X-Post : The Strategist - Why Carr Needs The Velvet Glove More Than The Iron Fist.

Source: The Strategist

31 Jan 2013

By Richard Herr
 

On my flight home from Fiji recently, I was struck by the continuing negativism of the arguments regarding Australian relations with Fiji. Rowan Callick’s commentary in the Weekend Australian is another example of a tough line on Fiji without any positive proposals. The one element of novelty in Callick’s piece, however, is the suggestion that Carr’s ‘soft’ approach toward the Government of Commodore Voreqe (‘Frank’) Bainimarama is the reason why Fiji has slipped the leash and gone feral recently. But this belies the evidence of the past six years. When has the Bainimarama Government ever been on an Australian leash or even responded positively to pressure from Canberra?

Having viewed the changing events in Fiji fairly closely in a variety of roles over the past six years, I find it difficult to see how the tactics that have failed to have any influence on the course of Fiji’s return to democracy since the December 2006 military coup will work in the 18 months before Fiji is due to go to elections. And this view has been bolstered by a week in Suva talking with a range of people that included participants in the constitutional process, current and former members of Government and academics. More of the same intransigence simply will not to produce a different outcome.

The Bainimarama Government has neither deviated from the roadmap’s timing for the return to democracy that it announced in July 2009 and nor has it altered this timetable since Bob Carr became Foreign Minister. Still, it’s a welcome development that Carr apparently has accepted this—albeit at a fairly low level—but it’s far too late to have the sort of influence that was on offer at the beginning of 2008.

The deepening frustration with Canberra since July 2009 comes from seeing Australian Governments refusing to set incremental steps for returning to a balanced relationship; of being obdurate even to the point of reneging on an agreement. Fiji’s lifting of censorship rules, withdrawal of the public emergency regulations, registering of voters and starting of the constitutional process have all been greeted with ‘not enough’ from Canberra.

The Bainimarama Government nevertheless expected some improvement in relations after the July 2012 tripartite agreement between Australia, Fiji and New Zealand to restore High Commissioners and relax some visa sanctions. However, to its genuine disappointment, many in Government in Suva saw little real change. They smile wryly at Australian critics who interpreted Carr’s expression of understanding over some of the complexities of the drafting of a new constitution as example of unwarranted appeasement.

Understanding scarcely constitutes undeserved compassion in a sanctions regime against Fiji which includes elements that, arguably, would be illegal if applied domestically—such as those against family members of targeted officials. Indeed, within the Fiji Government, the travel sanctions against it are claimed to be more extensive than even those against Mugabe at his worst. Yet, for all their severity, the critics can’t point to a single positive instance where these sanctions have hastened the return to democracy in Fiji by so much as a day.

Richard Herr

" Whether anyone one in Canberra wants to admit it, Australia has suffered a retreat from influence within our region and its institutions; a decline of support from our neighbours in the United Nations; and diminished respect from key allies in the South Pacific on regional affairs."

Seen from the Suva perspective, there hasn’t been a skerrick of public encouragement to mark the passing of the roadmap’s milestones to elections. The most recent disappointment was the denial of a visa to Aisake Taito, the chief executive of the Fiji National Provident Fund (a Government enterprise) and Bainimarama’s brother-in-law, who was to make a business trip to Australia at the end of December. Suva saw this as a clear breach of the July 2012 tripartite agreement. According to one commentator, it’s now highly likely that the Government’s response will be to refuse Margaret Twomey a chance to present her credentials as the first Australian High Commissioner to Fiji since James Batley was expelled in November 2009.

Whether anyone one in Canberra wants to admit it, Australia has suffered a retreat from influence within our region and its institutions; a decline of support from our neighbours in the United Nations; and diminished respect from key allies in the South Pacific on regional affairs. These foreign policy consequences for the contretemps between Australia and Fiji shouldn’t be used to excuse the weaknesses in the political processes of Fiji today but the critics, especially those so vocal in the Australian media, should be consistent in their expectations.

Even supporters of the Bainimarama Government have been disappointed that it hasn’t taken every opportunity to demonstrate the bona fides of its professed reformist goals. This includes, most recently, aspects of the constitutional process and the edict regulating political parties as well as a renewed activism by the Republic of Fiji Military Forces. Nevertheless, the present Government is the only game in town at least until 2014. Canberra needs to recognise this even as its South Pacific allies have already done. Moreover, Canberra needs to recognise and address the fact that Fiji has its own complaints against Australia.

It’s impossible to prove that a gentler, more engaged approach to the Bainimarama Government would have accelerated the return to democracy or made the path to democracy smoother. What’s undeniable is that the hard line approach advocated by critics over the years hasn’t prevented any of the adverse consequences of the toxic political relationship between the two countries. Indeed, it has contributed demonstrably to these outcomes. Failing to reset policy settings with regard to Fiji until ‘after free and fair elections in 2014’ merely demonstrates this ineffectiveness. Worse, where does Canberra go when elections are held under a constitution it regards as flawed by a process it deems biased? Does Australia rail against the result as not ‘free and fair’ and so maintain the sanctions that have had no effect?

It’s far too late to expect any great Australian influence on Suva’s charted course to the 2014 elections. But there’s much to be done to assist technically with the preparations for them, if Bainimarama will accept help now. If not, it’s still essential to prepare the ground for more effective relations after the elections. Hectoring from the bunkers is not only a demonstration of impotence; it is also preparing a grave for future relations.

Richard Herr is honorary director of the Centre for International and Regional Affairs, University of Fiji. Some of these themes will be explored more fully with regards to the broader implications for Australia’s security interests in Melanesia at RUSI’s forthcoming 2^nd International Defence and Security Dialogue. Image courtesy of Flickr user Asia Society.


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Bohemian Grove, Bob Carr & Fiji’s Beta Democracy

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 (Click above to hear the audio on the Radio Australia interview with Bob Carr, discussing Fiji)

Bohemian Grove, Bob Carr & Fiji’s Beta Democracy

Jul 27th, 2012 by sifm

Unelected Australian Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, was interviewed by Radio Australia regarding the upcoming meeting with his New Zealand, Fiji counterparts in Sydney on July 3oth 2012. In the interview,  Carr was hesitant to acknowledge Fiji's progress towards democracy  and would relax sanctions once irreversible progress towards democracy has been attained. The interviewer alluded that Carr wanted a more accelerated pace in Fiji's efforts.

It appears a scripted good cop-bad cop scenario has been mapped out.

New Zealand is acting out the good cop- recently investigating a conspiracy to assassinate Fiji's Prime Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama, involving  the fugitive and nemesis Roko Ului Mara, raided the home of a former SDL politician in New Zealand and softened the travel sanctions.

Playing the 'bad cop' -Bob Carr, the Australian Foreign Minister's new tact- shift the proverbial goal posts towards the Utopian end of the democracy spectrum.

Bob Carr and Henry Kissinger, in San Francisco, California.

The planned meeting in Sydney was to update the Australian Foreign Minister on Fiji's progress towards democracy; since Carr was too busy in secret talks with his handlers at the controversial Bohemian Grove  as outlined in a posting in his own blog.

The irony of the unelected Bob Carr discussing Fiji's democracy, meeting with a U.S Presidential contender, co-mingling with Henry Kissinger, Condoleeza Rice and other neo-conservative stalwarts of the same ilk is astonishing.

The question is worth asking -what was secretly discussed in Bohemian Grove, that involved Fiji, Pacific geopolitics and other world affairs, that is presently changing with break neck speed?

Bob Carr's recent remarks on Radio Australia, dismissed any proposals for Australia to become a broker in the South China Sea dispute; may just have been policy skulduggery, handed down to him at Monte Rio, Sonoma County. Is Australia's Foreign Policy formulated in the Bohemian Grove? Carr's response to a blog comment in his blog is self explanatory, "I don't write the rules. But have a job to do for Australia".


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X-Post- Grubsheet: #83 THE AUSTRALIA-FIJI DISCONNECT

By Graham Davis

– May 20, 2012 

The typical Australian stereotype of Fiji (Photo: Tourism Fiji)

As argument rages over Japan bowing to Australian pressure to exclude Frank Bainimarama from the forthcoming PALM summit of Pacific leaders, we’re newly reminded of the striking disconnect between the attitude of the Labor Government and ordinary Australians towards Fiji. Pick up any newspaper and the tough rhetoric of its politicians in the news pages about Fiji’s “draconian” regime gives way to glowing articles in the travel pages extolling the country’s charms.

Among the locals (photo: Tourism Fiji)

It’s worth reading the latest – this offering in the Fairfax Media listing “Twenty reasons to visit Fiji”. Why is it worth reading? Well for a start, most locals wouldn’t be able to give you 20 reasons off the top of their own heads so it’s worth reminding ourselves of the attractions all around us that are sometimes taken for granted. But it also explains why Australians keep coming in large numbers even as their government imposes sanctions on the country and Australian trade unions leaders urge them to stay away.

Of the 631,000 visitor arrivals in 2010 – the latest figures available – more than half – 318,000 – were Australians. Why do they come? Well, cheaper air fares, a four hour daylight flight and the strong Aussie dollar are undoubtedly part of the answer. But the relationship goes far beyond that.

The recent floods threw up countless examples of the strong bonds forged between Australian visitors and the ordinary people they meet in Fiji. It wasn’t just the gratitude expressed by individual visitors in the media for the assistance they’d received, sometimes from people who’d lost everything in the disaster. Many people back in Australia who’d holidayed in Fiji dug deep to support the various flood appeals in ways that were sometimes deeply moving for the expatriate Fijians involved. One of the organisers of the Sydney appeal, Joweli Ravualala, tells of bursting into tears when an elderly Sydney woman gave him two weeks of her pension.

One Australian's story: Ken Lamb ( Photo: Mining "Our story" campaign)

There are countless stories of  friendships forged during Australian holidays to Fiji. Grubsheet made one of the mining ads currently screening on Australian television that features a man called Ken Lamb, a real life Crocodile Dundee who supplies heavy equipment to the mining industry in the South Australian outback. Every year, Ken and his wife, Val, like to get away from the dust and heat to unwind at a resort on Viti Levu’s Coral Coast. And over the years, they’ve formed close friendships with some of the resort workers and their families.

 A couple of years back, Ken took over a box full of those instant prescription glasses you can buy at any chemist in Australia to distribute to the surrounding villages. I’ll never forget the look of delight on his face as he told of the looks of delight on the faces of many of the elderly Fijians who’d benefited from this simple gesture. They were able to read again for the first time in years.

Still doesn't get it: Bob Carr with his Fijian counterpart, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola ( Photo: Australian Govt)

This is the real glue of the Fiji-Australian relationship, not some here-today-gone-tomorrow politician like the miserable Bob Carr,  Australia’s verbose and ultra-nerdy foreign minister. Like his super-arrogant, Napoleonic predecessor, Kevin Rudd,  Carr displays a disturbing ignorance about the factors that brought about the 2006 coup in Fiji.  It’s perhaps understandable that an Australian politician who owes his very existence to the trade union movement should be so obsessed with the fate of one or two Fijian union leaders who’ve fallen foul of the regime. Yet it beggars belief that while he acknowledges that Fiji is taking “credible steps” to return to democracy, Carr wants to maintain sanctions and keep up the pressure because Fiji “hasn’t done enough”.

Blissful ignorance: The Australian way ( Photo: Tourism Fiji)

Done enough of what, Mr Carr? For the first time in more than a decade, Fiji has a government committed to multiracialism and – for the first time ever – creating a level electoral playing field for all its citizens. It is providing basic services to areas of the country sorely neglected by previous administrations. It is fighting corruption and instituting a raft of measures to ensure proper standards of governance. It is maintaining its regional obligations and providing troops to the UN to maintain order in places like Iraq. It is formulating a new constitution to provide Fiji with real democracy – one person, one vote – for the very first time. Yet it “hasn’t done enough” because it hasn’t bowed to Australian demands for an immediate election that would alter nothing because none of the reforms the country so badly needs will have been instituted.

How ironic that a nation that prides itself on its own multiracial and multicultural success can have so strongly supported the previous Qarase Government, with its corruption and blatantly racist agenda to disadvantage 40 per cent of the population. How lamentable that the Australian Labor Government does everything it can to weaken the Bainimarama regime in its quest for racial equality and good governance in Fiji. How out of step is Labor on this with the sentiments of a great many ordinary Australians, just as it is on so many other issues. Fortunately for Fiji, all the opinion polls tell us they can’t wait to turf Labor out.

FURTHER READING : Here’s a link to a devastating critique of Bob Carr’s “underwhelming” performance as foreign minister by academic commentator Peter van Onselen, writing in The Weekend Australia.



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Coming In From The Cold?

In recent months Fiji has welcomed to its shores, the Foreign Minister of Russia and more recently the senior diplomat of Qatar. Other bilateral meetings with Iraq and Kuwait have also eventuated, including other nations.

SiFM
"Both Foreign Minster's unscheduled visit to Fiji, is somewhat symbolic in nature, as well as a face saving gesture to restore what shreds of their spheres of influence left intact since their self-imposed absence."

The recent announcement of the nascent Australian Foreign Minister, Bob Carr to visit Fiji, in mid stream of his Washington stop, was quite surprising to say the least . However, Carr's Fiji's stop was undoubtedly influenced by a little chat with  the 'foggy bottom' folks quite concerned at Canberra and Wellington's incessant refusal engage directly with the Fiji Government and in the process isolated the Western aligned alliance diplomatically and undermining their regional moves on the geo-strategic chessboard. 

Tagging along with Foreign Minister Bob Carr to display a united front, is New Zealand Foreign Minister, Murray McCully who also confirmed his itinerary in joining this last minute Pacific Islands Forum Ministerial Contact Group (MCG) visit to Fiji.
It is understood that other Ministers from Pacific Island Forum (PIF) nations, notably from Polynesian client states are only present to bolster the island look of the Anglosphere duo, Carr and McCully respectively; whose nations dominate the proceedings of the Pacific Forum, an organization deemed as an anachronism by Melanesian and Micronesian states.

36th Parallel interview, (video below) outlines the current seismic change in regional affairs.





This disengagement with Fiji by the Trans-Tasman nations, had subsequently encouraged other friends of Fiji, to close ranks and displace the diplomatic rapport they once held. Both Foreign Minster's unscheduled visit to Fiji, is somewhat symbolic in nature, as well as a face saving gesture to restore what shreds of their spheres of influence left intact since their self-imposed absence.

Another unspoken agenda in their visit of both senior diplomats and colonial cousins from the metropolitan nations, is the ambition to shore up support to the former premier regional multi-lateral organization Pacific Islands Forum(PIF) that has since been languishing in the looming shadow of the regional sub-group Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG).

Another perspective by Dr. Wadan Narsey provides another independent view.

The excerpt:

Pacific tilting west to PNG – and Super Power rivalry

http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2012/04/pacific-tilting-west-to-png-and-super-power-rivalry/

14:56 April 27, 2012 0 comments

Papua New Guinea gold ... vast mineral wealth changing Pacific politics

Photo: Kiridaresources

Pacific Scoop:
Commentary – By economist Professor Wadan Narsey

If this was a news release by a geologist, alarm bells would be ringing around the Pacific and international scientific community. But retitle it “Pacific politics tilting to PNG” and the alarm bells would be ringing in Samoa, Tonga and the Cooks (as I am sure they already are).

However, if Papua New Guinea ever decides to flex its burgeoning muscles, encouraged by a belligerent Fiji, the alarm bells would be ringing loudest in Canberra and Wellington.
Without doubt, Pacific politics is tilting towards the west, drawn by the all-powerful and inexorable gravitational forces of the massive LNG and other minerals wealth being generated in Papua New Guinea (and in West Papua – another sorry saga).

Pacific regional initiatives such as PICTA and EPAs with the European Union (administered by Forum Secretariat in Suva) or PACER Plus (administered through the Office of the Chief Trade Adviser in Vila) are going to be largely eclipsed by the Melanesian Spearhead Group of PNG, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, headquartered in the Chinese built secretariat in Vila. But are the PNG politicians prepared for the leadership role that comes with their wealth and markets?

Or will they be too bogged down in their debilitating internal squabbles for political power so as to ensure preferential access to the massive new wealth flows being created?
Relations with Australia and NZ are going to be a key factor in the direction taken by PNG and the MSG group, and that will depend critically on what PACER Plus offers the PICs, and how fast.
Understanding the complex chop-suey of forces at work in the Pacific is extremely difficult, as the diversity of issues discussed by this article indicates.

Super Power rivalry

But almost certainly, history, time and the “Pacific tilt” are not on Australia’s side. More than a decade ago, US withdrew its Peace Corps programme from the Pacific.  But in 2011, US Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton warned the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee not to cut the US foreign aid budget, citing the growing competition with China for global influence, specifically mentioning the Pacific and its vast natural resources.

The US is now back in the Pacific with a large new US Embassy in Suva, to rival the equally large Chinese Embassy. US has  also now stationed a small number of troops in North Australia, a move which is seen by an annoyed China as part of the US “containment policy” towards China.

The numbers of US troops will no doubt slowly grow, alarming Australian strategy advisers who see too close an attachment to US military strategies as being potentially harmful to long term Australian economic interests, which are inextricably linked to China’s economic growth (and which was the most significant factor saving Australia from the Global Financial Crisis).
Without doubt, super-power rivalry in the Pacific is now escalating.
PNG will have far more bargaining chips than ever before, especially if its leaders are able to successfully play off one Super Power against another, and take a leadership role in the Pacific, including the MSG.

W. Narsey
" Pacific regional initiatives such as PICTA and EPAs with the European Union (administered by Forum Secretariat in Suva) or PACER Plus (administered through the Office of the Chief Trade Adviser in Vila) are going to be largely eclipsed by the Melanesian Spearhead Group of PNG, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, headquartered in the Chinese built secretariat in Vila. "

Largest market

Papua New Guinea with its population of 7 million people is the largest market in the Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA), with the others just making up less than 2 million.
Yet 10 years ago, the PNG market was not given much importance by the other Pacific Island companies because the largely rural PNG consumers were too poor to spend money on modern goods. That has now totally changed with the massive economic growth now taking place in PNG, with equally large investment and consumer expenditures from both the private sector and government.

Foreign companies, including Australian, are taking a renewed interest in PNG. Even Fiji companies have made a beeline for PNG, pushed abroad by the last six years of economic stagnation in Fiji. All of a sudden, the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) of PNG, Fiji, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu has become the substantial integration movement in the Pacific, totally eclipsing PICTA.

The MSG is also achieving trade integration advances which PICTA has failed to deliver while PACER Plus totally stagnates.

Pacific countries will continue to talk endlessly on PACER Plus, as they did when PICTA was being negotiated, with every tiny trading or local commercial interest dragging the negotiations down to a snail’s pace, to the financial delight of an army of consultants.
This strengthening of the MSG has been assisted by Fiji’s belligerent attitude towards Australia and NZ, secretly admired by the political leaders of PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, who have long harboured intense resentment at what they perceive to be the paternalistic and condescending attitudes of Australian and NZ political leaders towards the Melanesians.
Underlying all this antagonism is the virtually taboo subject of Australian and NZ racism against the Melanesians, which surfaced in an oblique way at a recent conference at Deakin University in Geelong on PNG’s future.

Melanesians feel racism

This two-day conference produced many useful contributions from Australian and PNG academics and participants. But one jarring note in an otherwise diplomatic opening address by the debonair  Sir Charles Lepani (PNG High Commissioner to Australia) was his emotional complaint about the “galling” barriers faced by PNG nationals requiring a visa to come to Australia, while Australians come and go freely in PNG. This observation was greeted with applause by the largely white Australian audience, who had faced such difficulties when trying to get visas for PNG nationals.

Another senior and influential bureaucrat, a “mover and shaker” in PNG, complained bitterly that he had been coming to Australia for four decades, yet the Australian immigration department still wanted his bank balance and his grandparents’ addresses.
Ironically, while speaker after speaker (both PNG and Australian) complained about the post-independence debilitating deterioration in PNG civil service efficiency and widespread corruption, eminent Professor Ross Garnaut threw in a sobering reminder that the decades in which Australia controlled PNG before independence was “no golden era” for PNG people either, when they were required to have a permit to even come into their own capital, Moresby.

The conference was also reminded by yours truly that while Australia easily and freely gave out more than 600,000 work/holiday/study visas to a number of mostly white countries, PNG had yet to be confirmed for a quota of a mere 100

‘Blackbirding’ memories

Melanesian countries still remember their people being “blackbirded” a century ago, to clear the land in Australia for white farmers, and then callously and cruelly expelled (with the Chinese and Indians) to create the “White Australia” after federation in 1905 (led by Prime Minister Deakin). Today, the Melanesians are affronted that the descendants of that early slave labour are clearly not wanted in Australia in the way whites are.

In an evening function, very senior PNG people (including white Australian PNG “old hands”) confided quietly that the negative Australian attitude to PNG people was racism pure and simple – a continuation of the “White Australia” policy.
Few from the Melanesian Pacific would disagree, as they see that the Pacer Plus negotiations are bogged down by Australia on the one benefit that the Pacific countries feel would balance all the many costs of pure trade integration.

All PICs want is reasonable access for unskilled PIC “guest workers” into Australia – to ease their home unemployment and increase their valuable remittance earnings which has kept poverty at bay in several countries such as Fiji, Samoa, Tonga.
But for almost a decade now, Australia has been dragging its feet on proposals to let a few thousand Pacific Islands workers come to pick fruit, all under tightly controlled conditions, while 600,000 young workers from Europe, with minimal control or organisation whatsoever, come and go with a year’s permit for work and/or holiday, readily granted.

Add Sino-phobia

Many political strategists in Australia and NZ are worried about China’s rapid incursion into Pacific economies and politics, even though China is merely doing much the same kinds of things which other Super Powers and donors have done in the past century.

China may be extremely secretive about their financial flows to recipient countries and politicians. For instance, there is little publicly available data about what exactly are the loans which many Pacific countries are taking on for future generations.
But unlike Australian and NZ, China has little concern for insisting on local governance standards or basic human rights of the PIC citizens.

Sadly, the Western powers excluded China in their regional discussions with PICs, as I pointed out at a PIDP meeting in Honolulu early in 2011, on the future of the Pacific. The improbable excuse given was that there were “visa difficulties” for Chinese delegates.
It is open to question whether China will be any less racist or paternalistic or condescending than Australia or NZ.  But Chinese diplomats are not likely to make the political gaffes which Australian politicians make regularly with respect to the Pacific.
Australian failures
Australia’s failure to win the hearts and minds of Pacific political leaders may be contrasted with NZ’s greater success with Pacific countries, and with their Maori population.
No power-hungry Pacific politician is ever going to prise the Cook Islands, Tokelau or Niue (or even Samoa and Tonga) out of New Zealand’s camp.

Even Kiribati is now over the moon with Fiji, which has offered (sold) them a large block of land which will have more earth in it than all of Kiribati combined. While Kiribati’s President Tong hastily said the purchase was for food security and not settlement, there is little doubt that it also is going to provide a refuge for any I-Kiribati climate change refugees.
The I-Kiribati know that Tuvaluans are already quietly and happily acquiring property in Fiji, with no fuss whatsoever from Fiji authorities.  Tuvaluans are hard-working law-abiding residents of Fiji, enjoying all the benefits of good education for their children, health services for their sick, and a hospitable social environment.

Massive Australia, despite its daily acknowledgement of significant labour shortages for the foreseeable future, has made no such grand symbolic gesture towards the atoll countries which would have cost it so little and gained so much. It is not surprising that, apart from a few small Polynesian countries, the rest of the Melanesian and Micronesian Pacific has refused to speak out against the military regime in Fiji, despite the considerable diplomatic pressure from Australia and NZ.

W. Narsey
"Many political strategists in Australia and NZ are worried about China’s rapid incursion into Pacific economies and politics, even though China is merely doing much the same kinds of things which other Super Powers and donors have done in the past century. "

The PICs all know that Australia has been dragging its feet for a decade on PACER Plus negotiations and refusing to budge on access to Pacific unskilled labour, while the smaller NZ economy has had a small guest worker scheme operating very successfully for several years.
Australian needs to pay more attention to PNG views: one speaker at the Deakin conference on PNG futures quite bluntly told the gathering: “If Australia does not want to play ball with PNG, then we will play ball with China”.
The reality is that PNG is now positioned to lead a mass break-out of the economic barriers that Australia has built up against the ordinary poor and unskilled black populations in the Pacific.
While perpetually decrying the deterioration in governance and public services in PNG and other Melanesian countries, Australia has been ruthlessly extracting the very professional and skilled PIC citizens, whose departure is one fundamental cause of PIC economic and social disintegration.
It is a paradox to many Pacific economists why Australia is so backward in its policies towards the Melanesian countries.

Saying ‘sorry’

In the absence of any great Australian awareness of Australia’s exploitation of Kanaks in the past, it might be difficult to argue that Australia has any subconscious guilt complex towards Melanesians, as they seemed to have towards the Aboriginals.

But Australian political leaders, after a century of silence, finally said “sorry” to Aboriginals for all the horrifying injustices done to them in the past. It would be an interesting PhD to examine whether saying “sorry” has made any improvements at all to the political relationships between Australian and Aboriginal political leaders, and more importantly, to the welfare of the Aboriginals whose conditions are closer (by all the MDG criteria) to the poverty stricken people in sub-Saharan Africa, than to the rest of white or Asian Australia.

Perhaps the Melanesian countries should demand that Australia also say “sorry” to them, for the atrocities committed against the Kanak labourers a century ago. Acknowledging those past brutalities (and you might first need a few TV documentaries to drive that message home to the unaware Australian public) might encourage Australia to treat Pacific Island countries fairly and with human decency in the PACER Plus negotiations.

If PACER Plus delivers on the unskilled labour market benefits that PIC leaders want, and quickly, then Australian and NZ politicians might also have fewer nightmares about being outmanoeuvred by China in the Pacific, plus enjoy a lot of benefits as well.

Dr Wadan Narsey is a Fiji economist, academic, former parliamentarian and independent media commentator. He is a regular columnist on Pacific Scoop and Pacific Media Centre Online.

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Bob Carr and Australia's Foreign Policy 2.0

News of the constitutional consultations have prompted many view points. One such perspective from Jenny Hayward Jones, speaks of the alignment of stars:

For the first time in some years, the stars may be aligning for a change in the relationship: Bob Carr's appointment as Australian Foreign Minister and a constructive and positive announcement from Commodore Bainimarama this morning on a constitutional consultations process create an opportunity.

Bob Carr was alluded to have "softened Australia's stance on Fiji", in an article by News Corp owned, Adelaide publication- "The Advertiser"

The excerpt of article:

Carr softens Australia's stance on Fiji

• by: Ian McPhedran and Steve Lewis
• From: The Advertiser
• March 07, 2012 11:00PM
• 5 comments

Bob Carr will extend an olive branch to Fijian dictator Frank Bainimarama, above, during talks in New Zealand. 

 

BOB Carr will begin to reverse six years of hard-line Labor policy against the government of Fijian dictator Frank Bainimarama.

Mr Carr will offer an olive branch to the military strongman, who seized power in the small Pacific island nation after a military coup in 2006.
The new Foreign Affairs Minister will travel to New Zealand tomorrow to meet NZ Prime Minister John Key to discuss Fiji's banning from the Pacific Islands Forum in 2009.

Incentives for Fiji are likely to include lifting some of the "sticks" against the regime, including the forum's ban on the junta - and some reversal of Australian sanctions set up in the wake of the coup.
These include a blanket ban on the supply, sale or transfer to Fiji of arms and related material, the provision of technical advice, assistance or training, a financial service or financial or other assistance to Fiji related to military activities or  any activity that involves the sale or supply of any export-sanctioned goods to Fiji.

The package also bars entry or transit through Australia for Fijian citizens declared by the Foreign Minister, such as members of the military junta, their families and other supporters of the Fijian regime.
The New Zealand talks would focus on common regional interests in the Pacific Islands Forum, the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands and Pacific maritime surveillance.

In the span of several days and since meeting the New Zealand Foreign Minister, Murray McCully, the conciliatory approach many expected from Carr, has since reversed as reported in a Radio Australia article. 

The excerpt:

Carr rejects talk of softening Fiji stance

By New Zealand correspondent Dominique Schwartz

 

Posted March 09, 2012 20:26:46

Foreign minister designate Bob Carr has rejected media reports that he is planning to soften Australia's hard stance against Fiji. Mr Carr was speaking in Auckland after holding informal talks with his New Zealand counterpart Murray McCully.
Mr Carr said he had noted Friday's announcement by Fiji's military leader Frank Bainimarama about planned public consultation over a new constitution. Both Mr Carr and Mr McCully greeted the announcement with caution and said time would tell if the Fiji's rulers were truly moving towards democratic elections.

The former New South Wales premier also says he will be seeking more information from the ACTU about the human rights situation for workers in Fiji. Mr Carr says he wants to further investigate claims that any union official who speaks out against the interim government still risks life imprisonment. "Certainly one of the tests we'd consider in the future is the right of organisation in the workplace," he said. "That's a fundamental human right. I'd expect to have more conversations with unionists, in particular the ACTU."

Mr Carr said his hour-long discussion with Mr McCully about the region was wide-ranging and helpful. He will meet prime minister John Key on Saturday morning. It is his first overseas trip since being named the replacement for Kevin Rudd. He is due to be sworn in as a senator and foreign minister on Tuesday.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that many observers waiting for Bob Carr to change policy on Fiji were in for a major disappointment. Since becoming Foreign Minister, Carr has demonstrated a unique ability to flip-flop, like his initial opposition to the R2P operation in Libya, brokered by his predecessor Kevin Rudd.

Many that had withheld judgment on Carr ever since his appointment as Foreign Minister, will be soon making  up their minds. SiFM is among them. 

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Bob Carr and Australia's Foreign Policy.

Bob Carr looks at Julia Gillard [Image source: ABC]

Babasiga post highlights the appointment of Bob Carr as Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister.

Radio Australia article suggests that the new incumbent will focus on the Pacific region, after being neglected by Carr's predecessor.

Lowy Institute's blog "The Interpreter", addressed the content of Bob Carr's blog and some of the perceived view points, the nascent Foreign Minister holds with regards to Foreign Policy.

All things considered, it would be naive at best for the Pacific region to expect a sudden change in DFAT and its abysmal track record under Rudd's tenure. WSWS article underscored Rudd's uncanny ability to self promote:

US Ambassador McCallum wrote a scathing cable, describing the APC idea as “hastily rolled out, with minimal consultations.” He continued: “Rudd seems to be in a hurry not only to demonstrate Australia’s regional influence as a ‘middle power’, but also to begin to establish his legacy

SiFM also addressed the same concerns in a numerous posts- here , here and here.

The capability of Carr is not in question, however, the Pacific region will soon determine whether a new chapter in Australian Foreign Affairs has indeed been opened.

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