As Waitangi Day commemorations continue drawing people from across Aotearoa and around the world to the Bay of Islands, Te Tii Marae has become a gathering point for Indigenous ocean leadership from across the Pacific.

Taiātea: Gathering of the Oceans held its public forum yesterday, uniting more than 20 Indigenous leaders, marine scientists and researchers from Australia, Canada, Cook Islands, Hawai’i, Niue, Rapa Nui and Aotearoa.

The forum forms part of a wider 10-day wānanga taking place across Te Ika a Māui (North Island).

• READ MORE: Big Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi delegation joins Māori in solidarity over Te Tiriti
• Other Waitangi reports

With a focus on the protection and restoration of Te Moana Nui a Kiwa, the Pacific Ocean, kōrero throughout the day centred on the exchange of knowledge, marine protection, ocean resilience and the accelerating impacts of climate change.

A key message remained prevalent throughout the day – the moana is not separate from the people, but a living ancestor, and a responsibility carried across generations.

‘Continue that path of conservation, preservation’
Hawaiʻi’s Solomon Pili Kaho’ohalahala, co-founder of One Oceania, a former politician, and a respected elder, framed his kōrero around the belief that there is no separation between human and nature — “we are all one”.

For Kaho’ohalahala, being present at Waitangi has been a powerful reminder of the links between past, present, and future.

“Waitangi is a very historical place for the Māori people,” he said. “It is where important decisions were made by your elders.

“So to be here in this place, for me, is significant.”

“We are talking about historical events that have happened to our people across Oceania, preserved by the elders who had visions to create treaties . . .  decisions that were going to be impactful to the generations to follow,” Kaho’ohalahala said.

“It brings the relevancy of these conversations. They are what we need to negotiate and navigate the challenges we face in the present. The purpose for this is, ultimately, no different to the kupuna (Hawai’ian elder), that this was intended for the generations yet unborn,” he added.

Kaho’ohalahala also reflected on the enduring connections between indigenous communities across oceans.

“To be a part of this conversation from across the ocean that separates us, our connection by our culture and canoes is to help us understand that we are still all connected as the people of Oceania.

“But we need to be able to reiterate that, and understand why we need to emerge from that past to bring it to our relevancy to these times and issues, to continue that path of conservation, preservation, for those unborn.”

‘Our ocean … a living organism,’ advocate says
Cook Islands environmental advocate and Ocean Ancestors founder Louisa Castledine reiterated the responsibility of Indigenous peoples to protect the ocean and pass knowledge to future generations.

She said Waitangi was the perfect backdrop to encourage these discussions. While different cultures face individual challenges, there is a collective sense of unity.

“One of our key pillars is nurturing our future tamariki, and the ways of our peu tupuna, and nurturing stewardship and guardianship with them as our future leaders,” Castledine said.

“It’s about reclaiming how we perceive our ocean as being an ancestor, as a living organism, as whānau to us. We’re here at Waitangi to stand in solidarity of our shared ancestor and the responsibility we all have for its protection,” Castledine said.

She said people must be forward-thinking in how they collectively navigate environmental wellbeing.

“We all have a desire and a love for our moana, our indigenous knowledge systems of our oceans are critical to curating futures for our tamariki and mokopuna,” she said.

“We want to ensure that generations that come after us will continue to be able to feed generations beyond all of us. It’s about safeguarding their inheritance.”

Learning about shared challenges
Canadian representative Chief Anuk Danielle Shaw, elected chief councillor of the Wuikinuxv Nation, said the challenges and goals facing Indigenous peoples were often shared, despite the distances between them.

“This is [an] opportunity to learn about common challenges we may have, and how other nations and indigenous leaders are facing those challenges, and what successes they’ve been having,” she said.

“It just makes sense that we have a relationship, and that we build that relationship.”

She noted the central role of the marine environment for her people.

“It’s not lost on me that my people are ocean-going people as well. We rely on the marine environment.

“Our salmon is the foundation and the backbone of our livelihood and the livelihood of all other beings in which we live amongst. I’m a world away, and yet I’m still sitting within the Pacific Ocean.

“So the work I do at home and how we take care of our marine environment impacts the people of Aotearoa as well, and vice versa. And so it just makes sense that we have a relationship, and that we build that relationship, because traditionally we did,” she added.

Following the public forum, indigenous leaders will visit haukāinga in the Tūwharetoa and Whanganui regions for further knowledge exchanges and to discuss specific case studies.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A New Zealand-born Niuean educator says being recognised in the King’s Birthday honours list reflects the importance of connecting young tagata Niue in Aotearoa to their roots.

Mele Ikiua, who hails from the village of Hakupu Atua in Niue, has been named a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to vagahau Niue language and education.

She told RNZ Pacific the most significant achievement in her career to date had been the promotion of vagahau Niue in the NCEA system.

• READ MORE: King’s Birthday Honours 2025 — the full list of recipients

The change in 2023 enabled vagahau Niue learners to earn literacy credits in the subject, and receive recognition beyond “achieved” in the NCEA system. That, Ikiua said, was about continuing to increase learning opportunities for young Niue people in Aotearoa.

“Because if you look at it, the work that we do — and I say ‘we’ because there’s a lot of people other than myself — we’re here to try and maintain, and try and hold onto, our language because they say our language is very, very endangered.

“The bigger picture for young Niue learners who haven’t connected, or haven’t been able to learn about their vagahau or where they come from [is that] it’s a safe place for them to come and learn . . . There’s no judgement, and they learn the basic foundations before they can delve deeper.”

Her work and advocacy for Niuean culture and vagahau Niue has also extended beyond the formal education system.

Niue stage at Polyfest
Since 2014, Ikiua had been the co-ordinator of the Niue stage at Polyfest, a role she took up after being involved in the festival as a tutor. She also established Three Star Nation, a network which provides leadership, educational and cultural programmes for young people.

Last year, Ikiua also set up the Tokiofa Arts Academy, the world’s first Niue Performing Arts Academy. And in February this year, Three Star Nation held Hologa Niue — the first ever Niuean arts and culture festival in Auckland.

She said being recognised in the King’s Birthday honours list was a shared achievement.

“This award is not only mine. It belongs to the family. It belongs to the village. And my colleagues have been amazing too. It’s for us all.”

She is one of several Pasifika honoured in this weekend’s list.

Others include long-serving Auckland councillor and former National MP Anae Arthur Anae; Air Rarotonga chief executive officer and owner Ewan Francis Smith; Okesene Galo; Ngatepaeru Marsters and Viliami Teumohenga.

Cook Islander, Berry Rangi has been awarded a King’s Service Medal for services to the community, particularly Pacific peoples.

Lifted breast screening rates
She has been instrumental in lifting the coverage rates of breast and cervical screening for Pacific women in Hawke’s Bay.

“When you grow up in the islands, you’re not for yourself – you’re for everybody,” she said.

“You’re for the village, for your island.”

She said when she moved to Napier there were very few Pasifika in the city — there were more in Hastings, the nearby city to the south.

“I did things because I knew there was a need for our people, and I’d just go out and do it without having to be asked.”

Berry Rangi also co-founded Tiare Ahuriri, the Napier branch of the national Pacific women’s organisation, PACIFICA.

She has been a Meals on Wheels volunteer with the Red Cross in Napier since 1990 and has been recognised for her 34 years of service in this role.

Maintaining a heritage craft
She also contributes to maintaining the heritage craft of tivaevae (quilting) by delivering workshops to people of all ages and communities across Hawke’s Bay.

Another honours recipient is Uili Galo, who has been made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the Tokelau community.

Galo, of the Tokelau Aotearoa Leaders Council, said it is very gratifying to see his community’s efforts acknolwedged at the highest level.

“I’ve got a lot of people behind me, my elders that I need to acknowledge and thank . . .  my kainga,” he said.

“While the award has been given against my name, it’s them that have been doing all the hard work.”

He said his community came to Aotearoa in the 1970s.

“Right through they’ve been trying to capture their culture and who they are as a people. But obviously as new generations are born here, they assimilate into the pa’alangi world, and somehow lose a sense of who they are.

“A lot of our youth are not quite sure who they are. They know obviously the pa’alangi world they live in, but the challenge of them is to know their identity, that’s really important.”

Pasifika sports duo say recognition is for everyone
Two sporting recipients named as Members of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the King’s Birthday Honours say the honour is for all those who have worked with them.

Pauline-Jean Henrietta Luyten, who is of Tongan heritage, has been involved with rugby at different levels over the years, and is currently a co-chair of New Zealand Rugby’s Pacific Advisory Group.

Annie Burma Teina Tangata Esita Scoon, of Cook Islands heritage, has been involved with softball since she played the sport in school years ago.

While they have been “committed” to their sports loves, their contribution to the different Pasifika communities they serve is being recognised.

Luyten told RNZ Pacific she was humbled and shocked that people took the time to actually put a nomination through.

“You know, all the work we do, it’s in service of all of our communities and our families, and you don’t really look for recognition,” she said.

“The family, the community, everyone who have worked with me and encouraged me they all deserve this recognition.”

Luyten, who has links in Ha’apai, Tonga, said she has loved being involved in rugby, starting off as a junior player and went through the school competition.

Community and provincial rugby
After moving down to Timaru, she was involved with community and provincial rugby, before she got pulled into New Zealand Rugby Pacific Advisory Group.

Luyten made New Zealand rugby history as the first woman of Pacific Island descent to be appointed to a provincial union board in 2019.

She was a board member of the South Canterbury Rugby Football Union and played fullback at Timaru Girls’ High School back in 1997, when rugby competition was first introduced .

Her mother Ailine was one of the first Tongan women to take up residence in Timaru. That was back in the early 1970s.

As well as a law degree at Otago University Luyten completed a Bachelor of Science in 2005 and then went on to complete post-graduate studies in sports medicine in 2009.

She is also a founding member of the Tongan Society South Canterbury which was established in 2016.

Opportunities for Pasifika families
On her rugby involvement, she said the game provides opportunities for Pasifika families and she is happy to be contributing as an administrator.

“Where I know I can contribute has been in that non-playing space and sort of understanding the rugby system, because it’s so big, so complex and kind of challenging.”

Fighting the stereotypes that “Pasifika can’t be directors” has been a major one.

“Some people think there’s not enough of us out there. But for me, I’m like, nah we’ve got people,” she stated.

“We’ve got heaps of people all over the show that can actually step into these roles.

“They may be experienced in different sectors, like the health sector, social sector, financial, but maybe haven’t quite crossed hard enough into the rugby space. So I feel it’s my duty to to do everything I can to create those spaces for our kids, for the future.”

Call for two rugby votes
Earlier this month the group registered the New Zealand Pasifika Rugby Council, which moved a motion, with the support of some local unions, that Pasifika be given two votes within New Zealand Rugby.

“So this was an opportunity too for us to actually be fully embedded into the New Zealand Rugby system.

“But unfortunately, the magic number was 61.3 [percent] and we literally got 61, so it was 0.3 percent less voting, and that was disappointing.”

Luyten said she and the Pacific advisory team will keep working and fighting to get what they have set their mind on.

For Scoon, the acknowledgement was recognition of everyone else who are behind the scenes, doing the work.

She said the award was for the Pasifika people in her community in the Palmerston North area.

Voice is for ‘them’
“To me what stands out is that our Pasifika people will be recognized that they’ve had a voice out there,” she said.

“So, it’s for them really; it’s not me, it’s them. They get the recognition that’s due to them. I love my Pacific people down here.”

Scoon is a name well known among the Palmerston North Pasifika and softball communities.

The 78-year-old has played, officiated, coached and now administers the game of softball.

She was born in the Cook Islands and moved with her family to New Zealand in 1948. Her first involvement with softball was in school, as a nine-year-old in Auckland.

Then she helped her children as a coach.

“And then that sort of lead on to learning how to score the game, then coaching the game, yes, and then to just being an administrator of the game,” she said.

Passion for the game
“I’ve gone through softball – I’ve been the chief scorer at national tournaments, I’ve selected at tournaments, and it’s been good because I’d like to think that what I taught my children is a passion for the game, because a lot of them are still involved.”

A car accident years ago has left her wheelchair-bound.

She has also competed as at the Paraplegic Games where she said she proved that “although disabled, there were things that we could do if you just manipulate your body a wee bit and try and think it may not pan out as much as possible, but it does work”.

“All you need to do is just try get out there, but also encourage other people to come out.”

She has kept passing on her softball knowledge to school children.

In her community work, Scoon said she just keeps encouraging people to keep working on what they want to achieve and not to shy away from speaking their mind.

Setting a goal
“I told everybody that they set a goal and work on achieving that goal,” she said.

“And also encouraged alot of them to not be shy and don’t back off if you want something.”

She said one of the challenging experiences, in working with the Pasifika community, is the belief by some that they may not be good enough.

Her advice to many is to learn what they can and try to improve, so that they can get better in life.

“I wasn’t born like this,” she said, referring to her disability.

“You pick out what suits you but because our island people — we’re very shy people and we’re proud. We’re very proud people. Rather than make a fuss, we’d rather step back.

“They shouldn’t and they need to stand up and they want to be recognised.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Marshall Islands has become the 14th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) member state to join the South Pacific’s nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament treaty.

The agreement, known as the Treaty of Rarotonga, was signed in Majuro during the observance of Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day on Monday.

The Pacific Islands Forum said the historic signing of the treaty on March 3 — seven decades after the most powerful nuclear weapons tests ever conducted — underscored the Marshall Islands’ enduring commitment to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

• READ MORE: Four decades after Rongelap evacuation, Greenpeace makes new plea for nuclear justice by US
• Nuclear justice for the Marshall Islands — a strategy for coordinated action
• UN rights council examines nuclear legacy consequences in the Marshall Islands
• Eyes of Fire – the Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior archive (Little Island Press)

“By becoming a signatory to the Treaty of Rarotonga, the Marshall Islands has indicated its intention to be bound with a view to future ratification,” the PIF said.

“This reinforces the region’s collective stand towards a nuclear-free Pacific as envisaged by the Rarotonga Treaty and the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent.”

PIF Secretary-General Baron Waqa, who is in Majuro, welcomed the move.

“This step demonstrates the nation’s unwavering commitment to nuclear disarmament,” he said.

‘Marshall Islands bears brunt of nuclear testing’
“Marshall Islands continues to bear the brunt of nuclear testing, and this signing is a testament to Forum nations’ ongoing advocacy for a safe, secure, and nuclear-weapon-free region.”

The Rarotonga Treaty was opened for signature on 6 August 1985 and entered into force on 11 December 1986.

It represents a key regional commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, contributing to global efforts to eliminate the threat of nuclear proliferation.

The decision by the Marshall Islands to sign the Rarotonga Treaty carries profound importance given its history and ongoing advocacy for nuclear justice, the PIF said.

Current member states of the treaty are Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

‘We are committed’, says Heine
“In our commitment to a world free of the dangers of nuclear weapons and for a safe and secure Pacific, today, we take a historic step by signing our accession to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, also known as the Rarotonga Treaty,” President Hilda Heine said.

“We recognise that the Marshall Islands has yet to sign onto several key nuclear-related treaties, including the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), largely due to our unique historical and geopolitical circumstances.

“However, we are committed to reviewing our positions and where it is in the best interest of the RMI and its people, we will take the necessary steps toward accession.

“In the spirit of unity and collaboration, we look forward to the results of an independent study of nuclear contamination in the Pacific,” she added.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

As the curtain fell at the UN climate summit in Baku last Sunday, frustration and disappointment engulfed Pacific delegations after another meeting under-delivered.

Two weeks of intensive negotiations at COP29, hosted by Azerbaijan and attended by 55,000 delegates, resulted in a consensus decision among nearly 200 nations.

Climate finance was tripled to US $300 billion a year in grant and loan funding from developed nations, far short of the more than US $1 trillion sought by Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States.

• READ MORE: COP29: Pacific climate advocates decry outcome as ‘a catastrophic failure’
• Other COP29 climate crisis reports

“We travelled thousands of kilometres, it is a long way to travel back without good news,” Niue’s Minister of Natural Resources Mona Ainu’u told BenarNews.

Three-hundred Pacific delegates came to COP29 with the key demands to stay within the 1.5-degree C warming goal, make funds available and accessible for small island states, and cut ambiguous language from agreements.

Their aim was to make major emitters pay Pacific nations — who are facing the worst effects of climate change despite being the lowest contributors — to help with transition, adaptation and mitigation.

“If we lose out on the 1.5 degrees C, then it really means nothing for us being here, understanding the fact that we need money in order for us to respond to the climate crisis,” Tuvalu’s Minister for Climate Change Maina Talia told BenarNews at the start of talks.

PNG withdrew
Papua New Guinea withdrew from attending just days before COP29, with Prime Minister James Marape warning: “The pledges made by major polluters amount to nothing more than empty talk.”

Fiji’s lead negotiator Dr Sivendra Michael told BenarNews that climate finance cut across many of the committee negotiations running in parallel, with parties all trying to strategically position themselves.

“We had a really challenging time in the adaptation committee room, where groups of negotiators from the African region had done a complete block on any progress on (climate) tax,” said Dr Michael, adding the Fiji team was called to order on every intervention they made.

He said it’s the fourth consecutive year adaptation talks were left hanging, despite agreement among the majority of nations, because there was “no consensus among the like-minded developing countries, which includes China, as well as the African group.”

Pacific delegates told BenarNews at COP they battled misinformation, obstruction and subversion by developed and high-emitting nations, including again negotiating on commitments agreed at COP28 last year.

Pushback began early on with long sessions on the Global Stock Take, an assessment of what progress nations and stakeholders had made to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C.

“If we cannot talk about 1.5, then we have a very weak language around mitigation,” Tuvalu’s Talia said. “Progress on finance was nothing more than ‘baby steps’.”

Pacific faced resistance
Pacific negotiators faced resistance to their call for U.S.$39 billion for Small Island Developing States and U.S.$220 billion for Least Developed Countries.

“We expected pushbacks, but the lack of ambition was deeply frustrating,” Talia said.

Greenpeace Pacific lead Shiva Gounden accused developed countries of deliberately stalling talks — of which Australia co-chaired the finance discussions — including by padding texts with unnecessary wording.

“Hours passed without any substance out of it, and then when they got into the substance of the text, there simply was not enough time,” he told BenarNews.

In the final week of COP29, the intense days negotiating continued late into the nights, sometimes ending the next morning.

“Nothing is moving as it should, and climate finance is a black hole,” Pacific Climate Action Network senior adviser Sindra Sharma told BenarNews during talks.

“There are lots of rumours and misinformation floating around, people saying that SIDS are dropping things — this is a complete lie.”

COP29 presidency influence
Sharma said the significant influence of the COP presidency — held by Azerbaijan — came to bear as talks on the final outcome dragged past the Friday night deadline.

The Azeri presidency faced criticism for not pushing strongly enough for incorporation of the “transition away from fossil fuels” — agreed to at COP28 — in draft texts.

“What we got in the end on Saturday was a text that didn’t have the priorities that smaller island states and least developed countries had reflected,” Sharma said.

COP29’s outcome was finally announced on Sunday at 5.30am.

“For me it was heartbreaking, how developed countries just blocked their way to fulfilling their responsibilities, their historical responsibilities, and pretty much offloaded that to developing countries,” Gounden from Greenpeace Pacific said.

Some retained faith
Amid the Pacific delegates’ disappointment, some retained their faith in the summits and look forward to COP30 in Brazil next year.

“We are tired, but we are here to hold the line on hope; we have no choice but to,” 350.org Pacific managing director Joseph Zane Sikulu told BenarNews.

“We can very easily spend time talking about who is missing, who is not here, and the impact that it will have on negotiation, or we can focus on the ones who came, who won’t give up,” he said at the end of summit.

Fiji’s lead negotiator Dr Michael said the outcome was “very disappointing” but not a total loss.

“COP is a very diplomatic process, so when people come to me and say that COP has failed, I am in complete disagreement, because no COP is a failure,” he told BenarNews at the end of talks.

“If we don’t agree this year, then it goes to next year; the important thing is to ensure that Pacific voices are present,” he said.

Republished from BenarNews with permission.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says he wants New Zealand to be a partner of choice in the Pacific, as other countries make moves in the region.

Luxon is in Niue ahead of bilateral talks with Premier Dalton Tagalagi, and to celebrate 50 years of free association between the two countries.

Niue is self-governing, but part of New Zealand’s realm. Its citizens are NZ citizens, and New Zealand provides it with aid when asked.

• READ MORE:  Christopher Luxon, Dalton Tagelagi announce $20m Niue energy project
• Other Niue reports

Luxon said it was special to make Niue the first Pacific Island nation he has visited since taking office.

“I think the relationship’s in good heart. I think there’s a lot more for us to do together,” Luxon said.

Upon landing at Hanan International Airport, Luxon was greeted with an embrace from the Premier and a rousing takalo reception.

Later at the High Commission, Luxon and Tagalagi celebrated the King’s Birthday — Niue is 23 hours behind New Zealand, on the other side of the International Dateline — and toasted the relationship.

‘Rely heavily on support’
“I know that we rely heavily on your support. But we’re doing our very best to help ourselves also,” Tagalagi said.

The Speaker of Niue’s Assembly Hima Douglas said the relationship had given Niue peace, security and tranquility.

“When we look back, Prime Minister, we could not have asked for a better country to look after Niue. We could not have asked for a better development partner,” he said.

But as Niue celebrated the past, it was also looking to the future.

MP Emani Fakaotimanava-Lui told RNZ Pacific he wanted to see Niue generating its own finances.

“It would be best for Niue to look at how we can grow with New Zealand towards the next 50 years, possibly to be self-sustaining. Not to be dependent on New Zealand,” he said.

“Every time we need cash, we’re coming to the New Zealand government to ask can we get this money, can we get that money.”

Always a trusted partner
Luxon said he wanted Niue to understand New Zealand would always be a trusted partner.

“I think it’s about us betting really clear about the core infrastructure that sets Niue up for success. And doing what we can as New Zealand to support Niue, one of our realm countries, to make sure it is set up for success with a platform it needs to go forward.”

Bilateral talks between Luxon and Tagalagi will take place later today.

Luxon said the two would discuss the future of the relationship and how it sits in an increasingly contested region, as other nations start to woo the Pacific.

China has become Niue’s second largest trading partner, and has supported Niue with more investment.

“There’s… more strategic competition, whether it’s China, whether it’s the US, whether it’s other powers as well,” Luxon said.

“But this is the Pacific family and we prioritise the centrality of the Pacific Island Forum, we want that to be the regional architecture that deals with challenges within the region. But this is a fantastic region, and it has huge opportunity, and we want to be a trusted partner and a partner of choice.”

This afternoon Luxon heads to Fiji for the next stop on his Pacific mission, with geostrategic choppy water set to rear its head again.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

RNZ Pacific

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s trip to Niue holds “profound significance”, the Niuean government says.

Luxon heads to Niue today and then to Fiji for his first trip to the Pacific since taking office.

Niue Premier Dalton Tagelagi said the trip “underscores New Zealand’s commitment to supporting the development of Niue and its wider Pacific partners”.

“Prime Minister Luxon’s visit to Niue aims to foster a deeper understanding of the Niuean people and to witness the transformative impact of the New Zealand government’s funding on a key infrastructure project.”

A Niue government spokesperson said “Niue emerges as the primary destination for Prime Minister Luxon’s Pacific outreach”.

“His engagements in both Niue and Fiji underscore New Zealand’s steadfast commitment to nurturing robust and meaningful relationships across the Pacific region,” the spokesperson said.

They said the groundwork for this trip dated back to December, when the two nations leaders met.

50 years of free association
On arriving in Niue, Luxon will meet with Premier Tagelagi, and celebrate 50 years of Niue’s self-government in free association.

Luxon told RNZ Morning Report it was important to have strong relationships across the Pacific.

“In Niue’s case this year is actually their 50th year of independence and free association – of what’s called a realm country — so it’s a great chance to make a trip to Niue with Premier Tagelagi and likewise with Fiji,” he said.

“It is a chance to meet a range of the leadership accross Fiji’s political system but also we have security and economic interests that we want to discuss together as well.”

It is also expected the Prime Minister will meet with business leaders in Fiji.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

South Auckland was a hub of indigenous pride as the Auckland Polyfest 2024 revealed a vibrant celebration of cultural diversity, youth empowerment, and the enduring legacy of Pasifika heritage.

From the rhythmic beats of Cook Islands drums to the grace and elegance of Siva Samoa, the festival brought together over 200 teams from 69 schools across Aotearoa.

Polyfest, now in its 49th year, continues to captivate audiences as one of the largest Pacific festivals in Aotearoa.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific culture reports

What began in 1976 as a modest gathering to encourage pride in cultural identities has evolved into a monumental event, attracting up to 100,000 visitors annually.

Held at the Manukau Sports Bowl, secondary school students from across New Zealand share traditional dance forms and compete on six stages over four days.

Five stages are dedicated to the Cook Islands, New Zealand Māori, Niue, Samoa and Tonga.

A sixth “diversity” stage encourages representation and involvement of students from all other ethnicities, ranging from Fijian, Kiribati and Tuvaluan, through to Chinese, Filipino, Indian and South Korean.

‘Rite of passage’
For festival director Terri Leo-Mauu, Polyfest represents more than just a showcase of talent — it’s a platform for youth to connect with their cultural heritage and celebrate their identities.

Auckland Polyfest 2024 – a vibrant showcase.  Video: RNZ

“It’s important for them to carry on the tradition, a rite of passage almost,” Leo-Mauu said.

“It’s also important to them because they get to belong to something, they get to meet friends along the way and get to share this journey with other people.”

The sentiment is echoed by participants like Allen Palemia and Abigail Ikiua, who serve as youth leaders for their respective cultural teams.

For Palemia, leading Aorere College’s Samoan team, Polyfest is a chance to express cultural pride and forge lifelong connections.

“Polyfest is great . . .  it is one of the ways we can express our culture and further connect and appreciate it.”

Similarly, Ikiua, a team lead for the Niue team, sees Polyfest as a platform for cultural revival and self-discovery.

Reconnecting culture
“I think Polyfest is a good place for people to reconnect to their culture more, and just a way for people to find out who they are and embrace it more.”

Connection to their indigenous heritage plays a huge role in the identities of the young ones themselves.

Fati Timaio from Massey High School is representing Tuvalu, the third smallest country in the world.

He shared how proud he is to be recognised as Tuvaluan when he performs.

“It’s important to me cus like when people ask me oh what’s your nationality? and you say Tuvaluan they will only know cus you told them aye but like when you come to Polyfest and perform, they know, they will look at you and say oohh he’s Tuvaluan . . .  you know what I mean.”

Festival goers say this celebration of cultural identities from te moana nui o kiva and beyond is reinvigorating the young ones of Aotearoa.

The caliber of performances was astronomical, an indication of what to expect at next year’s event, which will also be the 50th anniversary of Polyfest.

50 years event
The 50 year’s celebrations next year are expected to be even bigger and better following the announcement of a $60,000 funding boost by the Minister for Pacific Peoples, Dr Shane Reti.

Reti said the government’s sponsorship of the festival recognises the value and role languages play in building confidence for Pacific youth.

An additional $60,0000 funding boost will also be given to the festival in 2030 to mark its 55th year.

With the 50th anniversary of Polyfest on the horizon, the future of the festival looks brighter than ever, promising even greater opportunities for cultural exchange, community engagement, and youth empowerment.

Festival organisers are expecting participant figures to surpass pre-covid numbers at next year’s event.

The pre-pandemic record saw 280 groups from 75 schools involved.

• Competition results are available here

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Dozens of Pacific Islanders and Palagi defied the bitterly cold wind and rain for a peaceful “remember the Dawn Raids” march along Auckland’s Ponsonby Road at the weekend.

The Savali ole Filemu march recognised the anxiety which currently faces overstayers, and the pain still felt from the Dawn Raids.

Tongan community leader Pakilau Manase Lua said coming to New Zealand to improve their lives should not be a crime.

• READ MORE: Dawn Raids peace march to go ahead, despite amnesty announcement
• Other Dawn Raids reports

Khalia Strong’s video report for PMN News.

“They took a risk, OK, they broke the law, but so is breaking the speed limit. It’s not a criminal act to come here and try and find a life,” he said.

Holding a photo frame of his late father, Siosifa Lua, Pakilau said they would remember those who had never got justice for how they were treated.

“We came to build this country, and we’re still building this country, and how are we treated? Like dogs!”, he shouted.

‘Those days are over’
“Those days are over. Our children are here. The generations that build this country are here.”

Labour’s Papakura candidate ‘Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki says being an overstayer had personal consequences when her grandfather died in 1977.

“My mother was still an overstayer here, and she had to make a decision … return to Tonga to say farewell to her father, or remain here, for the betterment of the future of her children.”

The government apologised for the Dawn Raids in 2021, and the Labour Party is now promising an amnesty for overstayers of more than ten years, if elected.

But Polynesian Panther activist Will ‘Ilolahia says these political promises are too little, too late.

“We’ve got a deputy prime minister that’s a Pacific Islander, and now they’re bribing our people to vote for them so they can stay in. Sorry, you’ve missed the bus.”

Green Party candidate Teanau Tuiono agrees more should have been done.

“Healing takes time, it takes discussion, and it’s not just something that you can just apologise for and then it ends.

“Yes, the Dawn Raids apology was a good thing, but we also need to have an amnesty for overstayers and pathways for residency. Because let’s be clear, that amnesty could have happened last year.”

Mesepa Edwards says they are continuing the legacy of the Polynesian Panthers’ original members.

“I’m a 21st Century Panther. What they fought for, back in the 70s and 60s, we’re still fighting for today.”

The New Zealand government has given its full blessing to Cook Islands and Niue establishing diplomatic relations with the United States.

At the US-Pacific summit on Monday (Washington time), President Joe Biden said he recognised the two island nations as sovereign and independent states, an announcement which the US Embassy in Aotearoa has labelled as “historic”.

Both countries are self-governing in ‘free association’ with New Zealand.  

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins acknowledged that and responded to questions around what the US’s move means for both countries’ relationship with Aotearoa.

“That’s the way that the American system works,” Hipkins said.

“So in order to recognise those specific countries, the wording that they use is they recognise their sovereignty but actually they also recognise, through diplomatic channels, the unique constitutional relationship that those countries have with New Zealand as well.”

The establishment of diplomatic relations does not change the constitutional relationship Aotearoa New Zealand has with either the Cook Islands or Niue, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson said.

“Aotearoa New Zealand welcomes the establishment of diplomatic relations between US, Cook Islands and Niue,” the MFAT spokesperson said.

Diplomatic relations
“The Cook Islands has diplomatic relations with 61 countries, and Niue has diplomatic relations with 21 countries.

“[The NZ government] expects that the establishment of diplomatic relations[with the US] will better enable close engagement.”

In his speech, Biden said building a better world started with stronger partnerships.

“And that’s why the United States is formally establishing relations with the Cook Island’s . . .  and Niue,” Biden said.

Pacific Islands Forum chair and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown has hailed the move as a milestone that marks an “era of change”.

He said Niue and the Cook Islands were “celebrating”.

“These milestones celebrate era’s of change and demonstrate that with unshakable resolve and leadership, remarkable achievements are possible,” Brown said.

Brown thanked the US President for his elevated level of engagement with the Pacific over the last year.

Development funding
Massey University’s defence and security analyst Dr Anna Powles said formalising diplomatic ties was “very much about ensuring that Cook Islands and Niue are able to receive development assistance funding”.

“There’s obviously also a strategic benefit from the United States perspective to have diplomatic presence, or at least diplomatic reach, into both of those countries.”

On top of the diplomatic ties talk, Biden also announced climate assistance at the summit.

He told Pacific leaders more than US$20 million is being injected into climate assistance.

The announcement for climate support and affirming the US’s commitment to climate action comes just days days after he was slammed by Pacific youth climate activist Suluafi Brianna Freuan following the UN Climate Ambition Summit.

Suluafi said not all nations were being ambitious enough when it came to climate ambition.

“What are the commitments that they will make to financing those most vulnerable to climate change, including those in their, their very ocean, their neighbours in the Pacific,” Suluafi said.

“[Countries] really need to talk about how they will phase out fossil fuels.”

But President Biden wanted to be clear that the Pacific’s stance on the climate crisis was the US’s position too.

‘I hear you’ – Biden on climate crisis
“I want you to know I hear you, the people in the United States and around the world hear you,” Biden said.

“We hear your warnings of a rising sea that they pose an existential threat to your nations. We hear your calls for reassurance that you never, never, never will lose your statehood, or membership of the UN as a result of the climate crisis.”

The President also announced the doubling of US-Pacific exchange student spots.

He committed to a free, open, prosperous and secure Indo-Pacific region.

Biden also plans on investing US$5 million into co-funding a fisheries and ocean science vessel.

It is expected to be used to manage the region’s tuna resources and for ocean science research.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Regional leaders will meet this week at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Special Leaders Retreat in Fiji.

“We have come through a period of some fracture,” incoming PIF Chair Mark Brown, who is prime minister of Cook islands, said.

“Re-establishing those ties, re-establishing relationships, that’s going to be an important part of the side events of this meeting.”

• READ MORE: Other Pacific Islands Forum reports

A number of issues are on the agenda, and among the top items will be welcoming Kiribati back into the fold.

“The Forum leaders meeting will be a happy occasion,” Secretary-General Henry Puna said.

The Suva Agreement is to be discussed and so will the implementation of the 2050 Blue Pacific Strategy launched at the 51st Forum Meeting in Suva in July last year.

“We need a plan like the 2050 [Strategy] to allow us to keep pace.

“To continue to work together, that is the absolute basis of 2050,” Puna said.

Tensions heating up
The strategy touted as integral to regional unity as tensions heat up between the US and China, as both major powers have announced a special envoy to the Pacific to scale up their influence in the region.

The US has formally recognised the 2050 strategy and Puna said it was his job to engage China.

“What I can tell you is at the operational level our future looks secure,” he said.

“Yes, we are the subject of geopolitical interests from around the world, particularly when the Solomon Islands signed their security deal with China. But I can assure you that all is well now within the Forum family.”

He said the 2050 strategy signed by the leaders was very much based on the Forum family moving forward as one.

An update will also be given on dialogue partner Japan’s planned release of treated nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean.

In addition, the official handover of the Forum Chair role from Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka to Cook Islands Prime Minister Brown will take place.

New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is not attending as he is focused on the response to the devastation left by Cyclone Gabrielle.

The retreat would have been Hipkins’ first chance to meet other Pacific leaders since succeeding Jacinda Ardern.

Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni will go in his place.

Healing a fractured Forum
With covid-19 wiping out opportunities to talanoa, this retreat gives the leaders a space to meet face-to-face and heal the “Pacific way”, the head of the regional organisation, Puna said.

It will centre around welcoming back Kiribati, Puna confirmed.

The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) President, David Panuelo, said this “special” meeting would also centre on the implementation of the Suva Agreement to heal the political rift that divided the Forum.

And now that the Forum is fully together as a family it, “will never be fractured ever again in the future,” Panuelo said.

It is a view supported by Prime Minister Brown as the incoming chair.

“We respect the decisions made independently by countries.

“But we know that as a region collectively, we can also uphold some very strong positions on a regional basis,” Brown said.

Face-to-face meetings
He said that, with the resumption of face-to-face meetings, the expectation was that the Forum would not experience what it had in the past.

The Suva Agreement was signed in a meeting on 17 June 2022, hosted by the then PIF chair, Fiji’s former PM Voreqe Bainimarama, with the leaders of Palau, the FSM, Samoa and the Cook Islands attending in-person.

Cracks started to show in the Forum in February 2021.

Micronesia wanted their candidate in the top job as the next Secretary-General.

Polynesia had their chance, Melanesia had their turn and Micronesia believed it was rightfully their turn at the helm, on the basis of a “gentlemen’s agreement” that the role be rotated between the three subregions.

But that did not happen and Henry Puna, the former Prime Minister of Cook Islands, was selected as the Forum’s 10th Secretary-General in February 2021, replacing Papua New Guinea’s Dame Meg Taylor.

The five Micronesian member countries then threatened to withdraw from the Forum.

In an effort to patch up the rift some of the forum leaders met and signed the Suva Agreement in May 2022.

Pulling the plug
Then, in July, on the eve of the annual Forum meeting in Fiji, Kiribati announced it was pulling the plug on being a Forum member.

In the end it was the only Micronesian nation to go ahead with the threat to leave.

Fast forward to 2023, Fiji’s new Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka visited Kiribati as the Forum chair.

Soon after, Kiribati announced that it would be rejoining the Forum.

The Micronesian presidents held a summit in Pohnpei this month to put the Suva Agreement into effect.

At the 21st Micronesian Presidents’ Summit, they made some “big decisions” and will arrive at the special retreat armed with their non-negotiables for the endorsement of the full PIF membership.

It is expected all issues that have affected Forum unity will be settled when Pacific leaders meet in Nadi this week.

The ability to mend such a division says a lot about the Pacific’s willingness to stay united, said Tonga’s Prime Minister Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni.

“We went through huge challenges,” he said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Twenty four Pacific peoples have been recognised in the 2023 New Year’s honours.

A former Premier of Niue, Young Vivian, leads the list of distinguished Pacific peoples in the list.

Vivian has been made an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to Niue.

• READ MORE: The full NZ New Year honours list

Fiji-born Dr Api Talemaitoga, a familiar face to Pacific communities during the height of covid-19 in Aotearoa, has been acknowledged for his decades of service in the medical sector.

The first Pacific priest ordained in Rome in 1990, Father Paulo Filoialii of Samoa, has been recognised for services to the Pacific community.

Also on the honours list is Lisa Taouma, the producer and director of Coconet TV, the largest pool of Pacific content on screen in New Zealand.

And the lead singer of the popular band Ardijah, Betty-Anne Monga, has been recognised for services to music.

‘Better things will come’: Niue’s Young Vivian
Young Vivian started his career as a teacher in New Zealand.

He went to a British school based on an English system. He failed English and was told to leave because enrolments were backed up.

He said he “begged the education officer” to stay so he was sent to Northland College and was “very happy” there.

Community members say he has been instrumental in fostering a love for Vagahau Niue, or Niue language, as a respected elder.

Speaking to RNZ Pacific reporter Lydia Lewis in 2022, at the launch of the Niue language app in Auckland, Vivian said:

“A language is a key to your culture and your tradition. It gives you that spiritual strength of who you are and you are able to face the world,” he said.

“That’s very, very important to a small nation like Niue who has a population of only 2500 people, but here in Australia and New Zealand it’s 80,000.”

When he went home to Niue, he was “dissatisfied”.

“I want to be fully independent, but I could see signs that people were not acceptable to that so I gave up, only then we can be real Niueans,” Vivian said.

His message to Pacific leaders is to believe in themselves.

“They must depend on themselves and God, they have everything in their homes, they need guts, stickability and determination, small as they are, they can stand up to it.”

He encourages the next generation to go back to basics.

“You have to depend on literally what you’ve got,” he said.

‘Profound privilege’: Dr Api
Dr Api Talemaitoga has been acknowledged for his decades-long work in the medical sector.

“I see it as a profound privilege, I have this knowledge about health and I find it a real pleasure to do it.”

More than three decades in the job after graduating in 1986, he has a deep sense of pride for the next generation.

“I was really fortunate to be given the opportunity to give the graduation address at the University of Otago for medical students,” he said.

“To see the highest number of Pasifika medical students walk across the stage was really emotional.

“I can happily retire now that I see this new generation of young people, enthusiastic, bright, diverse and they are the ones that will carry on the load in the future.”

Dr Talemaitoga always has a smile on his face and an infectious laugh, he is incredibly hard to get hold of because he is always helping his patients.

When asked how he keeps his charisma day in day out, he said:

“I am not superhuman, some days are just dreadful and you come home feeling really disillusioned and what’s the point of all of this when you see three or four people in a row heading for dialysis,” he said.

“Then you have days where you make a difference to one person out of the 25 or 30 you see that day.

“They feel really encouraged that you’ve been able for the first time to explain their condition to them … you can’t put it in words, it’s such an amazing feeling.”

‘This is for you, not me’: Father Paulo
The first Pacific Priest ordained in Rome in 1990 – Father Paulo Sagato Filoialii is dedicating his medal to the community he has served for decades, that has in turn backed him.

“I want to offer this medal for the Pacific Island people, this is for you, not for me. This medal I will receive is for all of you and I thank you all for your prayers, for your love and your support, God bless you all,” he said.

Father Paulo has contributed his time to the Catholic community in Christchurch and Ashburton.

Upon Father Filoialii being ordained, the Samoan Mass was performed for the first time in the Vatican, resulting in Pope John Paul II decreeing that the Samoan Mass can now be performed anywhere in the world.

‘Proud’: The Coconet TV’s Lisa Taouma
Pioneering Pasifika producer and director Lisa Taouma paved the way for Pacific peoples in media.

She created the ground-breaking site The Coconet TV which is the largest pool of Pacific content on screen in Aotearoa.

On top of that she made the Polyfest series, the long-standing Pacific youth series Fresh, five award-winning documentaries, the feature film Teine Sa and two short films.

Taouma believes you are only as good as the people you bring through.

“I’m proud of having brought Pacific stories to the fore around the world, I am proud of having brought Pacific people with me into that space, that is what I am most proud of,” She said.

Taouma said it was awesome that more indigenous people were being recognised globally.

While she is humbled to receive the honour, she admits not accepting it crossed her mind.

“I felt quite conflicted at the start, you know there are problems with the idea of empire and how Pacific people have been treated under the history of the British Empire,” she said.

“At the same time, it is really important to stand in this space as a Pacific woman and to have more Pacific people recognised by the Crown if you like.

“This is a system that is hopefully more reflective of Aotearoa and where we stand now.”

‘I never looked back’: Sully Paea
Niuean youth-worker Sully Paea has dedicated his life to working with youth, founding the East Tamaki Youth and Resource Centre between the late 1970s and 1986.

Paea said he was lost. He battled alcoholism and pushed through a diagnosis of depression. He had a violent criminal career until he met his wife which changed him completely.

He has dedicated his life to working with youth, founding the East Tamaki Youth and Resource Centre between the late 1970s and 1986.

After 40 years serving the community, he has never looked back

‘We’re getting there as people’: Tafilau Nina Kirifi-Alai
Tafilau Nina Kirifi-Alai has been honoured for her great services to Pacific Development.

Kirifi-Alai has been the Pacific manager of Otago University for more than 20 years.

She has assisted scholarships of Pacific students and has led developments for the University of Otago to support Pacific tertiary institutions in the region.

“Seeing Pasifika communities graduating from university has been rewarding,” she said.

“To see all those colours in the garments and all those families and all that, was like oh yeah we are getting there, we’re getting there as a people. This is why we left our homes to seek greater opportunities, education wise and work wise, and I actually believe that education is the key.”

‘Knowing your culture, knowing your roots’: Rosanna Raymond
Activism is what paved the road for multidisciplinary artist and curator Rosanna Raymond.

Her work has taken her to China, Australia and Britain, where she has built an awareness of Pacific art and fashion.

She draws on her strong cultural bond to artefacts that were taken from their original land and are now displayed in museums throughout the world.

She made a huge written contribution by co-publishing Pasifika Styles: Artists inside the Museum in 2008 and was Honorary Research Associate at the Department of Anthropology and Institute of Archaeology at University College, London.

She said moving forward whilst staying true to several of her roots was what led her to where she was today.

The full list of Pasifika in the New Year’s Honours list are:

To be Companions of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
The honourable Mititaiagimene Young Vivian, former Premier of Niue – For services to Niue.

To be Officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
Nathan Edward Fa’avae – For services to adventure racing, outdoor education and the Pacific community

David Rodney Fane – For services to the performing arts

Dr Apisalome Sikaidoka Talemaitoga – For services to health and the Pacific community

Lisa-Jane Taouma – For services to Pacific arts and the screen industry

To be Members of the New Zealand Order of Merit:
Father Paulo Sagato Filoialii – For services to the Pacific community

Sefita ‘Alofi Hao’uli – For services to Tongan and Pacific communities

Lakiloko Tepae Keakea – For services to Tuvaluan art

Marilyn Rhonda Kohlhase – For services to Pacific arts and education

Felorini Ruta McKenzie – For services to Pacific education

Betty-Anne Maryrose Monga – For services to music

Sullivan Luao Paea – For services to youth

Rosanna Marie Raymond – For services to Pacific art

The Queen’s Service Medal:
Kinaua Bauriri Ewels – For services to the Kiribati community

Galumalemana Fetaiaimauso Marion Galumalemana – For services to the Pacific community

Hana Melania Halalele – For services to Pacific health

Teurukura Tia Kekena – For services to the Cook Islands and Pacific communities

Nanai Pati Muaau – For services to Pacific health

Lomia Kaipati Semaia Naniseni – For services to the Tokelau community

Ma’a Brian Sagala – For services to Pacific communities

Mamaitaloa Sagapolutele – For services to education and the Pacific community

Honorary:
Tofilau Nina Kirifi-Alai – For services to education and the Pacific community

Tuifa’asisina Kasileta Maria Lafaele – For services to Pacific health

Nemai Divuluki Vucago – For services to Fijian and Pacific communities

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

The Niue government has confirmed the country is experiencing covid-19 community transmission for the first time since the virus was recorded at the border in March.

“We don’t have additional resources to be finding sources of infection, previously we haven’t done that before.

“This is the first time we have had community transmission in Niue,” Acting Secretary of Government Gaylene Tasmania said.

• READ MORE: Other Niue covid reports
• NZ covid-19 update: 27,076 new cases, 58 deaths and 328 in hospital

Out of the seven cases recorded in the reporting period to November 28 local time, four were listed as covid-19 community transmission.

On November 29, 12 new cases were recorded taking the total number of active cases to 33 and the total number of cases since covid-19 arrived at the border in March 2022 to 136.

Community transmission means a case has not been linked to any other infections, Tasmania said.

“We are unable to link it back and we stopped linking it back because we need to look at containing the spread,” she said.

New Zealand-based public health specialist Sir Collin Tukuitonga said this marked a new chapter in Niue’s covid-19 response,

“You can have a community case that is not from a community transmission, this is a case that is in the community connected to the border but this person is now in the community, that is not community transmission,” Sir Collin said.

What is ‘community transmission’?
There has been confusion around what community transmission means with the term being used by the public.

“You have got to be careful, for public health people like myself, we have a very strict definition of what constitutes a community transmission,” Sir Collin said.

Any case that starts in the community and can’t be linked to the border is called a case of community transmission, according to Auckland University.

“A case comes through the border, negative tests and therefore goes into the community but nobody knows they have covid-19 because they are asymptomatic and they test negative but they are carrying the virus with them.

“So that individual could go home and be with family and be the source of infection,” Sir Collin gives an example of how community transmission can occur.

Tasmania said at the moment Niue residents could assume that there were people in the community that were positive that had not yet been identified.

“People are just picking it up just by being around the community,” Tasmania said.

The cases deemed community transmission were not been able to be linked back to any of the positive cases or any of the close contacts, she said.

New phase for Niue covid-19 health response
As of Tuesday, 29 November, the government covid-19 website is set to change and will not report “community cases” just “active cases”, Tasmania said.

“It is not an unusual response,” Sir Collin said.

He said New Zealand “gave up”, or placed less emphasis on contact tracing when the covid-19 numbers became high and the system was stretched.

“They have accepted the fact that there will be cases. Why would you persevere with all of that if you have changed your focus,” he said.

“Like us they’ll probably see a blip like increasing cases you are seeing here [in New Zealand] but given the high vax status I expect the peak to be lower and not as many sick people.”

No request has been made to New Zealand for support but Tasmania said there were options if needed.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

Fiji’s weather office predicts that up to seven tropical cyclones may affect several Pacific countries in the coming cyclone season — and up to four of them may be severe.

In its 2022/2023 Tropical Cyclone Seasonal Outlook, the Fiji government predicted that the region would experience less than the annual average cyclone activity.

Fiji’s National Disaster and Management Minister Jone Usamate announced there would be between five and seven tropical cyclones and that three or four of them may be severe.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific cyclone reports

The minister said at least two of those cyclones were likely to pass through Fiji during the cyclone season which runs from early November to the end of April.

The Fiji Meteorological Service also serves as the Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre (RSMC) and functions as the weather watch office for the region from southern Kiribati to Tuvalu, Fiji, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna and New Caledonia.

It also provides forecast services for aviators in an area that includes Christmas Island (Line Islands), Tokelau, Samoa, Niue and Tonga.

“On average seven cyclones affect the RSMC Nadi region every cyclone season. Thus, our 2022-2023 cyclone season is predicted to have an average to below average number of cyclones,” Usamate said.

“On average, three severe tropical cyclones affect the RSMC Nadi region every season, therefore the 2022-2023 tropical cyclone season is predicted to have an average to below average number of severe cyclones. For severe cyclones which are category three or above, we anticipate one to four severe tropical cyclones this season.”

Early warning
However, the minister sounded an early warning for extensive flooding which is typical of La Niña which may continue to affect the region to the end of 2022.

The RSMC outlook said: “This season’s TC (tropical cyclone) outlook is greatly driven by the return of a third consecutive La Niña event, which is quite exceptional and the event is likely to persist until the end of 2022.”

Additionally, the RSMC warns countries in its area of responsibility of the possibility of out-of-season cyclones.

The peak tropical cyclone season in the RMSC-Nadi region is usually during January and February.

“While the tropical cyclone season is between November and April, occasionally cyclones have formed in the region in October and May and rarely in September and June. Therefore, an out-of-season tropical cyclone activity cannot be totally ruled out,” the RSMC said.

“With the current La Nina event and increasing chances of above average rainfall, there are also chances of coastal inundation to be experienced. All communities should remain alert and prepared throughout the 2022/23 TC Season and please do take heed of any TC warnings and advisories, to mitigate the impact on life and properties.”

According to Usamate, Fiji Police statistics show that 17 Fijians have died from drowning in flooding which occurred between 2017 and the most recent cyclone season.

“The rainfall prediction for the duration of the second season is above average rainfall. That means we should expect more rain in the next six months.

“As you all know, severe rainfall leads to flooding and increasing the possibility of hazards such as landslides. In Fiji, flooding alone continues to be one of the leading causes of death during any cycle event,” Usamate said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Flags are flying at half mast across the Pacific and leaders are paying tribute to Queen Elizabeth II, who died at Thursday at the age of 96.

The Queen visited the Pacific multiple times during her 70-year reign, with a visit a few months after her coronation to Fiji and Tonga, in December 1953.

• READ MORE: From evolving colony to bicultural nation, Queen Elizabeth II walked a long road with Aotearoa New Zealand
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• RNZ live updates: Queen Elizabeth II dies – world reacts
• Pacific Royal Tour 1953 – Pacific Journalism Review
• Queen Elizabeth II: the end of the ‘new Elizabethan age’
• What would King Charles mean for the monarchy, Australia and the republican movement?
• Prince Charles: the conventions that will stop him from meddling as King

Here are some of the tributes paid so far:

Cook Islands
Cook Islands’ Prime Minister Mark Brown has acknowledged the Queen’s death “with great sadness”.

He said all her people of the Cook Islands would mourn her passing and would miss her greatly.

He said the Queen leaft behind an enormous legacy of dedicated service to her subjects around the world, including Cook Islanders.

All flags in the Cook Islands will be flown at half-mast until further notice, and a memorial service will be held on a date yet to be announced.

A condolence book will be opened for members of the public to sign in the Cabinet Room at the Office of the Prime Minister.

“Her reign spanned seven decades and saw her appoint 15 British prime ministers during her tenure. As world leaders came and went — she endured and served her people,” he said.

Fiji
Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama tweeted his condolences.

“Fijian hearts are heavy this morning as we bid farewell to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,” he said.

“We will always treasure the joy of her visits to Fiji along with every moment that her grace, courage, and wisdom were a comfort and inspiration to our people, even a world away.

Hawai’i
Governor of Hawai’i David Ige posted this on Facebook:

“The State of Hawai’i joins the nation and the rest of the world in mourning the loss of Queen Elizabeth II. Many years ago, Hawai’i hosted the Queen at Washington Place.

“Her graciousness and her leadership will always be remembered.

“I’ve ordered that the United States flag and the Hawai’i state flag be flown at half-staff in the State of Hawai’i immediately until sunset on the day of interment as a mark of respect for Queen Elizabeth II.”

Niue
Premier Dalton Tagelagi expressed his deepest sadness on the death of “a most extraordinary woman”.

He said her faithfulness to her duties and dedication to her people was the reflection of a most remarkable leader.

Flags will fly at half-mast to mark the Queen’s death.

Papua New Guinea
In a condolence message, Prime Minister James Marape said: “Papua New Guineans from the mountains, valleys and coasts rose up this morning to the news that our Queen has been taken to rest by God.”

He said: “she was the anchor of our Commonwealth and for PNG we fondly call her ‘Mama Queen’ because she was the matriarch of our country as much as she was to her family and her Sovereign realms.

“God bless her Soul as she lays in rest. May God bless also King Charles III. Her Majesty’s people in PNG shares the grief with our King and his family.”

Solomon Islands
MP Peter Kenilorea Jr posted a photograph online of his father, Sir Peter Kenilorea Sr, being knighted by the Queen.

“It was an honour to witness her knighting my late father in 1982. I was 10 and my sister and I were honoured to witness this solemn ceremony at Government House. It was a privilege to meet her.”

Tahiti
French Polynesia President Édouard Fritch said the life of Queen Elizabeth II marked upon “the history of the world”.

The Queen made a stop-over in French Polynesia to refuel with her husband Prince Philip on her way back from Australia in 2002.

Fritch, who was Vice-President of the territory at the time, said today:

“My sincere condolences to the family of the Queen and the people of the United Kingdom. May the Queen’s work for peace continue to reassemble the United Nations among the ‘Commonwealth’ and around the British crown. My prayers will join them in this ultimate voyage of their sovereign.”

Fritch reminisced on his time meeting the Queen for an hour when they discussed topics on French Polynesia, the Pacific and the Commonwealth.

Tonga
Tongan Princess Frederica Tuita made the following statement:

“We join millions of people in sadness after hearing the news of Her Majesty’s passing. She was loved and respected by our family.

“We have so many cherished memories including this one of Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II with our late grandfather Baron Laufilitonga Tuita. Further right is His late Highness Prince Tu’ipelehake and behind Her Majesty is Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.”

Tuvalu
From the Ministry of Justice, Communication and Foreign Affairs:

“The Ministry mourns the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. Through 70 years of dedicated service, the Queen provided stability in a consistently changing world, and deepest condolences are extended to the family and loved ones of the Queen in this time of loss.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Pacific athletes have won a total of 13 medals at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, split among six nations.

Samoa won the region’s only gold, through weightlifter Don Opolenge and the nation’s lifters also won three silver medals.

They also gained a silver in boxing.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific Commonwealth Games reports

Fiji won four medals overall, two of them in the rugby sevens, but there will be some disappointment that neither team could win their respective finals.

Weightlifting brought the only medals for Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

Vanuatu gained a bronze from beach volleyball, and Niue gained its first-ever Games medal since being able to compete since 2002, with a boxing bronze.

Full list of Pacific medals:

Fiji (4)
Silver: Fiji men’s rugby sevens team

Silver: Fiji women’s rugby sevens team

Bronze: Taniela Rainibogi, weightlifting men’s 96 kg

Bronze: Naibili Vatunisolo, women’s discus throw F44/64

Nauru (1)
Bronze: Maximina Uepa, weightlifting women’s 76 kg

Niue (1)
Bronze: Duken Tutakitoa-Williams, boxing men’s heavyweight

PNG (1)
Silver: Morea Baru, weightlifting men’s 61 kg

Samoa (5)
Gold:Don Opeloge, weightlifting men’s 96 kg

Silver: Vaipava Ioane, weightlifting men’s 67 kg

Silver: Jack Opeloge, weightlifting men’s 109 kg

Silver: Feagaiga Stowers, weightlifting women’s +87 kg

Silver: Ato Plodzicki-Faoagali, boxing heavyweight

Vanuatu (1)
Bronze: Miller Pata/Sherysyn, Toko Beach volleyball women’s

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The government of Niue has announced the country will move to covid-19 alert level red after it recorded nine new cases of the virus in the past 24 hours.

After recording its first cases of the virus in the community today, Niue’s government now says growing case numbers indicate community transmission is possible.

In a statement, Niue’s Minister of Health and acting Premier Sauni Tongatule said: “These cases are from different households and four of the cases are not linked to the border. This indicates the possibility of community transmission of covid-19.”

• READ MORE: NZ covid-19 update: 4238 new community cases, number of attributed deaths rises to 1502
• Other Pacific covid-19 reports

Tongatule announced the country would move immediately to its highest Covid-19 alert level but stopped short of an enforced lockdown

“Following the Niue National Covid Emergency Response Plan, where there are local cases that exist in the community, and with the high possibility of community transmission, we will move to Covid Alert Code Red. This will take effect immediately.

“However, there will be no lockdown in place as we take action to mitigate or minimise the impact of the disease in our communities as much as possible,” Tongatule said.

Close contacts and persons of interest associated with positive cases had been informed to get tested, he said.

Tongatule said Niue’s public service and essential government services would continue to operate.

He advised the public to limit their movement and interactions outside of their households this weekend and asked that they practice social distancing, mask wearing and hand hygiene.

Director-General for Social Services Gaylene Tasmania said anyone with covid-19 symptoms should go to the drive-through testing service at the Niue Foou Hospital which will be open from 9am to 6pm local time tomorrow.

NZ covid-19 deaths top 1500
In Wellington, the New Zealand Ministry of Health reported today that the number of cases confirmed as attributable to covid-19 had risen above the 1500 mark, as 4238 new community cases were reported.

The ministry said in the statement that there were 1502 deaths confirmed as attributable to the coronavirus, either as the underlying cause of death or as a contributing factor.

It said the average increase in deaths each day attributable to covid-19 over the past week was now 19.

Another 23 deaths of people with covid-19 were also reported today.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Timor-Leste, the youngest independent nation and the most fledgling press in the Asia-Pacific, has finally shown how it’s done — with a big lesson for Pacific island neighbours.

Tackle the Chinese media gatekeepers and creeping authoritarianism threatening journalism in the region at the top.

In Dili on the final day of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s grand Pacific tour to score more than 50 agreements and deals — although falling short of winning its Pacific region-wide security pact for the moment — newly elected (for the second time) President José Ramos-Horta won a major concession.

• READ MORE: Outcry as China stops Pacific journalists questioning Wang Yi
• Chinese foreign minister’s visit to the Solomon Islands has been shrouded in secrecy and press restrictions
• Timor-Leste: Deals signed with China at start of visit by Chinese minister
• China calls for a ‘reset’ in relations with Australia
• Other China in Pacific media freedom reports

Enough of this paranoid secrecy and contemptuous attitude towards the local – and international – media in democratic nations of the region.

Under pressure from the democrat Ramos-Horta, a longstanding friend of a free media, Wang’s entourage caved in and allowed more questions like a real media conference.

Lusa newsagency correspondent in Dili Antonió Sampaio summed up the achievement in the face of the Pacific-wide secrecy alarm in a Facebook post: “After the controversy, the Chinese minister gave in and agreed to speak with journalists. A small victory for the media in Timor-Leste!”

Small victory, big tick
A small victory maybe. But it got a big tick from Timor-Leste Journalists Association president Zevonia Vieira and her colleagues. He thanked President Ramos-Horta for his role in ending the ban on local media and protecting the country’s freedom of information.

Media consultant Bob Howarth, a former PNG Post-Courier publisher and longtime adviser to the Timorese media, hailed the pushback against Chinese secrecy, saying the Chinese minister answering three questions — elsewhere in the region only one was allowed and that had to be by an approved Chinese journalist — as a “press freedom breakthrough”.

On the eve of Wang’s visit, Timor-Leste’s Press Council had denounced the restrictions being imposed on journalists before Horta’s intervention.

“In a democratic state like East Timor not being able to have questions is unacceptable,” said president Virgilio Guterres. “There may be limits for extraordinary situations where there can be no coverage, but saying explicitly that there can be no questions is against the principles of press freedom.”

The Chinese delegation justified the decision to ban questions from journalists or to exclude from the agenda any statements with “lack of time” and the “covid-19 pandemic” excuses.

However, Ramos-Horta was also quietly supportive of the Chinese overtures in the region.

According to Sampiaio, when questioned in the media conference about fears in the West about China’s actions in the Pacific, Ramos-Horta said “there is no reason for alarm” and noted that Beijing had always had interests in the region, for example in fishing.

‘A lot of lobbying’
“These Pacific countries have done a lot of lobbying with China to get more support and China is responding to that. These one-off agreements with one country or another, they don’t affect the long-standing interests of countries like Australia and the United States,” he said.

An article by The Guardian’s Pacific Project editor Kate Lyons highlighted China’s authoritarian approach to the media this week, saying “allegations raise press freedom concerns and alarm about the ability of Pacific journalists to do their jobs, particularly as the relationship between the region and China becomes closer.”

But one of the most telling criticisms came from Fiji freelance journalist Lice Movono, whose television crew reporting for the ABC, was deliberately blocked from filming. Pacific Islands Forum officials intervened.

“From the very beginning there was a lot of secrecy, no transparency, no access given,” she told The Guardian.

“I was quite disturbed by what I saw. When you live in Fiji you kind of get used to the militarised nature of the place, but to see the Chinese officials do that was quite disturbing.

“To be a journalist in Fiji is to be worried about imprisonment all the time. Journalism is criminalised. You can be jailed or the company you work for can be fined a crippling amount that can shut down the operation … But to see foreign nationals pushing you back in your own country, that was a different level.”

Media soul-searching

China was moderately successful in signing multiple bilateral agreements with almost a dozen Pacific Island nations during Wang’s visit to the region. The tour began 11 days ago in Solomon Islands — where a secret security pact with China was leaked in March — and since then Wang has met Pacific leaders from Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Niue (virtually), Cook Islands (virtually) and Vanuatu.

However, the repercussions from the visit on the media will lead to soul searching for a long time. Some brief examples of the interaction with Beijing’s authoritarianism:

Solomon Islands: The level of secrecy and selective media overtures surrounding Wang’s meetings with the government sparked the Media Association of the Solomon Islands (MASI) to call on local media to boycott coverage of the visit in protest over the “ridiculous” restrictions.

Samoa: Samoan journalist Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson criticised the Chinese restrictions on the media with only a five-minute photo-op allowed and no questions or individual interviews. There was also no press briefing before or after Wang’s visit.

Fiji: No questions were allowed during the brief joint press conference between Wang and Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama. Local media later reported that, according to Fijian officials, the no-question policy came from the Chinese side.

Examples of local media publishing propaganda were demonstrated by the pro-government Fiji Sun, with a full page “ocean of peace” op-ed written by Chinese Ambassador Qian Bo claiming China’s engagement with Pacific Island countries was “open and transparent”. The Sun followed up with report written by the Chinese embassy in Fiji touting the “great success” of Wang’s visit.

Tonga: Matangi Tonga also published an article by Chinese Ambassador Cao Xiaolin a day before Wang’s visit claiming how “China has never interfered in the internal affairs of [Pacific Island countries]” and would “adhere to openness.”

Papua New Guinea: As a joint scheduled press conference was about to start, media were told that after both ministers had spoken, only one Chinese journalist and one PNG journalist could ask a question of their own foreign minister. However, according to the ABC correspondent Natalie Whiting, when PNG Post-Courier’s Mirriam Zarriga “asked a question about the Solomons security deal, both the PNG and Chinese foreign ministers responded”.

Wang then “made a point of calling on the ABC to also ask a question”. The ABC asked about the “inability to get the 10 Pacific nations to sign on to the proposed regional deal”.

China has called for a “reset” in relations with Australia and blamed a “political force” for the deteriorating relations.

China’s Foreign Minister speaks about resetting relations with Australia as he finishes his 8 country tour of the region. Blames a “political force” in Australia that views China as a rival and its development as a threat:https://t.co/5dEde87taD #auspol #PNG pic.twitter.com/qB5Ygi2eXv

— Natalie Whiting (@Nat_Whiting) June 4, 2022

Global condemnation
The secrecy and media control surrounding Wang’s tour was roundly condemned by the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists and Paris-based Reporters Without Borders and other media freedom watchdogs.

“The restriction of journalists and media organisations from the Chinese delegation’s visit … sets a worrying precedent for press freedom in the Pacific,” said the IFJ in a statement.

“The IFJ urges the governments of Solomon Islands and China to ensure all journalists are given fair and open access to all press events.”

#RSF condemns #Chinese curb on #reporters during #Pacific island tour #AsiaPacificReport @PNGAttitude @pngfacts @RSF_AsiaPacific #mediafreedom #pressfreedom #ChinaInPacific #WangYi #securitypacthttps://t.co/CGxwNn2O5U pic.twitter.com/XbBIfDIt2u

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) June 3, 2022

Likewise, RSF’s Asia-Pacific director Daniel Bastard said the actions surrounding the events organised by the Chinese delegation with several Pacific island states “clearly contravenes the democratic principles of the region’s countries”.

He added: “We call on officials preparing to meet Wang Yi to resist Chinese pressure by allowing local journalists and international organisations to cover these events, which are of major public interest.”

University of the South Pacific journalism head Associate Professor Shailendra Singh also criticised the Chinese actions, saying “we have two different systems here. China has a different political system — a totalitarian system, and in the Pacific we have a democratic system.”

In Papua New Guinea, the last country to be visited in the Pacific before Timor-Leste, “there appeared to be little resistance” to the authoritarian screen, according to independent journalist Scott Waide, a champion of press freedom in his country.

“There’s not a lot of awareness about the visit,” he admits. “I would have liked to have seen a visible expression of resistance at least of some sort. But from Hagen, where I was this week. I didn’t see much.”

Waide has been training journalists as part of the ABC’s Media for Development Initiative (MDI) programme as a prelude to the PNG’s general election in July.

‘Problems to be resolved’
“We have problems that need to be resolved. Over the last month, I’ve tried to impart as much as possible through training workshops on the elections,” he told Pacific Media Watch But there are huge gaps in terms of journalism training. I believe that is a contributor to the lack of obvious pushback over Wang’s visit.”

The #WangYi Pacific tour reached #Fiji to tight security and a clear message that #China doesn’t welcome foreign media coverage around its officials. Were it not for Pacific media solidarity that is inclusive of ANZ press, today would have been (even more) interesting. #FijiNews pic.twitter.com/C3xwARRGuc

— Lice Movono (@LiceMovono) May 29, 2022

Reflecting on China’s Pacific tour, Lice Movono, said: “At the time of my interview with The Guardian, I think I was still pretty rattled. Now I think the best way to describe my response is that I feel extremely disturbed.”

She expressed concerns that mostly women journalists from the region noted “but that didn’t get enough traction when other media covered the incident(s) — that China was able to behave that way because the governments of the Pacific allowed it, or in the case of Fiji, preferred it that way.

Movono said that since her criticisms, she had come in for nasty attention by trolls.

“I’m getting some hateful trolling from Chinese twitter accounts – got called a ‘fat pig’ yesterday,” she told Pacific Media Watch.

“Also I’m being accused of lying because some photos have come out of the doorstop we did on the Chinese ambassador here and some have purported that to be an accurate portrayal of Chinese ‘friendliness’ toward media.”

So the pushback from President Ramos-Horta is a welcome sign for media freedom in the region.

Timor-Leste rose to 17th in the 2022 RSF World Press Freedom Index listing of 180 countries — the highest in the Pacific region — while both Fiji and Papua New Guinea fell in the rankings. There are some definite lessons there for media freedom defenders.

Frustrated Pacific journalists hope that there will be a more concerted effort to defend media freedom in the future against creeping authoritarianism.

China has been successful in signing multiple bilateral agreements with almost a dozen Pacific Island nations during its Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to the region.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi started his region-wide tour last Thursday in Solomon Islands and has since met Pacific leaders from Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Niue, Cook Islands and Vanuatu.

He is on his final lap as he wraps up with visits to Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste today and tomorrow.

• READ MORE: China wanted a swift diplomatic victory in the Pacific – but Pacific leaders won’t be rushed
• RSF condemns Chinese curb on reporters during Pacific island tour
• Other China in the Pacific reports

Beijing’s approach has alarmed Pacific geopolitics-watchers as well as its traditional Western partners, who are cautioning Pacific nations to tread carefully when entering into deals with China, particularly in the sensitive area of security.

But the Asian superpower has declared its efforts to strengthen its relationship with the region does not have any political strings attached to it, even as its efforts to win-over Pacific foreign ministers over a multilateral trade and security deal received a major pushback, which is being seen as a “a big win” for the region.

However, Wang has struck several development agreements focusing on economy, health, disaster response, and technology, among others during his whirlwind visit to enhance China-Pacific Island countries relations.

Here is what we know so far:

Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands has been at the centre of regional political debate for the past few weeks because it signed up a controversial security agreement with China.

Aside from that deal, Beijing and Honiara signed up further mutual development cooperation agreements in the areas of economic cooperation, health cooperation, sectorial cooperation. These include:

• Non-Reciprocal Trade Arrangements.
• Visa waiver exemption agreement for diplomats, officials/service and Public Affairs passport holders for China.
• Civil Aviation Agreement.
• Memorandom of Understanding (MoU) on health between Solomon Islands China .
• Exchanged letters for construction of National Referral Hospital Comprehensive Medical Center.
• MoU on Disaster Risk Reduction.
• MoU between the two countries ministries of commerce on Deepening Blue Economy Cooperation to open up cooperation on infrastructure, marine industries, energy amongst other sectors.
• Commitment to complete 2023 Pacific Games facility and training Solomon Islands sportspeople for the Games.

“The two countries reaffirm their commitments to work together on all issues of mutual concerns,” Solomon Islands government said in a statement.

There was speculation that Kiribati was the potential target for the security pact.

But there were agreements formalised on security.

The Kiribati government confirmed the discussions, instead, ranged from China’s readiness to assist on climate action, covid-19, medical cooperation, and fisheries production and processing to maximise Kiribati’s benefits from our abundant resources.”

Up to 10 bilateral agreements were signed between the two countries in a range of areas. These included:

• Further elevating cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiaitve.
• 2022 Economic and Development Cooperation.
• Livelihood projects.
• Climate Change.
• Disaster Risk Reduction.
• Buota Bridge and adjacent road infrastructure development.
• Tourism.
• Protocols on Dispatching Medical Teams.
• Marine Transportation for the Line Islands.
• Covid-19 medical supplies.

“In just slightly over two years after the resumption of our diplomatic ties, both our countries have embarked on a very fruitful cooperation to cultivate our bilateral relations. These projects will deliver meaningful and tangible impacts on the lives of our people,” Kiribati president Taneti Maaau said.

Analysis – China has been successful in signing multiple bilateral agreements with almost a dozen Pacific Island nations during its foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to the region.https://t.co/FXJK9wRStu

— RNZ Pacific (@RNZPacific) June 3, 2022

Samoa
In his stopover at Samoan, Wang signed three agreements. These were:

• Economic & Technical Cooperation Agreement for projects to be determined and mutually agreed between the respective Countries.
• Handover Certificate for the completed Arts & Culture Centre and the Samoa-China Friendship Park.
• Exchange of Letters for the Fingerprint laboratory for Police complementary to the construction of the Police Academy.

Samoan prime minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa said the bilateral cooperation agreements were initiated “a number of years ago” and were not new development.

Fiame has also labelled China’s proposal to push through its multilateral economic and security deal “abnormal” and such an agreement could not be agreed to if the “region has not met to discuss it.”

Fiji
China has enjoyed much favour in its relationship with Fiji’s Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama. This trip was no different.

According to China’s Ambassador to Fiji, the two countries signed three agreements focusing on economic cooperation but further details were not provided.

Wang said after meeting with Bainimarama: “Our two sides agreed to further synergise our strategies, expand cooperation in economy, trade, agriculture, fisheries, tourism, civil aviation, education, law enforcement and emergency management and other areas within the framework of Blet and Road cooperation for mutual benefit and win-win outcomes.”

Bainimarama stressed the two countries “have a solid foundation”.

He downplayed the geopolitical tussle taking place in the region between Beijing and Western countries as the most central issue facing the region.

He reinforced that climate change was the greatest threat facing the Pacific and sought greater commitment from China on climate action.

“I’ve sought stronger Chinese commitment to keep 1.5 alive, end illegal fishing, protect the #BluePacific’s ocean, and expand Fijian exports,” he said via a Tweet.

The Pacific needs genuine partners, not superpowers that are super-focussed on power. At an excellent meeting with Minister Wang Yi, I’ve sought stronger Chinese commitment to keep 1.5 alive, end illegal fishing, protect the #BluePacific‘s ocean, and expand Fijian exports. pic.twitter.com/vBSVJtDf6a

— Frank Bainimarama (@FijiPM) May 30, 2022

Tonga
Wang arrived at Nuku’alofa on Tuesday, where he met with King Tupou VI, Tongan prime minister Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni, and minister for foreign affairs Fekitamoeloa ‘Utoikamanu.

The Tongan government announced it had signed “several bilateral agreements” with China after discussions focusing on mutual respect and the common interest of the people of the two countries.

• MoU on Cooperation in the Area of Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergency Response.
• MoU on Deepening Blue Economy Cooperation.
• Handover Certificate on the China-Aid Non-intrusive Imaging Inspection Equipment Project to Tonga Customs.
• Letter of Exchanges on the Provision of One Fingerprint Examination Laboratory.
• MoU on the Grant-Aid Assistance provided by Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, People’s Republic of China to the Government of the Kingdom of Tonga in 2022.
• Agreement for the Peripheral Area of Mala’ekula Royal Tomb Improvement Project.

According to the China’s foreign ministry, China and Tonga “reached extensive consensus on deepening cooperation in various fields and advancing Belt and Road cooperation, and signed a batch of economic cooperation agreements.”

RNZ Pacific’s Tonga correspondent Kalafi Moala said China has been behind many development projects in the Kingdom.

“There’s been a lot of local developments in Tonga by the Chinese, and that includes the restoration of Nukualofa since the riots of 2006 and we still have a loan from China that we still need to make payments on, it’s about $118 million dollars,” Moala said.

Vanuatu
Vanuatu was Wang’s sixth stopover.

He met with prime minister Bob Loughman and his cabinet ministers on Wednesday, where the two countries finalised cooperation agreements in the areas of economic technology, medical and health case, and marine economy.

No further details on the agreements have been provided.

In a statement, China’s foreign ministry said Loughman “spoke highly of the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China with Xi Jinping at its core.”

Loughman, on the other hand, said China “has proved to be a true friend of Vanuatu with concrete actions”.

He “firmly believes that cooperation with China will better help PICs seize development opportunities, and will further enhance bilateral cooperation between PICs and China.

Loughman has also indicated his government’s full support towards China’s “important role” in the region and its plans to expand its common development vision with Pacific Island countries.

Cook Islands (Virtual)
Wang met Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown on Thursday.

Brown said China was willing to discuss and plan the next step of cooperation according to the development needs of the Cook Islands.

According to Wang, the two sides could expand cooperation in tourism, infrastructure and education at the sub-national level to help the economic recovery of the Cook Islands.

“China is also willing to discuss and conduct more trilateral cooperation on the basis of past successful experience,” he said.

Brown said, “the Cook Islands firmly believes that the future of the Cook Islands is closely tied to China, and is ready to work with China to push for even greater development of bilateral relations in the next 25 years.”

“The Cook Islands attaches great importance to the China-Pacific Island Countries Foreign Ministers’ Meeting mechanism and the next cooperation initiatives proposed by China,” he said.

Although there were no details for any formal agreements signed, China’s foreign ministry said “the two sides agreed to strengthen cooperation in Chinese language education, support and encourage young people in the Cook Islands to learn Chinese, and cultivate more friendly envoys”, adding “Both sides agreed to continue to support each other in the international community.”

Niue (Virtual)
Premier of Niue Dalton Tagelagi said Beijing had “made positive contributions towards Niue’s prosperity” and it is “pleased” the relationship between the two nations continues to grow.

“We will continue to progress our close relationship and friendship with China to further advance bilateral relations and achieve common development and prosperity,” Premier Tagelagi said.

“Joint initiatives with China, such as roading and other strategic development and investment opportunities, will ultimately improve the quality of life for everyone in Niue and are part of Niue’s key aspiration toward self-sufficiency. China has heard Niue’s call, and we are very grateful for that.”

He said Nuie “supports in principle” China’s proposal in investing in common development and prosperity in the region.

“We would like time to consider how the arrangement with China will support existing regional plans to ensure that our priorities are aligned and will be beneficial for all of us for regional prosperity.

“I am confident that Niue’s officials will work together to ensure that the final document will reflect our shared vision,” he said.

A working Sunday afternoon today @ForumSEC w the visit from the State Councilor and Minister for Foreign Affairs of China, HE Wang Yi. Partnerships are fundamental to the realisation of our priorities but they must be built on mutual respect and joint collaboration. #BluePacific pic.twitter.com/PRuilRmGb5

— Sec-General of the @ForumSec, @PacOceanComm (@henrytpuna) May 29, 2022

Regional reactions
University of Hawai’is Centre for Pacific Studies associate professor Tarcisius Kabutaulaka said: “China’s rise has changed international geopolitics and its increased presence is changing the dynamics of Pacific regionalism.”

He believed countries in the region need to work out how to better manage the power imbalance in their relationships with China.

“The issue for me is that how do we manage that? How are we aware of that huge force in the form of China? And how do we manage that in ways that will benefit us and here I mean Pacific Island countries,” Dr Kabutaulaka said.

Former Fiji prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka warned against “new influences” coming into the South Pacific.

Rabuka said the Pacific was comfortable with the relationships it had had with traditional partners in Australia and New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

“New influences will probably take us time to get used to. I am hopeful that the government of our friends of our joint development partners will continue to help us as we try to map our way forward,” he said.

Former Tuvalu prime minister Enele Sopoaga said the growing influence on China in the Pacific was a “scary development” for the region.

Sopoaga said Pacific nations were being used as “canary in the coal mine.”

“The decision to take the draft [Common Development Vision] is up to individual respective countries in the Pacific. But I think this is a rather scary development that we are hearing about now,” he said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

October 2021 was a horror month for Facebook as the headlines screamed “Facebook under fire” which started with the social media behemoth suffering an outage for several hours.

Then it had a whistleblower — American data scientist Francis Haugen — who accused the company of:

• prioritising growth over user safety;
• bowing to the will of state censors in some countries;
• allowing hate speech to burgeon in other countries;
• ignoring fake accounts that may influence voters and undermine elections;
• allowing the antivaccine message to proliferate; and
• having algorithms that fuel noxious behaviour online.

Add to that, a major impending problem of capturing a young audience who are flocking elsewhere and turning their backs on the oldest social media platform which was founded in 2004 by Harvard students Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.

• READ MORE: Facebook profits top $9bn amid whistleblower revelations
• Other Pacific Newsroom reports
• The Pacific Newsroom

Even so, its success as the leading platform is undeniable with it announcing a $9 billion quarterly profit in October with a massive 3 billion users.

It was the access to smartphones when they were offered in the Pacific and technology that drove Facebook’s popularity to largely receptive devotees. The uptake of the social media platform in French Polynesia (72.1 percent penetration by 2020), Fiji (68.2 percent, Guam (87.8 percent), Niue (91.7 percent), Samoa (67.2 percent) and Tonga (62.3 percent) made it a no-brainer for Sue Ahearn, founder of the highly credible The Pacific Newsroom page to use the platform.

Measured success
The success of The Pacific Newsroom page can be measured by the site garnering in excess of 40,500 members most of who can participate actively by contributing to the page.

Ahearn is no stranger to the Asia-Pacific region. An Australian journalist for more than 40 years, 25 at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), who originally hails from Martinborough in New Zealand, she was drawn to set up the page primarily because of misinformation that tends to flourish in the Pacific news.

“It came to me about four years ago when the ABC cut back on all of its coverage of the Pacific, and I could see there was a big gap there,” she says.

“The ABC was only providing a small service and there was a lack of interest in most of the Australian media. You could see the technology was changing, how the information was flowing from the region was changing.’’

The apathy for a thirst for Pacific knowledge has had a profound effect on insularity in the media, especially in Australia and New Zealand, although the Public Interest Journalism Fund is attempting to address that in some way in New Zealand.

“I wish I knew, Sean Dorney, Jemima Garrett and all of the Pacific journalists just can’t fathom why is there so little interest in our region among the Australian media,’’ says Ahearn.

“It doesn’t make sense. There tends to be three or four journalists that cover the region and try to convince news outlets to run their stories or send reporters, and that has become very difficult.”

Only Pacific correspondent based in Pacific
Natalie Whiting of the ABC and the recipient of the Dorney-Walkley Foundation grant 2021 is the only journalist from Australasia who is based in the Pacific. She is stationed in the Papua New Guinean capital of Port Moresby.

“In New Zealand, that’s not a problem and New Zealand does good coverage of the Pacific. New Zealand has a much closer relationship with the Pacific,” Ahearn says.

However, Michael Field in Auckland, a page administrator and a veteran of the Pacific who went to journalism school with Ahearn, had qualms about the coverage out of New Zealand.

“The thing that really bugs me is that only Radio New Zealand (RNZ) seems to be doing Pacific news. For example, you’d pick up the (New) Herald and see who’s covering the hurricane out in Fiji only to see it is a re-run of a RNZ story,” says Field.

“It bothers me. The Herald should have had a different angle on the story, RNZ a different angle, The Dominion Post would be different and there would be work for stringers in the Pacific. Now that is not the case because RNZ takes up everybody else’s work and runs it that way,

“I guess that is the reality of it now, but it seems the voice of the Pacific these days is state radio.

“Call me old fashioned, but I’d be too embarrassed to run a story quoting another media organisation, and if you had to do it you’d do it grudgingly. We are starting to fail in the coverage of the region,” he says.

Success stirs amazement
The success and growth of The Pacific Newsroom as an organic, quasi news agency akin to Reuters, Agence France Press (AFP) or Australian Associated Press (AAP) in a tiny way, has caught Ahearn by amazement.

“I am surprised because we have a lot of engagement, some stories get 80,000 or 90,000 engagements so there is a lot of interest in it, and I think it fills a huge niche.

She speaks about the talanoa concept of The Pacific Newsroom.

“It’s like a town square where people can meet, share stories and talk about what is happening. Michael (Field) and I spend an enormous time on this project and we’re basically volunteers, we’re not being paid or making any money from it,” she says.

Nor would she entertain the thought of applying for funding either in New Zealand or Australia, preferring instead to maintain their editorial independence.

“Mike and I have discussed this, and we think one of the main attractions of our site is it is not monetised, that it is a voluntary site, there are no advertisements on it, we try and keep it independent, and we are both at the stage in our lives where we’re not working fulltime in the media,” Ahearn says.

“We’ve got time to spend doing this as a public interest, we really enjoy doing it too, it’s a lot of fun.

Many great stories
“There are so many great stories in the Pacific that need to be amplified to the world.

“Things are happening with technology and it’s giving a much stronger voice to the Pacific whether it’s on climate change or fishing or other important issues and that is why it is going to get stronger and stronger,” Ahearn says.

Among the stories that gained the site momentum was the University of the South Pacific (USP) having its vice-chancellor and president Professor Pal Ahluwalia at the centre of controversy during his first term when Fiji government and educational officials tried to oust him from office in the so-called USP saga, eventually unceremoniously deporting him in a move widely condemned around the Pacific.

“The big story which moved us along was the USP saga last year, for quite political reasons which had to do with the players, we were leaked all the reports and people could see if it got a certain amount of information on Pacific Newsroom that things might happen, and it did,” Field says.

“More recently we’ve had the same with the Samoan elections where a number of players wanted to be interviewed directly; the former Prime Minister (Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi) seemed to have some misinformed view that we are more powerful than we are. We cope with that so it is constantly moving thing.”

Another worrying development were the libel laws in Australia where last month the court ruled publishers to be liable for defamatory comments.

“The libel laws, it’s another tension and another thing we’ve got to watch. We watch it like a hawk (as moderators) and that is not to characterise the particular audience we’ve got,” Field says.

‘Shooting your mouth off’
“Shooting your mouth off seems to be regarded in much of the Pacific as a God-given right — ‘why you trying to stop me from saying this’, we just delete people now. We tried saying to people right at the beginning we didn’t need expletives, swear words and all that stuff, and we were going to take them down.

“It is learning experience, moderating a site like Pacific Newsroom can be hard, depressing work and sometimes there’s a lot of people that sort of feel they have to say something even though it is a complete nonsense, and it is hard yakka that sort of stuff,’’ Field says.

On the flip side of it were the tangible rewards that make it all worthwhile.

“I can remember one particular point where we were tracking a superyacht that was tripping around Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga; there were people from quite remote village areas of these countries that would send us pictures saying, ‘here is a picture of the yacht that has just passed my village ‘. Whereas back in the day you tried to get a shortwave radio operator to tell you what happened three weeks after the event.

“The Pacific is now full of people with smartphones and with good connections so we can cover everything in the Pacific,” Field says.

As for the credibility of the site, Field declined an approach from a major mainstream New Zealand media company that sought copyright and permission to use the material that was published.

Then there was the young journalist from another mainstream media company who asked Field for a contact in relation to a Vanuatu story, telling Field that they all shared their contacts in the newsroom. Needless to say, he went away disappointed and empty-handed.

Ancient settler societies
Just how well The Pacific Newsroom is regarded in the Pacific is summed up eloquently by history associate professor Morgan Tuimaleali’ifano of the USP who tells it with a Pacific panache.

“Apart from Australia, New Zealand, Tokelau, Hawai’i, Guam, American Samoa, West Papua, Rapanui, and the French territories (New Caledonia, Uvea and Futuna, Tahiti), the nature of independent and self-governing Pacific societies is that they are ancient settler societies steeped in conservatism,” Tuimaleali’ifano says.

“While their constitutions have absorbed Western influences, imperial laws, Christianity, fundamental freedoms/rights, monetary capitalism, they remain steeped in ancient systems of governance based largely on hereditary hierarchies.

“Two worlds co-exist with the constitutional democratic model heavily influenced by kinship patterns of thought and behaviour. Within kinship hierarchies, there exists diverse governance structures and no two villages share the exact governing structure,” he says.

“Equally important are the constitutions and parliamentary legislation. These law-making institutions together with the judiciary are constantly evolving as they must with changing circumstances and best practices.

“It is within these social dynamics that journalism provides the Fourth or Fifth Estate to maintain an even keel on the Pacific’s growth as a viable region of nation-states.

“The Pacific Newsroom plays a vital role, of mirroring the changing Pasifika people needs and commenting on sensitive matters that many may find unsavoury difficult and overwhelming to articulate within ultra-conservative societies.

‘Without fear or favour’
“Without fear or favour, The Pacific Newsroom and its sister networks provide a critical service for a multi-faceted Pasifika struggling to reconcile and reshape a new consciousness for Pasifika.

“These include the enduring issues of regional identity and solidarity and unity within the context of relentless ideological and geopolitical power plays.”

As associate professor and head of journalism at USP Shailendra Singh in Suva, who continues to strive to keep his students well abreast in journalism under draconian media laws in Fiji, says:

“It is indeed a success story, due to a large following, because of media restrictions in Fiji. Users from Fiji especially feel more comfortable expressing themselves on this page.

“The page is prudently and professionally moderated, so it is respectable. The page uses information from credible news sources. (Independent sources like Bob Howarth on Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste; former Vanuatu Daily Post publisher Dan McGarry; current Pacific Island Times publisher Mar-Vic Cagurangan; and photojournalist Ben Bohane, until he returned to Australia from Vanuatu; as well as David Robie‘s Asia-Pacific Report which is a huge contributor to the page).

“I promote USP journalism students’ work on Pacific Newsroom. It is exemplary of how Facebook can support democracy.”

A vital source of information in the covid era. You get a cross-section of news and views on one platform. It is definitely the most popular virtual “kava bar” in the Pacific.

• Browse The Pacific Newsroom

The Pacific Newsroom – the virtual ‘kava bar’ news success story #ThePacificNewsroom #AsiaPacificReport @shrek45 #mediafreedom #independentmedia @RSF_inter @RSF_AsiaPacific @sueahearn @MichaelFieldNZ @ShailendraBSing @wansolwara @USPWansolwara https://t.co/9m7DJ0DUq6 pic.twitter.com/QIJUlvsbFu

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) November 5, 2021

Hakeagapuletama Halo walks into the courtroom. He is a head taller than most, dressed in a crisp white shirt. He has a nervous smile and bright, eager eyes.

Known as Hake to his family and friends, this is not the first time he has detailed the abuse he suffered at Lake Alice. But, as part of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, it is the first time he’s been able to do so publicly.

He said there was no warning or explanation the first time he received electroconvulsive shock therapy, just one week after arriving at the Lake Alice Institute.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific human rights violations articles

“They called my name out. I went freely and walked up the stairs of Villa 7 because I did not understand, I thought it was something to help us patients, but I had a funny feeling something was not right.

“Dr [Selwyn] Leeks and three other staff members were there. They did not ask me any questions or explain anything to me. They just put me on the bed.”

Halo remembered seeing a bed with a small machine on a trolley, with electric earphones that were wet and placed on the sides of his head.

“I looked up at their faces, they were pretty mean looking and that made me feel something was going to happen. I asked Dr Leeks if this was going to hurt and he said, “yes, it is”. I cried and said, “I don’t want it please”.”

Lost consciousness
With no muscle relaxant or anaesthetic, the staff held him down as the volts went through his body and he lost consciousness.

The next time it happened, it was a shock to discover that he remained conscious and felt everything, saying it was like being hit by a sledgehammer.

“The pain was so bad, that when a person was lying down, when they turned it on, I could feel myself actually sitting up. Your body is off the bed… you’re straining to raise your arms but they’re holding you down. And they turn it off, that’s when you’re crying…without the mouthguard, a person would end up biting his tongue off because of the pain.”

The shocks were administered three or four times before the child was taken to a different room to recover, but the effects would be felt for days.

A terrible secret
Halo said everyone knew what was going on, but it wasn’t talked about.

“Us kids, we know that somebody’s always getting ECT because you can hear the screams from upstairs coming downstairs to us kids. In the lounge, in the sitting room, TV room, you can hear them screaming, even the workers that are working around there.”

He says while most of the staff and workers were white-skinned, there were a few cleaners that were Pacific Islanders.

“They can hear it. They’re doing their jobs and crying at the same time because they know what’s going on.”

In addition to the electric shock treatment, the children were injected with paraldehyde, a medicine that was used to treat convulsive disorders.

Halo said they had different amounts injected, based on their behaviour, such as not listening or fighting, even laughing too loudly.

“Paraldehyde is just like another way of giving us a hiding. Using the injection, it is painful, the pain is bad. The child is walking like a pregnant lady sometimes, swaying from side to side, coming out of the sick bay with his pants still halfway down, crying his eyes out – and that’s only for 5cc.”

One teacher trusted
There was one teacher who he trusted at the school, who will later testify as part of the hearing.

“She said to me, ‘you don’t belong here’. She gave us advice, encouragement and counselling. I had not done anything big or really wrong, just the shoplifting.”

Many buildings have been demolished since the institute was closed in 1999. Photo: Fergus Cunningham 2011

A child’s plea for help
Halo wanted to tell his mother about the abuse, and tried to come up with a coded way to tell her.

“I write in my letter in English that everything is alright…they said I have to write my letters in English and take it into the office and leave it open like that for them to read.”

After his earlier attempts to draw a sad face weren’t accepted, Halo learned he had to draw a person with a happy face, but included a speech bubble saying his true feelings.

“I wrote just a short few words in Niuean, saying mum, electric shock, so painful to me. Or, Mum, the people have given me electric shock… injection… I am crying.”

Years later, he would try to recreate these drawings in his journals.

When asked why his mother did nothing at the time, he said there was a language and cultural barrier.

“Because my mum was not an English speaker, she did not know how to get help or intervene…she felt powerless.”

This was not the first time speaking English as a second language had been a barrier.

Misunderstood from the early years
Born in Niue, Halo sailed to Sāmoa on the Tofua, then flew to New Zealand with his grandparents, who raised him for many years.

He had epilepsy as a baby but grew out of it as he got older.

When Halo started at Richmond Road Primary in 1968, he could only speak Niuean.

“I did not understand anything the teacher was teaching. I did not do my homework because I did not understand my teacher and I did not speak in class….I felt totally lost. It was pretty hard to find friends, so I just kept to myself.”

The teachers thought Halo had a disability and put him in a class for children with special needs, where he would act up. When he was 8, an incident with a relief teacher at Beresford Primary that would change his life.

“We were practising songs, and I wasn’t singing properly, just trying to sing but not really good and not participating properly and my teacher got upset…so she came and took me out of the classroom.

“I was scared about being locked in this dark room. I tried to push on the door to push it open and let myself back in, and my hand accidentally went through the glass door.”

Cut his hand severely
He cut his hand severely and was taken to Auckland Hospital by ambulance.

The school report said he violently punched the window but the scars on the palm of his hand prove he did not punch the glass, but was pushing on it.

After this incident, Halo was seen as being violent, and was referred to St John’s Psychiatric Hospital in Papatoetoe.

From there, he spent a few months in Niue, before returning to New Zealand and moving between several schools, his behaviour worsening after the death of his grandfather when he was 10 years old.

He appeared in the youth court because of a shoplifting offence, and was sent to Owairaka Boys’ Home in October 1975.

“I was put in a secure room for four days. I had to stay there for a long time because I was so upset. They were worried I would run away. I was lonely,” he says.

“In the secure room there was a bed, a toilet, and sometimes another kid was put in the same cell. When that happened, we had to share the toilet and we had to eat in there too. I did not like that room.”

Some children targeted
Along with physical violence, the staff were strict and some children were targeted more than others.

“The boys that had to do the cleaning and cooking did not go to school. I was one of those kids. I had to do the jobs. I had no choice.”

He was then referred to Lake Alice, a mental hospital in the Manawatu District that had been converted for youth.

“My [grandmother] and my birth parents were told they were taking me to Lake Alice to go to a school there. They were not told that it was a mental hospital. They never knew the true story.

“My mum did not speak good English at all and there were no Niuean interpreters. She signed papers because they told her they were taking me to a school.”

Arriving at Lake Alice on 6 November 1975, Halo said he was surprised and scared.

“My first impression was “bloody hell, what is this place? What sort of place? This is not a school, this looks like a prison!”

Some not documented
An estimated 300 teenagers were admitted to the institute across the six years it was operating, but there are thought to be at least a hundred more who were not documented, with some children younger than 10.

It wasn’t until after Halo was discharged in 1976, when his grandmother arranged to legally adopt him, they discovered he had been made a ward of the state.

“The interpreter at that meeting explained to my Mum [grandmother] what a State Ward meant. My Mum had not understood, and no one had ever interpreted for her, that the state had the rights of guardianship over me.”

Thinking back to the start of the year when he was referred to Lake Alice, Halo said his Mum had not understood the social worker at the time.

“There were no interpreters there to assist my Mum in this conversation. The social worker thought my Mum wanted social welfare to have full control and have me under their guardianship,” he says.

“However, my Mum was misunderstood. She had asked him to please look after me, while I was in care. The social worker thought she was saying `please take Hake and make him a State Ward’.”

Halo says if a Niuean interpreter had been present, he may not have been returned to Lake Alice, or later referred to Carrington Hospital in Auckland.

Now elder in his church
Halo is an elder in his church and attributes his healing and strength to his faith.

His epilepsy returned after his time at Lake Alice, making it difficult for him to hold down a job, although he did work at a facility packing plastic bottles, but found the static electricity a trigger for his traumatic memories.

He is on a benefit, but says the Ministry of Social Development is trying to get him onto the jobseeker benefit.

When asked about whether an apology would help, he said he didn’t need a personal apology, but wanted to see an acknowledgement of how Pacific Islanders were treated.

“The state should have explained to me and my parents what a State Ward was and what happens to a child who is a State Ward. If they could not understand English, they should be offered an interpreter. The state should tell us the truth about where our children are going and what is happening to them.

“Looking to the future, if I was told a grandchild of mine had to go into an institution, I would say ‘no way’. Our children have to be with us, not in institutions.”

At the hearing, a handful of survivors were present to support Halo, Paul Zentveld acknowledged those who could not be there.

“All these many years when no one but a tiny few believed us. Officials of Government did not really care what happened to us as children while in Lake Alice in the 70s. We have done many things over the years, including alerting the United Nations and here we are.

“We stand before the survivors of Lake Alice, ready to tell our story publicly for the first time. Those who cannot be here are here in spirit.”

But the man responsible for the mistreatment of hundreds of children, may never be held to account.

‘I represent a man incapable of instructing me’ – lawyer for Dr Selwyn Leeks

Hayden Rattray, counsel for Dr Selwyn Leeks, appeared via Zoom to deliver the news many were expecting.

“Dr Leeks is 92 years old. He has metastatic prostate cancer … heart disease, chronic kidney dysfunction.

“Dr Leeks is neither aware of the matters of the inquiry nor cognitively capable of responding to them. The reality is I represent a man incapable of instructing me.”

Rattray referenced an assessment in April by neuropsychologist Dr Sarah Lucas, which also reported signs of Alzheimers and dementia.

As a core participant in the inquiry, Dr Leeks has the right to give evidence and make submissions, however, “by virtue of his age and cognitive capacity, manifestly incapable of doing either”, Rattray explained.

Assisting Counsel Andrew Molloy said, along with Dr Leeks, other parties needed to be held accountable.

“While numerous eyes have been cast over these events over the years, we’ve never previously pulled together the strands to compile as full a picture as we can … While individuals may have spoken of this here and there, their voices have never been heard collectively by us as a society.”

Queen’s Counsel Frances Joychild said the inquiry was exposing a “collective shame”.

“It’s an inquiry into a dark and shameful seven year episode in the history of state care for vulnerable children in this countr …. The  damage to the national interest is impossible to calculate.”

The Lake Alice hearing runs for two weeks. Twenty survivors are expected to give evidence, along with former staff members, medical experts and police witnesses.​

More information:
​The Royal Commission will examine abuse and neglect of children and young people in residences run by the state between 1950 and 1999.

The scope of the inquiry covers abuse that happened in State care such as foster care, police cells, court cells or police custody, schools or special schools, disability care or facility, youth justice placement or at a health camp.

They are also looking at abuse that occurred in faith-based settings such as a religious school or church camp.

Witnesses can speak anonymously about sexual, physical and psychological abuse and the effects it has had on them in later life.

The Pacific Investigation encourages Pacific survivors to continue coming forward and engage with the Royal Commission of Inquiry.

To contact the Pacific Investigation, please email: Reina.Vaai@abuseincare.org.nz or call us on 0800 222 727.

For further details please see www.abuseincare.org.nz.

Pacific Investigation hearing dates: July 19-30, 2021

Hearing location: Fale o Samoa, 141r Bader Drive, Māngere, Auckland 2022

In the New Zealand 2021 Budget, a big investment of NZ$108 million has been signalled to support the wellbeing of the Pacific population through the rebuild and recovery from the covid-19 pandemic.

Pacific Peoples Minister ‘Aupito William Sio said this was a significant investment for Pacific communities who have been hard-hit by the pandemic in the past year.

“With the Pacific Aotearoa Lalanga Fou Goals as a guide, the Pacific package puts a strong focus on Pacific wellbeing and continues the government’s commitment to ensuring that Pacific peoples are leading this work to achieve confident, thriving, prosperous and resilient communities,” he said.

“Budget 2021 makes this possible through tailored business, health and education initiatives that bolster the vital holistic work Pacific communities are already doing across the country.”

• READ MORE: Budget 2021: Benefits boost in ‘quest to reduce inequality’
• RNZ coverage of the 2021 Budget

The $108 million Pacific package is made up of the following:

• $99.6 million new operating funding
• $660,000 new capital funding from the Budget 2021 allowances and the Covid-19 Response and Recovery Fund (CRRF).
• $7.8 million in operating funding is repurposed from existing funding in Vote Education.

The package includes:

• $30.3 million boost to assist the Tupu Aotearoa programme to support approximately 7500 Pacific peoples into employment, training, and education across Aotearoa New Zealand, funded from the CRRF.
• Investing $6.6 million to support establishing the Pacific Wellbeing Strategy – a cross-government initiative that will develop ways to measure Pacific wellbeing across government work programmes and initiatives.
• Supporting Pacific businesses through the impacts of covid-19 with $16.2 million for business support services, funded from the CRRF.
• $20.8 million supporting Pacific bilingual and immersion education in the schooling system, made up of $12.4 million of new operating funding and $644,000 of new capital funding from Budget 2021 allowances, with $7.8 million of repurposed funding from Vote Education.
• $5 million operating funding and $16,000 capital funding to deliver sustained professional learning and development to embed Tapasā as a tool to address social inclusion in the education sector.
• $5.1 million for the development of two new Pacific language subjects, gagana Tokelau and vagahau Niue as NCEA Achievement Standards subjects.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Six years on from being appointed head of the Pacific Community, Director-General Collin Tukuitonga, a boy born on the tiny Pacific island of Niue, has a voice louder than a schoolboy rugby captain, a voice that serves him well as a Pasifika community leader.

There is little doubt his credentials are impressive for a boy who attended Niue High School and then the University of the South Pacific for foundation years 1 and 2 before arriving in New Zealand from Fiji after the 1987 coup.

Having done his New Zealand Medical Registration exams, he began to excel in the fields he chose.

READ MORE: InfoPacific – the geojournalism project

And excel he did, as his curriculum vitae reads: Director of SPC’s Public Health Division; Chief Executive Officer of the NZ Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs; Associate Professor of Public Health and Head of Pacific and International Health at the University of Auckland; Director of Public Health, NZ Ministry of Health; and Head of Surveillance and Prevention of Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases at the World Health Organisation, Switzerland.

He scoffs at the description of a little boy from Niue who has made it big in the Anglo-Saxon, neoliberal, covid-19 world of today.

“I don’t know about making it big, but it has been definitely different and professionally rewarding, and hopefully I’m making a useful contribution to the community,” he laughs heartily in the Pacific way.

But his contribution to all aspects of leadership in medicine and public service cannot be taken lightly.

‘No holds barred’
As Fijian Dr Api Talemaitoga,  a GP in South Auckland and chair of the Pasifika GP Network who is also part of the Health Ministry’s Pasifika response and who worked with Tukuitonga during the H1N1 flu epidemic in 2009, says:

“He is great because he tells you like it is, no holds barred, no sugar coating the truth,” he says of Dr Tukuitonga.

The fact that Dr Tukuitonga spoke out during the current pandemic crisis, calling for a new public health agency is evidence enough of this.

“Sars and H1N1 were epidemics but covid-19 is a much bigger threat. We can be certain there will be viruses like this in the future,” says Dr Tukuitonga.

“Even if this pandemic settles down it doesn’t protect us from something else coming along. So, it’s always going be a risk for communities right around the world.”

However, while he credits establishing Pacific public health services in West Auckland and the poorer Māori communities in Northland (Ngati Hine and the Hokianga) as deeply satisfying, it is his work as director-general of the Pacific Community (SPC) based in Noumea, New Caledonia, that is the cream of his public service to the Pacific.

But it was fraught with difficulties, which he found a surprise.

Fragile unity in the Pacific
“Being appointed Director-General of the Pacific Community (SPC) and running that organisation for six years was a highlight in my life,” he says.

But, “I learnt just how fragile unity is in the Pacific,” he says this with surprise.

“People talk about regionalism in the Pacific all the time and it is something people seek and desire but that actually is very difficult, elusive and fragile.

“Pacific regionalism and Pacific solidarity come with conditions, there is quite a level of distrust that exists and that’s holding back so many developments,” he says.

“But there are some good things going on – their collective approach to climate change has been impressive.

“Leading up to the 2015 Paris Agreement 2015 globally, nobody gave the Pacific a chance, but they banded together, and influenced some big players and got a good outcome in the form of the Paris agreement.

“The voices of the small Pacific Islands were heard at a global level that wasn’t because of chance. It came from the work of the Pacific Island leaders in communicating their concerns about climate change to the rest of the world,” he says.

Trying to push the polluters
“They were trying to push the polluters of the world to take responsibility for some of the things they had done.”

He praised the work done by Pacific leaders at a time when disunity could have been damaging.

“I do think they have done a tremendous job on climate change so that is an illustration of the Island nations having one enemy in common. Otherwise working together on regional issues is not so straight forward.

But it was considered better in the nation of his origins, he says.

“Niue is fortunate in the sense that if you talk about sea-level rise it is not an really an issue for Niue, but in term of the parts of climate change like killing coral and ocean acidification leading to coral bleaching they do affect Niue.

“They also feel the impacts of severe weather events like severe cyclones like everyone else around the Pacific.

“It is fortunate in that it is a high island and they don’t suffer from the sea-level rise parts but clearly they are vulnerable as everyone else with regards to climate change effects,” he says pensively.

Tokelau also at risk
However, Tokelau, as well as Kiribati, is also at a risk, says Dr Talemaitoga,

“When I visited there several years ago, the king tides were really something to see, the effects of climate change were starting to affect them then,” he says.

As for the heavy polluters, Dr Tukuitonga has a slightly different take on those countries,

“The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) is in fact one of the important parts of the Paris agreement.

“That is why we spent quite a lot of time setting up the office in Suva to allow and enable the members to rethink and develop and introduce meaningful contributions

“So, I see it as a very important part of the implementation of the Paris agreement. But, like a lot of things, some countries take it seriously and some don’t,” he says.

And the impacts of covid-19 on climate change?

Covid-19 ‘an aggravation’
“In a sense, covid-19 is an aggravation because it would introduce health risks, limit movement of people and their ability to do things, such as their ability to try to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

“I see covid-19 as an additional challenge for the small islands to face on of top climate change,” he says.

The Pacific environment will also be vulnerable to climate change he believes.

Coupled by pollution and various other practices such as overfishing and over-consumption has had an effect, he says.

“The combination of climate change, pollution, population growth, and the exploitation of the environment is a serious threat to the sustainability of the Pacific environment,” he expounds.

“There is a very strong drive to build more hotels in pristine places around the region because the drive for economic development is relentless and that leads to the destruction of our natural environment, so I do think it is a serious concern,” he says about the proliferation of tourist hotels in the region.

“The Pacific Ocean is increasingly polluted by actually pollution from outside the region but also the sea life is being threatened with overfishing and with ocean acidification as a result of that overfishing.

Pollution getting worse
“It will get worse; it has started already. That’s why the UN sustainable development goals are really important because one of those is dedicated to the protection of the health of the ocean.

“It’s already underway and I think we clearly need to do more within the context of climate change to protect and promote the environment around the region.

The same care should be taken when it comes to wildlife in the region.

“Sustaining wildlife goes hand-in-hand with environmental degradation so whatever we do to promote and protect biodiversity should, in fact, look to protecting the few species of wildlife that we have,” he says.

“Most of the small atoll nations in the world have very limited diversity, except the Pacific Ocean is one of the world’s largest ecosystems with quite a lot of biodiversity, some of which we don’t know about yet,” Dr Tukuitonga says.

“I have always been a fan of ecotourism and for travellers who spend a bit more money than the average person. I have never been a fan of bums on seats tourism and especially to little places. Ecotourism is a very important part of development landscape in the region,” he says.

He for one warned against the complacency that has taken hold in the Pacific with regards to covid-19. As a public health specialist, he notices how lax the testing had become in June and warned against that practice publicly.

Complacency factor
“I would have thought testing should have continued in earnest, without a doubt I think complacency is a factor and we should have done more testing,” he says in a few words.

After being 102 days covid-19 free in New Zealand, he used to be keen on the travel bubble to the covid free islands – but no longer.

“I was a keen promoter of that idea, but I would suggest to them right away not to pursue this. I would say to stop it.

“The problem is we don’t know quite what the spread is like in New Zealand and people could go to the Cooks or Niue integrating the virus there, so even if you test for it before going there’s not a guarantee that people with the virus are travelling to the destination so I would discourage it.”

And he has a passion outside his “norm of life”, a heartfelt one at that too.

“I’m very concerned about the Niue language because it is one of the realm languages that is in dire straits because very few Niueans speak it now and there is a very real chance that it will disappear completely.

“I’m part of a community effort to try to revitalise the language to have the young ones to speak the language.

Good health numbers
“It isn’t so bad around Fiji, Samoa, Tonga because there are good healthy numbers still living in those islands but the Cooks, Niue and Tokelau where the majority population are in New Zealand they don’t speak their first language it’s a real concern.

“I believe that absolutely that it is likely to affect their cultural behaviour because language is such a central and critical part of the culture and so while you can participate in your culture without speaking the language it is not the same as being able to speak the language which allow you to participate more fully,” he says.

“So, remember each generation of Cook Islanders and Niueans born in New Zealand would be further and further away from their culture so it is going to be a challenge to maintain,”

And that is likely to bring its own problems as Tonga found out recently.

“People feel disconnected from their social norms and traditional values, family connections are disturbed and of course that is almost an inevitable consequence that young people in particular would turn to drugs and crime. That is why I see languages as a protective element for our people,” he says with conviction.

He admits to being annoyed at not winning the World Health Organisation (WHO) regional director post for the Western Pacific last year when several Pacific nations showed themselves to be at the whim of foreign currencies.

“Only because I felt I had much to offer the Islands, also the Islands have never had a Pacific person in that leadership role, but life has moved on.”

Now the associate dean Pacific and associate professor at the University of Auckland, Dr Tukuitonga has been seconded to the Auckland Regional Public Health Service (ARPHS) one day a week and the service does the covid-19 contact tracing.

“I am happy to come back home and get involved in this. It’s good because it gives me a lot of freedom to explore the things that matter and I’m enjoying it.”

This is the fourth of a series of articles by the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch as part of an environmental project funded by the Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN) Asia-Pacific initiative.

The safe reopening of entry points into six Pacific Islands countries amid the covid-19 pandemic is being discussed at a meeting in Fiji this week.

The virtual roundtable is being convened by the United Nations and the Asian Development Bank with representatives from Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Fiji.

The UN’s Sanaka Samarasinha said the discussion would be addressing border security.

READ MORE: Covid-19 cases climb to 114 in PNG as health cluster grows

“All these countries have a minimum standard of safety. At the end of the day, countries will agree to let people in if they feel that those who are coming – the source country have also safety standards that the receiving country accepts. If that doesn’t happen, there’s not going to be movement between two countries,” he said.

Samarasinha said similar roundtables were being planned for the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tokelau.

Samarasinha said the UN and the ADB had emphasised at the meeting clear protocols and the importance of ensuring that the airlines, seafarers associations and tour operators were included in preparing plans for reopening borders.

He said support from the international community can include initiatives such as the training of customs, immigration, police and health officials and the distribution of personal protective equipment for use at airports and seaports.

Dependent on tourism
He said small island developing states, which depended largely on tourism for their economies, had been hit hard by the global slowdown due to the pandemic.

“The UN has, from the beginning of this crisis, advocated for the safe, responsible and timely reopening of national entry points, on which many small businesses and jobs depend,” he said.

“While the decision of when, how and with whom to open borders is a sovereign decision, safety, vigilance, responsibility and international co-operation are critical as the world slowly opens up again.”

Masayuki Tachi’iri, director of the ADB’s Pacific sub-regional office in Suva,  said collective action was needed now to support health systems and economies in the Pacific.

“The ADB’s latest assessments suggest the effects of lockdowns and travel bans have been particularly severe on the region’s tourism-dependent economies, with some facing double-digit declines in gross domestic product in 2020,” he said.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Zealand’s “intransigence” over wanting to allow Australians in before New Zealanders out to the covid-free Pacific does not stand up to scrutiny, says a Cook Islands resort owner and doctor.

“If we unwittingly let the virus cross the Tasman, our country will take a huge hit,” says New Zealand-based John Dunn, a resort owner and visiting surgeon at Rarotonga Hospital.

Instead of concentrating on a possible travel bubble with Australia, New Zealand should be demonstrating “kindness” and offering a tourism economic lifeline to the Cook islands, Niue and Tokelau.

READ MORE: Al Jazeera coronavirus live updates – New York to quarantine people from other US hotspots

• 10th PNG case ‘evidence of local transmission’

“Kindness was brilliantly promoted by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as a principle in the pandemic fight, alongside testing and tracing,” he wrote today in a guest column in The New Zealand Herald.

“Kindness can be misplaced, such as allowing infected people to travel the country. Alternatively, it could be used powerfully, by saving Pacific economies.

“The Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau don’t feature in the UN list of member countries. That’s because they aren’t fully independent, existing in free association with New Zealand.

“While self-governing, their historical status means they depend on us in varying ways in matters like defence and foreign policy. And they are New Zealanders. We have real responsibility for them stemming from the colonial era.”

‘Malevolent engine’
Moreover, the Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau are free of the “malevolent engine of SARS-Cov-2”.

“It has never penetrated these islands. The Cooks in particular have been conscientious and aggressive, testing 15 percent of the tiny population – all negative.”

Dunn praised the guidance of Dr Aumea Herman, the Cook Islands Secretary of Health, for this achievement.

“She is an internationally trained public health expert and has fiercely guarded the nation’s borders with the support of the government, shutting down one critical week earlier than New Zealand.”

Testing in other island nations had been patchy and reporting was unreliable, especially from those living under non-democratic regimes and with larger populations, he wrote in a clear reference to Fiji which has lately been pushing the idea of a “Bula bubble” with Australia and New Zealand.

“There exists, therefore, a strong argument to regard Rarotonga in the Cook Islands as a domestic destination and Prime Minister Henry Puna has made exactly that appeal.”

Dunn cited numbers such as only 15,000 people live in the 15 Cook Islands, mostly on Rarotonga and Aitutaki. (60,000 live in New Zealand).

Travel is economically vital
“Tourism represents 70 percent of GDP and 70 percent of the 170,000 annual visitors are from New Zealand. This travel is vital to the economy,” he wrote.

“At present Rarotonga is unnecessarily empty, the resorts are unnecessarily deserted and the airport – the lifeline – unnecessarily vacant. There is absolutely no danger in travelling there. Visitors are at more risk from a tsunami or cyclone.”

Dunn said that Prime Minister Ardern had stated she did not want to think about this issue until after a transtasman bubble was established. However, former prime minister Helen Clark had advocated opening to the islands at the same time as Australia.

“The argument that it is better for our economy to allow Australians in before New Zealanders out to the Pacific does not stand up to scrutiny,” wrote Dunn.

“Also, most of the New Zealand dollars spent in the Cook Islands return home via exports purchased and revenue for companies like our national carrier. Finally, the lesson from the GFC is that unemployment in the islands triggers a further diaspora to [New Zealand] which becomes a welfare load and further decimates the local population.

New Zealand should open up to selected Pacific nations now, wrote Dunn.

“To not do so is illogical and damaging. It makes more sense to keep New Zealand, and the Cook Islands, Australian-free while they still have active coronavirus.”

Pacific leaders are echoing strong calls for USP Council members to work together to resolve the ongoing challenges currently faced by the region’s premier educational institution.

The call by Tuvalu Prime Minister Kausea Natano yesterday comes in the wake of mounting pressure from staff, students and stakeholders for good governance to prevail after the executive committee (EC) of the USP Council suspended vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia on Monday for alleged material misconduct, pending an investigation.

The decision by the EC sparked many demonstrations this week by concerned staff and students at USP campuses in Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

READ MORE: Civil society advocates condemn Fiji police ‘intimidation’ of USP students

Natano, who is also the chairman of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Secretariat, said all members should work together and in the Pacific way to chart a course forward for the premier institution of learning.

“Common sense must prevail if we are to be successful in bringing about lasting solutions to the ongoing challenges at the university,” he said in a statement today.

“USP is a highly valued institution for educating the young minds of future leaders of our Blue Pacific. As Pacific leaders and custodians of this vital institution of higher learning, we take pride in what the university stands for – a shining example of regionalism and the benefits of pooling our collective resources for the betterment of our Pacific people.”

Ensure governance, says Cook Islands
The Cook Islands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration shared on its social media platform the need for the USP Council to ensure governance and management of the regional university was administered and governed by established due processes.

“The welfare of the staff and students of the University must be given priority consideration, particularly amidst the unprecedented challenges that have arisen from covid-19,” the ministry said.

“As a member country of USP and as a member of council, the Cook Islands looks forward to the convening of an extraordinary council meeting this month, and joining all council members in deliberations that go to the heart of the welfare of staff and students, governance and the future of our regional university.”

Meanwhile, USP donors Australia and New Zealand, as well as Tonga also joined calls by incoming chancellor Lionel Aingimea, who is President of Nauru, and Samoa’s Education Minister Loau Sio for a special meeting of the full USP Council to be held to resolve the impasse at the regional university.

During a media conference on Thursday, pro-chancellor Winston Thompson confirmed that a special meeting of the USP Council would be held after receiving a written request from 14 council members.

The meeting is expected to take place early next week.

The Pacific Media Centre republishes Wansolwara articles in a partnership with the University of the South Pacific journalism programme.

‘Stand down,’ NFP tells Thompson

FBC reports that Fiji’s opposition National Federation Party (NFP) has called for USP pro-chancellor Winston Thompson to be stood down.

NFP president Pio Tikoduadua said vice-chancellor Pal Ahluwalia must also be reinstated until the USP Council meets next week.

He said Fiji was “meddling” in the affairs of the university, something which Fijian Education Minister Rosy Akbar had denied.

Tikoduadua said Akbar must participate in “good faith” at the planned special USP Council meeting.

Flashback to an earlier debate on the ongoing crisis at USP on Simpson @ Eight on October 17, 2020. Video: MaiTV

When Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced extending the New Zealand lockdown to past ANZAC weekend, she mentioned “co-morbidities” among parts of the population – particularly Māori and Pasifika.

She was not wrong, concern has come from the Fijian, Samoan, Tongan, and Niuean communities over the health of the elderly and the immuno-comprised to Covid-19 as a representation of Pasifika from a group of community leaders and doctors said so.

While they have all said their communities have been coping well, there are concerns for the elderly and infirmed.

READ MORE: PM says ‘devastating’ Māori, Pasifika inequalities factor in lockdown move

“Very concerned with winter approaching. In a way the lockdown may have been good for them allowing their families who would normally be at work or away to be present,” said Dr Siro Fuatai of the Samoan community.

“They are getting good social care but are missing out on some of their medical care due to the absence of face-to-face consultations with doctors.

“However, we are trying to get families to utilise our video consulting which may be good for these folk.

“Also, families are hesitant to bring them in when needed but we have informed people that as long as they let us know there are steps in place to review their elderly folk it is going to be okay,” Dr Fuatai added.

Staying in their bubble
Tongan community leader Melino Maka said people understood the meaning of staying in their bubble.

“Some of them tell me they have found a cure from social media. I tell them, please don’t tell me anything about what you have picked up from social media – go to the official sources,” he said

He has a radio show on Tongan Dateline every day through the week and he warned not to follow inaccurate “fake news” on social media that speaks of “cures”.

His advice was for the Tongan community to go to official sources like covid19.govt.nz

He said education was equally important for the people because they were so prone to social media.

As Auckland councillor for Manukau Efeso Collins said: “What we’ll probably face soon is those people who have been made redundant.

“There has been a number of community groups where people can get food parcels.

Real impact to show soon
“That has been really helpful, but the real impact will start to show over the next few weeks,” he predicted.

“When you don’t have enough income coming in you aren’t able to store and for many of our communities, they couldn’t panic buy.

“People have become a lot more trusting since there is a lot more testing stations in South Auckland.

“We are very aware of our older communities because they are the ones with pre-existing conditions, and we want to make sure they are safe,” he said.

“We’re trying to encourage them to stay in their bubble, and that is still difficult because we still have a number of grandparents who think it is okay to go out and visit the kids.”

“Unfortunately, my mother was standing outside our door the other day wanting to visit her granddaughter because we’ve just had a baby about six weeks ago.

“So we had to say, ‘oh, sorry mum just for everyone’s safety let’s just follow the rules’,” he said.

Danger of moving levels
He said part of the danger of moving out of level 4 was that “our parents were now starting to get the message home – everyone has to stay in their bubble”.

As Dr Fuatai said: “Most of the Samoan community have been very respectful of the regulations and adhering to the rules, maybe too much as some didn’t realise it was okay to do stuff for the elderly.”

A similar sentiment was echoed by Dr Apisalome Talemaitoga of the Fijian community.

“Everyone understands you need to stay in your bubble,” he said.

“Although, a very foreign concept to Fijians – to not be able congregate, visit each other for a cuppa, go to church, attend funerals and share a bowl of kava, people have found ways to interact online, by phone and social media.

“Like everyone else, the Fijian community is looking forward to the reduction of levels and restrictions when it happens.”

He was worried about old people and people with co-morbidities being at high risk.

Change to media messaging
“This is something we had to change with our media messaging,” said Dr Talemaitoga.

“We have heard of Pacific people arriving at Middlemore Emergency Department in an extreme state or children being quite unwell because parents thought that taking them ‘outside their bubble’ may cause them to be infected with coronavirus.

“We needed to say repeatedly with our messages to call doctor or Healthline for advice.”

And Dr Colin Tukuitonga of the Niuean community has been providing information to the Niuean community since Day One.

“Think they have a good understanding of it all. Many are following the lockdown rules,” he said.

“They are mostly worried about the old people being at high risk.”

However, the bigger problem was domestic violence due to loss of a jobs.

Some groups stressed
“Certain groups get stressed for financial reasons, they have been out of employment for a long time and they’ve suddenly got a job and all of a sudden they can suddenly pay their bills…they then just as suddenly find themselves out of a job and they need financial support,” Melino Maka said of the Tongan community.

And as Efeso Collins said of the Samoan community: “We definitely know from a lot of our families who are communicating with us there has been a lot of pressure in the house.

“And so we seeing an increase in reporting both in families and people connecting with others in Church and referrals of people to social agencies,” he said.

“Its really okay for mostly the men in our families to say it’s okay we are going to get through this.

“Once people have been made redundant or on 80 percent of income that is going to put real stress on families. Many of the arguments that are happening are finance related,” he said.

“We need people to see if our brothers are doing okay and friends to check if they are okay,” Collins added.

Melino Maka was waiting for some data as anecdotally he had been told there had been an increase.

No hard data
“There has been no hard data to support this and we won’t know until the lockdowns are lifted,” he said.

And Dr Talemaitoga said the Counties Manukau police have reported an increase in violence.

“Yes, Counties Manukau Police have seen a slight increase in domestic violence. Women’s Refuge has noticed an increase in demand for housing,” he said.

“Paediatricians at the hospitals explain they are concerned as they have lost the ‘safety net’ of structures/workers that often refer in children suspected of exposure to violence.

“Although, no current increase in violence seen, no doctors, plunket nurses, school health nurses, child welfare nurses and so on who normally can see this with their interactions and refer people in,” he said.

Like so many communities in New Zealand, the Pasifika community is doing it tough.

New Zealand is providing NZ$1 million to the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Suva, Fiji, to support its Pacific Action Plan for Covid-19 coronavirus preparedness and response.

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced that New Zealand is partnering with countries in the Pacific to ensure they are prepared for, and able to respond to the global threat of the infectious disease.

“There are currently no confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the Pacific, but it is vital that New Zealand is working hard in partnership with our neighbours to ensure the region is safe and as prepared as can be,” Peters said.

READ MORE: NZ foreign minister delays Pacific mission

However, Fiji health authorities reported today that there were four people suspected of being infected by the virus were in isolation and Tonga also reported a suspected case.

New Zealand is jointly funding the WHO Pacific regional coronavirus response plan, in partnership with Australia, in response to requests for assistance from Pacific island countries.

The New Zealand government has also signed a contract with the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) for countries in the South Pacific to send samples of potential Covid-19 cases to ESR’s laboratory in New Zealand for testing, free of charge.

Supporting the realm countries has been another focus of New Zealand’s preparations related to coronavirus.

“In partnership with the WHO, New Zealand has deployed a team to Cook Islands to support Covid-19 preparedness, with further joint trips planned to Tokelau and Niue from next week,” Peters said.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade media release and RNZ News.

• Coronavirus death toll in Italy now 107 – latest pandemic updates

A University of Waikato researcher says some of the current colonial representations of climate change in the Pacific are obscuring Pacific voices and failing to recognise the importance of Indigenous knowledge in the fight against the changing climate.

Dr Jessica Pasisi’s thesis, Niue Women’s Perspective and Experiences of Climate Change – a Hiapo Approach, brings together experiences and perceptions of climate change from 12 Niuean women, drawing attention to the role Indigenous knowledge, language and cultural practice can have in fighting climate change.

She says while Indigenous communities in the Pacific are on the frontline of some of the most severe impacts of climate change, the very same Pacific communities are also often fighting to be heard on the issue, commonly being presented through a colonial lens.

READ MORE: Niue Women’s Perspective and Experiences of Climate Change – a Hiapo Approach

“While Pacific leaders fight to be heard, our people are also fighting to reclaim and draw attention to Indigenous knowledge, language and cultural practice as key areas for strategies of sustainability and resilience,” said Dr Pasisi.

Dr Pasisi said mainstream media focused on headlines such as, “How to save a sinking island nation.” Or, “Australia to help Pacific neighbours adapt to climate change”, but it eroded Pacific people’s agency and failed to recognise the work already underway in the Pacific by many Pacific organisations, as well as ancestral knowledge that had ensured the survival of Pacific people for generations.

It also failed to reflect the island nations’ solidarity in drawing attention to the issue of climate change and fighting for larger emitting nations and corporations to be held accountable for their inaction and indifference.

“Climate change is a massive risk and something facing the Pacific as a whole and you will find in most islands people are calling to have their own voice on the issue, to control the narrative and speak their own truth, but also to be in positions where they influence and lead decision making,” said Dr Pasisi.

Building a platform
Of Niuean descent, Dr Pasisi hopes her research will build a platform to broaden the conversation among academics, researchers and consultants working on climate change in the Pacific and recognise the agency of Pacific people at a grassroots level.

“Research of climate change in the Pacific is still largely conducted by outsiders. It is really important that our stories are told by our people in our own ways, that’s why I argue these Niue women’s experiences and perspectives are vital for how we understand and respond to climate change,” says Dr Pasisi.

The women traverse topics from the impacts of tourism, to migration within and outside the islands and the loss of language and cultural practice that informs the sustainable management of environmental resources.

“These women’s stories are important and powerful because their insight and culturally specific knowledge has value in grappling with the complex changes caused by climate change,” said Dr Pasisi.

She said it was important to recognise people who held knowledge were not always in positions of power.

She plans to convert her research into a book and continue working with Niue communities in Aotearoa and Niue.

“I want to give encouragement that Pacific people’s voices do matter. It’s through these people we can challenge the dominant Eurocentric coverage of climate change and see the realities, possibilities and broader underlying issues that are being compounded in the Pacific by climate change.”

A University of Waikato media release.

A housing trust chief executive has condemned the government for taking “short cuts” to tackle New Zealand’s housing crisis.

“We need to stop pulling rabbits out of hats and looking for quick fixes,” said Bernie Smith, CEO of Monte Cecilia Housing Trust.

Speaking at the annual Bruce Jesson Foundation lecture in Auckland on the topic “housing crisis – a smoking gun with no silver bullet”, he soundly criticised the government for not doing enough to provide affordable housing.

“A bit dramatic but I am known to be dramatic from time to time.”

READ MORE: Tūhoe leader’s address to deliver ‘hard truths’ about New Zealand

He said that there were no short-cuts to building affordable housing.

Smith has 40 years of experience in various forms of leadership in state and local government and not-for-profit sector.

The lecture has been delivered in previous years by prominent figures such as investigative journalist Nicky Hager and a former prime minister, David Lange, in honour of the late journalist and political thinker Bruce Jesson.

Work together
To resolve the housing crisis, Smith said the government and bureaucrats needed to work together and have a generational housing strategy that “builds strong housing communities for the present and the future generations”.

The coalition has been in government for 11 months and it has been “claiming all the issues that we are confronted with today are solely due to previous government”, he said.

“We need to stop the blame game, we need to stop thinking central or local government will resolve this issue, that housing first or some other programme is a quick fix,” he said.

Barry Wilson, president of Auckland Council for Civil Liberties, said that the political parties should be working together to “house the homeless in a comfortable secure condition”.

“There should be some unified political approach, it’s not productive every time they change the government,” Wilson said.

Long term strategy
New Zealand needs a 25 to 30-year-long housing strategy “that every political party agrees and signs to”, Smith said

“Labour has a plan that National is trying to drag down. What they should do is be working together on a long-term plan, not one that depends on the three-year election cycle,” Wilson said.

New Zealand housing strategy should be created not by the politicians or bureaucrats, rather by the people from the community, who have lived with experience, like the homeless, the renters, community housing providers, and people form wide ethnic communities including Māori or Pasifika, Smith said.

“A strategy that looks at the whole of the continuum and recognises into generational living affordable rentals, affordable home ownership, does not forget a strategy that includes building strong healthy and safe communities with clear mile stones and targets,” he said.

Smith said the country needed to have a strategy that is housing community “value” focused rather than the housing “volume” focused.

Community value was focused when each and every individual is seen as equal no matter their housing option, either state housing, private renter, or an owner-occupier.

Overcrowded households
In Auckland there are 92,000 households living in unaffordable rental situations spending more than the 30 percent of their net income on rent.

“Thirty six thousand households living in overcrowded conditions.”

In Auckland alone, there is 20,300 homeless people, where the Māori population is five times and Pasifika 10 times more disproportionately affected.

Kiwi Build was not an affordable housing solution to many New Zealanders as it was only affordable to middle class people with higher household incomes, Smith said.

Smith said it was noted at a recent Kiwi Build Affordability meeting with Auckland city mayor Phil Goff:

“Auckland Council’s chief economist stated in July that to buy a 3-bedroom Kiwi Build house at $650,000 they will need either an income of $106,000 with a $130k (20 percent) deposit or an income of $120,000 and a $65,000 (10 percent deposit) for the household to affordably purchase a Kiwi Build home (and that is with debt servicing ratio of 35 percent.

“This means that Kiwi Build houses are only affordable for the top 40 percent of Auckland’s households.”

• Housing issue not just ethnic – Pākehā leaders have ‘failed’, says author
• Pasifika voters want ‘hand-ups, not hand-outs’ in NZ housing crisis

Japan’s candidate, Dr Takeshi Kasai, has been elected as the next World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Director for the Western Pacific.

Health ministers and other senior officials from 30 countries voted yesterday during the 69th session of the WHO Regional Committee for the Western Pacific in Manila, Philippines.

Dr Kasai’s nomination will be submitted for appointment to the 114th session of the WHO executive board to take place in January 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland.

READ MORE: Tukuitonga goes into battle on behalf of Pacific

The new regional director will take office on 1 February for a term of five years. Regional directors may serve up to two terms.

Current regional director Dr Shin Young-soo, who has served since 2009, offered best wishes to his successor.

“I warmly congratulate and sincerely wish Dr Kasai the very best as the next regional director,” he said.

“When he takes the reins in February, he will inherit a strong and robust organisation, and the honour of working with a diverse group of countries joined by a formidable bond of solidarity and an unwavering commitment to delivering better health for all.”

New Zealand campaign
New Zealand campaigned in support of Dr Colin Tukuitonga for the position and he came second out of the four candidates in the running. The other chief candidates were from the Philippines and Malaysia.

If successful, Dr Tukuitonga would have been the first Regional Director from New Zealand and the first of Pacific descent.

Dr Tukuitonga was unanimously nominated by Pacific health ministers in 2017 as their candidate for the Regional Director position. New Zealand subsequently supported Dr Tukuitonga, who is a New Zealander of Niuean origin.

“Although we are disappointed with the result, we are pleased that we fought a good campaign and can hold our heads high,” said Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa, who was in Manila to support New Zealand’s candidate in the election.

“The region has made its decision and they have chosen to elect the Japanese candidate. We wish him well in his new role and look forward to working with him in the future.”

Later this week, the regional committee will adopt action plans to address a variety of health issues affecting the region’s nearly 1.9 billion people. They include:

• Fighting neglected tropical diseases;
• Strengthening rehabilitation services;’
• Improving hospital planning and management;
• Harnessing e-health for improved service delivery; and
• Strengthening legal frameworks for health in the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Regional Committee will also discuss progress on health security, infectious and noncommunicable diseases, and environmental health.

• Japanese aid funding splits Pacific unity

Health challenges in the Pacific Islands require acute and immediate attention from the World Health Organisation, says Dr Colin Tukuitonga, a New Zealander of Niuean descent whose nomination was proposed by New Zealand.

Dr Tukuitonga goes into battle this week for the position of WHO regional director for the Western Pacific, in a struggle which takes place on October 8-13 in Manila, Philippines.

He is up against three others – Dr Narimah Awin, proposed by Malaysia; Dr Takeshi Kasai, proposed by Japan; Dr Susan Mercado, proposed by the Philippines – at the nomination which will take place during the 69th session of the Regional Committee for the Western Pacific.

READ MORE: Background on the WHO issue

“I know what needs to be done,” he says emphatically.

“Without a doubt it is our turn, not just for climate change but other health challenges such as Non-communicable diseases (NCD) (diabetes and heart disease) child health, polio in Papua New Guinea, and the list goes on.”

He says it is a position that needs fresh thinking and new leadership in keeping with good governance rather than being bogged in the mire of bureaucracy.

Already Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea have publicly indicated they will vote for Japan.

‘More of the same’
“Voting for Japan is a vote for more of the same. The candidate is a long-term staff member of WHO,” says Dr Tukuitonga.

“WHO Western Pacific Region (WPRO) needs change and transformation, lift impact, get value for money, improve transparency and accountability. The region needs diversity in leadership.”

Dr Tukuitonga is guarded against talk of the money-game buying votes in the process.

“Only in so far as offers made by Japan to small islands, such as a new airport extension in Solomon Islands,” he says, and quickly adds “New Zealand is meeting most of the costs of my campaign”.

His expectation is that all the Pacific Island countries will back him – at least when it comes to voting from the second round onwards. However, he expects that he has done all the work he could to convince countries to vote for him.

“It is hard to say which way countries will vote, but all Polynesia, plus Micronesia, plus Nauru and New Zealand, Australia, France and the United Kingdom have indicated support for me,” he says.

“Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji have signalled support for Japan.
Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands have made public statements supporting Japan.
We are told Vanuatu and Fiji also (supporting Japan), but it is not public.”

Nomination backed
It was only last year that the Pacific Island countries backed his nomination for the regional director’s position, and he is left wondering what the difference is now.

“They (Pacific Island Countries) approached me to stand back in October 2017. We can’t win without remaining united, where is the regionalism? Where’s the Pacific way?” he asks.

And Dr Tukuitonga answers the question himself.

“I suppose it’s an issue for Pacific leaders.

“Do we believe in our ability to influence global and regional affairs? Do we have the skills and talent as a region, rather than being viewed as passive, poor and dependent? Can we truly harness our collective power?

“Solomons benefited from RAMSI (Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands), and now this! Where’s the solidarity? Is there a future for regionalism? Is regionalism a fact or a fallacy?” he asks.

In the meantime, Dr Tukuitonga must gird his loins for battle and at stake is the championing of the Western Pacific region.

Sri Krishnamurthi is a journalist and Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies student at Auckland University of Technology. He is attached to the University of the South Pacific’s Journalism Programme, filing for USP’s Wansolwara News and the AUT Pacific Media Centre’s Asia Pacific Report.

• Japanese development aid fund splits Pacific unity on key WHO post

The New Zealand government has committed $NZ6 million ($F8.84 million) to improve the University of the South Pacific’s digital e-learning sector.

The commitment was revealed by USP Vice-Chancellor Professor Rajesh Chandra during the unveiling of the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) commemorative monument at the Laucala campus last week.

The grant is expected to boost USPNet and ICT developments.

“New Zealand contributed significantly to the development of USPNet and to ICT development that strengthened links between all our campuses and greatly improved both the administrative communication and the teaching capacity of USP,” he said.

“We are very grateful that NZ has made a grant of $NZ6 million to totally re-engineer USPNet and replace all the satellite dishes to create a 21st century learning network for the Pacific Islands. This is a special contribution from NZ to mark our 50th anniversary.”

Air force base campus
Meanwhile, New Zealand Defence Minister Ron Mark also announced two new developments in Fiji and New Zealand’s defence relationship when he joined more than 100 ex-5 Squadron servicemen and women for the unveiling of the commemorative monument to mark the land that was once home to the RNZAF 32 years ago.

“The New Zealand government announced the deployment of both the Royal New Zealand Navy inshore and offshore patrol vessels to Fiji later this year. The first, the IPV will be here in May, the OPV will follow after that,” he said.

“These and the deployment of the two technical advisers from the New Zealand Army and the Royal New Zealand Navy are two examples of our collaborative approach to supporting the development of our respective forces.”

Mark said he was also honoured to be able to commemorate the unveiling of the monument and the university’s 50th anniversary.

“Both of these partnerships are very important to New Zealand,” he said.

Salote Qalubau is a final year University of the South Pacific journalism student reporting for Wansolwara News.

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says the New Zealand government’s Pacific Mission will take place early next month and travel to Tonga, Samoa, Niue, and the Cook Islands.

“It will be an honour to have the Pacific Mission led by the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and is a further sign of the importance New Zealand attaches to our Pacific neighbours,” Peters said, confirming the dates as March 4-9.

“The government carefully considered whether the Pacific Mission would impose a burden on Tonga and Samoa in the wake of Tropical Cyclone Gita.”

“However the government decided to proceed to allow the delegation to see first-hand the ongoing response. We will also discuss with the governments of Tonga and Samoa, as much as able to be learned at this point, what support is required for long-term recovery,” he said.

The Pacific Mission delegation is made up of MPs, Pasifika community leaders, and NGO representatives.

The delegation size is smaller this year with the mission changing focus because of Tropical Cyclone Gita.

“New Zealand’s close ties with Samoa and Tonga are built on a deep bilateral partnership, and a shared commitment to Pacific regionalism. Niue and Cook Islands are constitutional partners for New Zealand and we share citizenship as well as a set of mutual obligations and responsibilities,” Peters said.

• More Cyclone Gita reports

An international TechCamp event, funded by the US Embassy in New Zealand and organised by the University of Otago’s Health Science division, has brought together public health professionals from across the Pacific to participate in technology training and capacity-building workshops.

Participants from Fiji, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Sāmoa, Solomon Islands and Tonga worked on developing local strategies to address mosquito-borne diseases and implement vector control on January 25-26.

Forty Pacific health communicators were trained in new media technologies to foster innovation and develop solutions to combat diseases such as zika and dengue fever.

The participants collaborated with other Pacific health workers to foster timely and accurate information to their communities, regional policy makers, and international funding bodies.

Smart phone strategies
One workshop, led by Mina Vilayleck of the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement), introduced smart phone interviewing techniques to health communicators from Aotearoa, Fiji, Hawai‘i and Palau.

As the communication adviser for the ePOP (e-Participatory Observers Project),  Vilayleck trains community members in photographic, video, and radio technologies to create impactful content to present to local, regional, and international communities and media outlets.

Based from New Caledonia, ePOP links science, society, and media, creating a platform to raise awareness, publicise online activities, and support action plans.

ePOP is country-specific and flexible depending on the situation and context.

The project creates a community of observers who gather information to share, assists with creating an editorial narrative, and helps with new media production.

Local observers use smartphones to interview and document and gather comments to create content.

If needed, they send the raw visual data to ePOP which assists with the development of a storyline which includes bilingual text and local dialects.

This enables the communities to share with other intertropical countries facing similar challenges and enables them to exchange their experiences.

Training future trainers
In addition, ePOP conducts 3-day trainings in-country with the aim of “training future trainers” in the community.

The course covers how to create a storyboard and narrative before you film, how to use a smartphone and to always shoot horizontally, the importance of sound and ensuring that the light is behind you, video capturing basics of remaining stable and slow with your movements, asking the interviewee to remove their glasses and to wait three seconds before responding to making editing later easier, and editing and post-production.

The current Pilot Site 1, includes documentation points in New Caledonia, Fiji, Vanuatu, and Aotearoa New Zealand.

Specifically, for issues surrounding climate change, she emphasises the necessity of including local and indigenous knowledge along with new technologies to document the emotions and observations from the communities experiencing the changing environment.

The short videos communicate to the media and policy makers the resiliency of Pacific communities and highlights their perspectives and voices within climate change circles.

Vilayleck spoke of how receptive the youth are to this form of data collection and storytelling and adaptable to new technologies.

For her, the goal is to share the knowledge and ePOP is committed to community participatory approaches.

She encourages those working in the Pacific, and specifically in the Pilot 1 sites, to get in touch with her if interested in collaborating.

Dr Sylvia C. Frain is a postdoctoral research fellow with Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre.

Australia’s recent Foreign Policy White Paper says that Australia’s approach in the region will focus on “helping to integrate Pacific countries in the Australian and New Zealand economies and our security institutions”. Does this mean effectively a recolonisation of parts of the Pacific?

Terence O’Brien (Money, military keys to Australian foreign policy, December 15) refers to the Australian emphasis on the need for United States/Australian co-operation “to shape order” in the Asia Pacific.

O’Brien comments that the current aberrant behaviour of the Trump administration seems to be assumed by the White Paper to be a temporary phenomenon – “essentially bumps in the road on the highway of enlightened American-led progress”.

Few in New Zealand would agree the Trump administration is likely to change its ways. Recent presidential tweets suggest a determination to plumb new depths.

Many New Zealanders are puzzled by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s avowal that Australia and the Trump Administration are “joined at the hip” for security purposes.

Now, Australia is proposing changes which would have a profound impact on our own Pacific neighbourhood and on fundamental New Zealand interests.

“Integrating” Pacific countries into Australian and New Zealand institutions: to achieve anything, this would have to involve surrender of at least some sovereignty. It would be seen by many in the region as a form of recolonisation, a modern version of the way Britain colonised Fiji, New Zealand and others in the 19th century.

Compact-style arrangements
Australian analysts suggest this integration should be achieved by establishing arrangements with Nauru, Tuvalu and Kiribati along the lines of Compacts which the United States has with its former Trust Territories in the Pacific, Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands.

In return for significant aid, these Pacific countries agree to deny access to their countries for all nations except the United States. The arrangements between New Zealand and the Cook Islands and Niue have also been mentioned.

But all these arrangements were negotiated by the United States and New Zealand respectively before the Pacific countries became independent or self-governing. For them to move to a more limited form of independence would be seen by many as a step backwards towards their colonial pasts; and at a time when the focus in the Pacific is on increased self-determination for Pacific Island countries, not less.

An experienced Australian commentator, Nic Maclellan, has suggested, however, that it’s folly to believe that Pacific countries would allow Australia to set the security agenda: “That horse has already bolted”.

One of the authors of this piece knows very well Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu, having visited many times. They are proud of their independence and to suggest in this 21st century that that should now be qualified or restricted is simply remarkable. There would be strong opposition.

Pacific leaders have become increasingly outspoken pursuing or defending their own interests.
Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama of Fiji has developed his reputation for this over several years.

Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi of Samoa, current chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, has reacted angrily to the Australian government’s criticism of Chinese aid in the Pacific (“useless buildings” and “roads to nowhere”). The Prime Minister said these comments were “insulting to Pacific island leaders”.

Diminishing influence
The Australian initiative would hasten a trend which is already diminishing Australian and New Zealand influence in the region. Pacific island perceptions that the two countries are becoming less supportive of Pacific aspirations over recent years have already resulted in a significant backlash.

Climate change is understandably given a much higher priority by island countries than by Australia and New Zealand. Trenchant positions by these two countries have prevented the Pacific Islands Forum taking positions fully reflecting island countries’ intense concern about the potentially catastrophic impact of climate change on several Forum members.

A consequence has been an emphasis on island country roles outside the Pacific Islands Forum. This has given impetus to other regional groupings and there has been much talk of this “New Pacific Diplomacy”.

Without a change by Australia and New Zealand to more responsive reactions to island countries, giving them greater agency within the Pacific Islands Forum, this longstanding regional body is likely to continue to diminish in relative importance.

The new Australian policy, aimed at securing control of aspects of foreign policy in several island countries, will be seen as another, larger, step away from support for Pacific self-determination and agency.

The case against New Zealand supporting this latest Australian move is strong:

New Zealand support for national and regional self-determination in the Pacific, or “Pacific agency” as some call it, has been fundamental to its foreign policy for decades.

Significant break
Supporting this new initiative would be a significant break with this longstanding policy and would be deeply unpopular both in the region and overseas.

New Zealand’s relationships and influence in the Pacific would suffer from such a change, affecting also our influence on security issues – ironically the proposed policy is justified on security grounds.

New Zealand’s global reputation and influence, depending in part on our reputation and standing in our home region, would also suffer.

There is no evidence that interventions in the Pacific as proposed in the Australian Foreign Policy White Paper are actually necessary to preserve or ensure regional security, which is best served by effective collaborative diplomacy with Pacific partners.

Our Australian relationship is our most important and we should seek common policies where we can. This initiative, however, would be against fundamental New Zealand interests in our own neighbourhood. It would be a step too far.

Michael Powles, a former NZ diplomat, is a senior fellow of the Centre for Strategic Studies, Victoria University of Wellington. Dr Anna Powles is a senior lecturer at the Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Massey University, Wellington. They are currently writing a book about New Zealand’s role in the Pacific. This article was first published in The Dominion Post and has been republished by Asia Pacific Report with the permission of the authors.

• Money, military keys to Aussie foreign policy

Vanuatu is the latest Melanesian state to express reservations on the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) agreement between members of the Pacific Islands Forum (the Forum Island Countries plus Australia and New Zealand), PACER-Plus.

The Vanuatu government announced last week that it will not sign the PACER Plus agreement and has decided to pull out of the signing tomorrow after its Council of Ministers’ called for more time to assess the benefits of the regional agreement for Vanuatu.

The decision by Vanuatu comes as no surprise as other Melanesian states, including Papua New Guinea, decided last year that it would not be taking part in the PACER-Plus negotiations, nor would it sign the finalised instruments.

Fiji later followed with threats that it would not sign the agreement as there was lack of flexibility from Australia and New Zealand.

Vanuatu shares similar concerns with both PNG and Fiji on possible loss from such an agreement, the need for an impact assessment, and the protection of infant industries.

PNG walks out early
When PNG sent warning bells in March last year that the PACER-Plus negotiations looked shaky and needed more time for consultation, it had a list of concerns and was ready to talk with both Australia and New Zealand.

But it was during that time that PNG had reached a resolution to withdraw from PACER-Plus.

In August, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill announced the country would disengage with regional negotiations, stressing that based on assessments PACER-Plus would be a disadvantage for its economy.

With attempts by Australia and New Zealand to persuade PNG to return to the regional trade talks, O’Neill stood firm on the country’s assessments, saying, “PNG will not be signing as it would be a net-loss to the PNG economy.”

PNG’s Trade Minister Richard Maru nailed the country’s position when pressured at bilateral meetings, adding that any trade agreement with Australia, New Zealand and other Pacific Islands, that reduced employment, and “killed” the manufacturing industry by removing tariffs and duty would not be acceptable in PNG.

“How many times will I make it clear to Australia and New Zealand that Papua New Guinea will not sign the Pacer-Plus agreement that seeks to advance Australia and New Zealand’s commercial interest at the expense of our national interest” Maru said.

“We are not signing PACER-Plus in its current form because the move to remove tariff and duty will kill our manufacturing sector.”

The furious Maru later called out the Australian government, saying “we will not sign and we will not listen to anyone. I’ve made that very clear … my message to Australia is stop sending any of your agents to PNG and start talking about a comprehensive partnership agreement with us.”

Fiji left unhappy
Last September, Fiji threatened to walk away from the regional trade agreement negotiation after its concerns were not addressed.

The country’s Trade Minister, Faiyaz Koya, said there was a lack of flexibility from Australia and New Zealand on Fiji and Pacific Islands key concerns.

During a RNZ international interview, Minister Koya emphasised that Fiji wanted further negotiations on two very critical issues, on infant industry protection and the “most-favoured-nation” clause that would have an implication for Fiji’s development aspirations.

Fiji’s call for more time to negotiate its concerns was ignored when the Office of the Chief Trade Advisor (OCTA) hastened the process and concluded negotiations in April  in Australia, thus leaving Fiji out of the final talks.

The April conclusion also ignored Fiji’s appeal for a deferral due to conflicting schedules.

“Fiji hadn’t opted out of PACER-Plus, we remain committed … but we were excluded from the Brisbane meeting,” said Minister Koya.

Final negotiations criticised
After eight years of negotiations, PACER-Plus was concluded in Australia in April this year. This regional trade agreement is said to enhance the economic development of Pacific island countries through greater regional trade and economic integration with Australia and New Zealand.

But it has been severely criticised as burdensome on Pacific bureaucracies and undermining Pacific Island countries’ ability to support their local economies.

This week the 13 countries participating will sign the agreement in Nuku’alofa, Tonga.

The fear is that 11 island states will agree and sign a poorly designed agreement locking in Australia and New Zealand as winners.

What has been concluded is a deal with no guaranties of benefits from labour mobility and only a promise of 5 years of aid money, but undermines the ability of the Pacific to determine for themselves what development is and the tools to pursue Pacific development aspirations.

The 13 countries participating in PACER-Plus are Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Tuvalu.

Realities for Solomon Islands
The Solomon Islands has a choice to decide whether or not it will sign on to PACER-Plus.

It would have similar concerns expressed by its fellow Melanesian comrades. But it is a choice between letting Australia and New Zealand impose their development vision via PACER-Plus or the opportunity to have a development that reflects the reality and possibilities in the Solomon Islands.

A report by Solomon Islands to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in November last year summed up the economic impact under PACER-Plus as “increased imports from developed country partners are likely to exceed the modest increase in Solomon Islands’ exports, due to the extent of liberalisation demanded by the aforementioned parties and limited productive capacity in the domestic economy. The short term adjustment and implementation costs are likely to impose significant economic and political pressures.”

Australia is currently the number one source of imports for the Solomon Islands, a situation that will be further entrenched under PACER-Plus. The increase in imports from Australia and New Zealand will really be felt when Solomon Islands is set to reduce import taxes on at least 80 percent of imports from these countries.

While this won’t come into effect until the Solomon Islands graduates from Least-Developed Country status – if it passes the 2018 evaluation then graduation will be likely in 2021 – resulting in a loss of US$11million from government revenue.

Solomon Islands had recommended to the WTO that it saw itself aligning with the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in preference to Australia and New Zealand in the future, and PACER-Plus could have them on the wrong path if they sign up.

PACER-Plus will have a serious impact on the ability for Solomon Islanders to determine for themselves their own development future.

Joey Tau is media and campaigns officer of the Suva-based Pacific Network on Globalisation.

• Vanuatu will not sign PACER-Plus

A new trade agreement has been concluded between some of the Pacific island nations and their richer neighbours — Australia and New Zealand. The PACER Plus agreement has been controversial during the 8 years of negotiations.

There were promises that this would not be a usual free trade agreement, but instead would be for the benefit of the Pacific.

However, announcements of the final agreement shows those promises have not be met. The agreement has been shaped more by the advantages to Australia and New Zealand exporters than the aspirations of the Pacific’s people.

One of the key benefits that the region was seeking was a substantial aid package that would enable Pacfic countries to increase their supply of goods and services for export. However, the amount provided of $55 million over 5 years, to be shared across the 12 Pacific island countries is less than 1 percent of the current level of NZ and Australian aid to the Pacific.

A far more significant programme of skills training and infrastructure building is required to boost productive capacity in Pacific island countries.

A second benefit sought was a commitment from Australia and New Zealand to provide visas for specific numbers of seasonal workers. This was not agreed. The current system of adjustable numbers of seasonal workers will continue.

And thirdly, the Pacific wanted access to Australia’s markets. Currently Pacific exporters can’t export tropical fruit that is produced in Australia, like bananas and pineapples, and imports of kava are severely restricted.

Australia’s closed markets
However, PACER Plus does not include provisions to open up Australia’s markets, even though the Pacific countries are required to do so.

The Pacific will bear costs from PACER Plus. Firstly, there will be a loss of tariff revenue from reducing their tariff rates. This will have an adverse impact on funding for social priorities like health care and education, as well as the costs of protection from climate change impacts and adaptation measures.

The experience of Pacific nations, like Tonga, under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) shows that it is difficult to replace lost revenue through indirect taxes, like GST, a point made by the IMF.

Cutbacks in public services and public sector staff are likely to occur. This is likely to be exacerbated by the investment provisions in PACER Plus that will put pressure on governments to allow foreign investors to privatise those public services that are potentially profitable.

Secondly, PACER Plus includes restrictions on governments’ right to regulate. These have been used in the past to prevent Pacific governments from restricting imports that have adverse social impacts. In particular, the New Zealand government has mounted pressure, using trade agreements, to stop Pacific governments from restricting the import of unhealthy foods.

There have been calls for New Zealand to stop exporting fatty foods to the Pacific, but these restrictions are not included in PACER Plus.

Thirdly, PACER Plus will undermine producers and small business. Local food producers have long been concerned about PACER Plus, as was shown in a Social Impact Assessment undertaken by civil society organisations. Their livelihoods are already threatened by cheap and unhealthy imports that are undermining local foods.

Accelerating unhealthy imports trend
PACER Plus is likely to accelerate that trend and prevent Pacific countries from being able to introduce measures that would restrict imports and favour the development of local foods.
The development of most of the “developed” economies was supported through measures to provide initial protection while they were able to produce and gain competitiveness.

But these “infant industry” measures are restricted in PACER Plus. This was a key issue for Papua New Guinea and Fiji. As the Pacific’s largest economies, they need to provide local opportunities for youth employment and building a viable domestic economy is crucial for their development.

There are major implications on the smallest and most vulnerable Pacific countries. PACER Plus would extend the core of WTO’s trade rules to the Pacific island countries, such as Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Republic of Marshall Islands and Tuvalu that are not WTO members.

Further, the absence of the two largest economies in the Pacific from PACER Plus (PNG and Fiji) undermines Pacific regionalism, an aim long supported by NZ and Australia. This undermines the Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA) and the Melanesia countries’ trade agreement.

PACER Plus also undermines the framework for Pacific regionalism, a long standing aim of Australia and New Zealand, as well as the Pacific island nations themselves.

The agreement has been driven too much by Australia and New Zealand’s commercial interests.

New Zealand Trade Minister, Todd McClay stated that PACER Plus “future-proofs our access.” This is achieved through “Most Favoured Nation” provisions that mean that Australia and New Zealand will get as good a deal as any other country.

‘Lock-in’ resisted by Fiji, PNG
This is likely to undermine preferences that could be provided to poorer developing countries. This “lock-in” of preferences has been resisted by Fiji and PNG. These disputes over PACER Plus are likely to drive deeper wedges in the relationships between NZ and these two most influential Pacific nations.

Finally, there has been a lack of transparency and constructive engagement with civil society in the Pacific. While there have been some meetings with civil society, and information sessions to NGOs and business, the text of PACER Plus has not been made available to civil society, small business or Parliamentarians to understand what is being signed.

Trade is crucial to the Pacific, but the agreements need to be fair. PACER Plus will be officially signed in Tonga in June. There is still time for a rethink.

Barry Coates is a Member of Parliament for the Green Party, based in Auckland. He was director of Oxfam New Zealand for 2003-14, and has worked for many years on Pacific trade issues, in collaboration with Pacific civil society.

• PACER Plus negotiations ended
  
• Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG)

Niuean taro has made a return to the shelves and the stomachs of many in New Zealand — but the humble vegetable has come at a cost.

The Niuean taro is being sold at the Mangere Food Market for $12.99 a kg – more than twice the price of the Fijian and Samoan equivalent.

Managing director for the Mangere Food Market, Vutha Hang says transport costs are to blame.

“Reason why it’s more expensive is because they send it via plane, if they send it via boat then it’ll be cheaper,” he says.

Hang was approached by Shopexports and Freight Ltd to sell the product. Others had declined the offer, he said.

“For me I’ll try, if the people buy it then I’ll carry on and sell it, but if people don’t buy it then I have to stop.”

Shopexports and Freight Ltd, which imports the taro for Mangere Food Market, claims on its Facebook page that the produce supports growers in Niue.

Niuean expats claim their country’s product is of a superior quality than other Pacific varieties.

Fotu Jackson, a Pacific engagement manager at AUT University, says from her extensive knowledge of the Pacific she believes Niuean taro is one of the best.

“I think Niuean taro has a lot more taste, the texture is different than other taro from the Pacific – and I say that as a Samoan,” she says.

Jackson says the soil in Niue is very rich, and she believes this contributes to the uniqueness of the Niuean variety.

Hang says a lot of customers come into his store and look for the taro but only a few actually buy it.

Jackson says despite the price of the Niuean taro, it is worth it.

“I was actually one of the people who drove to buy the taro.”

Jackson says there are not many places you can buy Niuean taro, whereas the Fijian and Samoan variety is readily available throughout the country.

“When it comes to New Zealand it’s really popular, it’s in high demand.”

Repeated efforts to get comment from Shopexports and Freight Ltd were not been successful.

Brandon Ulfsby is a student journalist with Auckland University of Technology’s traning newspaper Te Waha Nui.

Pacific Islands Development Forum Secretary-General Francois Martel says he is extremely concerned at the low level of ratification of the Paris Agreement to date, with only 22 countries and 1.0 percent of emissions.

“The report confirms our worst fears that time is not on our side and that projections on climate impacts were very much underestimated,” he said.

“This is why Pacific leaders need to remain vigilant and champion the ratification and implementation of the Paris Agreement globally.”

The State of the Climate 2015 report released online by the American Meteorological Society also disclosed how important it is for Pacific leaders to continue their advocacy for climate action at COP22 and beyond.

Martel added that Pacific nations together represented nearly one-fifth of the planet and this would send a strong message to the rest of the world if such a treaty could be agreed upon and ratified by the most vulnerable nations on Earth.

“Pacific leaders did it before to pledge allegiance against nuclear arms so we should now look at fossil fuels in the same light.

“This report for the Pacific reminds us of the urgency and confirms that climate induced impacts will destroy our nations. The Pacific Islands should continue to be at the forefront of that battle,” he said.

‘Broke records’
The report also confirmed that 2015 surpassed 2014 as the warmest year since the mid-to-late 19th century.

Climate indicators in the report show patterns, changes, and trends of the global climate system, several markers such as land and ocean temperatures, sea levels and greenhouse gases broke records set just one year prior.

Last year’s record heat resulted from the combined influence of long-term global warming and one of the strongest El Niño events the globe has experienced since at least 1950.

Furthermore a Guardian article published this month has stated that limiting global temperatures to below the 1.5 degree target, negotiated in Paris last year, and measured in relation to pre-industrial temperatures, would be extremely difficult.

The article published figures based on Met Office data by meteorologist Ed Hawkins of Reading University that showed the average global temperatures have been more than one degree above pre-industrial levels for every month except one this year.

“Warm Waters’” a photoessay on climate change by Russian photojournalist Vlad Sokhin, is the best piece of reporting on climate change in the Pacific. It is a must-see collection!

Sokhin’s images and text capture the grave threat climate change poses to the Pacific islands from sea level rise, hotter weather, changes to rainfall and stronger cyclones.

Browse the photoessay here, and encourage your colleagues and friends to see it too!

• Vlad Sokhin’s Warm Waters photoessay on climate change
• Vlad Sokhin’s website
• Vlad Sokhin at Panos Pictures
• Pacific Media Centre’s Bearing Witness reports, videos and images

Declaration of Human Rights-based Approach to Journalism in the Pacific, Nadi, Fiji, 15 April 2016

“Giving voice to the voiceless” and “championing the rights of all peoples’ were key messages highlighted at the Human Rights and Media Forum attended this week by senior journalists and government communication officers from 13 Pacific countries.

Supported by the Australian Government and European Union, the forum reaffirmed the vital role of media in highlighting human rights issues and the importance of news reporting with a human rights-based approach.

The forum highlighted the importance of building strong relationships between government communication personnel and journalists in sharing and disseminating information.

An outcomes document will be presented in poster format for newsrooms in the region, providing practical tips for “rights-based reporting”.

“Human rights-oriented journalism is more focused on global instead of selective reporting, with an emphasis on the vulnerable and empowerment for the affected and marginalised people – a voice for the voiceless,” Professor David Robie, journalist, author and director of the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) Pacific Media Centre, told participants at the opening of the forum.

Dr Robie is author of Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific.

Marian Kupu of Broadcom Broadcasting in Tonga said: “I found the three-day forum very encouraging because I have learnt about my country’s human rights commitments and I see my role as a journalist to report on the gaps to encourage decision-makers to prioritise and address the issues.”

The forum was organised by the Regional Rights Resource Team (RRRT) of the Pacific Community (SPC) in partnership with the Pacific Media Assistance Scheme (PACMAS), the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) and the University of the South Pacific (USP) Journalism.

The three-day forum has strengthened  media capacity in “rights-based reporting” to reflect the aspirations of Pacific island communities for equality, development and social justice, said SPC’s team leader of RRRT, Nicol Cave.

Some participants also watched the feature film Balibo about the murder by Indonesian soldiers of the Balibo 5 journalists and Roger East who went to East Timor to investigate their deaths in 1975.

• Pacific Community’s Regional Human Rights programme
• David Robie’s keynote address

A large contingent of Pacific island country officials will be among delegates from 60 countries meeting in Auckland today to discuss latest tactics to fight illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing across the globe.

The 5th Global Fisheries Enforcement Training Workshop (GFETW) will align to the theme: “Working together to combat IUU fishing to ensure the sustainability of world fish stocks.”

Hosted by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and the International Monitoring Control and Surveillance (MCS) Network, it is an opportunity for nations to update each other on the latest techniques and technologies and to strengthen the communication ties that makes the MCS network successful.

The International MCS Network focuses in particular on enhancing cooperation with developing countries, and at the 4th GFETW held in Costa Rica 2014, several presentations pointed to the need to deploy additional efforts in developing countries in order to strengthen their capacities to implement effectively internationally agreed measures. These efforts were urged to address governance, legislation and technical capacities (means and skills).

MPI spokesperson Dean Baigent said global co-operation means there was increasingly nowhere to hide for boats and crews that deliberately plunder high seas fisheries.

“We have a successful network where nations share information gathered from satellite monitoring, aerial surveillance, catch data and vessel inspections that targets illegal operators and makes it very difficult to profit from IUU fishing.”

Obvious host
Baigent plugged New Zealand as the obvious country to host the global workshop.

“We are responsible for managing the world’s fourth largest Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and are an active participant in monitoring and patrolling the toothfish fishery in the Southern Ocean and the tuna fishery in the southwest Pacific Ocean.”

Niue’s MCS Officer Launoa Gataua certainly hopes the meeting will deliver on its objective as Niue desperately needs help for the monitoring, control and surveillance of its 360,000 sq km fishery.

Niue had only recently re-opened its waters for fishing in June 2013 and so far licensed seven vessels with the hope that its cap of 10 will be reached in the near future.

However, they are aware that a lot of their fishery income is hemorrhaging through illegal, unreported and unregulated fishers. And they are powerless to do anything about it at the moment.

Niue is one of three Pacific island countries without a patrol boat but that is not usually a big problem because it has a constitutional arrangement with New Zealand to provide surveillance for its EEZ. But for the whole of 2015, that service did not happen as New Zealand assets were diverted elsewhere.

‘Pretty much blind’
“Last year alone we had no surveillance patrol done for our EEZ except for a chance visit by a French patrol boat which was very welcome. But that apart we are pretty much blind,” Gataua said.

“We do know there’s a lot of IUU going on in our EEZ. An estimate of how much that loss of income is to Niue would probably be on the low side.”

He explained that they get regular reports from visiting yachts on their way from the Cook Islands. Reports which they [Niue’s fisheries division] are not picking up through the Automatic Identification System (AIS) or the regional Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) run by the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA).

“To me that’s an indication of IUU fishing,” he said. “Each of those ships sighted is lost income to Niue.

“But what else can we do? It’s too hard for us to monitor the area.”

Gataua is attending the 5th Global Fisheries Enforcement Training Workshop and is hopeful the next five days will provide options and help for Niue’s situation. Help that would have significant impacts to Niue’s economy. With its GDP, a meager $28.5million, any increase from its fishery revenue would be a massive boost considering that tourism, is the biggest earner at just under $6million.

“If we can reduce the IUU going on in our EEZ, it’s quite feasible that our fisheries revenue will rival that of our tourism sector.”

He points enviously towards their smaller neighbor Tokelau, whose 2015 fisheries revenue topped $12.5million, as to what is possible.

The Future of Fisheries Roadmap

By Losalini Bolatagici in Suva

Fiji and other Pacific Island nations have been warned about the mosquito-borne Zika virus.

The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), in collaboration with the World Health Organisation, has this week sent an update on the Zika virus infection to public health ministries and health professionals in the Pacific Islands region.

Fiji’s Ministry of Health and Medical Services will release an official statement in relation to the virus, which shows symptoms of mild fever, rashes and joint pain.

The rare tropical disease can also cause possible birth defects, transmitted through bites from the same kind of mosquitoes that can spread other tropical diseases such as dengue fever, chikungunya and yellow fever.

SPC closely monitors the Zika situation regionally and internationally, including dengue and chikungunya.

“We provide an ongoing service to the region’s public health professionals whereby we maintain a map of epidemic and emerging disease alerts for regional health security purposes,” said acting SPC Deputy Director (Public Health Division) Dr Salanieta Saketa in a statement.

“According to the information available to us, no Pacific countries have reported confirmed cases of the Zika virus infection so far this year, but further investigation is under way to ascertain circulation of the virus in a number of Pacific Island countries and territories.”

Lab diagnosis
She said Zika virus infection could only be confirmed by a laboratory diagnosis and Pacific Islands countries had very limited capacity for Zika testing.

“We’re working closely with our partners from the Pacific Public Health Surveillance Network to overcome this challenge and facilitate access of all countries to the few laboratories which can perform the testing,” Dr Saketa said.

Part of SPC’s update concerned the latest findings on the possible association between Zika virus infection in pregnancy and congenital central nervous system malformations, including microcephaly.

While this was not proof that Zika virus had caused these malformations, a possible association could not be ruled out given the evidence available, Dr Saketa said.

“In view of the latest findings, we provided countries with a number of recommendations. For example, we recommend all travellers, particularly pregnant women, who are visiting known affected areas to take extra precautionary measures to prevent being bitten by mosquitoes.”

First Zika hospitalisation case in NZ this year

By Shailendra Singh in Suva

Discussions about the concept of “Global Citizenship” are gaining momentum in various international forums, but remain largely unexplored in the Pacific Islands.

According to Ron Israel, co-founder of The Global Citizens’ Initiative, Global Citizens think beyond communities based on shared group identities. They see themselves as part of a larger, emerging world community.

In the Pacific, the late Tongan academic and philosopher, Professor Epeli Hau’ofa, had gone as far as proposing a common regional identify he called the “new Oceania”, comprising of people with a common Pacific heritage and commitment, rather than as members of diverse nationalities and races.

In Hau’ofa’s conceptualisation, an Oceanian was anyone who lived in the Pacific, and was committed to the region, regardless of ethnicity or religion. His framework also accounted for the “astounding mobility” of Pacific Islanders over the last half-century or more.

This expanded version of Oceania covered larger areas than was “possible under the term Pacific Islands region”, forming a “world of social networks that crisscross the ocean, all the way from Australia and New Zealand in the southwest, to the United States and Canada in the northeast”.

Hau’ofa felt that a common, enlarged Pacific identity was crucial for the advancement of collective regional interests, including the protection of the vital Pacific Ocean.

Connecting and mobilising people to agitate for common interests is the thread that binds the Oceanian and the Global Citizen concepts.

Global Citizen
Global Citizen is just more expansive. Its proponents link it to the universal values of justice, democratic participation, diversity, and global solidarity as the building blocks for peaceful, tolerant, inclusive and sustainable societies.

Pacific Island commentators laud the concept, but feel that certain cultural, economic, geographical and historical obstacles could stand in the way of its implementation.

Former University of the South Pacific academic in literature, Dr Som Prakash, feels that some Global Citizen values are incompatible with the cultural beliefs, philosophies and life-styles of Pacific Island societies.

For instance, egalitarianism is seen as inimical to the hierarchical nature of some Pacific societies, such as chiefly power in Fiji, the aristocracy in Tonga, and matai (chiefly) system in Samoa.

“Democracy, for example, is not always welcomed by traditional chiefs who are given much more power and authority than the ordinary folks,” says Prakash.

“It takes a while for the ordinary Pacific cultures to get accustomed to the questioning of elders and chiefs. Often peace (one of the pillars of Global Citizenship) is argued to be better attained under a benevolent dictator.”

There are some other apparent contradictions. As pointed out by Fiji’s former vice-president, Ratu Jone Madriwiwi, in collective Pacific societies like Fiji, group interests supersede individual interests.

Agents of change
Global citizenry, on the other hand, centers on individuals as the agents of change through instilling in them “awareness of the interconnected nature of the world and the need for a global focus for development”.

However, the likes of Fiji-based university student, Duane Mar, do not see the above paradoxes as obstacles. Mar points out that the Pacific is equally affected, if not more, by some common world problems, which transcend geographical cultural, and philosophical differences.

“Global citizen is a person whose ideals and thought processes are based around those of the general global issues, such as poverty, climate change and human rights,” says Mar.

“In many rural Pacific communities, the people are very much aware of issues like climate change, and the need to combat poverty. These issues are discussed at the community level and from there, villages often work with NGO groups to address them.”

Moreover, collectivism, based on group solidarity, has some clear parallels with the Global Citizen concept of “interdependency”, even though the Global Citizen model encompasses an “interdependent world” rather than just the village, or clan.

Global Citizen, as espoused by UNESCO and other institutions, promotes the idea that people’s “individual and collective actions have a global impact – and it is their responsibility to engage in positive actions for their communities and the planet”.

The idea of collective responsibility to address global problems is likely to resonate with Pacific peoples, especially in relation to global warming and sea-level rise, seen as a severe threat to the region.

Global warming
For years, one Pacific leader after another has stood up at various international forums to urge the industrialised nations to take responsibility for global warming and implement meaningful policies to reduce carbon emissions.

As Kiribati President Anote Tong has often pointed out, the Pacific region contributes the least, just three percent, to global warming, but many islands are on the “frontline” of sea level rise.”

Speaking at a recent meeting of Pacific Island leaders, Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama blamed the industrialised nations for “our slide into disaster”. He added that, “the industrialised world needs to reorganise its economies and its priorities to stop pumping excessive carbon emissions that are warming the planet. To let us sink beneath the waves is totally immoral. The world must not betray us.”

Another recent Pacific leaders’ meeting in the Papua New Guinean capital, Port Moresby, ended in a stalemate after Australia and New Zealand blocked a bid from low-lying island nations for a tougher global target.

This stance has led to increased polarisation, with one commentator stating that the “lacklustre response by Australia and New Zealand to the plight of Pacific nations has finally reached boiling point”.

‘Tragedy of the commons’
Mar describes the Pacific’s global warming predicament as the “tragedy of the commons”, which in this case refers to the actions of some nations having an adverse impact on those nations that did not contribute to the situation.

On his part, USP academic Dr Prakash sees Australia and New Zealand’s intransigency over global warming as perhaps the most recent example of the many ways in which the greater powers have treated the Pacific with “carelessness, if not contempt”.

Prakash feels that such treatment lead to scepticism in the region about what inevitably comes to be seen as “fancy notions of globalisation, often emanating from well-to-do nations”.

He adds that “the most visible and tangible effects of globalisation is the crass TV, mobile phones and social media that inundate our Pacific societies”.

However, as Mar points out, the Pacific has partially benefited from globalisation.

Furthermore, globalisation and Global Citizenry are two distinct ideas. In fact, Global Citizen principles aim to address situations such as “tragedy of the commons”, a by-product of globalisation, although it is easy to see how the two terms could be confused.

The reality is that despite their smallness and isolation, the Pacific region’s destiny is tied with the rest of the world, something which Hau’ofa was keenly aware of.

Surely Hau’ofa was thinking along Global Citizen lines when he wrote that “we cannot confront the issues of the Pacific Century as individual, tiny countries created by colonial powers and acting alone. We could indeed ‘fall off the map’ or disappear into the black hole of a gigantic Pan-Pacific doughnut”.

This article was first published by Indepth News and has been updated by the author for Asia Pacific Report.

The decision by the United States to withdraw from the 30-year Tuna Treaty with Pacific Island countries will not take effect until January 2017, says Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) deputy director general Wez Norris.

In his initial response to Pacnews queries, Norris admitted that the impact of the US withdrawal “will be markedly different among individual Pacific Island Parties (PIPs)”.

“Some of them have viable alternative markets that could absorb their fishing days with relatively little impact. Others, however that are reliant on the Treaty to sell their days would struggle to achieve revenues similar to those currently enjoyed, said Norris.

In addition, parties will lose economic assistance under the treaty, which contributes significantly to the core revenue of some of Pacific nations.

All is not lost for the Pacific, and according to Norris, the immediate task ahead is for PIPs that are part of the Vessel Day Scheme (VDS) to assess their ability to sell additional days to other fleets for 2016.

“This will be a critical component of any arrangement that PIPs can craft for responding to the revised proposal of the US.

‘Redesigning Treaty’
“Beyond that, our work will focus on redesigning the Treaty so that it can still play its vital government to government roles, but can cater for more flexible commercial arrangements between individual vessel operators and countries that sell then fishing days. This will ensure that the treaty adequately reflects the nature of the fishery and respects the VDS.”

Norris said the 17 PIPs were keen to find the best solution to the situation that has now arisen with the United States.

“PIPs are committed to continuing the work already started, both to ‘fix’ 2016 and to redesign the treaty for the longer term to address the weaknesses in the current arrangement that the US has finally come to recognise.

Under the agreement reached by the parties in Brisbane in August last year – the US and the America Tuna Boats Association (AT) were to make the first quarterly payment of US$17 million by January.

However In November last year, FFA received an advice that the “ATA could not afford the first quarterly payment.’

In response, the PIPs through the FFA informed the US that it will not issue licenses, halting the entire 37 fleet operating in the Pacific.

Since the US is one of the largest purse seine fishing fleets fishing in the Pacific region, its withdrawal will have an impact on the FFA’s Regional Observer Programme.

“Complete cessation would have noticeable impact on the region’s observer programmes. We are working hard to ensure there will indeed be fishing in 2016, Norris said.

On the issue of the US being taken to task for reneging on its commitment, Norris said: “There are avenues under the treaty and broader international law for PIPs to take action but the immediate action now is to resolve the issue in mutual best interest.”

“Unfortunately, events like this can damage relationships and erode trust that may take significant time to rebuild,” said Norris.

The 17 Pacific Parties to the US Tuna Treaty are Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, United States, and Vanuatu.

Tuna fishing deal dispute keeps US boats out of Pacific

Pacific delegations to COP21 were part of the historic Paris Agreement on Climate Change reached by negotiators last weekend, SPREP reports.

The agreement includes several key elements that are of particular importance to the Pacific region, including recognition for pursuing a temperature goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre industrial levels, a strengthened mechanism for loss and damage, and the provision for scaled up and simplified access to climate finance for small island developing states.

The Council of Regional Organisations of the Pacific (CROP) agencies have been working as “One Team” to support Pacific island countries with technical assistance during the lengthy negotiation process.

David Sheppard, director-general of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), commended the leadership and tireless efforts of Pacific leaders in Paris who were “inspirational” throughout COP 21 and noted: “I was extremely proud to be with our Pacific leaders in Paris and to hear the voices of the Pacific on climate change, in this important global platform.”

Small islands around the world worked together, demonstrating the importance of Pacific collaboration with other regions, through the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS),

“AOSIS has been instrumental in mobilising a collective voice in the sea of lengthy and intense negotiations, which is evidenced in the position of 1.5 degrees and a mechanism for loss and damage, being included in the final text of the Paris Agreement,” Sheppard said.

Dame Meg Taylor, secretary-general of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS) and the Pacific Ocean Commissioner, was in Paris for the COP21 meeting and said:

‘Strong outcome’
“This agreement provides a strong outcome for the Pacific. While there were great gains the real work starts now. We must work together to secure climate change finance for the island nations to support adaptation activities.

“Pacific Leaders and their delegations did an amazing job in representing their people and future generations of Pacific islanders. The way in which the CROP agencies worked alongside them highlighted to me once again just how much can be achieved when the region works together towards a common goal.”

The Paris Agreement includes aspects that are legally binding, and includes a five year review of emissions to determine the ability to meet the long term global goal, to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic climate change”.

Other key measures include: to peak greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and achieve a balance between sources and sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century; to review progress every five years; and a commitment towards US $100 billion a year in climate finance for developing countries by 2020, with a commitment to further finance in the future.

Small island states, together with least developed countries, have special status with regard to financing and reporting under the Paris Agreement.

The inclusion of “loss and damage” in the Agreement is a significant step towards recognition of the loss and damage that results from the adverse effects of climate change (including extreme weather events and slow onset events) and acknowledgment of the suffering of vulnerable states including small island countries and territories in the Pacific.

Another key implication from Paris will be an overhaul of historic proportions for energy policies worldwide and a huge investment in renewable energy and cleaning up the pollution now being emitted to the Earth’s atmosphere. In the Pacific, this will signal an acceleration of the existing efforts of Pacific island countries and territories to shift to renewable energy.

Globally, every country will now have to commit to reducing emissions.

Key factors on the success of COP21 for the Pacific were the open and transparent manner in which the Government of France led the COP itself and their extensive consultations with stakeholders, Pacific voices and the AOSIS, building upon the lessons learnt from Copenhagen in 2009.

The vice-chancellor of the University of the South Pacific (USP), Professor Rajesh Chandra, welcomed the outcome of COP 21 and said: “The Paris Agreement is a historic win globally, and seeing how the Pacific has been able to influence the COP 21 negotiations, while also working as the ‘moral centre’, is a great show of our abilities and the collaborative potential we have across the region and amongst our CROP agencies.

“It is a great testament of what can be achieved by our island nations, which will be especially important as the world begins to work towards the goals that are set out in the Agreement.”

CROP agencies through the PIFS, SPREP, USP and the Pacific Community (SPC), worked closely and effectively together at COP21 to support Pacific delegations.

The director-general of the Pacific Community (SPC), Dr Colin Tukuitonga, said: The Paris Agreement is an achievement of David and Goliath proportions and our Pacific leaders and delegations must be commended for fronting this monumental challenge with sterling leadership, unwavering commitment and a strong, united voice.

“Against immense odds, the concerns and resolve of small island states are echoed in the pages of this agreement and I would also like to acknowledge the effective cooperation by all partners within the Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific towards lending vital support to our leaders in their quest for a successful outcome in Paris,” Dr Tukuitonga added.

Further information about the Paris Agreement of the COP 21 can be found here.

Source: Pacific Media Watch 9526

“I refuse to leave our future in the hands of the world leaders cloistered in Le Bourget,” she said in downtown Paris, well removed from the summit site northeast of the city.

“We have left our messianic fantasies at home. We’ve done the maths. We know politicians have come to the table with emissions reduction targets that will lead us to an extremely dangerous future, three to four degrees.”

“This is not ambition.”

Klein was speaking at a free public event downtown that drew about 500 people away from the summit. The author is promoting her new movement, the “Leap Manifesto” —an attempt to bind together social activist, labour, environmental and indigenous groups to push for greater climate ambition from governments.

And while environmental observers from Greenpeace to Équiterre have said they’re surprisingly pleased with Trudeau and his climate negotiators so far — Klein says current country emissions targets at COP21 are “completely unacceptable.”

‘Ratcheting up’
She’s not alone. Few here at the summit, including scientists and the UNFCC, believe the climate targets proposed by nations will be enough to keep global warming below two degrees —the summit’s official goal. The hope is, the final agreement will include a mechanism for “ratcheting up” stricter climate targets in five years time.

“If this was 1992, and we were in Rio, maybe we could mess around with this kind of incremental nonsense. But it is 2015… and we are up against the wall. We cannot kick this can down the road anymore —there is no more road.”

The global two degrees target is itself a step back. At past COP meetings, Klein says, island nations said they needed “1.5 to survive” and African delegates said even two degrees warming “was a death sentence for Africa.”

She also took aim at the summit’s lack of legally binding emissions reductions targets —something Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna confirmed Sunday. Countries are only “legally bound to keep negotiating forever,” lamented Klein.

“[So] by the end of the summit, there won’t be anything that deserves to be described as success. But we cannot afford to give into despair —we need a post-Paris peoples’ plan.”

Enter the Leap Manifesto, she says.

Klein’s been travelling the planet for five months to promote the manifesto from Australia to Europe. It’s a philosophical call for action by her “political pop up” organization called This Changes Everything, which is also a book and film.

Sustainable economy
The manifesto calls for people to support a fully sustainable energy economy in 20 years, in a way that respects Indigenous rights, and against powerful interests that would resist decarbonisation.

“We know we are up against forces which have a huge amount to gain from inaction. When you look at the sponsors of the [COP21] summit, the fossil fuel companies, there’s trillions of dollars to lose if we have a response to climate change that acknowledges we have to leave the vast majority of reserves in the ground,” said Klein.

The manifesto is called “Leap” because of its call to jump towards greater climate ambition, but also because 2016 is a leap year. The hope is that people will rally internationally for the movement on Feb. 29.

The Leap Manifesto was launched in September during the Toronto International Film Festival and at the height of the Canadian federal election with the backing of environmental, labour and social activist groups. Some 100 famous Canadians also signed on, including Donald Sutherland, Ellen Page, Neil Young, Rachel McAdams, Leonard Cohen and Pamela Anderson.

But the day after the launch, mainstream media “threw an epic tantrum,” said Bianca Mugyeny, Canadian outreach coordinator for This Changes Everything.

National Post founder Conrad Black called the Leap Manifesto “national suicide,” while others called it “green communism,” a sabotage of the NDP, and an attempt to throw Canada back to the stone ages, said Mugyeny.

The Globe and Mail simply called it madness — which was a strange reaction, she said, to a document (the Leap Manifesto) “whose byline is a call for Canada based on caring for the earth and each other,” she added, with laughs from the Paris crowd. “But the backlash wasn’t all bad. We gained a lot of attention.”

Leap-inspired manifestos
Now, other leap-inspired manifestos are popping up, from Australia, Europe, the Canadian Arctic and Maritimes regions.

The president of the Canadian Labour Congress Hassan Yussuff signed on too, but it was not unanimous among the unions he leads. Many rank and file members work in the oil sands that CLC represents. But Yussuf says, if we are listening to the science, and we have to get Canada off fossil fuels, then “workers have to be part of that discussion.”

“We need to something dramatic…. because the path we’re on, if we don’t change it soon, we’re going to end up somewhere very horrible.”

That’s why he’s part of a “one million climate job” campaign calling for Canada to expand public transit, retrofit nearly all houses and buildings, and build high-speed rail networks to get Canadians from coast to coast. The fast train technology, he says, has been around since “Dr. Zhivago’s time” in the 1950s.

“It’s interesting to come to Europe to experience the technology that [Montreal-based] Bombardier sells and develops, but yet we can’t put it to use in our own country.”
‘The fish are sick with tumours and cancer’

Beaver Lake First Nations Cree woman Crystal Lameman was one of the panelists. She is also a signatory to the Leap Manifesto, and told the Paris crowd how the oil extraction industry hurt the health of her community in northern Alberta.

“It’s not charity. It has violated our treaties, attacked our basic human rights, it’s made our children sick. It’s killed those beings that cannot speak for themselves: the winged, the water and the land beings. The fish are sick with tumours and cancer… and the moose have puss bubbles under their skin. That’s not natural.”

‘Had enough’
“People everywhere are getting up… and we’re saying we’ve had enough,” she said.

Progressive intellectual Maude Barlow with the Council of Canadians added that any Paris climate agreement that Canada signs on to could be undone by trade deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

“If Canada were to take a real and serious position [on climate change], we would come back and be hit by investor state challenge from all of the American corporations under NAFTA, and all of the Chinese oil and energy corporations operating [in the] tar sands under a similar investor agreement [with China.]”

She said the real battle on climate change is a fight against economic globalization based on unlimited growth. That philosophy ensures that “there’s absolutely no forest not to be taken down, no dam not to be built,” warned Barlow.

This article was first published by the National Observer.

Source: Pacific Media Watch 9502

Pacific Ocean Commissioner Dame Meg Taylor has called on world leaders meeting in Paris to protect the Pacific region and the ocean.

In a video, Taylor said world leaders needed to protect the region and the ocean it depended on.

A statement from the Pacific islands Forum Secretariat revealed the video was watched more than 17,000 times in less than 24 hours, illustrating the power of social media to amplify Pacific voices during the Paris-based climate change negotiations.

“The video and other messages from the Pacific are being promoted across social media using the common hashtag #4PacIslands.

“The one-minute video includes striking images of hope, beauty and resilience from around the region. It also includes a strong call to action.

Taylor used the video to remind world leaders of the vital connections between the ocean and climate.

“The ocean, climate and weather are all linked. The impacts of climate change on our ocean are already being felt by many of us.”

The clip also delivers a powerful positive message stating the determination of Pacific Islanders to do all it can to save the ocean and communities dependent on it.

“We are strong and we will not give up on our ocean, our homes or our future,” Taylor said.

#4PacIslands

Source: Pacific Media Watch 9501