Thomas Davis (Cook Islands politician)

Sir Thomas Robert Alexander Harries Davis KBE (11 June 1917 – 23 July 2007)[1] was a Cook Islands statesman and medical researcher.

[2] He applied for the position of Medical Officer in the Cook Islands, and after multiple rejections due to racism from colonial officials, was eventually appointed.

[4][5] As Medical Officer, he reorganised the country's health system, establishing a nursing school[3] and taking measures to control tuberculosis.

[8] At Harvard Davis completed a Master of Public Health,[2] before joining the United States Department of Nutrition and worked for the US armed forces.

[18] One of his first actions as Prime Minister was to ban Czech-born "cancer therapist" Milan Brych from Rarotonga hospital[19] and bar him from returning to the Cook Islands.

[27] In 1985 at a South Pacific Forum meeting he announced, mostly to gain local electoral kudos and in "bone-headed stupidity", that the Cook Islands would reconsider the relationship with New Zealand.

David Lange, who disliked Davis, said if the Cook Islands wanted independence, he would cut aid and remove New Zealand citizenship rights.

[29] Davis subsequently opposed a New Zealand offer to hold military exercises in the Cook Islands to demonstrate its ability, but his opposition was overturned by Cabinet.

[37] After divorcing her in June 1978, he married Pa Tepaeru Terito Ariki, the paramount chief of the Takitumu tribe in the Cook Islands, in 1979.

[41] He was a founder of the Cook Islands Voyaging Society[42] and in 1994 led the design and construction of the vaka Te Au o Tonga,[43] which he then sailed to Samoa.

[48] He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for services to medicine and the people of the Cook Islands, in the 1981 New Year Honours.