anthem, which is God Save The Queen,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“They won’t be able to compete under their own flag at the Commonwealth Games, they will have to join an Australian team.”

– with Reuters