The first Pacific Islands offshore financial centre was born in 1966 on Norfolk Island. This paper analyses the historical trajectory of Norfolk Island's tax haven in terms of its dialectical tensions with the Australian federal government - tensions between self-determination and subordination which emerge from Norfolk's anomalous status as a self-governing external territory of Australia. Promoters of Norfolk Island's tax haven have seen its potential to become a major global offshore financial centre blocked by the Australian federal government. Yet, at major critical junctures (in 1976, 1991 and 2000) the Australian federal campaigns that threatened Norfolk's residential tax haven disintegrated in the face of concerted local opposition, although the danger has never entirely disappeared. The island's political economy and external relations are likely to remain inextricably bound to its tax haven.