SPECIAL REPORT: By Stephanie Tran

The Albanese government has rejected a proposal to strip tax-deductible status from Australian charities found to be supporting illegal occupations, amid mounting scrutiny over donations flowing to Israeli settlements and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Michael West Media has identified 5 charities either sending money to the IDF or to parties associated with illegal West Bank settlements in Occupied Palestine.

The proposed amendment, introduced by Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi, would explicitly bar organisations from receiving deductible gift recipient (DGR) status if they are found to have supported an “illegal occupation”.

• READ MORE: Gulf energy sites targeted after Israeli attack on key Iranian gasfield

“The fact that people are sending money to support the war crimes of the Israeli military and to expand illegal, violent settlements in the West Bank is bad enough, but that Australian taxpayers are subsidising these settlements is completely outrageous,” Faruqi said.

“Supporting these heinous crimes deserves investigation, not a tax deduction.”

The amendment, circulated in the Senate as part of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Supporting Choice in Superannuation and Other Measures) Bill 2025, would insert a new provision into the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 denying DGR endorsement to any entity that has “advocated, prepared, planned, assisted in, financed, fostered, supported … or contributed to the establishment, maintenance or expansion of the illegal occupation”.

It would also empower the foreign affairs minister to formally declare what constitutes an “illegal occupation” for the purposes of the law.

Charities funding illegal settlements
This year, MWM released a series of investigations revealing that Australian charities are funnelling tax-deductible donations to projects linked to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law, as well as to initiatives supporting IDF soldiers.

In the Senate debate on the amendment, Greens Senator Penny Allman-Payne cited the findings of the MWM investigations.

She highlighted figures showing that Jewish National Fund Australia had remitted more than $125 million to Israel since 2009, while the United Israel Appeal Refugee Relief Fund had transferred approximately $376 million since 2013 via Keren Hayesod, with a portion of these funds used for settlement expansion and IDF-linked programmes.

Allman-Payne also referenced the activities of the Chai Charitable Foundation, which earlier this year hosted fundraisers for organisations providing direct support to IDF soldiers and settlement communities, including in Tekoa and Hebron, before removing the campaigns following questioning by MWM.

“It is obviously of significant concern if there are charitable organisations in Australia that are funnelling funds to illegal occupiers and illegal settlements,” Allman-Payne told the Senate.

She noted that the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) had received 896 complaints relating to 88 charities in connection with the Israel-Gaza conflict between October 2023 and December 2025.

“Given that these donations are tax-deductible . . .  that effectively means taxpayers are subsidising illegal occupation and militarisation,” she said.

Government rejects amendment
In response, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher stated that the government would not support the Greens amendment, arguing that existing regulatory frameworks already prohibit unlawful conduct by charities.

“There is no DGR category or purpose that allows charities to support illegal activities at home or abroad,” Gallagher said.

She pointed to the ACNC’s governance standards, which require charities to operate lawfully and remain accountable, as well as external conduct standards governing overseas activities.

However, Gallagher acknowledged a key limitation: those standards require compliance with Australian law, but

do not extend to conduct under international law.

Charities operating overseas must take “reasonable steps” to ensure proper governance and compliance with Australian legal obligations, including sanctions, anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws, she said.

Organisations found to be in breach risk losing their charitable registration, which can in turn lead to the loss of DGR status.

Referral for investigation
Gallagher suggested that concerns about specific organisations should be referred to the ACNC for investigation.

Faruqi said the government’s position amounted to wilful inaction.

“The Labor government clearly wants to keep its head in the sand and is looking the other way while this happens,” she said.

“This is just another example of the government’s complicity in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

“It is two-faced for the Government to say it supports a Palestinian state while effectively subsidising its destruction.”

Minister Gallagher and Andrew Leigh (Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury) were contacted for comment.

Regulatory obligations
A spokesperson from Leigh’s office provided the following response:

“The government expects all registered charities to meet their regulatory obligations and to obey all Australian laws. This is a condition of maintaining charitable status.

“The ACNC is the independent regulator of charities and complaints involving conduct that could harm people or involving the misuse of a charity for terrorism purposes or to foster extremism are a compliance priority for the ACNC.

“The ACNC already has powers to revoke the charitable status of charities involved in serious illegal activity.”

Papua New Guinea is under a close watch for money laundering, running a risk of being abandoned by global investors.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has placed PNG on its “grey list” due to “strategic deficiencies” in government oversight.

The grey-list means that watchdog officials are monitoring closely, and that the government is time-bound to address their blind spots.

• READ MORE: It’s official, the FATF has added Papua New Guinea to its ‘grey list’

PNG is now one step away from the far more precarious “black list”, where other countries are compelled to stay away in order to protect the international financial system.

There are only three countries on the black list: North Korea, Iran, and Myanmar.

Prime Minister James Marape told local media outlet NBC that he accepted the conclusions of the FATF and welcomed their support.

“There is no point blaming the past. What has been identified, we will fix,” Marape said.

Need secure economy
“It is in our country’s interest to have a secure economy, not one with gaps that can be exploited.”

Marape said that investors could be assured the PNG government was doing all that is can ahead of elections in 2027.

“Our investors will not run away . . .  Papua New Guinea will work its way out of the grey-list and towards a trusted, credible financial standing,”

But as many as 30 banks have publicly ruled out the possibility of investing in Papua LNG, an Exxon-backed project in the Gulf of Papua, as reported by AAP.

The project owners, seeking to produce six million tonnes of LNG per annum for a predominantly Asian market, have yet to make a final decision on whether to move forward.

Far-reaching consequences
A note from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in November 2025 called PNG “a fragile state” noting an “unstable social and political environment”.

It’s a judgment of PNG’s institutions, weakened by conflict and poor governance, thus creating ideal conditions for money laundering and corruption to thrive.

Michael Kabuni, an anti-money laundering researcher at Australian National University, told RNZ Pacific the grey-listing sends a signal to overseas banks and investors that business in PNG is rife with danger.

“We were saying all along that PNG was going to be added to the grey list. The evidence points to it.”

PNG’s greatest vulnerability is the exposure of each MP, bureaucrat and public servant to bribes and corruption, Kabuni said.

The more powerful an individual, the more likely they are to be targeted by criminals, and the greater those incentives to bend the rules would be.

“There was the anti-corruption body that was set up in 2014 called the task force suite,” he noted.

“It did an impressive job in confiscating proceeds of crime, arresting, prosecuting and jailing those involved. But eventually they went after the Prime Minister, and that task force was disbanded.”

Kabuni noted that MPs are given 10 million kina (NZ$3.9 million) each year in the course of their work, but rarely is it all accounted for.

He said it was also common for less money to be allocated to “integrity agencies”, such as watchdogs and enforcement bodies, than they are actually budgeted.

“It’s a combination of factors, from political interference, whether it’s appointments or interference into the investigations, to capacity and resources,” he said.

In the case of Papua LNG, Kabuni said he “would think” that the bank boycott was motivated in large part by the grey-listing.

“Investors use the mutual evaluation reports as a risk matrix to determine whether this country is safe.”

“It’s going to be difficult to draw investors finances . . .  we’ve never actually had an investor come in during the grey-list period.”

Risks for New Zealand
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand said banks were required to assess the associated risks with the countries that they dealt with.

“This may mean that transactions to or from Papua New Guinea may be subject to greater scrutiny,” it said.

Meanwhile, the Department of Internal Affairs said all customers from PNG are considered “high risk” under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009.

“This could be a PNG company operating in New Zealand or a non-resident individual (such as a person on a temporary work visa),” a spokesperson said.

“As a result, an enhanced level of customer due diligence must always be applied.”

Anti-money laundering expert Kerry Grass told RNZ Pacific that businesses dealings with PNG were inherently risky.

“Trade-based money laundering (trading value for value) is not captured as an activity under the AML/CFT Act for international reporting obligations of trade,” Grass said.

Escaping obligations
“Hence I can trade you a shipping container of car parts for 1kg of Cocaine hidden in a container of coconuts. That type of international trading is escaping obligations of reporting under the AML/CFT Act if no wire transfer is relied on.”

In an ideal world, Grass said, customs officials would be able to manage risk based on knowledge of the source, but this could be disguised.

Efforts to stop ill-gotten gains from PNG to NZ would depend on their ability to decipher this information.

“I don’t think New Zealand is actually operating at a jurisdiction level where these controls or knowledge are actually down to that level,” she said.

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

Papua New Guinea’s 2026 National Budget has drawn immediate opposition criticism from East Sepik Governor Allan Bird, who says the government continues to overspend, overestimate revenue, and deliver few tangible results for ordinary citizens.

The K$30.9 billion (about NZ$12.8 billion) spending plan, unveiled earlier this week, has been characterised by analysts as highly political and aligned with next year’s election cycle.

Critics argue the Marape government has again prioritised high-visibility projects over long-term structural programs that would strengthen essential services.

• READ MORE: Other PNG politics reports

Bird said this year’s budget followed a familiar pattern — record allocations on paper, but limited real-world improvements.

He pointed to ongoing shortages in medicines, persistent law and order challenges, and what he viewed as a widening gap between spending announcements and service delivery outcomes.

He has also raised concerns about revenue assumptions, noting that last year’s budget was short by K$2.5 billion and required significant mid-year corrections.

Bird believes similar risks exist in the 2026 plan, warning that overly optimistic revenue forecasts could again lead to financial strain.

Flawed fiscal discipline
Another key criticism centres on fiscal discipline. According to Bird, spending outside the formal budget framework remains common, with additional expenditures later reconciled in the Final Budget Outcome.

He said this practice undermines transparency and highlights deeper issues in the government’s financial management.

While the government insists the budget focuses on infrastructure, job creation, and community development, public reaction online has been overwhelmingly sceptical.

Many Papua New Guineans are questioning why record-high spending has not translated into better healthcare, education, or security.

For Bird and many critics, the central measure of any budget is whether it improves the everyday lives of citizens. Based on recent years, they believe the benefits have been limited — and they see little in the 2026 budget to suggest that trend will change.

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

New Zealand’s major Palestine advocacy and protest group Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has condemned Defence Minister Judith Collins for “dog-whistling to her small choir” over Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged Gaza enclave.

Claiming that Collins’ open letter attacking teachers at the weekend was an attempt to “drown out Palestine” in discussions with the government, PSNA co-chair Maher Nazzal said that it demonstrated more about her own prejudices than teacher priorities.

Teachers, who had devoted their lives to educating children in Aotearoa, would be “appalled at the wholesale slaughter” of Palestinian school children in Gaza, he said in a statement today.

• READ MORE: Judith Collins’ open letter is ‘dirty politics’
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• Israel kills 97 Palestinians in Gaza since start of ceasefire

Israel has killed at least 97 Palestinians and wounded 230 since the start of the ceasefire, and violated the truce agreement 80 times, according to the Gaza Government Media Office.

“Teachers who are committed to the education and development of the next generation of our country would feel a special affinity with the children of another nation, who are being killed by Israeli bombing in their tens of thousands, seeing all their schools destroyed, and who will suffer the consequences of two years of malnutrition for the rest of their lives,” Nazzal said.

He added that just two months ago, Collins had featured on television standing next to a damaged residential building in Kiev while condemning Russia for attacks which had killed Ukrainian children.

“But not a critical word of Israel from her, or her cabinet colleagues, despite Israel just now resuming its mass bombing in Gaza,” Nazzal said.

Children ‘deserve protection’
“Ukrainian, Palestinian and New Zealand school children all deserve protection and we should expect our government to speak up loudly in their defence, without having to have a teachers’ union raise government inaction on Gaza with them.

“But even after 24 months of genocide, Collins won’t find the words to express New Zealand’s horror at the indiscriminate killing of school children in Gaza.

“But she’s in her element dog-whistling to her small choir in the pro-Israel lobby.

“Collins has already been referred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, for complicity in Israel’s genocide by facilitating the supply of military technology for Israeli use.

“It’s more than time for Luxon to pull back his Israeli fanatic colleagues and uphold an ethical rule-based policy, and not default to blind prejudices.”

Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has hinted that the country may “hold its first-ever referendum” following a landmark Supreme Court opinion aimed at amending the 2013 Constitution.

On Friday, the nation’s highest court ruled that thresholds for constitutional amendments should be lowered — requiring only a two-thirds majority in parliament and a simple majority of voters in a referendum.

The ruling followed a three-day hearing in August, after Rabuka’s Cabinet, in June, had sought clarification on making changes to parts of the Constitution.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji constitution reports

Submissions came from the State, seven political parties, the Fiji Law Society, and the Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission.

Rabuka said that the Supreme Court’s opinion established a “clear and democratic pathway” for his government’s constitutional reform efforts.

“This opinion provides clarity on matters of constitutional law and governance. It will now go before Cabinet for further deliberation, after which I, as Head of Government, will announce the way forward,” he said in a statement.

However, the Fiji Labour Party, while welcoming the Supreme Court’s opinion, expressed concerns over the lowering of the current “75 percent double super majority requirement” to amend the constitution.

Fijians of Indian descent make up just over 32 percent of Fiji’s total population.

Indo-Fijians ‘particularly vulnerable’
Labour leader and former Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry said that the Indo-Fijian community felt “particularly vulnerable” due to the nation’s race-based political tensions, which have resulted in four coups.

He noted that the coalition’s “unwillingness to spell out the constitutional changes it was contemplating” had made Indo-Fijians “apprehensive”.

“It is for this reason that Labour had submitted that constitutional changes should be left to political negotiations with a view to achieving consensus, and stability,” he added.

But Rabuka dismissed Chaudhry’s concerns on Monday, saying that his “argument does not stand”.

“In a referendum, every community is part of the decision. Indo-Fijians, like all other minority groups, vote as equal citizens,” he said.

He said that any government wanting to change the constitution would need support from the whole nation.

“This forces proposals to be fair, broad, and inclusive. Discriminatory ideas would never survive such a test.”

‘Generalised statements’ criticised
Rabuka said Chaudhry should refrain from making “generalised statements”, adding that he does not have the mandate to speak for all Indo-Fijians.

“Chaudhry says change should only come through political negotiations and consensus. But that usually means a few leaders making deals in closed rooms. That gives a small group of politicians’ veto power over the entire country, blocking needed changes and leaving Fiji stuck,” he said.

“A referendum is the opposite of backroom politics. It is open, transparent, and gives the final say to the people themselves. That is real democracy. That is what the Coalition Government welcomes entirely.”

While Rabuka’s People’s Alliance Party wanted the 2013 Constitution thrown out and replaced with the previous 1997 Constitution, he said the former Prime Minister should “move past the old style of politics and recognise that Fiji may now hold its first-ever referendum”.

“That would be a historic step, one that strengthens democracy for every community, not weakens it.

“As your Prime Minister, I give my assurance to all Fijians that this process belongs to you.”

When Voreqe Bainimarama walked out of Parliament after his government lost by a single vote on Christmas Eve in December 2022, he told reporters who swarmed around him in the capital, Suva: “This is democracy and this is my legacy [the] 2013 Constitution.”

Visibly shellshocked
His most trusted ally Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, looking visibly shellshocked at FijiFirst’s loss of power, said at the time: “We hope that the new government will adhere to the rule of law.”

Sayed-Khaiyum is widely viewed as the architect of the 2013 Constitution, although he disputes that claim.

Critics of the document, which is the country’s fourth constitution, argue that it was imposed by the Bainimarama administration

Meanwhile, the country’s chiefs want the 2013 Constitution gone. In May, the Great Council of Chiefs (GCC) unanimously rejected the document as “restricting a lot of work for the iTaukei (indigenous Fijians)”.

Following the Supreme Court opinion, the head of of GCC told local media that the 2013 Constitution lacked cultural legitimacy and undermined Fiji’s democratic capacity.

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

The main problem in for Fiji retirement is that there is no law to protect the Fiji National Provident Fund, claims a leading trade unionist.

Fiji Trades Union Congress national executive board member and National Union of Hospitality Catering and Tourism Industries Employees general secretary Daniel Urai has told the FNPF 2011 Act review committee in Lautoka that a law needed to be put in place to ensure that the FNPF and its members are protected.

“Whenever something happens, a new government comes in — they will tell FNPF to remove all their investments abroad,” Urai said at the hearing on Friday.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji National Provident Fund reports

“And that has an effect on the FNPF investment. So, I hope you will find a way to put in a law that no one just comes and directs FNPF to remove all its investments, and that has happened in the past.

“And I hope you can look at ways to ensure that it does not happen.

“Because every time that happens, FNPF loses, and the returns are not what is expected.”

Fiji Trades Union Congress national secretary and FNPF 2011 Act review committee member Felix Anthony claimed the government had interfered with FNPF’s overseas investments in 2007.

Withdrew investments abroad
“Soon after the coup, the government, actually through the Reserve Bank of Fiji (RBF), suggested that FNPF withdraw all its investments abroad,” Anthony said.

“Just so that they keep the Fijian dollar afloat, and that actually affected FNPF income and had some financial ratification on the FNPF bottom line.

“There was some consideration given whether the RBF itself should compensate FNPF for that directive, and nothing eventuated, of course, because the government had a stronghold at that time.”

The Fiji National Provident Fund is conducting a comprehensive review of the FNPF Act 2011 to ensure the law is modern, effective, and continues to meet the retirement needs of Fijians.

The public consultation continued at the Labasa Civic Centre today and will be in Suva tomorrow.

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

Leaders of the three Pacific nations with diplomatic ties to Taiwan are united in a message to the Pacific Islands Forum that the premier regional body must not allow non-member countries to dictate Forum policies — a reference to the China-Taiwan geopolitical debate.

Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine, in remarks to the opening of Parliament in Majuro yesterday, joined leaders from Tuvalu and Palau in strongly worded comments putting the region on notice that the future unity and stability of the Forum hangs in the balance of decisions that are made for next month’s Forum leaders’ meeting in the Solomon Islands.

This is just three years since the organisation pulled back from the brink of splintering.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific Islands Forum unity articles

Marshall Islands, Palau and Tuvalu are among the 12 countries globally that maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

At issue is next month’s annual meeting of leaders being hosted by Solomon Islands, which is closely allied to China, and the concern that the Solomon Islands will choose to limit or prevent Taiwan’s engagement in the Forum, despite it being a major donor partner to the three island nations as well as a donor to the Forum Secretariat.

China worked to marginalise Taiwan and its international relationships including getting the Forum to eliminate a reference to Taiwan in last year’s Forum leaders’ communique after leaders had agreed on the text.

“I believe firmly that the Forum belongs to its members, not countries that are non-members,” said President Heine yesterday in Parliament’s opening ceremony. “And non-members should not be allowed to dictate how our premier regional organisation conducts its business.”

Heine continued: “We witnessed at the Forum in Tonga how China, a world superpower, interfered to change the language of the Forum Communique, the communiqué of our Pacific Leaders . . . If the practice of interference in the affairs of the Forum becomes the norm, then I question our nation’s membership in the organisation.”

She cited the position of the three Taiwan allies in the Pacific in support of Taiwan participation at next month’s Forum.

“There should not be any debate on the issue since Taiwan has been a Forum development partner since 1993,” Heine said.

Heine also mentioned that there was an “ongoing review of the regional architecture of the Forum” and its many agencies “to ensure that their deliverables are on target, and inter-agency conflicts are minimised.”

The President said during this review of the Forum and its agencies, “it is critical that the question of Taiwan’s participation in Forum meetings is settled once and for all to safeguard equity and sovereignty of member governments.”

Last week, the UN’s highest court issued a stinging ruling that countries have a legal obligation to limit climate change and provide restitution for harm caused, giving legal force to an idea that was hatched in a classroom in Port Vila. This is how a group of young students from Vanuatu changed the face of international law.

SPECIAL REPORT: By Jamie Tahana for RNZ Pacific

Vishal Prasad admitted to being nervous as he stood outside the imposing palace in the Hague, with its towering brick facade, marble interiors and crystal chandeliers.

It had taken more than six years of work to get here, where he was about to hear a decision he said could throw a “lifeline” to his home islands.

The Peace Palace, the home of the International Court of Justice, could not feel further from the Pacific.

• READ MORE: Other climate justice reports

Yet it was here in this Dutch city that Prasad and a small group of Pacific islanders in their bright shirts and shell necklaces last week gathered before the UN’s top court to witness an opinion they had dreamt up when they were at university in 2019 and managed to convince the world’s governments to pursue.

“We’re here to be heard,” said Siosiua Veikune, who was one of those students, as he waited on the grass verge outside the court’s gates. “Everyone has been waiting for this moment, it’s been six years of campaigning.”

What they wanted to hear was that more than a moral obligation, addressing climate change was also a legal one. That countries could be held responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions — both contemporary and historic — and that they could be penalised for their failure to act.

“For me personally, [I want] clarity on the rights of future generations,” Veikune said. “What rights are owed to future generations? Frontline communities have demanded justice again and again, and this is another step towards that justice.”

And they won.

The court’s president, Judge Yuji Iwasawa, took more than two hours to deliver an unusually stinging advisory opinion from the normally restrained court, going through the minutiae of legal arguments before delivering a unanimous ruling which largely fell on the side of Pacific states.

“The protection of the environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of human rights,” he said, adding that sea-level rise, desertification, drought and natural disasters “may significantly impair certain human rights, including the right to life”.

After the opinion, the victorious students and lawyers spilled out of the palace alongside Vanuatu’s Climate Minister, Ralph Regenvanu. Their faces were beaming, if not a little shellshocked.

“The world’s smallest countries have made history,” Prasad told the world’s media from the palace’s front steps. “The ICJ’s decision brings us closer to a world where governments can no longer turn a blind eye to their legal responsibilities”.

“Young people around the world stepped up, not only as witnesses to injustice, but as architects of change”.

A classroom exercise
It was 2019 when a group of law students at the University of the South Pacific’s campus in Port Vila, the harbourside capital of Vanuatu, were set a challenge in their tutorial. They had been learning about international law and, in groups, were tasked with finding ways it could address climate change.

It was a particularly acute question in Vanuatu, one of the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis. Many of the students’ teenage years had been defined by Cyclone Pam, the category five storm that ripped through much of the country in 2015 with winds in excess of 250km/h.

It destroyed entire villages, wiped out swathes of infrastructure and crippled the country’s crops and water supplies. The storm was so significant that thousands of kilometres away, in Tuvalu, the waves it whipped up displaced 45 percent of the country’s population and washed away an entire islet.

Cyclone Pam was meant to be a once-in-a-generation storm, but Vanuatu has been struck by five more category five cyclones since then.

Among many of the students, there was a frustration that no one beyond their borders seemed to care particularly much, recalled Belyndar Rikimani, a student from Solomon Islands who was at USP in 2019. She saw it as obscene that the communities with the smallest carbon footprint were paying the steepest price for a crisis they had almost no hand in creating.

Each year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was releasing a new avalanche of data that painted an increasingly grim prognosis for the Pacific. But, Rikimani said, the people didn’t need reams of paper to tell them that, for they were already acutely aware.

On her home island of Malaita, coastal villages were being inundated with every storm, the schools of fish on which they relied were migrating further away, and crops were increasingly failing.

“We would go by the sea shore and see people’s graves had been taken out,” Rikimani recalled. “The ground they use to garden their food in, it is no longer as fertile as it has once been because of the changes in weather.”

The mechanism used by the world to address climate change is largely based around a UN framework of voluntary agreements and summits — known as COP — where countries thrash out goals they often fail to meet. But it was seen as impotent by small island states in the Pacific and the Caribbean, who accused the system of being hijacked by vested interests set on hindering any drastic cuts to emissions.

So, the students argued, what if there was a way to push back? To add some teeth to the international process and move the climate discussion beyond agreements and adaptation to those of equity and justice? To give small countries a means to nudge those seen to be dragging their heels.

“From the beginning we were aware of the failure of the climate system or climate regime and how it works,” Prasad, who in 2019 was studying at the USP campus in Fiji’s capital, Suva, told me.

“This was known to us. Obviously there needs to be something else. Why should the law be silent on this?”

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the main court for international law. It adjudicates disputes between nations and issues advisory opinions on big cross-border legal issues. So, the students wondered, could an advisory opinion help? What did international law have to say about climate change?

Unlike most students, who would leave such discussions in the classroom, they decided to find out. But the ICJ does not hear cases from groups or individuals; they would have to convince a government to pursue the challenge.

Together, they wrote to various Pacific governments hoping to discuss the idea. It was ambitious, they conceded, but in one of the regions most threatened by rising seas and intensifying storms, they hoped there would at least be some interest.

But rallying enough students to join their cause was the first hurdle.

“There was a lot of doubts from the beginning,” Rikimani said. “We were trying to get the students who could, you know, be a part of the movement. And it was hard, it was too big, too grand.”

In the end, 27 people gathered to form the genesis of a new organisation: Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC).

A couple of weeks went by before a response popped up in their inboxes. The government of Vanuatu was intrigued. Ralph Regenvanu, who was at that time the foreign minister, asked the students if they would like to swing by for a meeting.

“I still remember when [the] group came into my office to discuss this. And I felt solidarity with them,” Regenvanu recalled last week.

“I could empathise with where they were, what they were doing, what they were feeling. So it was almost like the time had come to actually, okay, let’s do something about it.”

The students — “dressed to the nines,” as Regenvanu recalled — gave a presentation on what they hoped to achieve. Regenvanu was convinced. Not long after the wider Vanuatu government was, too. Now it was time for them to convince other countries.

“It was just a matter of the huge diplomatic effort that needed to be done,” Regenvanu said. “We had Odi Tevi, our ambassador in New York, who did a remarkable job with his team. And the strategy we employed to get a core group of countries from all over the world to be with us.

“It’s interesting that, you know, some of the most important achievements of the international community originated in the Pacific,” Regenvanu said, citing efforts in the 20th century to ban nuclear testing, or support decolonisation.

“We have this unique geographic and historic position that makes us able to, as small states, have a voice that’s much louder, I think. And you saw that again in this case, that it’s the Pacific once again taking the lead to do something that is of benefit to the whole world.”

What Vanuatu needed to take the case to the ICJ was to garner a majority of the UN General Assembly — that is, a majority of every country in the world — to vote to ask the court to answer a question.

To rally support, they decided to start close to home.

Hope and disappointment
The students set their sights on the Pacific Islands Forum, the region’s pre-eminent political group, which that year was holding its annual leaders’ summit in Tuvalu. A smattering of atolls along the equator which, in recent years, has become a reluctant poster child for the perils of climate change.

Tuvalu had hoped world leaders on Funafuti would see a coastline being eaten by the ocean, evidence of where the sea washes across the entire island at king tide, or saltwater bubbles up into gardens to kill crops, and that it would convince the world that time was running out.

But the 2019 Forum was a disaster. Pacific countries had pushed for a strong commitment from the region’s leaders at their retreat, but it nearly broke down when Australia’s government refused to budge on certain red lines. The then-prime minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga, accused Australia and New Zealand of neo-colonialism, questioning their very role in the Forum.

“That was disappointing,” Prasad said. “The first push was, okay, let’s put it at the forum and ask leaders to endorse this idea and then they take it forward. It was put on the agenda but the leaders did not endorse it; they ‘noted’ it. The language is ‘noted’, so it didn’t go ahead.”

Another disappointment came a few months later, when Rikimani and another of the students, Solomon Yeo, travelled to Spain for the annual COP meeting, the UN process where the world’s countries agree their next targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

But small island countries left angry after a small bloc derailed any progress, despite massive protests.

That was an eye-opening two weeks in Madrid for Rikimani, whose initial scepticism of the system had been validated.

“It was disappointing when there’s nothing that’s been done. There is very little outcome that actually, you know, safeguards the future of the Pacific,” she said.

“But for us, it was the COP where there was interest being showed by various young leaders from around the world, seeing that this campaign could actually bring light to these climate negotiations.”

By now, Regenvanu said, that frustration was boiling over and more countries were siding with their campaign. By the end of 2019, that included some major countries from Europe and Asia, which brought financial and diplomatic heft. Other small-island countries from Africa and the Caribbean had also joined.

“Many of the Pacific states had never appeared before the ICJ before. So [we were] doing write shops with legal teams from different countries,” he said.

“We did write shops in Latin America, in the Caribbean, in the Pacific, in Africa, getting people just to be there at the court to present their stories, and then of course trying to coordinate.”

Meanwhile, Prasad was trying to spread word elsewhere. The hardest part, he said, was making it relevant to the people.

International law, The Hague, the Paris Agreement and other bureaucratic frameworks were nebulous and tedious. How could this possibly help the fisherman on Banaba struggling to haul in a catch?

They spent time travelling to villages and islands, sipping kava shells and sharing meals, weaving a testimony of Indigenous stories and knowledge.

In Fiji, he said, the word for land is vanua, which is also the word for life.

“It’s the source of your identity, the source of your culture. It’s this connection that the land provides the connection with the past, with the ancestors, and with a way of life and a way of doing things.”

He travelled to the village of Vunidologa where, in 2014, its people faced the rupture of having to leave their ancestral lands, as the sea had marched in too far. In the months leading up to the relocation, they held prayer circles and fasted. When the day came, the elders wailed as they made an about two kilometre move inland.

“That’s the element of injustice there. It touches on this whole idea of self-determination that was argued very strongly at the ICJ, that people’s right to self-determination is completely taken away from them because of climate change,” Prasad said.

“Some have even called it a new face of colonialism. And that’s not fair and that cannot stand in 2025.”

Preparing the case
If 2019 was the year of building momentum, then a significant hurdle came in 2020, when the coronavirus shuttered much of the world. COP summits were delayed and the Pacific Islands Forum postponed. The borders of the Pacific were sealed for as long as two years.

But the students kept finding ways to gather their body of evidence.

“Everything went online, we gathered young people who would be able to take this idea forward in their own countries,” Prasad said.

On the diplomatic front, Vanuatu kept plugging away to rally countries so that by the time the Forum leaders met again — in 2022 — they were ready to ask for support again.

“It was in Fiji and we were so worried about the Australia and New Zealand presence at the Forum because we wanted an endorsement so that it would send a signal to all the other countries: ‘the Pacific’s on board, let’s get the others’,” Prasad recalled.

“We were very worried about Australia, but it was more like if Australia declines to support then the whole process falls, and we thought New Zealand might also follow.”

They didn’t. In an about-turn, Australia was now fully behind the campaign for an advisory opinion, and the New Zealand government was by now helping out too. By the end of 2022, several European powers were also involved.

Attention now turned to developing what question they wanted to actually ask the international court. And how would they write it in such a way that the majority of the world’s governments would back it.

“That was the process where it was make and break really to get the best outcome we could,” said Regenvanu.

“In the end we got a question that was like 90 percent as good as we wanted and that was very important to get that and that was a very difficult process.”

By December 2022, Vanuatu announced that it would ask the UN General Assembly to ask the International Court of Justice to weigh what, exactly, international law requires states to do about climate change, and what the consequences should be for states that harm the climate through actions or omissions.

More lobbying followed and then, in March 2023, it came to a vote and the result was unanimous. The UN assembly in New York erupted in cheers at a rare sign of consensus.

“All countries were on board,” said Regenvanu. “Even those countries that opposed it [we] were able to talk to them so they didn’t oppose it publicly.”

They were off to The Hague.

A tense wait
Late last year, the court held two weeks of hearings in which countries put forth their arguments. Julian Aguon, a Chamorro lawyer from Guam who was one of the lead counsel, told the court that “these testimonies unequivocally demonstrate that climate change has already caused grievous violations of the right to self-determination of peoples across the subregion.”

Over its deliberations, the court heard from more than 100 countries and international organisations hoping to influence its opinion, the highest level of participation in the court’s history. That included the governments of low-lying islands and atolls, which were hoping the court would provide a yardstick by which to measure other countries’ actions.

They argued that climate change threatened fundamental human rights — such as life, liberty, health, and a clean environment — as well as other international laws like those of the sea, and those of self-determination.

In their testimonies, high-emitting Western countries, including Australia, the United States, China, and Saudi Arabia maintained that the current system was enough.

It’s been a tense and nervous wait for the court’s answer, but they finally got it last Wednesday.

“We were pleasantly surprised by the strength of the decision,” Regenvanu said. “The fact that it was unanimous, we weren’t expecting that.”

The court said states had clear obligations under international law, and that countries — and, by extension, individuals and companies within those countries — were required to curb emissions. It also said the environment and human rights obligations set out in international law did indeed apply to climate change, and that countries had a right to pursue restitution for loss and damage.

The opinion is legally non-binding. But even so, it carries legal and political weight.

Individuals and groups could bring lawsuits against their own countries for failing to comply with the court’s opinion, and states could also return to the ICJ to hold each other to account, something Regenvanu said Vanuatu wasn’t ruling out. But, ultimately, he hoped it wouldn’t reach that point, and the advisory opinion would be seen as a wake-up call.

“We can call upon this advisory opinion in all our negotiations, particularly when countries say they can only do so much,” Regenvanu said. “They have said very clearly [that] all states have an obligation to do everything within their means according to the best available science.

“It’s really up to all countries of the world — in good faith — to take this on, realise that these are the legal obligations under custom law. That’s very clear. There’s no denying that anymore.

“And then discharge your legal obligations. If you are in breach, fix the breach, acknowledge that you have caused harm. Help to set it right. And also don’t do it again.”

Vishal Prasad still hadn’t quite processed the whole thing by the time we met again the next morning. In shorts, t-shirt, and jandals, he cut a much more relaxed figure as he reclined on a couch sipping a mug of coffee. His phone had been buzzing non-stop with messages from around the world.

“Oh, it definitely does not feel real. I don’t think it’s settled in,” he said. “I got, like, a flood of messages, well wishes. People say, ‘you guys have changed the world’. I think it’s gonna take a while.”

He was under no illusions that there was a long road ahead. The court’s advisory came at a time when international law and multilateralism was under particular strain.

When the urgency of the climate debate from a few years ago appears to have given way to a new enthusiasm for fossil fuel in some countries. He had no doubt the Pacific would continue to lead those battles.

“People have been messaging me that across the group chats they’re in, there’s this renewed sense of courage, strength and determination to do something because of what the ICJ has said,” he said.

“I’ve just been responding to messages and just saying thanks to people and just talking to them and I think it’s amazing to see that it’s been able to cause such a shift in the climate movement.”

Watching the advisory opinion being read out at 3am in Honiara was Belyndar Rikimani, hunched over a live stream in the dead of the night.

“What’s very special about this campaign is that it didn’t start with government experts, climate experts or policy experts. It started with students.

“And these law students are not from Harvard or Cambridge or all those big universities, but they are students from the Pacific that have seen the first-hand effects of climate change. It started with students who have the heart to see change for our islands and for our people.”

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

Ponsonby’s post office is shutting shop next month despite push back from the local community.

A sign on the storefront, which is at the College Hill end of Ponsonby Road, said the closure would take place on 4 July but the post boxes would be “staying put”.

Ponsonby local and author John Harris said New Zealand Post’s decision to close the store was “ill-considered” and it should “try harder” to cater for the people who use the shop’s services.

• READ MORE: Ponsonby community up in arms over impending post office closure
• New Zealand Post to close 79 shops: ‘I do have concerns’ – PM

“They’ve got to be mindful of the vital role that post shops like this one play in glueing the community together,” Harris said.

“If you go down to the post shop you’ll see it’s buzzing with activity; people popping in to post parcels or to get forms filled out and so forth . . .  they’ve got to think about the effect on small communities and this is like gutting the Ponsonby community.”

Viv Rosenberg, a spokesperson for the Ponsonby Business Association, said the group is saddened by the decision to close the shop.

”Our local post office has been part of the fabric of our community in Three Lamps for several years and we regard the team there as part of our Ponsonby family. We are working alongside others to try and keep it open.”

Plan but no timeframe
In 2018, NZ Post announced its plan to close its remaining 79 standalone post offices but did not give a timeframe on when the final store would be shut.

NZ Post general manager consumer Sarah Sandoval said customer data and service patterns were analysed to determine where NZ Post services were best placed.

“The Ponsonby area is well serviced by existing postal outlets, and to remove duplications of services, we’ve decided to make this change.”

She also said that there were nearby options available, including on Hardinge Street 1.4km away, and NZ Post Herne Bay, 1km away.

The NZ Post website said “store closures are given very careful consideration”.

“[Reasons for closure] can include a decline in customer numbers or services which significantly affect the economic viability of the store,” NZ Post said.

Harris emailed NZ Post CEO David Walsh expressing his disapproval of the decision to close the shop and requesting it be reconsidered.

He said a response by the NZ Post general manager consumer stated the closure followed a close look at customer data and that there were other stores serving the Ponsonby community, which was an unsustainable way for the business to operate.

“Herne Bay, Hardinge Street and Wellesley Street are either a challenging walk or you hop in the car and add to the grid,” Harris said.

“They’re only thinking about the sustainability of the New Zealand Post itself not the community.”

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

A United Nations committee is being urged to act over human rights violations committed by illegal loggers in Papua New Guinea.

Watchdog groups Act Now! and Jubilee Australia have filed a formal request to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to consider action at its next meeting in August.

“We have stressed with the UN that there is pervasive, ongoing and irreparable harm to customary resource owners whose forests are being stolen by logging companies,” Act Now! campaign manager Eddie Tanago said.

• READ MORE: Other PNG logging reports

He said these abuses were systematic, institutionalised, and sanctioned by the PNG government through two specific tools: Special Agriculture and Business Leases (SABLs) and Forest Clearing Authorities (FCAs) — a type of logging licence.

“For over a decade since the Commission of Inquiry into SABLs, successive PNG governments have rubber stamped the large-scale theft of customary resource owners’ forests by upholding the morally bankrupt SABL scheme and expanding the use of FCAs,” Tanago said.

He said the government had failed to revoke SABLs that were acquired fraudulently, with disregard to the law or without landowner consent.

“Meanwhile, logging companies have made hundreds of millions, if not billions, in ill-gotten gains by effectively stealing forests from customary resource owners using FCAs.”

Abuses hard to challenge
The complaint also highlights that the abuses are hard to challenge because PNG lacks even a basic registry of SABLs or FCAs, and customary resource owners are denied access to information to the information they need, such as:

• The existence of an SABL or FCA over their forest;
• A map of the boundaries of any lease or logging licence;
• Information about proposed agricultural projects used to justify the SABL or FCA;
• The monetary value of logs taken from forests; and
• The beneficial ownership of logging companies — to identify who ultimately profits from illegal logging.

“The only reason why foreign companies engage in illegal logging in PNG is to make money,” he said, adding that “it’s profitable because importing companies and countries are willing to accept illegally logged timber into their markets and supply chains.”

“If they refused to take any more timber from SABL and FCA areas and demanded a public audit of the logging permits — the money would dry up.”

Act Now! and Jubilee Australia are hoping that this UN attention will urge the international community to see this is not an issue of “less-than-perfect forest law enforcement”.

“This is a system, honed over decades, that is perpetrating irreparable harm on indigenous peoples across PNG through the wholesale violation of their rights and destroying their forests.”

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

Fiji cannot compete with Australia and New Zealand to retain its teachers, the man in charge of the country’s finances says.

The Fijian education system is facing major challenges as the Sitiveni Rabuka-led coalition struggles to address a teacher shortage.

While the education sector receives a significant chunk of the budget (about NZ$587 million), it has not been sufficient, as global demand for skilled teachers is pulling qualified Fijian educators toward greener pastures.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji education reports

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Biman Prasad said that the government was training more teachers.

“The government has put in measures, we are training enough teachers, but we are also losing teachers to Australia and New Zealand,” he told RNZ Pacific Waves on the sidelines of the University of the South Pacific Council meeting in Auckland last week.

“We are happy that Australia and New Zealand gain those skills, particularly in the area of maths and science, where you have a shortage. And obviously, Fiji cannot match the salaries that teachers get in Australia and New Zealand.

According to the Education Ministry’s Strategic Development Plan (2023-2026), the shortage of teachers is one of the key challenges, alongside limited resources and inadequate infrastructure, particularly for primary schools.

Hundreds of vacancies
Reports in local media in August last year said there were hundreds of teacher vacancies that needed to be filled.

However, Professor Prasad said there were a lot of teachers who were staying in Fiji as the government was taking steps to keep teachers in the country.

“We are training more teachers. We are putting additional funding, in terms of making sure that we provide the right environment, right support to our teachers,” he said.

“In the last two years, we have increased the salaries of the civil service right across the board, and those salaries and wages range from between 10 to 20 percent.

“We are again going to look at how we can rationalise some of the positions within the Education Ministry, right from preschool up to high school.”

Meanwhile, the Fiji government is currently undertaking a review of the Education Act 1966.

Education Minister Aseri Radrodro said in Parliament last month that a draft bill was expected to be submitted to Cabinet in July.

“The Education Act 1966, the foundational law for pre-tertiary education in Fiji, has only been amended a few times since its promulgation, and has not undergone a comprehensive review,” he said.

“It is imperative that this legislation be updated to reflect modern standards and address current issues within the education system.”

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

ANALYSIS: By Susan St John

With the coalition government’s second Budget being unveiled, we should question where New Zealand is heading.

The 2024 Budget laid out the strategy. Tax cuts and landlord subsidies were prioritised with a focus on cuts to social and infrastructure spending. Most of the tax package went to the well-off, while many low-income households got nothing, or very little.

Even the tiny bit of the tax package directed to low-income people fell flat. Family Boost has significantly helped only a handful of families, while the increase of $25 per week (In Work Tax Credit) was denied all families on benefits, affecting about 200,000 of the very poorest children.

• READ MORE: Budget 2025 at a glance: The big changes, winners and losers
• Budget 2025: Pasifika community braces for impact

In the recession, families that lost paid work also lost access to full Working for Families, an income cut for their children of about $100 per week.

No one worked out how the many spending cuts would be distributed, but they have hurt the poor the most. These changes are too numerous to itemise but include increased transport costs; the reintroduction of prescription charges; a disastrous school lunch system; rising rents, rates and insurance; fewer budget advisory services; cuts to foodbank funding and hardship grants; stripping away support programmes for the disabled; inadequately adjusted benefits and minimum wage; and reduced support for pay equity and the living wage.

The objective is to save money while ignoring the human cost. For example, a scathing report of the Auditor General confirms that Oranga Tamariki took a bulldozer to obeying the call for a 6.5 percent cut in existing social services with no regard to the extreme hurt caused to children and struggling parents.

Budget 2025 has already indicated that Working for Families will continue to go backwards with not even inflation adjustments. The 2025 child and youth strategy report shows that over the year to June 2024 the number of children in material poverty continued to increase, there were more avoidable hospitalisations, immunisation rates for babies declined, and there was more food insecurity.

Human costs all around us
We can see the human costs all around us in homelessness, food insecurity, and ill health. Already we know we rank at the bottom among developed countries for child wellbeing and suicide rates.

Abject distress existing alongside where homes sell for $20 million-$40 million is no longer uncommon, and neither are $6 million helicopters of the very rich.

At the start of the year, Helen Robinson, CEO of the Auckland City Mission, had a clear warning: “I am pleading with government for more support, otherwise what we and other food relief agencies in Auckland can provide, will dramatically decrease.

“This leaves more of Auckland hungry and those already there become more desperate. It is the total antithesis of a thriving city.”

The theory held by this government is that by reducing the role of government and taxes, the private sector will flourish, and secure well-paid jobs will be created. Instead, as basic economic theory would predict, we have been handed a long and protracted recession with few signs of growth and prosperity.

Budget 2025 signals more of the same.

It would be a mistake to wait for simplistic official inequality statistics before we act. Our current destination is a sharply divided country of extreme wealth and extreme poverty with an insecure middle class.

Underfunded social agencies
Underfunded and swamped social agencies cannot remove the relentless stress on the people who are invisible in the ‘fiscally responsible’ economic narrative. The fabricated bogeyman of outsized net government debt is at the core, as the government pursues balanced budgets and small government-size targets.

A stage one economics student would know the deficit increases automatically in a recession to cushion the decline and stop the economy spiralling into something that looks more like a depression. But our safety nets of social welfare are performing very badly.

Rising unemployment has exposed the inadequacy of social protections. Working for Families, for instance, provides a very poor cushion for children. Many “working” families do not have enough hours of work and face crippling poverty traps.

Future security is undermined as more KiwiSavers cash in for hardship reasons. A record number of the talented young we need to drive the recovery and repair the frayed social fabric have already fled the country.

The government is fond of comparing its Budget to that of a household. But what prudent household would deliberately undermine the earning capacity of family members?

The primary task for the Budget should be to look after people first, to allow them to meet their food, dental and health needs, education, housing and travel costs, to have a buffer of savings to cushion unexpected shocks and to prepare for old age.

A sore thumb standing
In the social security part of the Budget, NZ Super for all at 65, no matter how rich or whether still in full-time well-paid work, dominates (gross $25 billion). It’s a sore thumb standing out alongside much less generous, highly targeted benefits and working for families, paid parental leave, family boost, hardship provisions, accommodation supplement, winter energy and other payments and subsidies.

Given the political will, research shows we can easily redirect at least $3 billion from very wealthy superannuitants to fixing other payments to greatly improve the wellbeing of the young. This will not be enough but it could be a first step to the wide rebalancing needed.

New Zealand has become a country of two halves whose paths rarely cross: a social time bomb with unimaginable consequences. It is a country beguiled by an egalitarian past that is no more.

COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle

30 April 1975. Saigon Fell, Vietnam Rose. The story of Vietnam after the US fled the country is not a fairy tale, it is not a one-dimensional parable of resurrection, of liberation from oppression, of joy for all — but there is a great deal to celebrate.

After over a century of brutal colonial oppression by the French, the Japanese, and the Americans and their various minions, the people of Vietnam won victory in one of the great liberation struggles of history.

It became a source of inspiration and of hope for millions of people oppressed by imperial powers in Central & South America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

• READ MORE: Part 1: The fall of Saigon 1975: Fifty years of repeating what was forgotten
• The fall of Saigon 1975: Part 2: The Quiet mutiny and the US army falls apart

Civil war – a war among several
The civil war in Vietnam, coterminous with the war against the Western powers, pitted communists and anti-communists in a long and pitiless struggle.

Within that were various strands — North versus South, southern communists and nationalists against pro-Western forces, and so on. As various political economists have pointed out, all wars are in some way class wars too — pitting the elites against ordinary people.

As has happened repeatedly throughout history, once one or more great power becomes involved in a civil war it is subsumed within that colonial war. The South’s President Ngô Đình Diệm, for example, was assassinated on orders of the Americans.

By 1969, US aid accounted for 80 percent of South Vietnam’s government budget; they effectively owned the South and literally called the shots.

US punishes its victims
This month, 50 years after the Vietnamese achieved independence from their colonial overlords, US President Donald Trump declared April 2 “Liberation Day” and imposed some of the heaviest tariffs on Vietnam because they didn’t buy enough US goods!

As economist Joseph Stiglitz pointed out, they don’t yet have enough aggregate demand for the kind of goods the US produces. That might have something to do with the decades it has taken to rebuild their lives and economy from the Armageddon inflicted on them by the US, Australia, New Zealand and other unindicted war criminals.

Straight after they fled, the US declared themselves the victims of the Vietnamese and imposed punitive sanctions on liberated Vietnam for decades — punishing their victims.

Under Gerald Ford (1974–1977), Jimmy Carter (1977–1981), Ronald Reagan (1981–1989), George H.W. Bush (1989–1993) right up to Bill Clinton (1993–2001), the US enforced the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) of 1917.

The US froze the assets of Vietnam at the very time it was trying to recover from the wholesale devastation of the country.

Tens of millions of much-needed dollars were captured in US banks, enforced by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The US also took advantage of its muscle to veto IMF and World Bank loans to Vietnam.

Countries like Australia and New Zealand, to their eternal shame, took part in both the war, the war crimes, and imposing sanctions and other punitive measures subsequently.

The ‘Boat People’ refugee crisis
While millions celebrated the victory in 1975, millions of others were fearful. The period of national unification and economic recovery was painful, typically repressive — when one militarised regime replaces another.

This triggered flight: firstly among urban elites — military officers, government workers, and professionals who were most closely-linked to the US-run regime.

You can blame the Commies for the ensuing refugee crisis but by strangling the Vietnamese economy, refusing to return Vietnamese assets held in the US, imposing an effective blockade on the economy via sanctions, the US deepened the crisis, which saw over two million flee the country between 1975 and the 1980s.

More than 250,000 desperate people died at sea.

Đổi Mới: the move to a socialist-market economy
In 1986, to energise the economy, the government moved away from a command economy and launched the đổi mới reforms which created a hybrid socialist-market economy.

They had taken a leaf out of the Chinese playbook, which under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping (1978 –1989), had moved towards a market economy through its “Reform and Opening Up” policies.  Vietnam saw the “economic miracle” of its near neighbour and its leaders sought something similar.

Vietnam’s economy boomed and GDP grew from $18.1 billion in 1984 to $469 billion by 2024, with a per capita GDP at purchasing power parity (PPP) of $15,470 (up from about $300 per capita in the 1970s).

After a sluggish start, literacy rates soared to 96.1 percent by 2023, and life expectancy reached 73.7 years, only a few short of the USA.  GDP growth is around 7 percent, according to the OECD.

An unequal society
Persistent inequality suggests the socialist vision has partially faded. A rural-urban divide and a rich-poor divide underlines ongoing injustices around quality of life and access to services but Vietnam’s Gini coefficient — a measure of income inequality — puts it only slightly more “unequal” as a society than New Zealand or Germany.

Corruption is also an issue in the country.

Press controls and political repression
As in China, political power resides with the Party. Freedom of expression — highlighted by press repression — is severely limited in Vietnam and nothing to celebrate.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) rates Vietnam as 174th out of 180 countries for press freedom and regularly excoriates its strongmen as press “predators”.  In its country profile, RSF says of Vietnam: “Independent reporters and bloggers are often jailed, making Vietnam the world’s third largest jailer of journalists”.

Vietnam is forging its own destiny
What is well worth celebrating, however, is that Vietnam successfully got the imperial powers off its back and out of its country. It is well-placed to play an increasingly prosperous and positive role in the emerging multipolar world.

It is part of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and the ASEAN network, and borders China, giving Vietnam the opportunity to weather any storms coming from the continent of America.

Vietnam today is united and free and millions of ordinary people have achieved security, health, education and prosperity vastly better than their parents and grandparents’ generations were able to.

In the end the honour and glory go to the Vietnamese people.

I’ll give the last word to Ho Chi Minh, the great leader of the Vietnamese people who reached out to the United States, and sought alliance not conflict. He was rebuffed by the super-power which had a different agenda.

On September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi’s Ba Dinh square:

“‘All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’

“This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free.

“… A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than eight years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the Fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent.

“For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, solemnly declare to the world that Vietnam has the right to be a free and independent country — and in fact is so already. The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilise all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their independence and liberty.”

And, my god, they did.

To conclude, a short poem attributed to Ho Chi Minh:

“After the rain, good weather.

“In the wink of an eye,

the universe throws off its muddy clothes.”

Eugene Doyle is a community organiser and activist in Wellington, New Zealand. He received an Absolutely Positively Wellingtonian award in 2023 for community service. His first demonstration was at the age of 12 against the Vietnam War. This article was first published at his public policy website Solidarity and is republished here with permission.

Claire Charters, an expert in indigenous rights in international and constitutional law, has told the United Nations the New Zealand government is pushing the most “regressive” policies she has ever seen.

“New Zealand’s policy on the Declaration (on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) sits alongside its legislative strategy to dismantle Māori rights in Aotearoa New Zealand, which has received global attention for its regressiveness,” said Charters.

Charters (Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāpuhi and Tainui) made the comment during an address last week to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII).

• READ MORE: Indigenous Peoples sidelined in global climate fight, UN warns
• Other indigenous rights reports

While in New York, Charters organised meetings between senior UN officials, New Zealand diplomats, and Māori attending UNPFII.

The officials included the UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Rights, Dr Albert Barume, Sheryl Lightfoot, the Vice-Chair of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP), and EMRIP Chair Valmaine Toki (Ngāti Rehua, Ngātiwai, Ngāpuhi).

Charters said the New Zealand government should be of exceptional concern to the UN, given that the country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters, had publicly expressed his rejection of the declaration.

In 2023, Peters’ party NZ First announced it would withdraw New Zealand from UNDRIP, citing concerns over race-based preferences.

In the same year, Peters claimed Māori were not indigenous peoples.

“New Zealand’s current government, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs specifically, has expressly rejected the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It has committed to not implementing the declaration,” said Charters.

Indigenous people’s forum at the United Nations.    Video: UN News

Charters invited the special rapporteur to visit New Zealand but also noted that the government ignored EMRIP’s request for a follow-up visit to support New Zealand’s implementation of UNDRIP.

She also called on the Permanent Forum to take all measures to require New Zealand to implement the declaration.

Republished from Te Ao Māori News with permission.

When the US Embassy knocked on my door in late 2024, I was both pleased and more than a little suspicious.

I’d worked with them before, but the organisation where I did that work, Tohatoha, had closed its doors. My new project, Dark Times Academy, was specifically an attempt to pull myself out of the grant cycle, to explore ways of funding the work of counter-disinformation education without dependence on unreliable governments and philanthropic funders more concerned with their own objectives than the work I believed then — and still believe — is crucial to the future of human freedom.

But despite my efforts to turn them away, they kept knocking, and Dark Times Academy certainly needed the money. I’m warning you all now: There is a sense in which everything I have to say about counter-disinformation comes down to conversations about how to fund the work.

• READ MORE: US backing for Pacific disinformation media course casualty of Trump aid ‘freeze’
• Other Mandy Henk reports

There is nothing I would like more than to talk about literally anything other than funding this work. I don’t love money, but I do like eating, having a home, and being able to give my kids cash.

I have also repeatedly found myself in roles where other people look to me for their livelihoods; a responsibility that I carry heavily and with more than a little clumsiness and reluctance.

But if we are to talk about President Donald Trump and disinformation, we have to talk about money. As it is said, the love of money is the root of all evil. And the lack of it is the manifestation of that evil.

Trump and his attack on all of us — on truth, on peace, on human freedom and dignity — is, at its core, an attack that uses money as a weapon. It is an attack rooted in greed and in avarice.

In Trump’s world, money is power
But in that greed lies his weakness. In his world, money is power. He and those who serve him and his fascist agenda cannot see beyond the world that money built. Their power comes in the form of control over that world and the people forced to live in it.

Of course, money is just paper. It is digital bits in a database sitting on a server in a data centre relying on electricity and water taken from our earth. The ephemeral nature of their money speaks volumes about their lack of strength and their vulnerability to more powerful forces.

They know this. Trump and all men like him know their weaknesses — and that’s why they use their money to gather power and control. When you have more money than you and your whānau can spend in several generations, you suddenly have a different kind of  relationship to money.

It’s one where money itself — and the structures that allow money to be used for control of people and the material world — becomes your biggest vulnerability. If your power and identity are built entirely on the power of money, your commitment to preserving the power of money in the world becomes an all-consuming drive.

Capitalism rests on many “logics” — commodification, individualism, eternal growth, the alienation of labour. Marx and others have tried this ground well already.

In a sense, we are past the time when more analysis is useful to us. Rather, we have reached a point where action is becoming a practical necessity. After all, Trump isn’t going to stop with the media or with counter-disinformation organisations. He is ultimately coming for us all.

What form that action must take is a complicated matter. But, first we must think about money and about how money works, because only through lessening the power of money can we hope to lessen the power of those who wield it as their primary weapon.

Beliefs about poor people
If you have been so unfortunate to be subject to engagement with anti-poverty programmes during the neoliberal era either as a client or a worker, you will know that one of the motivations used for denying direct cash aid to those in need of money is a belief on the part of government and policy experts that poor people will use their money in unwise ways, be it drugs or alcohol, or status purchases like sneakers or manicures.

But over and over again, there’s another concern raised: cash benefits will be spent on others in the community, but outside of those targeted with the cash aid.

You see this less now that ideas like a universal basic income (UBI) and direct cash transfers have taken hold of the policy and donor classes, but it is one of those rightwing concerns that turned out to be empirically accurate.

Poor people are more generous with their money and all of their other resources as well. The stereotype of the stingy Scrooge is one based on a pretty solid mountain of evidence.

The poor turn out to understand far better than the rich how to defeat the power that money gives those who hoard it — and that is community. The logic of money and capital can most effectively be defeated through the creation and strengthening of our community ties.

Donald Trump and those who follow him revel in creating a world of atomised individuals focused on themselves; the kind of world where, rather than relying on each other, people depend on the market and the dollar to meet their material needs — dollars. of course, being the source of control and power for their class.

Our ability to fund our work, feed our families, and keep a roof over our heads has not always been subject to the whims of capitalists and those with money to pay us. Around the world, the grand multicentury project known as colonialism has impoverished us all and created our dependency.

Colonial projects and ‘enclosures’
I cannot speak as a direct victim of the colonial project. Those are not my stories to tell. There are so many of you in this room who can speak to that with far more eloquence and direct experience than I. But the colonial project wasn’t only an overseas project for my ancestors.

In England, the project was called “enclosure”.

Enclosure is one of the core colonial logics. Enclosure takes resources (land in particular) that were held in common and managed collectively using traditional customs and hands them over to private control to be used for private rather than communal benefit. This process, repeated over and over around the globe, created the world we live in today — the world built on money.

As we lose control over our access to what we need to live as the land that holds our communities together, that binds us to one another, is co-opted or stolen from us, we lose our power of self-determination. Self-governance, freedom, liberty — these are what colonisation and enclosure take from us when they steal our livelihoods.

As part of my work, I keep a close eye on the approaches to counter-disinformation that those whose relationship to power is smoother than my own take. Also, in this the year of our Lord 2025, it is mandatory to devote at least some portion of each public talk to AI.

I am also profoundly sorry to have to report that as far as I can tell, the only work on counter-disinformation still getting funding is work that claims to be able to use AI to detect and counter disinformation. It will not surprise you that I am extremely dubious about these claims.

AI has been created through what has been called “data colonialism”, in that it relies on stolen data, just as traditional forms of colonialism rely on stolen land.

Risks and dangers of AI
AI itself — and I am speaking here specifically of generative AI — is being used as a tool of oppression. Other forms of AI have their own risks and dangers, but in this context, generative AI is quite simply a tool of power consolidation, of hollowing out of human skill and care, and of profanity, in the sense of being the opposite of sacred.

Words, art, conversation, companionship — these are fiercely human things. For a machine to mimic these things is to transgress against all of our communities — all the more so when the machine is being wielded by people who speak openly of genocide and white supremacy.

However, just as capitalism can be fought through community, colonialism can and has been fought through our own commitment to living our lives in freedom. It is fought by refusing their demands and denying their power, whether through the traditional tools of street protest and nonviolent resistance, or through simply walking away from the structures of violence and control that they have implemented.

In the current moment, that particularly includes the technological tools that are being used to destroy our communities and create the data being used to enact their oppression. Each of us is free to deny them access to our lives, our hopes, and dreams.

This version of colonisation has a unique weakness, in that the cyber dystopia they have created can be unplugged and turned off. And yet, we can still retain the parts of it that serve us well by building our own technological infrastructure and helping people use that instead of the kind owned and controlled by oligarchs.

By living our lives with the freedom we all possess as human beings, we can deny these systems the symbolic power they rely on to continue.

That said, this has limitations. This process of theft that underlies both traditional colonialism and contemporary data colonialism, rather than that of land or data, destroys our material base of support — ie. places to grow food, the education of our children, control over our intellectual property.

Power consolidated upwards
The outcome is to create ever more dependence on systems outside of our control that serve to consolidate power upwards and create classes of disposable people through the logic of dehumanisation.

Disposable people have been a feature across many human societies. We see it in slaves, in cultures that use banishment and exile, and in places where imprisonment is used to enforce laws.

Right now we see it in the United States being directed at scale towards those from Central and Latin America and around the world. The men being sent to the El Salvadorian gulag, the toddlers sent to immigration court without a lawyer, the federal workers tossed from their jobs — these are disposable people to Trump.

The logic of colonialism relies on the process of dehumanisation; of denying the moral relevance of people’s identity and position within their communities and families. When they take a father from his family, they are dehumanising him and his family. They are denying the moral relevance of his role as a father and of his children and wife.

When they require a child to appear alone before an immigration judge, they are dehumanising her by denying her the right to be recognised as a child with moral claims on the adults around her. When they say they want to transition federal workers from unproductive government jobs to the private sector, they are denying those workers their life’s work and identity as labourers whose work supports the common good.

There was a time when I would point out that we all know where this leads, but we are there now. It has led there, although given the US incarceration rate for Black men, it isn’t unreasonable to argue that in fact for some people, the US has always been there. Fascism is not an aberration, it is a continuation. But the quickening is here. The expansion of dehumanisation and hate have escalated under Trump.

Dehumanisaton always starts with words and  language. And Trump is genuinely — and terribly — gifted with language. His speeches are compelling, glittering, and persuasive to his audiences. With his words and gestures, he creates an alternate reality. When Trump says, “They’re eating the cats! They’re eating the dogs!”, he is using language to dehumanise Haitian immigrants.

An alternate reality for migrants
When he calls immigrants “aliens” he is creating an alternate reality where migrants are no longer human, no longer part of our communities, but rather outside of them, not fully human.

When he tells lies and spews bullshit into our shared information system, those lies are virtually always aimed at creating a permission structure to deny some group of people their full humanity. Outrageous lie after outrageous lie told over and over again crumbles society in ways that we have seen over and over again throughout history.

In Europe, the claims that women were consorting with the devil led to the witch trials and the burning of thousands of women across central and northern Europe. In Myanmar, claims that Rohinga Muslims were commiting rape, led to mass slaughter.

Just as we fight the logics of capitalism with community and colonialism with a fierce commitment to our freedom, the power to resist dehumanisation is also ours. Through empathy and care — which is simply the material manifestation of empathy — we can defeat attempts to dehumanise.

Empathy and care are inherent to all functioning societies — and they are tools we all have available to us. By refusing to be drawn into their hateful premises, by putting morality and compassion first, we can draw attention to the ridiculousness of their ideas and help support those targeted.

Disinformation is the tool used to dehumanise. It always has been. During the COVID-19 pandemic when disinformation as a concept gained popularity over the rather older concept of propaganda, there was a real moment where there was a drive to focus on misinformation, or people who were genuinely wrong about usually public health facts. This is a way to talk about misinformation that elides the truth about it.

There is an empirical reality underlying the tsunami of COVID disinformation and it is that the information was spread intentionally by bad actors with the goal of destroying the social bonds that hold us all together. State actors, including the United States under the first Trump administration, spread lies about COVID intentionally for their own benefit and at the cost of thousands if not millions of lives.

Lies and disinformation at scale
This tactic was not new then. Those seeking political power or to destroy communities for their own financial gain have always used lies and disinformation. But what is different this time, what has created unique risks, is the scale.

Networked disinformation — the power to spread bullshit and lies across the globe within seconds and within a context where traditional media and sources of both moral and factual authority have been systematically weakened over decades of neoliberal attack — has created a situation where disinformation has more power and those who wield it can do so with precision.

But just as we have the means to fight capitalism, colonialism, and dehumanisation, so too do we — you and I — have the tools to fight disinformation: truth, and accurate and timely reporting from trustworthy sources of information shared with the communities impacted in their own language and from their own people.

If words and images are the chosen tools of dehumanisation and disinformation, then we are lucky because they are fighting with swords that we forged and that we know how to wield. You, the media, are the front lines right now. Trump will take all of our money and all of our resources, but our work must continue.

Times like this call for fearlessness and courage. But more than that, they call on us to use all of the tools in our toolboxes — community, self-determination, care, and truth. Fighting disinformation isn’t something we can do in a vacuum. It isn’t something that we can depersonalise and mechanise. It requires us to work together to build a very human movement.

I can’t deny that Trump’s attacks have exhausted me and left me depressed. I’m a librarian by training. I love sharing stories with people, not telling them myself. I love building communities of learning and of sharing, not taking to the streets in protest.

More than anything else, I just want a nice cup of tea and a novel. But we are here in what I’ve seen others call “a coyote moment”. Like Wile E. Coyote, we are over the cliff with our legs spinning in the air.

We can use this time to focus on what really matters and figure out how we will keep going and keep working. We can look at the blue sky above us and revel in what beauty and joy we can.

Building community, exercising our self-determination, caring for each other, and telling the truth fearlessly and as though our very lives depend on it will leave us all the stronger and ready to fight Trump and his tidal wave of disinformation.

Mandy Henk, co-founder of Dark Times Academy, has been teaching and learning on the margins of the academy for her whole career. As an academic librarian, she has worked closely with academics, students, and university administrations for decades. She taught her own courses, led her own research work, and fought for a vision of the liberal arts that supports learning and teaching as the things that actually matter. This article was originally presented as an invited address at the annual general meeting of the Asia Pacific Media Network on 24 April 2025.

The US District Court for the District of Columbia has granted a preliminary injunction in Widakuswara v Lake, affirming the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) was unlawfully shuttered by the Trump administration, Acting Director Victor Morales and Special Adviser Kari Lake.

The decision enshrines that USAGM must fulfill its legally required functions and protects the editorial independence of Voice of America (VOA) journalists and other federal media professionals within the agency and newsrooms that receive grants from the agency, such as Radio Free Asia and others with implications for independent media in the Asia-Pacific region.

Journalists, federal workers, and unions celebrate this important step in defending this critical agency, First Amendment rights, resisting unlawful political interference in public broadcasting, and ensuring USAGM workers can continue to fulfill their congressionally mandated function, reports the NewsGuild-CWA press union.

• READ MORE: RSF and VOA coalition secure first court victory against Trump administration
• Other Voice of America and Radio Free Asia reports

“Today’s ruling is a victory for the rule of law, for press freedom and journalistic integrity, and for democracy worldwide,” said the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) national president Everett Kelley.

“The Trump administration’s illegal attempt to shutter Voice of America and other outlets under the US Agency for Global Media was a transparent effort to silence the voices of patriotic journalists and professionals who have dedicated their careers to spreading the truth and fighting propaganda from lawless authoritarian regimes.

“This preliminary injunction will allow these employees to get back to work as we continue the fight to preserve their jobs and critical mission.”

President Lee Saunders of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees AFSCME), the largest trade union of public employees in the United States, said: “Today’s ruling is a major win for AFSCME members and Voice of America workers who have dedicated their careers to reporting the truth and spreading freedom to millions across the world.

Judge’s message clear
“The judge’s message is clear — this administration has no right to unilaterally dismantle essential agencies simply because they do not agree with their purpose.

“We celebrate this decision and will continue to work with our partners to ensure that the Voice of America is restored.”

“Journalists hold power to account and that includes the Trump administration,” said NewsGuild-CWA president Jon Schleuss. “This injunction orders the administration to reverse course and restore the Congressionally-mandated news broadcasts of Radio Free Asia, Voice of America and other newsrooms broadcasting to people who hope for freedom in countries where that is denied.”

“We are gratified by today’s ruling. This is another step in the process to restore VOA to full operation.” said government accountability project senior counsel David Seide.

“VOA is more than just an iconic brand with deep roots in American and global history; it is a vital, living force that provides truth and hope to those living under oppressive regimes.

“We are thrilled that its voice — a voice for the voiceless — will once again be heard loud and clear around the world.

Powerful affirmation of rule of law
“This decision is a powerful affirmation of the rule of law and the vital role that independent journalism plays in our democracy. The court’s action protects independent journalism and federal media professionals at Voice of America as we continue this case, and reaffirms that no administration can silence the truth without accountability,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, co-counsel for the plaintiffs.

“We are proud to be with workers, unions and journalists in resisting political interference against independent journalism and will continue to fight for transparency and our democratic values.”

“Today’s decision is another necessary step in restoring the rule of law and correcting the injustices faced by the workers, reporters, and listeners of Voice of America and US Agency for Global Media,” said former Ambassador Norm Eisen, co-founder and executive chair of the State Democracy Defenders Fund.

“By granting this preliminary injunction, the court has reaffirmed the legal protections afforded to these civil servants and halted an attempt to undermine a free and independent press. We are proud to represent this resilient coalition and support the cause of a free and fair press.”

“This decision is a powerful affirmation of the role that independent journalism plays in advancing democracy and countering disinformation. From Voice of America to Radio Free Asia and across the US Agency for Global Media, these networks are essential tools of American soft power — trusted sources of truth in places where it is often scarce,” said Tom Yazdgerdi, president of the American Foreign Service Association.

“By upholding editorial independence, the court has protected the credibility of USAGM journalists and the global mission they serve.”

A critical victory
“We’re very pleased that Judge Lamberth has recognised that the Trump administration acted improperly in shuttering Voice of America,” said Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) USA.

“The USAGM must act immediately to implement this ruling and put over 1300 VOA employees back to work to deliver reliable information to their audience of millions around the world.”

While only the beginning of what may be a long, hard-fought battle, the court’s decision to grant a preliminary injunction marks a critical victory — not just for VOA journalists, but also for federal workers and the unions that represent them.

It affirms that the rule of law still protects those who speak truth to power.

Palestinians have always been passionate about learning. During the Ottoman era, Palestinian students travelled to Istanbul, Cairo, and Beirut to pursue higher education.

During the British Mandate, in the face of colonial policies aimed at keeping the local population ignorant, Palestinian farmers pooled their resources and established schools of their own in rural areas.

Then came the Nakba, and the occupation and displacement brought new pain that elevated the Palestinian pursuit of education to an entirely different level.

• READ MORE: Schools ‘bombed-out’ in latest Gaza escalation, says UNRWA chief
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

Education became a space where Palestinians could feel their presence, a space that enabled them to claim some of their rights and dream of a better future. Education became hope.

In Gaza, instruction was one of the first social services established in refugee camps. Students would sit on the sand in front of a blackboard to learn.

Communities did everything they could to ensure that all children had access to education, regardless of their level of destitution. The first institution of higher education in Gaza — the Islamic University — held its first lectures in tents; its founders did not wait for a building to be erected.

I remember how, as a child, I would see the alleys of our neighbourhood every morning crowded with children heading to school. All families sent their children to school.

When I reached university age, I saw the same scene: Crowds of students commuting together to their universities and colleges, dreaming of a bright future.

This relentless pursuit of education, for decades, suddenly came to a halt in October 2023. The Israeli army did not just bomb schools and universities and burn books. It destroyed one of the most vital pillars of Palestinian education: Educational justice.

Making education accessible to all
Before the genocide, the education sector in Gaza was thriving. Despite the occupation and blockade, we had one of the highest literacy rates in the world, reaching 97 percent.

The enrolment rate in secondary education was 90 percent, and the enrolment in higher education was 45 percent.

One of the main reasons for this success was that education in Gaza was completely free in the primary and secondary stages. Government and UNRWA-run schools were open to all Palestinian children, ensuring equal opportunities for everyone.

Textbooks were distributed for free, and families received support to buy bags, notebooks, pens, and school uniforms.

There were also many programmes sponsored by the Ministry of Education, UNRWA, and other institutions to support talented students in various fields, regardless of their economic status. Reading competitions, sports events, and technology programmes were organised regularly.

At the university level, significant efforts were made to make higher education accessible. There was one government university which charged symbolic fees, seven private universities with moderate to high fees (depending on the college and major), and five university colleges with moderate fees.

There was also a vocational college affiliated with UNRWA in Gaza that offered fully free education.

The universities provided generous scholarships to outstanding and disadvantaged students.

The Ministry of Education also offered internal and external scholarships in cooperation with several countries and international universities. There was a higher education loan fund to help cover tuition fees.

Simply put, before the genocide in Gaza, education was accessible to all.

The cost of education amid genocide
Since October 2023, the Zionist war machine has systematically targeted schools, universities, and educational infrastructure. According to UN statistics, 496 out of 564 schools — nearly 88 percent — have been damaged or destroyed.

In addition, all universities and colleges in Gaza have been destroyed. More than 645,000 students have been deprived of classrooms, and 90,000 university students have had their education disrupted.

As the genocide continued, the Ministry of Education and universities tried to resume the educational process, with in-person classes for schoolchildren and online courses for university students.

In displacement camps, tent schools were established, where young volunteers taught children for free. University professors used online teaching tools like Google Classroom, Zoom, WhatsApp groups, and Telegram channels.

Despite these efforts, the absence of regular education created a significant gap in the educational process. The incessant bombardment and forced displacement orders issued by the Israeli occupation made attendance challenging.

The lack of resources also meant that tent schools could not provide proper instruction.

As a result, paid educational centres emerged, offering private lessons and individual attention to students. On average, a centre charges between $25 to $30 per subject per month, and with eight subjects, the monthly cost reaches $240 — an amount most families in Gaza cannot afford.

In the higher education sector, cost also became prohibitive. After the first online semester, which was free, universities started requiring students to pay portions of their tuition fees to continue distance learning.

Online education also requires a tablet or a computer, stable internet access, and electricity. Most students who lost their devices due to bombing or displacement cannot buy new ones because of the high prices. Access to stable internet and electricity at private “workspaces” can cost as much as $5 an hour.

All of this has led many students to drop out due to their inability to pay. I, myself, could not complete the last semester of my degree.

The collapse of educational justice
A year and a half of genocide was enough to destroy what took decades to build in Gaza: Educational justice. Previously, social class was not a barrier for students to continue their education, but today, the poor have been left behind.

Very few families can continue educating all their children. Some families are forced to make difficult decisions: Sending older children to work to help fund the education of the younger ones, or giving the opportunity only to the most outstanding child to continue studying, and depriving the others.

Then there are the extremely poor, who cannot send any of their children to school. For them, survival is the priority. During the genocide, this group has come to represent a large portion of society.

The catastrophic economic situation has forced countless school-aged children to work instead of going to school, especially in families that lost their breadwinners. I see this painful reality every time I step out of my tent and walk around.

The streets are full of children selling various goods; many are exploited by war profiteers to sell things like cigarettes for a meagre wage.

Little children are forced to beg, chasing passersby and asking them for anything they can give.

I feel unbearable pain when I see children, who just a year and a half ago were running to their schools, laughing and playing, now stand under the sun or in the cold selling or begging just to earn a few shekels to help their families get an inadequate meal.

About optimism and courage
For Gaza’s students, education was never just about getting an academic certificate or an official paper. It was about optimism and courage, it was a form of resistance against the Israeli occupation, and a chance to lift their families out of poverty and improve their circumstances.

Education was life and hope.

Today, that hope has been killed and buried under the rubble by Israeli bombs.

We now find ourselves in a dangerous situation, where the gap between the well-to-do and the poor is widening, where an entire generation’s ability to learn and think is being diminished, and where Palestinian society is at risk of losing its identity and its capacity to continue its struggle.

What is happening in Gaza is not just a temporary educational crisis, but a deliberate campaign to destroy opportunities for equality and create an unbalanced society deprived of justice.

We have reached a point where the architects of the ongoing genocide are confident in the success of their strategy of “voluntary transfer” — pushing Palestinians to such depths of despair that they choose to leave their land voluntarily.

But the Palestinian people still refuse to let go of their land. They are persevering. Even the children, the most vulnerable, are not giving up.

I often think of the words I overheard from a conversation between two child vendors during the last Eid. One said: “There is no joy in Eid.” The other one responded: “This is the best Eid. It’s enough that we’re in Gaza and we didn’t leave it as Netanyahu wanted.”

Indeed, we are still in Gaza, we did not leave as Israel wants us to, and we will rebuild just as our ancestors and elders have.

Refaat Ibrahim is a Palestinian writer from Gaza. He writes about humanitarian, social, economic and political issues related to Palestine. This article was first published by Al Jazeera and is republished under Creative Commons.

ANALYSIS: By Jee Young Lee of the University of Canberra

Australia risks losing a generation of young journalists, particularly in the regions where they face the closure of news outlets, job insecurity, lower pay and limited career progression.

Ironically, it is regional news providers’ audiences who remain among the most engaged and loyal, demanding reliable, trustworthy news.

Yet it’s exactly the area where those closures, shrinking newsroom budgets and a reliance on traditional print-centric workflows over digital-first strategies are hitting hardest, making it difficult to attract and retain emerging journalists.

• READ MORE: Other media industry reports

And in an industry where women make up a substantial portion of the workforce and of those studying journalism, figures show the number of young females in regional news outlets declined by about a third over 15 years — a much greater decline than experienced by their male colleagues.

Without meaningful and collaborative efforts to invest in young professionals and sustain strong local newsrooms, the future of local journalism could be severely compromised.

Reversing the trend requires investing in new talent, which might be achieved through targeted funding initiatives, newsroom-university collaborations and regional innovation hubs that reduce costs while supporting emerging journalists. It also requires improved working conditions and fostering innovation.

Why it matters
Local journalism is the backbone of Australian news media, playing a crucial role in keeping communities informed and connected.

The Australian News Index shows community and local news outlets made up 88 percent of the 1226 news organisations operating across print, digital, radio and television in 2024.

These community-driven publications and broadcasters play a critical role in covering stories that matter most to Australians, reporting on councils, regional issues and everyday stories that affect people.

Yet local newsrooms face growing challenges in sustaining their workforce and attracting new talent, raising concerns about the future of journalism beyond metropolitan centres.

Fewer opportunities
Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows the proportion of journalists working full-time has steadily declined in both major cities and regional Australia.

In major cities, the proportion of journalists working full-time dropped from 74 percent in 2006 to 67 percent in 2021. In regional areas, the decline was even more pronounced — falling from 72 percent to 62 percent over the same period.

This widening gap suggests that regional journalists are increasingly shifting to part-time or freelance work, largely due to economic pressures on local news organisations.

Newspaper and periodical editors are more likely to work full-time in major cities (68 percent) compared with regional areas (59 percent). Similarly, a smaller proportion of print journalists are fulltime in regional areas.

In contrast, broadcast journalism maintains a more stable employment in regional areas.

Television and radio journalists in regional Australia are slightly more likely to work fulltime than their counterparts in major cities.

The pay gap
Regional journalists earn less than their metropolitan counterparts. The Australian Bureau of Statistics shows median weekly pay for full-time journalists in major cities is $1737 compared to $1412 for their regional counterparts.

The disparity is slightly greater for parttime regional journalists.

Lower salaries, combined with fewer full-time opportunities, make it difficult for regional outlets to attract and retain talent.

Fewer young journalists
Aspiring to become (and stay) a journalist is increasingly difficult, with many facing unstable job prospects, low pay and limited full-time opportunities.

This is particularly true for young journalists, who are forced to navigate freelance work, short-term contracts or leave the profession altogether.

The number of journalists aged 18 to 24 has steadily decreased, falling by almost a third from 1425 in 2006 to 990 in 2021. The decline is even steeper in regional areas, falling from 518 in 2006 to just 300 in 2021.

Young journalists are also less likely to have a fulltime job. In 2006, 92 percent of journalists aged 18 to 24 held a fulltime job but this had fallen to 85 percent in 2021, although they are significantly more likely to be employed fulltime compared to those in major cities.

This demonstrates that regional newsrooms can offer greater job security temporarily but the overall decline in young journalists entering the profession — particularly in regional areas — signals a need for targeted recruitment strategies, financial incentives and training programmes to sustain local journalism.

Data also reveals an overall decline in journalism graduates entering the news industry. The number of journalists aged 20 to 29 with journalism qualifications has dropped significantly, from 1618 in 2011 to 1255 in 2021.

This decline is marginally more pronounced in regional journalism, where the number of young, qualified journalists fell from 486 in 2006 to 367 in 2021.

Loss of opportunity for women
In Australia, women make up a significant portion of the journalism workforce, likely reflecting the growth in young women studying journalism at universities.

Yet the decline in young female qualified journalists, particularly in regional areas, further highlights the challenges faced by the regional news industry.

The number of female journalists aged 20 to 29 with journalism qualifications fell by 29 percent to 803 between 2006 and 2021, while the number of male journalists in the same age group declined by just 8 percent.

The decline of young female journalists was an even more dramatic 33 percent in regional areas falling from 354 in 2006 to 236 in 2021, while the number of male journalists in regional areas increased slightly in the same period, from 132 in 2006 to 137 in 2021.

Time for a reset
There is a need to rethink how journalism education prepares students for the workforce.

Some researchers argue that journalism students should be taught to better understand the evolving news landscape and its labour dynamics, ensuring they are prepared for the realities of the profession.

This practical approach, integrating training on labour rights and the economic realities of journalism into the curriculum, offers critical insights into the future of local journalism.

Pursuing a degree in arts, including journalism or media studies, is now among the most expensive in Australia. Many young and talented students still pursue journalism, even in the face of industry instability.

However, if the industry continues to signal to young talent that journalism offers little job security, low pay, and limited career progression — particularly in the regions — it risks losing a generation of passionate and skilled journalists.

Investing in new talent, improving working conditions and fostering innovation is critical for the industry to build resilience and strengthen community news coverage.

Dr Jee Young Lee is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra. Her research focuses on the social and cultural impacts of digital communication and technologies in the media and creative industries. Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info.

Former US President Barack Obama has taken to social media to praise Harvard’s decision to stand up for academic freedom by rebuffing the Trump administration’s demands.

“Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions — rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect,” Obama wrote in a post on X.

He called on other universities to follow the lead.

• READ MORE: Harvard will fight Trump’s demands
• Trump pauses $2.2 billion in funding after Harvard vows to resist demands
• The Trump administration’s updated demands to Harvard
• Harvard’s April 14 letter refusing the Trump administrations’s demands

Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions – rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and… https://t.co/gAu9UUqgjF

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) April 15, 2025

Harvard will not comply with the Trump administration’s demands to dismantle its diversity programming, limit student protests over Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, and submit to far-reaching federal audits in exchange for its federal funding, university president Alan M. Garber ’76 announced yesterday afternoon.

“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” he wrote, reports the university’s Harvard Crimson news team.

The announcement comes two weeks after three federal agencies announced a review into roughly $9 billion in Harvard’s federal funding and days after the Trump administration sent its initial demands, which included dismantling diversity programming, banning masks, and committing to “full cooperation” with the Department of Homeland Security.

Within hours of the announcement to reject the White House demands, the Trump administration paused $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in multi-year contracts to Harvard in a dramatic escalation in its crusade against the university.

More focused demands
On Friday, the Trump administration had delivered a longer and more focused set of demands than the ones they had shared two weeks earlier.

It asked Harvard to “derecognise” pro-Palestine student groups, audit its academic programmes for viewpoint diversity, and expel students involved in an altercation at a 2023 pro-Palestine protest on the Harvard Business School campus.

It also asked Harvard to reform its admissions process for international students to screen for students “supportive of terrorism and anti-Semitism” — and immediately report international students to federal authorities if they break university conduct policies.

It called for “reducing the power held by faculty (whether tenured or untenured) and administrators more committed to activism than scholarship” and installing leaders committed to carrying out the administration’s demands.

And it asked the university to submit quarterly updates, beginning in June 2025, certifying its compliance.

Garber condemned the demands, calling them a “political ploy” disguised as an effort to address antisemitism on campus.

“It makes clear that the intention is not to work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive manner,” he wrote.

“Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard.”

Although New Zealand and Australia seem to have escaped the worst of Donald Trump’s latest tariffs, some Pacific Islands stand to be hit hard — including a few that aren’t even “countries”.

The US will impose a base tariff of 10 percent on all foreign imports, with rates between 20 and 50 percent for countries judged to have major tariffs on US goods.

In the Pacific, Fiji is set to be charged the most at 32 percent, the US claiming this was a reciprocal tariff for the island nation imposing a 63 percent tariff on it.

• READ MORE: Disproportionate and unfair, says Fiji on 32 percent tariff
• Trump tariffs live: ‘Reciprocal’ levies shake up global trade
• Luxon says New Zealand won’t launch reciprocal tariffs against US
• New modelling reveals full impact of Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs – with the US hit hardest

Nauru, one of the smallest nations in the world, has been slapped with a 30 percent tariff, the US claimed they are imposing a 59 percent tariff.

Vanuatu will be given a 22 percent tariff.

Norfolk Island, which is an Australian territory, has been given a 29 percent tariff, this is despite Australia getting only 10 percent.

Most other Pacific nations were given the 10 percent base tariff.

This included Tokelau, despite it being a non-self-governing territory of New Zealand, with a population of only about 1500 people living on the atoll islands.

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

The Trump administration might let hundreds of millions of dollars in aid pledged to Pacific island nations during former President Joe Biden’s time in office stand, says New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters.

The Biden administration pledged about $1 billion in aid to the Pacific to help counter China’s influence in the strategic region.

However, Trump last month froze all disbursements of aid by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), for 90 days pending a “review” of all aid spending under his “America First” policy.

• READ MORE: Political analyst hopes NZ, Australia will ‘step up’ over USAID cuts gap
• Other USAID reports

Peters told reporters on Monday after meetings with Trump’s USAID acting head, Peter Marocco, and his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, “more confident” about the prospects of the aid being left alone than he was before.

Peters said he had a “very frank and open discussion” with American officials about how important the aid was for the Pacific, and insisted that they “get our point of view in terms of how essential it is”.

“In our business, it’s wise to find out the results before you open your mouth, but we are looking ahead with more confidence than when we arrived,” Peters said, pushing back against claims that the Trump administration would be “pulling back” from the Pacific region.

“We don’t know that yet. Let’s find out in April, when that full review is done on USAID,” he said. “But we came away more confident than some of the alarmists might have been before we arrived.”

Frenzied diplomatic battle
The Biden administration sought to rapidly expand US engagement with the small island nations of the Pacific after the Solomon Islands signed a controversial security pact with China three years ago.

The deal by the Solomon Islands sparked a frenzied diplomatic battle between Washington and Beijing for influence in the strategic region.

Biden subsequently hosted Pacific island leaders at back-to-back summits in Washington in September 2022 and 2023, the first two of their kind. He pledged hundreds of millions of dollars at both meets, appearing to tilt the region back toward Washington.

The first summit included announcements of some $800 billion in aid for the Pacific, while the second added about $200 billion.

But the region has since been rocked by the Trump administration’s decision to freeze all aid pending its ongoing review. The concerns have not been helped by a claim from Elon Musk, who Trump tasked with cutting government waste, that USAID would be shut down.

“You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair. We’re shutting it down,” Musk said in a February 3 livestreamed video.

However, the New Zealand foreign minister, who also met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday, said he held out hope that Washington would not turn back on its fight for influence in the Pacific.

“The first Trump administration turned more powerfully towards the Pacific . . .  than any previous administration,” he said, “and now they’ve got Trump back again, and we hope for the same into the future.”

Radio Free Asia is an online news service affiliated with BenarNews. Republished from BenarNews with permission.

Māori contributions to the Aotearoa New Zealand economy have far surpassed the projected goal of “$100 billion by 2030”, a new report has revealed.

The report conducted by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) and Te Puni Kōkiri, Te Ōhanga Māori 2023, shows Māori entities have grown from contributing $17 billion to New Zealand’s GDP in 2018 to $32 billion in 2023, turning a 6.5 percent contribution to GDP into 8.9 percent.

The Māori asset base has grown from $69 billion in 2018 to $126 billion in 2023 — an increase of 83 percent.

• READ MORE: Māori business on the big stage at NZ’s economic summit — RNZ’s Saturday Morning
• Other Māori economy reports

Of that sum, there is $66 billion in assets for Māori businesses and employers, $19 billion in assets for self-employed Māori and $41 billion in assets for Māori trusts, incorporations, and other Māori collectives including post settlement entities.

In 2018, $4.2 billion of New Zealand’s economy came from agriculture, forestry, and fishing which made it the main contributor.

Now, administrative, support, and professional services have taken the lead contributing $5.1 billion in 2023.

However, Māori collectives own around half of all of New Zealand’s agriculture, forestry, and fishing assets and remain the highest asset-rich sector.

Focused on need
Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira manages political and public interests on behalf of Ngāti Toa, including political interests, treaty claims, fisheries, health and social services, and environmental kaitiakitanga.

Tumu Whakarae chief executive Helmut Modlik said they were not focused on making money, but on “those who need it most”.

Ngāti Toa invested in water infrastructure and environmental projects, with a drive to replenish the whenua and improve community health. Like many iwi, they also invest in enterprises that deliver essential services such as health, housing and education.

“We focus on long-term benefits rather than short-term gains, ensuring that our investments contribute to the sustainable development of our community,” Modlik said.

Between the covid-19 lockdown and 2023, the iwi grew their assets from $220 million to $850 million and increased their staff from 120 to over 600.

Pou Ōhanga (chief economic development and investment officer) Boyd Scirkovich said they took a “people first” approach to decision making.

“We focused on building local capacity and ensuring that our people had the resources and support they needed to navigate the challenges of the pandemic.”

The kinds of jobs Māori are working are also changing.

Māori workers now hold more high-skilled jobs than low-skilled jobs with 46 percent in high-skilled jobs, 14 percent in skilled jobs, and 40 percent in low-skilled jobs.

That is compared to 2018 when 37 percent of Māori were in high-skilled jobs and 51 percent in low-skilled jobs.

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

China has confirmed details of its meeting with Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown for the first time, saying Beijing “stands ready to have an in-depth exchange” with the island nation.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters during his regular press conference that Brown’s itinerary, from February 10-16, would include attending the closing ceremony of the Asian Winter Games in Harbin as well as meeting with Premier of the State Council Li Qiang.

Guo also confirmed that Brown and his delegation had visited Shanghai and Shandong as part of the state visit.

• READ MORE: Will New Zealand ‘invade’ the Cook Islands to stop China? Seriously – Eugene Doyle
• Should New Zealand invade the Cook Islands?
• Cook Islands opposition files no-confidence motion against PM
• Cook Islands crisis: Haka with the taniwha or dance with the dragon?
• Explainer: The diplomatic row between New Zealand and the Cook Islands
• Other China in Pacific reports

“The Cook Islands is China’s cooperation partner in the South Pacific,” he said.

“Since the establishment of diplomatic ties, the two countries have respected each other, treated each other as equals, and sought common development.”

Guo told reporters that the relationship between the two countries was elevated to comprehensive strategic partnership in 2018.

“Our friendly cooperation is rooted in profound public support and delivers tangibly to the two peoples.

‘New progress in bilateral relations’
“Through Prime Minister Brown’s visit, China stands ready to have an in-depth exchange of views with the Cook Islands on our relations and work for new progress in bilateral relations.”

Brown said on Wednesday that he was aware of the strong interest in the outcomes of his visit, which has created significant debate on the relationship with Cook Islands and New Zealand.

He has said that the “comprehensive strategic partnership” deal with China is expected to be signed today, and does not include a security component.

While on one hand, the New Zealand government has been urged not to overreact, on the other the Cook Islands opposition want Brown and his government out.

Locals in Rarotonga have accused New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters of being a “bully”, while others are planning to protest against Brown’s leadership.

A local resident, Tim Buchanan, said Peters has “been a bit bullying”.

He said Peters had overacted and the whole issue had been “majorly” blown out of proportion.

‘It doesn’t involve security’
“It does not involve our national security, it does not involve borrowing a shit load of money, so what is your concern about?

“Why do we need to consult him? We have been a sovereign nation for 60 years, and all of a sudden he’s up in arms and wanted to know everything that we’re doing”

Brown previously told RNZ Pacific that he had assured Wellington “over and over” that there “will be no impact on our relationship and there certainly will be no surprises”.

However, New Zealand said it should have seen the text prior to Brown leaving for China.

Vote of no confidence
Cook Islands opposition MP Teariki Heather said he did not want anything to change with New Zealand.

“The response from the government and Winston Peters and the Prime Minister of New Zealand, that’s really what concerns us, because they are furious,” said Heather, who is the leader of Cook Islands United Party.

Heather has filed a no confidence motion against the Prime Minister and has been the main organiser for a protest against Brown’s leadership that will take place on Monday morning local time.

He is expecting about 1000 people to turn up, about one in every 15 people who reside in the country.

Opposition leader Tina Browne is backing the motion and will be at the protest which is also about the Prime Minister’s push for a local passport, which he has since dropped.

With only eight opposition members in the 24-seat parliament, Browne said the motion of no confidence is not about the numbers.

“It is about what are we the politicians, the members of Parliament, going to do about the two issues and for us, the best way to demonstrate our disapproval is to vote against it in Parliament, whether the members of Parliament join us or not that’s entirely up to them.”

The 2001 document argument
Browne said that after reading the constitution and the 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration, she agreed with Peters that the Cook Islands should have first consulted New Zealand on the China deal.

“Our prime minister has stated that the agreement does not affect anything that he is obligated to consult with New Zealand. I’m very suspicious of that because if there is nothing offensive, why the secrecy then?

“I would have thought, irrespective, putting aside everything, that our 60 year relationship with New Zealand, who’s been our main partner warrants us to keep that line open for consultation and that’s even if it wasn’t in [the Joint Centenary Declaration].”

Other locals have been concerned by the lack of transparency from their government to the Cook Islands people.

But Cook Islands’ Foreign Minister Tingika Elikana said that is not how these deals were done.

“I think the people have to understand that in regards to agreements of this nature, there’s a lot of negotiations until the final day when it is signed and the Prime Minister is very open that the agreements will be made available publicly and then people can look at it.”

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the government would wait to see what was in the agreement before deciding if any punishment should be imposed.

With the waiting, Elikana said he was concerned.

“We are worried but we want to see what will be their response and we’ve always reiterated that our relationship is important to us and our citizenship is really important to us, and we will try our best to remain and retain that,” Elikana said.

He did not speculate about the vote of no confidence motion.

“I think we just leave it to the day but I’m very confident in our team and very confident in our Prime Minister.”

‘Cook Islands does a lot for New Zealand’
Cultural leader and carver Mike Tavioni said he did not know why everyone was so afraid of the Asian superpower.

“I do not know why there is an issue with the Cook Islands and New Zealand, as long as Mark [Brown] does not commit this country to a deal with China with strings attached to it,” he said.

Tavioni said the Cook Islands does a lot for New Zealand also, with about 80,000 Cook Islanders living in New Zealand and contributing to it’s economy.

“The thing about consulting, asking for permission, it does not go down well because our relationship with Aotearoa should be taken into consideration.”

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

Kiribati President Taneti Maamau was unable to meet New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters because he had “a pre-planned and significant historical event”, a Cabinet minister in Kiribati says.

Alexander Teabo, Education Minister in Maamau’s government, told RNZ Pacific that “it is important for the truth to be conveyed accurately” after the “diplomatic tiff” between the two nations was confirmed by Peters as reported.

Maamau is currently in Fiji for his first state visit to the country.

• READ MORE: NZ aid for Kiribati under review after meeting cancelled with Peters
• Other Kiribati aid reports

Peters said New Zealand could not commit to ongoing monetary aid in Kiribati after three cancelled or postponed visits in recent months.

A spokesperson from Peters’ office said the Deputy Prime Minister’s visit to Tarawa was set to be the first in over five years and took a “month-long effort”. However, the NZ government was informed a week prior to the meeting that Maamau was no longer available.

His office announced that, as a result of the “lack of political-level contact”, Aotearoa was reviewing its development programme in Kiribati. It is a move that has been described as “not the best approach” by Victoria University’s professor in comparative politics Dr Jon Fraenkel.

Minister Teabo said that Peters’ visit to Kiribati was cancelled by the NZ government.

“It is correct that the President was unavailable in Tarawa due to a pre-planned and significant historical event hosted on his home island,” he said.

Date set ‘several months prior’
“This important event’s date was established by the Head of the Catholic Church several months prior.”

He said Maamau’s presence and support were required on his home island for this event, and it was not possible for him to be elsewhere.

Teabo pointed out that Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister was happy to meet with Kiribati’s Vice-President in a recent visit.

“The visit by NZ Foreign Minister was cancelled by NZ itself but now the blame is on the President of Kiribati as the reason for all the cuts and the impacts to be felt by the people.

“This is unfair to someone who is doing his best for his people who needed him at any particular time.”

‘Tried several times’ – Luxon
The New Zealand aid programme is worth over NZ$100 million, but increasingly, Kiribati has been receiving money from China after ditching its diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 2019.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the country was keen to meet and work with Kiribati, like other Pacific nations.

Luxon said he did not know whether the lack of communication was due to Kiribati and China getting closer.

“The Foreign Minister has tried several times to make sure that as a new government, we can have a conversation with Kiribati and have a relationship there.

“He’s very keen to meet with them and help them and work with them in a very constructive way but that hasn’t happened.”

New Zealand’s Minister of Defence Judith Collins agrees with Peters’ decision to review aid to Kiribati.

Collins said she would talk to Peters about it today.

“I think we need to be very careful about where our aid goes, how it’s being used and I agree with him. We can’t have a disrespectful relationship.”

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

It was a cold day in Washington, DC, on Tuesday when Donald Trump was sworn in for his second stint as President of the United States of America.

On account of freezing temperatures, the inauguration ceremony was moved indoors to the Capitol Rotunda, and the weather became a primary focus of much pre-inauguration media commentary.

The Reuters news agency reported that this was “one of the coldest inauguration days the US has experienced in the past few decades”, while also providing other crucial ceremony updates such as that “Mike Tyson snacked on a banana in the overflow room”.

• READ MORE: Israel’s deadly West Bank raids continue as Gaza ceasefire holds
• Standing for decency: The sermon the President didn’t want to hear
• Trump’s reaction as bishop pleads for protection of minorities

I, myself, watched the event on my computer in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, where it is precisely the opposite of cold and where I have spent the past several days battling the scorpion population that has taken up residence in my house.

By the end of Trump’s swearing-in, however, I was undecided as to what was less pleasant: killing scorpions or watching the next episode of American dystopia unfold.

I tuned in at 11am, meaning I had a full hour before Trump took centre stage; for much of this time, the audience in the rotunda was treated to musical selections befitting a carousel or a circus.

The frigid weather outside was, meanwhile, at least probably good practice for life on Mars, a territory Trump would soon claim for the United States during his inaugural speech: “And we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.”

Not the only territorial conquest
This, to be sure, was not the only territorial conquest Trump promised. He also reiterated his determination to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” as well as to seize control of the Panama Canal because “American ships are being severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape, or form”.

But the Mars comments earned a maniacal grin from one person in the audience: the gazillionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk, known for such ideas as that the “next really big thing is to build a self-sustaining city on Mars and bring the animals and creatures of Earth there”.

Musk was one of various representatives of the earthly super-elite who — unlike poor Mike Tyson — made the cut for a spot in the rotunda. Also present were Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of TikTok.

As Al Jazeera noted the day prior to the inauguration, Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly donated $1 million to the ceremony, while “Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta have said they would donate $1 million, along with Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, who donated $1 million”.

As of January 8, Trump’s inauguration fund had already racked up a record $170 million.

Anyway, what better way to “Make America Great Again” than by supercharging the plutocracy?

Declaring at the start of his speech that “the golden age of America begins right now”, Trump went on to express numerous other hallucinations, including that “national unity is now returning to America”. Never mind that the tyranny of an astronomically wealthy minority is not exactly, um, unifying.

Luckily on Planet Trump, reality is whatever he says it is. And Trump says that “sunlight is pouring over the entire world”.

‘Historic executive orders’
In his speech, Trump announced a “series of historic executive orders” that according to him, will jumpstart the “complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense”.

Among these executive orders was the declaration of “a national emergency at our southern border”, paving the way for the deportation of “millions and millions of criminal aliens” and entailing the deployment of the US military “to repel the disastrous invasion of our country”.

Under Trump’s command, the US “will also be designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organisations”. Then there’s the new “official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female”.

And of course, the more emergencies, the better: “[T]oday I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill.”

Recoiling at the very thought of environmentalism, Trump proclaimed: “We will be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it.”

And if we happen to destroy Earth in the process, well, there’s always Mars.

As usual, the continuous invocation of God during the inauguration ceremony made a fine mockery of the ostensible separation of church and state in the US, and Trump revealed the reason he had survived a July assassination attempt in the state of Pennsylvania: “I was saved by God to make America great again.”

Overlap with Martin Luther King Jr Day
Last but not least, Trump took advantage of the overlap of his inauguration with Martin Luther King Jr Day, celebrated annually in the US on the third Monday of January, to pledge that “we will make his dream come true” — which would probably be easier if Trump himself weren’t a bona fide racist.

Indeed, Trump’s notion that “our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent and totally unpredictable” would seem to be distinctly at odds with King’s assessment of the US as the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world”.

None of this is to imply that the Democrats have not done their part in terms of purveying global violence or upholding plutocracy, perpetuating brutal inequality, terrorising refuge seekers, and so on.

But Tuesday’s inaugural charade was an exercise in nihilism — and, as I return to my scorpions and Trump goes about making dystopia great again, I think I’ll take Mars over the “golden age of America” any day.

Belén Fernández is the author of Inside Siglo XXI: Locked Up in Mexico’s Largest Immigration Detention Center (OR Books, 2022), Checkpoint Zipolite: Quarantine in a Small Place (OR Books, 2021), and Martyrs Never Die: Travels through South Lebanon (Warscapes, 2016). She writes for numerous publications and this article was first published by Al Jazeera.

Out of the rubble of last year’s 7.3 magnitude earthquake that hit Vanuatu’s capital Port Vila on December 17 and the snap election due next week on January 16, a new leadership is required to reset the country’s developmental trajectory.

Persistent political turmoil has hampered the Pacific nation’s ability to deal with a compounding set of social and economic shocks over recent years, caused by climate-related and other natural disasters.

The earthquake is estimated to have conservatively caused US$244 million (VUV29 billion) in damage, and the Vanuatu government’s ability to pay for disaster response, the election, and resume public service delivery will require strong, committed and stable leadership.

• READ MORE: Pacific 2025: Vanuatu quake, Tongan and Kanaky shakeups, Trump questions set tone for coming year
• Other Vanuatu snap election reports

Prior to the devastating quake and dramatic dissolution of Parliament on November 18, economist Peter Judge from Vanuatu-based Pacific Consulting warned of an evolving economic emergency.

Vanuatu’s US$1 billion economy faced a concerning decline in government revenue from value-added tax, down 25 percent on the previous year.

This was a ripple effect from the decline in economic activity after the collapse of national airline Air Vanuatu last May, as well as the falling revenues from the troubled Citizenship by Investment Programme.

Both were plagued by lack of oversight by parliamentarians.

Struggling economy
In 2024, Vanuatu is expected to record about 1 percent economic growth, as it struggles to climb out of the red and back to pre-pandemic levels.

Conversely, Vanuatu has a much more positive, although somewhat contradictory democratic profile.

According to the Global State of Democracy Initiative, Vanuatu is one of the more democratic states in the Pacific islands region, and currently ranks as 45th in the world.

But this performance comes with a significant price. Leadership turnover is frequent, with 28 prime ministerial terms in just 44 years of statehood, 20 of those in the last 25 years — the highest frequency of change in the Melanesian region.

The impacts of disrupted leadership and political instability are highly visible. Government decision-making and service delivery is grindingly slow.

In Vanuatu’s Parliament, the legislative process is frequently deferred due to regular motions of no confidence, with several critical bills still awaiting MPs’ attention.

Last October, for example, the Vanuatu government proposed a 2025 budget 10 percent smaller than 2024’s, due to reduced economic activity and declining government revenue.

Sudden dissolution
Parliament was unable to approve this year’s budget due to its sudden dissolution on November 18, only two-and-a-half years into a four-year political term.

This is the second consecutive presidential dissolution of Parliament, the previous one in 2022 also occurring barely two-and-a-half years into its term.

The Bill for the appropriation of the 2025 budget now awaits the formation of the next legislature for approval. In the meantime, earthquake recovery and election management costs accumulate under a caretaker government.

With deepening economic hardship and industries facing slow economic growth across multiple sectors, voters are looking for leadership that can stabilise the compounding cost of living pressures.

The new government will need to urgently tackle overdue, unresolved issues pertaining to reliable inter-island transport and air connectivity, outstanding teacher salaries and greater opportunities for the nation’s restive youth.

The youth unemployment rate is at 10.7 percent and rising.

Democracy with political stability is the holy grail for Vanuatu. But attaining this legendary and supposedly miraculous prize comes with costs attached.

Rules come into force
In response to civic and youth activism in late 2023 calling for political stability and transparency, the last Parliament approved a national referendum to make political affiliation more accountable and end party hopping.The rules come into force in the next parliamentary term for the first time.

The referendum passed successfully on May 29, 2024, but cost US$2.9 million. The 2022 snap election required US$1.4 million and the 2025 poll is expected to require another US$1.6 million.

While revenue from candidature fees of US$250,000 does cover part of these costs, each legislature transition also weighs on the public purse.

The current crop of outgoing 52 parliamentarians were paid out US$1.62 million in gratuities and benefits — around US$31,000 per MP — even though most did not see out their full terms.

Vanuatu’s average annual household income in 2020 was US$9000.

Whatever the outcome of the 2025 snap election, the incoming government will need to refocus attention on stabilising the trajectory of Vanuatu’s economy and development.

The next legislature — the 14th — will need to commit to stability in the interests of Vanuatu’s people and the nation’s development.

Budget, earthquake recovery priorities
The most immediate priorities for a new government should be the passage of the 2025 national budget and the implementation of an earthquake recovery and reconstruction plan.

In the 45 years since throwing off the British and French colonial yoke, citizens have enthusiastically done their duty at elections in the expectation of a national leadership that will take Vanuatu forward.

Now their faith appears to be waning, after the 2022 poll saw voter turnout — a key indicator of the health of a democracy — dropped below 50 percent for the first time since independence.

This election therefore needs to see a return on the considerable investment made in Vanuatu’s democratic processes, both in terms of financial cost to successive governments and donors, and more to the point, a political dividend for voters.

Anna Naupa is a ni-Vanuatu scholar and currently a PhD student at the Australian National University. Republished from BenarNews with permission.

A new carbon credit trading deal reached in the final hours of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, has been criticised as a free pass for countries to slack off on efforts to reduce emissions at home.

The deal, sealed at the annual UN climate talks nearly a decade after it was first put forward, will allow countries to buy carbon credits from others to bring down their own balance sheet.

New Zealand had set its targets under the Paris Agreement on the assumption that it would be able to meet some of it through international cooperation — “so getting this up and running is really important”, Compass Climate head Christina Hood said.

• READ MORE: Fractious COP29 lands $300bn climate finance goal, dashing hopes of the poorest
• Other COP29 climate crisis reports

“It’s a tool, it’s neither good nor bad, but there’s going to have to be a lot of scrutiny on whether the government is taking a high-ambition, high-integrity path, or just trying to do the minimum possible.”

The plan had taken nine years to go through because countries determined to do it right had been holding out for a process with the right checks and balances in place, she said.

As it stood, countries would have to report yearly to the UN on their trading activities, but it was up to society and other countries to scrutinise behaviour.

Cindy Baxter, a COP veteran who has been at all but seven of the conferences, said it was in-line with the way Aotearoa New Zealand wanted to go about reducing its emissions.

‘We’re not alone, but . . .’
“We’re not alone, Switzerland is similar and Japan as well, but certainly New Zealand is aiming to meet by far the largest proportion of our climate target, [out of] anywhere in the OECD, through carbon trading.”

The new scheme fell under Article six of the Paris Agreement, and a statement from COP29 said it was expected to reduce the cost of implementing countries’ national climate plans by up to US$250 billion (NZ$428.5b) per year.

COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev said “climate change is a transnational challenge and Article six will enable transnational solutions. Because the atmosphere does not care where emissions savings are made.”

But Baxter said there was not enough transparency in the scheme, and plenty of loopholes. One of the issues was ensuring projects resulting in carbon credits continued to reduce emissions after the credits were traded.

“For example, if you’re trying to save some mangroves in Fiji, you give Fiji a whole bunch of money and say this is going to offset this amount of carbon, but what if those mangroves are destroyed by a drought, or a great big cyclone?”

Countries should be cutting emissions at home, she said.

“And that is something New Zealand is not very good at doing, has a really bad reputation for doing. We’ve either planted trees, or now we’re trying to throw money at offset.”

Greenpeace spokesperson Amanda Larsson said she, too, was concerned it would take the onus off big polluters to make reductions at home, calling it a “get out of jail free card”.

‘Lot of junk credits’
“Ultimately, we really need to see significant cuts in climate pollution,” she said. “And there’s no such thing as high-integrity voluntary carbon markets, and a history of a lot of junk credits being sold.”

Countries with the means to make meaningful change at home should not be relying on other countries stepping up, she said

The Green Party foreign affairs spokesperson Teanau Tuiono said there was strong potential in the proposal, but it was “imperative to ensure the framework is robust, and protects the rights of indigenous peoples at the same time as incentivising carbon sequestration”.

It should be a wake-up call to change New Zealand’s over-reliance on risky pine plantations and instead support permanent native afforestation, he said.

“This proposal emphasises how solving the climate crisis requires global collaboration on the most difficult issues. That requires building trust and confidence, by meeting commitments countries make to each other.

“Backing out of these by, for instance, restarting oil and gas exploration directly against the wishes of our Pacific relatives, is not the way do to that.”

Conference overall ‘disappointing and frustrating’
Baxter said it had been “very difficult being forced to have another COP in a petro-state”, where the host state did not have much to gain by making big progress.

“What that means is that there is not that impetus to bang heads together and get really strong agreement,” she said.

But the blame could not be placed entirely on the leadership.

“The COP process is set up to work if governments bring their A-games, and they don’t,” she said.

“People should be bringing their really strong new climate targets [and] very few are doing that.”

Another deal was clinched in overtime of the two-week conference, promising US$300 billion (NZ$514 billion) each year by 2035 for developing nations to tackle climate emissions.

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

National Federation Party president Parmod Chand has described Fiji Labour Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry as a “self-professed champion of the poor” and criticised him over “hallucinating” about the country.

Chand made the comment when responding to remarks made by Chaudhry during FLP’s Annual Delegates Conference in Nadi on Saturday.

Chaudhry described Fiji’s coalition government leadership as self-serving and lacking integrity, transparency and accountability.

“As the un-elected Finance Minister in the regime of Frank Bainimarama after the 2006 coup, [Chaudhry] famously stated that people must learn to live with high prices of basic food items essentials,” said Chand.

“The coalition government has been for the past 23 months re-establishing the foundation for genuine democracy, accountability, transparency and good governance dismantled firstly by the regime that Chaudhry was an integral part of for 18 months”.

“The likes of Mahendra Chaudhry can continue hallucinating”.

The current Coalition Finance Minister is Professor Biman Prasad, who is leader of the NFP.

Republished with permission.

Tuvalu’s Transport, Energy, and Communications Minister Simon Kofe has expressed doubt about Australia’s reliability in addressing the climate crisis.

Kofe was reacting to the latest report by report by the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, which found that Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom are responsible for more than 60 percent of emissions generated from extraction of fossil fuels across Commonwealth countries since 1990.

Kofe told RNZ Pacific that the report proves that Australia has essentially undermined its own climate credibility.

• READ MORE: Is New Zealand’s immigration ‘set up’ to take in climate migrants from the Pacific?
• Other CHOGM reports

He said that there is a sense of responsibility on Tuvalu, being at the forefront of the impacts of climate change, to continue to advocate for stronger climate action and to talk to its partners.

“When the climate crisis really hits these countries, I think that might really get their attention. But that might actually be too late when countries actually begin to take this issue seriously,” he said.

He noted that Australia approved the extension of three more coal mines last month, which demonstrates that “there’s a lot of work to be done”.

‘Shoots their credibility’
“I think [that] kind of shoots their own credibility in the in the climate space.”

While Pacific leaders have endorsed Australia’s bid to host the United Nations climate change conference, or COP31, in 2026, Kofe said that if Australia really wanted to take leadership on the climate front, then they needed to show it in their actions.

“They are in control of their own policies and decisions. All we can do is continue to talk to them and put pressure on them,” he said.

“We just have to keep pressuring our partner, Australia, to do the right thing.”

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

One year since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese went to San Diego to unveil the AUKUS deal the news came that the first of three second-hand Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines supposed to arrive in 2032 may not happen.

Former coalition prime minister Scott Morrison announced AUKUS in September 2021 and Albanese continued to champion the pact between the US, Britain and Australia.

Phase one involves Australia acquiring eight nuclear-powered submarines as tensions in the Indo-Pacific are growing.

• READ MORE: Other AUKUS reports

Concerns about the submarines ever materialising are not new, despite the US passing its National Defence Bill 2024 which facilitates the transfer of the nuclear-powered warships.

However, the Pentagon’s 2025 fiscal year budget only set aside funding to build one Virginia submarine. This affects the AUKUS deal as the US had promised to lift production from around 1.3 submarines a year to 2.3 to meet all requirements.

Australia’s acquisition of the first of three second-hand SSNs were to bridge the submarine gap, as talk about a US-led war on China continues.

US Democratic congressperson Joe Courtney told The Sydney Morning Herald on March 12 the US was struggling with its own shipbuilding capacity, meaning promises to Australia were being deprioritised.

Production downturn
Courtney said that the downturn in production “will remove one more attack submarine from a fleet that is already 17 submarines below the navy’s long-stated requirement of 66”.

The US needs to produce 18 more submarines by 2032 to be able to pass one on to Australia.

After passing laws permitting the transfer of nuclear technology, the deal is running a year at least behind schedule.

Greens Senator David Shoebridge said on X that “When the US passed the law to set up AUKUS they put in kill switches, one of which allowed the US to decide not [to] transfer the submarines if doing so would ‘degrade the US undersea capabilities’”.

Pat Conroy, Labor’s Defence Industry Minister, retorted that the government was confident the submarines would appear.

The White House seems unfazed; it would have been aware of the problems for some time.

Meanwhile the USS Annapolis, a US nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) has docked in Boorloo/Perth.

AUKUS still under way
Regardless of whether Australia acquires any nuclear-powered vessels, the rest of the AUKUS deal, including interoperability with the US, is already underway.

Andrew Hastie, Liberal Party spokesperson, confirmed that construction at HMAS Stirling will start next year for “Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-West)”, the permanent US-British nuclear-powered submarine base in WA, which is due to be completed in 2027.

SRF-West includes 700 US army personnel and their families being stationed in WA. If the second-hand nuclear submarines do not materialise, the US submarines will be on hand.

SRF-West may also serve as an alternative to the five British-designed AUKUS SSNs, slated to be built in Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide over coming decades.

Australia respects the Pentagon’s warhead ambiguity policy, meaning that any US military equipment stationed here could be carrying nuclear weapons: we will never know.

Shoebridge said on March 13 he was entering a hearing to decide where the AUKUS powers can dump their nuclear waste. Local waste dumps are being considered, as the US and Britain do not have permanent radioactive waste dumps.

The waste to be dumped is said to have a low-level radioactivity. However, as former Senator Rex Patrick pointed out, SSNs produce high-level radioactive waste at the end of their shelf lives that will need to be stored somewhere, underground, forever.

‘Radioactive waste management’
The Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill 2023, tabled last November, allows for the AUKUS SSNs to be constructed and also provides for “a radioactive waste management facility”.

The Australian public is spending US$3 billion on helping the US submarine industrial base expand capacity. An initial US$2 billion will be spent next year, followed by $100 million annually from 2026 through to 2033.

The Pentagon has budgeted US$4 billion for its submarine industry next year, with an extra US$11 billion over the following five years.

The removal of the Virginia subs, and even the AUKUS submarines from the agreement, would be in keeping with the terms of the 2014 Force Posture Agreement, signed off by then prime minister Tony Abbott.

As part of the Barack Obama administration’s 2011 “pivot to Asia”, the US-Australia Force Posture Agreement allows for 2500 Marines to be stationed in the Northern Territory.

It sets up increasing interoperability between both countries’ air forces and allows the US unimpeded access to dozens of “agreed-to facilities and areas”.

These agreed bases remain classified.

US takes full control
However, as the recent US overhaul of RAAF Base Tindall in the NT reveals, when the US decides to do that it takes full control.

Tindall has been upgraded to allow for six US B-52 bombers that may be carrying nuclear warheads.

US laws that facilitate the transfer of Virginia-class submarines also make clear that as Australia is now classified as a US domestic military source this allows the US privileged access to critical minerals, such as lithium.

Paul Gregoire writes for Sydney Criminal Lawyers where a version of this article was first published. The article has also been published at Green Left magazine and is republished with permission.

Cheaper loans will be a key agenda for Papua New Guinea officials when Prime Minister James Marape leads a delegation of government and business leaders to China for bilateral talks next week.

Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey, who is going to be part of the delegation, made the announcement earlier this week when giving an update on preparations for the visit.

The announcement is likely to worry China’s geopolitical rivals Australia and the US, whose interests on loans, according to Ling-Stuckey, are higher than that of China.

• READ MORE: Other China-US geopolitics reports

“My key goals during this visit [to China] are to work as part of the government team to strengthen our cooperative relations with such a key partner and friend, the government of China,” Ling-Stuckey said.

“The focus of my work is to secure additional, cheaper funding for PNG. Chinese interest rates are currently below those in the US and Australia, and even from many of our multilateral partners.

“I look forward to meetings with China’s Export Credit Bank along with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.”

Two weeks ago, Marape led another delegation to Washington, along with other leaders of the Pacific, to meet with US President Joe Biden.

US aid for Pacific
In that summit, Biden announced that he is planned to work with Congress to request the release of nearly US$200 million (K718 million) for the Pacific island states, including PNG.

Ling-Stuckey said government officials were in hectic consultations with Chinese embassy officials in Port Moresby to ensure the visit to China went smoothly, compared to their recent visit to Washington.

Officials said the delegation would hold bilateral talks with senior Chinese officials, including President Xi Xinping, before engaging in the third Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) forum in Beijing.

It is expected that a big part of whatever financial assistance PNG secures from China will be centered around the BRI projects in PNG, which have been gaining momentum since Port Moresby signed up in 2018.

Chinese ambassador Zeng Fanhua a week earlier said China’s development experience and enhanced relations with PNG had laid the foundation for more cooperation and growth, and his government was looking forward to Marape and the PNG delegation’s visit to China.

“This year, we see new development in our bilateral relations. High-level exchanges have resurged,” Zeng said.

“More than a dozen PNG ministers, governors and Members of Parliament have visited China.

New wave of growth
Business and trade cooperation has seen a new wave of growth.

In the first half of this year, PNG’s exports to China was nearly US$1.9 billion, up 6 percent year-on-year.”

“China highly appreciates PNG government’s firm commitment to the One-China principle and the decision to close its trade office in Taipei.

“This has laid a more solid political foundation for advancing China-PNG relations and cooperation in all areas.”

Lawrence Fong is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

There is a sea change happening in the wider electorate in Aotearoa New Zealand which is counter intuitive to what the polls are saying.

On the one hand the public overwhelmingly support much fairer taxation but the polls tell us we will have an Act/National government in a couple of weeks which will increase unfairness in tax.

The simple answer to this contradiction is that people vote against governments rather than for them and Labour are being punished for failure — a party in policy paralysis — unable to get out of its own way and get anything meaningful done.

• READ MORE: Proving the wealthiest New Zealanders pay low tax rates is a good start – now comes the hard part
• Other NZ election 2023 reports

Spelling this out is a recent poll conducted by Essential Research for the lobby group Better Taxes for a Better Future which shows the big majority of voters want a capital gains tax, a wealth tax, a windfall profits tax and want the wealthy to pay at least the same tax rates as the rest of us. (A survey conducted by IRD earlier this year found the uber rich pay less than half the tax rates the rest of us pay)

Here are the figures:

Wealth tax
A TVNZ poll released last week shows overwhelming support for a wealth tax in line with Green Party policy.

The poll asked eligible voters if they would support or oppose a wealth tax on the assets of New Zealanders with more than $2 million in assets if having the wealth tax meant everyone got free dental care.

A majority — 63 percent — said they would be in support of it, while 28 percent were opposed. The rest did not know or refused to say.

The polls show the ground has shifted dramatically in recent times and has opened the way for Labour’s traditional values (if they have any life left in them) to flourish. The electorate is wanting fairer taxes and have the free-loading rich pay much more.

But Labour under its current and former leaders has been looking the other way. It is out of touch and faces its heaviest electoral defeat in my lifetime.

National and ACT are doing well not because voters want them but because voters are voting against Labour.

The same thing happened in the 1990 election. After six years of brutal Labour policies under David Lange and Roger Douglas the electorate had had a gutsful. They wanted to stop featherbedding the rich at the expense of the rest of us.

National policies even worse
Labour was thrown out and National came in with policies that were even worse than those proposed by Labour.

The same thing will happen this election.

There is a pervasive belief among self-interested politicians that when they are interviewed for opinion polls people will say they are prepared to pay higher taxes but when they get into the ballot box they vote against tax increases.

But this argument can only apply when the individual voter faces paying more tax. In these recent polls the call is for the undertaxed rich to pay a much fairer share. These tax changes the electorate wants will not impact on the 99 percent of voters who go to the polls.

Even National and Act voters want these taxes — but the Labour leadership remain lost in the neoliberal wilderness. They haven’t got the message.

Labour’s failure means we will have to face three years of awful National/Act policies which will deepen the problems we face.

I haven’t kept count but I have personally heard from dozens of Labour members and voters who have told me they have left the party this year and won’t be voting Labour this year — disgust is the dominant theme.

Only hope is reshaped party
After this election Labour’s only hope is to reshape the party around the changed public attitudes to tax and find its roots once more. That is easier said than done for many reasons.

Labour’s activist base is irredeemably middle class and it only has tenuous links with organised workers (less than 10 percent of private sector workers are in unions) who are a small part of the voting public.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins has shown no sign he is capable of leading the rejuvenation policy, thrust and direction the party needs. He is still in the politics of the late 20th century.

All the indications are that the job of Labour renaissance is beyond him.

Hopefully there will be enough good people left in Labour to do what’s needed.

Republished with permission from The Daily Blog.

Samoan Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa says the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) is focused on how they will approach the next seven years to achieve the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Addressing the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development in New York on behalf of AOSIS, PM Fiame said world leaders needed to leave nationalism behind and urgently put action to the rhetoric they had been propagating for the past eight years.

“Climate change, the global financial crisis, the covid-19 pandemic and geopolitical tensions have taught us that we are even more closely connected than we wish to acknowledge, and that choices made on one end have far and wide reaching devastating impacts on those of us who are many, many miles away,” told the UN High Level Political Forum.

• READ MORE: Other UN SDG reports

“If we are going to uphold and deliver on our strong commitment to ‘leave no one behind’ and ‘reaching the furthest behind first’ we will have to leave nationalism behind and urgently put action to the rhetoric we have been propagating for the past eight years.”

PM Fiame said it was “time to stop kicking the can further down the road and doing bandage fixes”.

“We have to begin to earnestly address our global development issues, if we are going to begin speaking of a ‘summit of the future’ and ‘for future generations’.

“The sad reality is if we do not take care of today, for many of us, there will be no tomorrow or future.

‘We can do this together’
“We believe we can do this together, as the international community, if we return to the strong resolve, we had following the MDGs and knowing that if nothing drastic was done we would be worse off than we were as a global community in 1992 in Rio when we spoke of “the future we want,” Fiame said.

Faced with continuous and multiple crises, and without the ability to address these in any substantial and sustainable way, SIDS were on the “proverbial hamster wheel with no way out”, the Samoa Prime Minister said.

Therefore what was needed was to:

“Firstly, take urgent action on the climate change front — more climate financing; drastic cuts and reduction in greenhouse emissions, 1.5 is non-negotiable, everyone is feeling the mighty impacts of this, but not many of us have what it takes to rebounded from the devastation.

“This forthcoming COP28 needs to be a game changer, results must emanate from it — the Loss and Damage Fund needs to be fully operationalised and financed; we need progressive movement from the global stocktake; and states parties need to enhance NDCs.

“Secondly, urgent reform of the governance structure and overall working of the international financial architecture. It is time for it to be changed from its archaic approach to finance.

“We need a system that responds more appropriately to the varied dynamics countries face today; that goes beyond GDP; that takes into account various vulnerabilities and other aspects; that would look to utilise the Multi-Vulnerability Index, Bridgetown Initiative and all other measures that help to facilitate a more holistic and comprehensive insight into a country’s true circumstances.

‘More inclusive participation’
“This reform must also allow for a more inclusive and broader participation.

“Thirdly, urgently address high indebtedness in SIDS, this can no longer be ignored. There needs to be a concerted effort to address this.

“As we continually find ourselves in a revolving door between debt and reoccurring debt due to our continuous and constant response to economic, environmental and social shocks caused by external factors,” Prime Minister Fiame said.

“I appeal to you all to take a pause and join forces to make 2030 a year that we can all be proud of,” she said.

“In this vein, please be assured of AOSIS making our contribution no matter how minute it may be. We are fully committed. We invite you to review our interregional outcome document, the ‘Praia Declaration’ for a better understanding of our contribution.

“And we look forward to your constructive engagement as together we chart the 10-year Programme of Action for SIDS in 2024,” she said.

Fiame said the recently concluded Preparatory Meetings for the 4th International Conference on SIDS affirmed the unwavering commitment of SIDS to implement the 2030 Agenda as they charted a 10-year plan for a “resilient and prosperous future for our peoples”.

A ‘tough journey’
“We do recognise that the journey for us will be tough and daunting at times, but we are prepared and have a strong resolve to achieve this. However, we do also recognise and acknowledge that we cannot do this on our own.”

The summit marks the mid-point of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It will review the state of the SDGs implementation, provide policy guidance, mobilise action to accelerate implementation and consider new challenges since 2015.

The summit will address the impact of multiple and interlocking crises facing the world, including the deterioration of key social, economic and environmental indicators. It will focus first and foremost on people and ways to meet their basic needs through the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

This is the second SDG Summit, the first one was held in 2019.

Republished from Pacnews.

Vice-Minister of Planning James Nomane has called on Prime Minister James Marape to put Papua New Guinea first and reshuffle cabinet to bring together the best of both government and opposition MPs.

In his 48th Independence message at the weekend, Nomane said that this Independence Day must trigger change in the way Marape’s administration had been running the government.

“In the last 12 months, the country’s socio-economic indicators have regressed,” he said.

• READ MORE: Other PNG Independence Day reports

“We just need to look at the lack of jobs, no medicine in hospitals, and the unprecedented crime wave.”

This was a reality check and an indictment on the government’s ability to manage the nation’s affairs as its elected leaders.

“All Members of Parliament must be honest and stop the lip service, stop promulgating cliché, and stop the ill-conceived half-measures that have worsened the situation for our people,” Nomane said.

“On this Independence Day, I call on the Prime Minister to put the country first and do a complete cabinet reshuffle that brings the best of both government and opposition MPs together.

Plea for ‘suffering masses’
“The task is simple: in 3 months turn the situation around.

“This is an unprecedented plea on behalf of the suffering masses, the silent majority, and our progeny.

“The country is bigger than me and every other Member of Parliament. I am sick of the paradox that PNG is so rich, yet so poor.

“I am sick of the paralysis caused by the inimical political culture that promotes conformity and punishes those that disagree on policy.

“MPs vehemently debating on policy in public and sharing a meal afterwards has become a distant memory.

“This is synonymous with autocratic leadership, not a thriving democracy as envisioned by our forefathers and captured in our Constitution.

“The Prime Minister must change cabinet and get MPs who know how things work and can lead without fear or favour to drive the country’s development aspirations 48 years and beyond.

“The time has come for this 11th Parliament to live out the words of our national anthem: “O arise all ye sons of this land…”

Republished from the PNG Post-Courier with permission.

Last year Joelle Holland invested all of the money she had saved for a home deposit and put it into a baby product business called Hawaiiki Pēpi.

The sole focus of Hawaiiki Pēpi is to teach Māori children to be proud of their culture and language.

Hawaiiki Pēpi has already reached more than $100,000 in sales, but most importantly for its owner, it has delivered on its promise to encourage and normalise all things Māori.

• READ MORE: Indigenous languages empowerment
• Other Māori Language Week reports

“I don’t have any experience in business at all. But what I do have is a passion for my culture and the revitalisation of our language,” she says.

“This venture was a way for me to express that and show people how beautiful Māori can be.”

Holland (Tainui, Tūhoe, Ngāti Whātua) came up with the idea after giving birth to her children Ivy-āio, three, and Ryda Hawaiiki, one.

The online business that Holland manages and runs from her home, creates Māori-designed products such as blankets for babies.

Proud to be Māori
“When my eldest child was in my puku, I was trying to find baby products that showed that we were proud to be Māori. There weren’t any at the time. That’s how the idea of Hawaiiki Pēpi came about,” she says.

With the support of her partner Tayllis, Holland decided to take a risk and enter the competitive baby industry.

To prepare for her very first start up, Holland took business courses, conducted her own research and did 18 months of development before launching Hawaiiki Pēpi at the end of last year.

“The aim is to enhance identity, te reo Māori and whakapapa. We are hoping to wrap our pēpi in their culture from birth so they can gain a sense of who they are, creating strong, confident and unapologetically proud Māori.”

Holland grew up in Auckland and went to kohanga reo and kura kaupapa before spending her high school years boarding at St Joseph’s Māori Girls College in Napier.

She says that language is the key connection to one’s culture. It was through learning te reo Māori from birth that instilled in her a strong sense of cultural identity. It has motivated her in all of the important life decisions that she has made.

‘Struggled through teenage years’
“I struggled throughout my teenage years. I was trying to find my purpose. I was searching for who I was, where I came from and where I belonged.

“I realised that the strong connection I had to my tupuna and my people was through the language. Everything has reverted back to te reo Māori and it has always been an anchor in my life.”

Holland went to Masey University to qualify to teach Māori in schools, juggling study, with taking care of two children under three, and starting a new business.

This year, she completed her degree in the Bachelor of Teaching and Learning Kura Kaupapa Māori programme. The qualification has allowed Holland to add another powerful tool in her life that nurtures Māoritanga in the younger generation and contributes to the revitalisation of te reo Māori.

“I loved my studies. Every aspect of the degree was immersed in te reo Māori, from our essays, presentations to our speeches. Although I grew up speaking Māori, I realised there is still so much more to learn,” she says.

For now, Holland will be focusing on growing her business and raising her children before embarking on a career as a teacher.

“My end goal is to encourage all tamariki to be proud of their Māoritanga, encourage them to speak their language and stand tall.”

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

Living in the Papua New Guinea capital of Port Moresby without a house or a source of income is a death sentence, says Raymond Green.

He highlights the struggles of sleeping in the streets, begging for his daily bread and wandering around aimlessly — living a life of quiet desperation.

His advice: Don’t ever borrow money from someone if you don’t have the means to repay them.

• READ MORE: Other PNG poverty reports

According to Raymond Green, he learnt this lesson the hard way when he had to sell off everything under his name to repay his debt.

“I have absolutely nothing. No house, no wife, no money, no valuables and certainly no food in my stomach as we speak,” he told the PNG Post-Courier.

“My struggles cannot be explained by words.

“Every day I have to keep on moving to survive, begging for scraps of food here and there.

Harassment and bullying
“I enjoy the cold nights, but I just wish it could be more peaceful, as there are always people out there who find happiness in harassing and bullying me,” he says.

“I live in pain, agony and desperation. My past haunts me, and my regrets fill me with sorrow.

“Sometimes I wish life could give me a fresh start, but it sadly does not work that way.”

Green doesn’t mince his words when he expresses his daily struggles of being “homeless” and “poor”.

Something he explains that he could have avoided if he had taken the right path when he was younger.

“My daily living is a constant struggle for survival, and I sometimes feel like I am dead inside,” he says.

‘Ultimately have nothing’
“It’s true, being homeless is practically like being dead because you ultimately have nothing.

“All I own can be seen inside my small bag. Everything I had has been either stolen, lost or destroyed somewhere or somehow.”

He says he is waiting for a one off-payment from a certain office, by which he can then use the money for his retirement.

He says there is a high chance he may never receive this payment.

Raymond Green is one of the many who live under extreme poverty conditions, while continuously fighting to survive in Port Moresby.

Theophiles Singh is a PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.

Opposition National Party deputy leader Nicola Willis was among three political leaders who made a surprising commitment at a debate last night to build 1000 state houses in Auckland each year.

Labour Party leader and caretaker prime minister Chris Hipkins and Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson also agreed to do so, with resounding “yes” responses to the direct question from co-convenors Sister Margaret Martin of the Sisters of Mercy Wiri and Nik Naidu of the Whānau Community Centre and Hub.

All three political leaders also pledged to have quarterly consultations with a new community alliance formed to address Auckland’s housing and homeless crisis and other social issues.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: Interview with Te Ohu co-chair Nina Santos
• Labour, National and Greens commit to 1000 more state houses a year in Auckland
• National makes commitment to build 1,000 state houses
• Other NZ election 2023 reports

The “non-political partisan” public rally at the Lesieli Tonga Auditorium in Favona — which included about 1000 attendees representing 45 community and social issues groups — was hosted by the new alliance Te Ohu Whakawhanaunga.

Filipina lawyer and co-chair of the meeting Nina Santos, of the YWCA, declared: “If we don’t have a seat at the table, it’s because we’re on the menu.”

Later, in an interview with RNZ Morning Report today, Santos said: “It was so great to see [the launch of Te Ohu] after four years in the making”.

‘People power’
“It was so good to see our allies, our villages and our communities — our 45 organisations — show up last night to demonstrate people power

“Te Ohu Whakawhanaunga is a broad-based alliance, the first of its kind in Tāmaki Makauarau. The members include Māori groups, women’s groups, unions and faith-based organisations.

“They have all came together to address issues that the city is facing — housing is a basic human right.”

She chaired the evening with Father Henry Rogo from Fiji, of the Diocese of Polynesia in NZ.

Speakers telling heart-rending stories included Dinah Timu, of E Tū union, about “decent work”, and Tayyaba Khan, Darwit Arshak and Eugene Velasco, who relating their experiences as migrants, former refugees and asylum seekers.

The crowd was also treated to performances by Burundian drummers, Colombian dancers and Te Whānau O Pātiki Kapahaka at Te Kura O Pātiki Rosebank School, all members of the new Te Ohu collective.

Writing in The New Zealand Herald today, journalist Simon Wilson reported:

“Hipkins told the crowd of about 500 . . . that he grew up in a state house built by the Labour government in the 1950s. ‘And I’m very proud that we are building more state houses today than at any time since the 1950s,’ he said.

“’Labour has exceeded the 1000 commitment. We’ve built 12,000 social house units since 2017, and 7000 of them have been in Tāmaki Makaurau. But there is more work to be done.’

“He reminded the audience that the last National government had sold state houses, not built them.

“Davidson said that housing was ‘a human right and a core public good’. The Greens’ commitment was greater than that of the other parties: it wanted to build 35,000 more public houses in the next five years, and resource the construction sector and the government’s state housing provider Kāinga Ora to get it done.

“’We will also put a cap on rent increases and introduce a minimum income guarantee, to lift people out of poverty.’

“Willis told the audience there were 2468 people on the state house waiting list in Auckland when Labour took office in 2017, and now there are 8175.

“’Here’s the thing. If you don’t like the result you’re getting, you don’t keep doing the same thing. We don’t think social housing should just be provided by Kāinga Ora. We want the Salvation Army, and Habitat for Humanity and other community housing providers to be much more involved.’

“Members of that sector were at the meeting and one confirmed the community housing sector is already building a substantial proportion of new social housing.”

Parliament has ended for another term, shutting down ahead of the Aotearoa New Zealand election campaign with a debate where many focused on attacking their political opponents.

Labour Party leader and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins warned New Zealanders: “We can continue to move forward under Labour, or we can face a coalition of cuts, chaos, and fear: A National/ACT/New Zealand First government that would be one of the most inexperienced and untested in our history.”

Parliament typically rises at the end of a term with an adjournment debate, and Thursday’s seemed to confirm the coming election on October 14 would be full of negative campaigning.

• READ MORE: Other NZ election reports

Here is a brief summary of the political leaders’ speeches:

Chris Hipkins (Labour):

Labour’s leader and incumbent Prime Minister Chris Hipkins launched into the closing adjournment debate reflecting on the eventful past six years. He said his own tenure in the role had not broken that mould, with the Auckland floods sweeping in just two days after he was sworn in, followed by Cyclone Gabrielle.

“Ours is a government that has been forged through fire. Every challenge that has been thrown our way, we have risen to that,” he said.

He said Labour had achieved a lot, but there was more to do — and much at stake in the coming election.

“We can continue to move forward under Labour, or we can face a coalition of cuts, chaos, and fear: A National/ACT/New Zealand First government that would be one of the most inexperienced and untested in our history, a government who want to wind the clock back on all of the progress that we are making.”

He praised Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s handling of the economy, highlighting a 6 percent larger economy than before the covid-19 pandemic, record low unemployment, and wages “growing faster under our government than inflation”.

He soon returned to attacking political opponents, however.

“Now is not the time to turn back. Now is not the time to stoke the inflationary fires with unfunded tax cuts as the members opposite promised, and it is not a time to turn our backs on talent by introducing a talent tax,” he said, referring to National’s plan to increase levies on visas.

“National wants to turn the clock backwards; we want to keep moving forward.”

He finished by saying Labour had a positive vision for New Zealand, before his final parting words: “and I wave goodbye to Michael Woodhouse, too, because he’s guaranteed not to be here after the election”.

Christopher Luxon (National):

The National leader said Hipkins’ speech should be one of apology, “to the parents and the kids who actually have been let down by an education system …to all the people who have waited for endless times and hours in hospital emergency departments … to all the victims of ram raids in dairies and superettes … to all the people that are lying awake at night worried about how they’re going to make their payments and keep their house.”

He continued with the requisite thanks such speeches so often sprinkle on officials, staff, supporters and workers before thanking the man he had been criticising.

“I do want to thank, in particular, the Prime Minister Chris Hipkins for his services to the National Party, because he rode in very triumphantly in February, and he announced that he was sweeping away everything that Jacinda Ardern stood for-especially kindness. But I have to say it turned out it was all words and no action, because, as we expected, he just carried on doing more of the same: Excessive, addicted government spending.

He turned to the slew of Labour personnel problems of the past year and more, likening the government to a car with the wheels falling off; the Greens were “in this rally too, they’re on their e-bikes, and they’re pedalling along the Wellington cycle lanes,” while Te Pāti Māori were “in their waka, but, sadly, they’re not the party of collaboration that they once were”.

“Then there are the ACT folk. They’re off in their pink van, and it’s been wonderful. They’re travelling the countryside, and David’s reading Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, which is a good read, as you well know, Mr Speaker.”

He lavished praise on his own team, singling out deputy Nicola Willis, then closed by promising National was “ready to govern, we are sorted, we are united, we have the talent, we have the energy, we have the ideas, we have the diversity to take this country forward”.

David Seymour (ACT):

ACT’s leader also honed in on his political opponents, targeting Labour’s polling.

“It’s been a long three years in this Chamber and it has been characterised by one fact that lays bare what has happened, and that is the fact that the Labour Party, in Roy Morgan, polled 26 percent. That means that half the people who voted for Labour at the last election have abandoned voting for Labour in three years. The question that they must be asking themselves is why that is.”

“I think the reason that we have so much change and support-Labour have lost half of their supporters in the last three years because, frankly, never has so much been promised to so many and yet so little actually delivered … New Zealanders overwhelmingly say this country is going in the wrong direction, and they also will tell you that their number one concern is the cost of living. That is Grant Robertson’s epitaph.”

He targeted housing, debt, inflation, victimisation, and child poverty before targeting the government for taking “a divisive approach to almost every single issue”.

“If you take the example of vaccination. Now, I’m a person who says that vaccination was safe and effective, yet by using ostracism as a tool to try and increase vaccination levels this government has eroded social cohesion and divided New Zealanders when they didn’t need to,” he said.

“New Zealand have had enough of that style of politics. They’ve had enough of Chris Hipkins going negative. They’ve had enough of the misinformation.”

He finished by saying the choice for New Zealanders now was not between swapping “Chris for Chris and red for blue”, but “we’ll actually deliver what we promise, we’ll cut waste, we’ll end racial division, and we’ll get the politics out of the classroom. Those aren’t just policies, those are values that we all share.”

James Shaw (Greens):

The Green co-leader took his own opening shot at Seymour, as “the leader of ‘New New Zealand First'”.

“Mr Seymour must be feeling quite grumpy right now, because last term he worked so hard to get rid of Winston Peters so that this term he could become Winston Peters, and now Winston Peters is calling and he wants his Horcrux back because that blackened shard of a soul can only animate the body of one populist authoritarian at once.”

He turned the hose on both major parties in one statement, saying it was odd National was proposing more new taxes than Labour while the Greens were promising bigger tax cuts than National. He criticised National over its plan to spend the funds from the Emissions Trading Scheme, before turning to climate change overall as — unusually — a source of positivity.

“Our greenhouse gas emissions in Aotearoa are falling, and that is because — and it is only because — with the Green Party in government with Labour, we have prioritised that work every single day.”

But positivity did not last long.

“Under the last National government, one in 100 new cars sold in this country was an electric vehicle. Last June, it was one in two … and National want to cancel all of that so that they can have an election year bribe.”

Rawiri Waititi (Te Pāti Māori):

The Pāti Māori leader Rawiri Waititi began with a fairy tale.

“It seems like this side of the House can find a grain of salt in a sugar factory. I just wanted to say, as I heard the story about Goldilocks — Mama Bear, Papa Bear, Baby Bear — I tell you, it’s been very difficult to sit next to a polar bear and a gummy bear, and it’s been quite hard to contain the grizzly bear in me.”

He spoke in te reo Māori before giving a speech which — unlike the other leaders — focused exclusively on his own party’s promises.

“We are the only movement that will fight for our people,” he said.

“What does an Aotearoa hou look like? It looks like how we would treat you on the marae. We will welcome you. We will feed you. We will house you. We will protect you. We will educate you. We will care you. We will love you.”

“Te Pāti Māori is a movement that leaves no one behind, whether you are tangata whenua or a tangata Tiriti, tangata hauā, takatāpui, wāhine, tāne, rangatahi, mokopuna — you are whānau.”

He spoke of the need to reduce poverty and homelessness, before making the second of two references to his suspension from Parliament this week, then said it was time to “believe in ourselves to be proud, to be magic, and to believe in your mana”.

“I am proud of you all, I am proud of our movement, and I’m proud to head into this campaign, doing what we said we would do.”

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

Sixty-year-old Funki Uin continues his struggle in vain in Papua New Guinea as he tries to follow up over his late brother, Jhuke Uin’s, savings parked in a major national retirement fund since he died in 2019.

He has been repeatedly visiting the branch of Nambawan Super Limited (NSL) and the Public Curator’s office for the last two years since brother did not name any next of kin to inherit his life savings when he died.

The worrying fact in this story is that Funki’s plight could be experienced by the families of more than 161,500 other members who do not have a single listed beneficiary for their superannuation savings at both major funds of Nambawan Super (65,000 members) and Nasfund (96,532).

• READ MORE: Other retirement reports

The PNG Post-Courier followed up with the Mt Hagen Public Curators office which responded stating that the superfunds must make the process easy for relatives of their members to have access to their savings.

This is not easy due to the current legal regime governing both the funds and the release of such unclaimed money in the country.

Continuous attempts to get comments from the Public Curator in Port Moresby were unsuccessful.

Uin claims he has followed proper procedures to apply for he funds of his late brother, who was a career public servant with the Southern Highlands provincial government, with no favourable response.

Governed by law
Both Nasfund and NSL stated in their responses to the Post-Courier that they were governed under the Superannuation Act 2022.

Nasfund chief executive officer Rajeev Sharma said: “Our policies and procedures are derived from the Superannuation Act which governs all superfunds (trustees), fund administrators, investment managers and stakeholders.

“As a trustee, our requirements and processes are aligned to both the Superannuation Act and the Prudential Standards to safeguard the entitlements of all members and their beneficiaries.

“As standard procedure, registered beneficiary(s) of the deceased member whose information were provided by the member whilst being an active contributor will have access to information and service.

“A beneficiary of a deceased member must ensure to provide key requirements such as the Medical Certificate of Death, Warrant to Bury, and a confirmation of employment from the most recent employer of the deceased member as verification.

“Beneficiaries are also required to provide identification (ie. valid ID or verification documents) to prove their validity.”

NSL chief executive officer Paul Sayer said: “One of the major challenges we face is that many of our members have not provided a list of their nominated beneficiaries.

Outdated information
“Or if they have, it is outdated, incomplete or has family members left out which often leads to a longer withdrawal process for beneficiaries.

“When a member without any listed beneficiaries passes away, the fund is tasked with identifying the correct people to whom the late member’s entitlements should go.

“The withdrawal process in these instances is extended to include additional verification requirements for each individual that presents themselves.

“They must provide proof of identification and proof of relation to the late member.

“The unlisted beneficiaries are also required to provide additional documents for this verification process which are then reviewed and processed by NSL before releasing the entitlements.”

Both Nasfund and NSL have encouraged their members to update their details with their respective funds.

Dale Luma and Pearson Kolo are PNG Post-Courier journalists. Republished with permission.

The Fiji Council of Social Services (FCOSS) has warned that the nation needs to prepare itself to face more children being in conflict with the law.

Chief executive officer Vani Catanasiga highlighted this while responding to Attorney-General Siromi Turaga’s revelation at the Lomaiviti Provincial Council meeting last week that schoolchildren were being used to peddle the highly addictive illegal drug methamphetamine, commonly known as “ice”.

She said a concerted and coordinated approach was needed to tackle this issue.

If the issue was not resolved, there could be a drop in education attainment rates and pressure on national social services systems, she added.

Methodist Church in Fiji and Rotuma president Reverend Ili Vunisuwai said poverty was the root cause of the problem.

He said the issue was serious and the government, church and vanua should come together to solve the issue.

Rakesh Kumar is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

The Green Party made waves recently when it proposed to tax net wealth more than NZ$2 million for individuals and $4 million for couples. As part of a broad range of actions, the policy aims to “end poverty”.

Reactions ranged from endorsement to accusations it was fuelled by envy, but the debate signalled what could become a major election issue: the wealth gap and how to fix it.

The claim it amounts to an “envy tax” assumes all wealth has been fully earned and fully taxed in the first place. But we know that’s not the case.

• READ MORE: Proving the wealthiest New Zealanders pay low tax rates is a good start – now comes the hard part
• New Zealand’s tax system is under the spotlight (again). What needs to change to make it fair?
• Cutting GST on fresh produce won’t help those most in need – a targeted approach works better

A good portion of the wealth accumulated at the top is attributable to fortunate circumstances generating significant tax-free gains.

Inland Revenue’s recent survey of the wealthiest 311 New Zealand families revealed an average net worth of $276 million. At the same time, we know many households are struggling with the rising cost of living.

According to Stats NZ, around 155,000 households feel their incomes aren’t sufficient to meet everyday basic needs. Foodbanks report ever-rising numbers of families unable to feed themselves.

The major source of this lopsided wealth is the housing market. New Zealand has seen the biggest housing boom in the Western world. Property owners have ridden the wave to make large tax-free capital gains, while others languish in substandard emergency housing or are forced to live in garages and cars.

Far too much of our scarce labour, building materials, imported fixtures and land have been diverted to unproductive high-end housing, leaving too little to meet the real housing need. Because it isn’t taxed properly, investing in housing has been encouraged as a way to accumulate wealth.

Right now, there is enough money tied up in untaxed wealth to lift every single family in this country out of poverty.#nzpol pic.twitter.com/f3ODNOK9hH

— Green Party NZ (@NZGreens) June 12, 2023

The trouble with a wealth tax
While the Greens’ wealth tax is a useful start to a wider discussion about inequality, it inevitably creates obstacles that in the end may be too difficult to overcome.

Probably the biggest hurdle is that this kind of tax can be incredibly complex and would provoke endless debate about what should be included.

The Greens’ proposal, for example, would capture business assets, shares, art above a certain value, and cars above $50,000. But what if you have two cars worth $49,000 each — why should they be excluded when one valued at $80,000 is included?

And how is debt factored into calculations of net wealth? House mortgages may be straightforward, but what about credit card debt, car finance or borrowing to finance overseas travel?

Not a capital gains tax
For all these reasons, it’s time to get away from debating notions of a confiscatory wealth tax and make the issue simply one of treating all income the same for tax purposes.

Instead of a complicated net wealth tax on everything, let’s start with the biggest culprit — housing. This would address the under-taxation of income from holding housing as an asset.

This is not the same as a capital gains tax — those days are over. Numerous tax working groups have failed over 30 years to make headway on this. Politically it is a dead duck.

Besides, the real problems — inequality and misallocation of resources — wouldn’t be touched by a capital gains tax. Such a tax can only apply to gains made on houses sold in the future, not the accumulated gains over many years, and it will always exempt the family home.

Tax specialists warn over intricacies of capital gains tax https://t.co/YqzhInWjBW

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) April 26, 2023

How a house tax works
Instead, let’s take the total value of all housing held by each individual, subtract registered first mortgages, and allow a $1 million exemption to reflect that everyone is entitled to a basic family home.

Then we treat this net equity as if it was in a term deposit generating a taxable interest return. When houses are held in trusts and companies, in most cases the income would be taxed at the trust or company rate with no exemption.

Calculated annually and pegged to the capital value of properties, this effective income would be taxed at the person’s marginal tax rate. It would affect those with second homes, multiple rentals, high-value properties — but without significantly affecting the great majority of homeowners who have much less than $1 million of net equity.

Thus a couple living in a $3 million house with a $1 million mortgage would fall under the threshold.

This approach would help put investment in housing, after a basic home, on the same footing as money in the bank or in shares. Better choices for the use of scarce housing resources should follow.

Landlords would no longer need expensive accountants to minimise taxable rental income. And it would reduce the blight of “ghost houses” and residential land-banking.

A circuit breaker
The simplicity of this income approach means the government can build on the existing tax system. It lives up to the mantra of a “broad base, low rate” tax system and affects only the very wealthy and those whose tax rates are highest.

Moreover, it is possible to implement quickly, using existing property valuations and registered mortgages, unlike a net wealth tax where the devil is in the contentious detail.

The effect should be positive for those struggling in the housing market, as more housing for sale or rent is opened up. Good landlords should welcome the greater simplicity.

In the longer term, the extra taxable income could produce revenue for redistribution and social investment. Critically, however, it would start to give the right price signals to reduce the over-investment in luxury housing and real estate held for capital gain.

The approach is essentially a circuit breaker that can simply and quickly address the accumulation of wealth by a small group of people.

Crucially, it has a sound economic rationale. By taking the first step and including luxury and investment housing returns that are currently under the radar, it reduces the advantages of holding housing rather than more productive investments.

Dr Susan St John, honorary associate professor, Economic Policy Centre, Auckland Business School, University of Auckland. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

In a keynote speech at the annual Pacific Update conference the region’s major university, Fiji deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad has warned delegates from the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand that Oceania is not in good shape because of problems not of their own making.

Professor Prasad was speaking at the three-day conference at the University of the South Pacific where he was the former dean of the Business and Economic Faculty,

He listed these problems as climate change, geopolitics, superpower conflict, a declining resource base in fisheries and forests, environmental degradation and debilitating health problems leading to significant social and economic challenges.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific Update reports

He asked the delegates to consider whether the situation of the South Pacific nations is improving when they take stock of where the region is today.

“What is clear, or should be clear to all of us, is that as a region, we are not in entirely good shape,” said Professor Prasad.

Pacific Update, held annually at USP, is the premier forum for discussing economic, social, political, and environmental issues in the region.

Held on June 13-15 this year, it was co-hosted by the Development Policy Centre of the Australian National University (ANU) and USP’s School of Accounting, Finance and Economics.

Distant wars
In his keynote, Professor Prasad pinpointed an issue adversely affecting the region’s economic wellbeing.

“Our region has suffered disproportionally from distant wars in Ukraine,” he said. “Price rises arising from Russia’s war on Ukraine is ravaging communities in our islands by way of price hikes that are making the basics unaffordable.

“Even though not a single grain of wheat is imported from this region, the price increase for a loaf of bread across the Pacific is probably among the highest in the world.

“This is not unbelievable, not to mention unjust,” he noted, adding that this is due to supply chain failures in these remote corners of the world where the cost of shipping goods and services have spiralled.

Though he did not specifically mention the collateral damage from economic sanctions imposed by the West, he did point out that shipping costs have increased several hundred percent since the conflict started.

“In the backdrop of all these, or should I say forefront, is a runaway climate crisis whose most profound and acutest impacts are felt by small island states,” said Professor Prasad. “The impacts of climate change on our economies and societies are systematic; they are widespread, and they are growing”.

Rather than focusing on the problems listed by Professor Prasad, this year’s Pacific Update devoted a significant part of the event to the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme, where Australia has opened its borders to thousands of workers from the Pacific island countries with new provisions provided for them to acquire permanent residency in the country.

Development aid scheme
Australia is presenting this as a development assistance scheme where many academics presenting research papers showed that the remittances they send back help local economies by increasing consumption(and economic growth).

Hiroshi Maeda, a researcher from ANU, said that remittances play a crucial role in the economy of the Kingdom of Tonga in the Pacific, a country of just over 106,000 people.

According to recent census data from Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America quoted in a UN report, 126.540 Tongans live overseas. According to a survey by Maeda, temporary migration has helped to increase household savings by 38.1 percent from remittances sent home.

It also increases the expenditure on services such as health, education and recreation while also helping the housing sector.

There was a whole session devoted to the PALM scheme where Australian researchers presented survey findings done among Pacific unskilled workers, mainly working in the farm sector in Australia, about their satisfaction rates with the Australian work experience.

Dung Doan and Ryan Edwards presented data from a joint World Bank-ANU survey. They said there had been allegations of exploited Pacific workers and concerns about worker welfare and social impacts, but this is the first study addressing these issues.

They have interviewed thousands of workers, and the researchers say “a majority of the workers are very satisfied” and “social outcomes on balance are net positive”.

Better planning needed
When IDN asked a panellist about PALM and other migrant labour recruitment schemes of Australia such as hiring of nurses from the Pacific and the impact it is creating — especially in Fiji where there are labour shortages as a result — his response was that it needs better planning by governments to train its workers.

But, one Pacific academic from USP (who did not want to be named) told IDN later, “Yes, we can spend to train them, and Australia will come and steal them after six months”. She lamented that there needed to be more Pacific academics who made their voices heard.

One such voice, however, was Denton Rarawa, Senior Advisor in Economics of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) from the Solomon Islands. He pointed out that a major issue the Pacific region needed to address to reach the sustainable development goals (SDGs) was to consider reforms and policies that strike a balance between supporting livelihoods and reducing future debt risks.

“Labour Mobility is resulting in increasing remittances to our region,” but Rarawa warned, “It is having an unintended consequence of brain drain with over 54,000 Pacific workers in Australia and New Zealand at the end of last year.”

All Pacific island nations beyond Papua New Guinea and Fiji have small populations — many have just about 100,000 people, and some, like Nauru, Tuvalu and Kiribati, have just a few thousand.

Rarawa argues that even though “we may be small in land mass, our combined exclusive economic zone covers nearly 20 percent of the world’s surface as a collective, we control nearly 10 percent of the votes at the United Nations.

“We are home to over 60 percent of the world’s tuna supply — therefore, we are a region of strategic value”.

Rarawa believes that good Pacific leadership is needed to exploit this strategic value for the benefit of the people in the Pacific.

“The current strategic environment we find ourselves in just reinforces and re-emphasize the notion for us to seize the opportunity to strengthen our regional solidarity and leverage our current strategic context to address our collective challenges,” argues Rarawa.

“We need deeper regionalism (driven by) political leadership and regionalism (with) people-centred development (that) brings improved socio-economic wellbeing by ensuring access to employment, entrepreneurship, trade, finance and investment in the region.”

Dr Kalinga Seneviratne is a Sri Lanka-born journalist, broadcaster and international communications specialist. He is currently a consultant to the journalism programme at the University of the South Pacific. He is also the former head of research at the Asian Media Information and Communication Center (AMIC) in Singapore. In-Depth News (IDN) is the flagship agency of the non-profit International Press Syndicate.

Mā’ohi Nui’s blue wave of the pro-independence Tavini Huir’atira has won its bet — to be back in the helm of the country alone with this convincing victory.

With such a decisive result, the 57 parliamentary seats in the Territorial Assembly will be distributed as follow: 38 seats (including the majority premium of 19 seats) will be allocated to Oscar Temaru’s Tavini while the autonomist alliance of Tapura-Amuitahira’a will collect 16 seats and the last 3 seats go to A here ia Porinetia.

The second and final round had a participation of nearly 70 percent, higher than the 2018 elections which was around 67 percent. Tavini Huira’atira led its closest challenger by more than 8000 votes in the provisional results.

• READ MORE: Tahiti’s pro-independence party tops vote — another winning streak?
• Other Tahiti election reports

This win is a political tour de force with noticeable achievements that need to be mentioned.

Firstly, the Tavini Huira’atira has run alone in a voting system intentionally designed for an autonomist victory, and even the last-minute alliance between sworn enemies — the outgoing President Édouard Fritch and former President Gaston Flosse did not sway the electorate this time.

This comfortable majority of 38 seats will put an end to the political “nomadism” that saw previous parliamentarians cross the floor to join the opposition, triggering endless votes of no confidence.

This was the case in 2004 when the Tavini Huira’atira was in power with a coalition partner.

Opposition scaremongering
Secondly, Tavini Huira’atira has communicated during its campaign that the binary political argument instigated by the main opposing party that independence equals poverty while autonomy means more finance from France is pure scaremongering.

By staying away from that argument, Tavini Huira’atira was able to concentrate on its main message — to give back to the Mā’ohi people ownership of their land and the natural resources.

Thirdly, Tavini Huira’atira has well understood that this election was about coming first, whether by 1 vote or 1000 votes and organising relentless electoral campaigns throughout Mā’ohi Nui has paid dividends.

Once more Oscar Temaru, despite his age (78), has spearheaded those political meetings and rallies like he did during those antinuclear protests some 50 years ago.

Along with those political engagements, putting Moetai Brotherson forward as the new president has ensured the transition to a younger generation to run the country, but most of all a political figure with no condemnation, a quality upon which the Tavini has run its campaign.

In his final speech from his town hall of Faa’a, Oscar Temaru thanked all the trusted constituents who have shown their support for the past 50 years.

He also said that the good old days were over, signaling to the French administration that the dialogue would be under new terms as equal partners.

Many non-voters
There were more than 210,000 registered voters but only 144,000 actual votes which still shows a high rate of the population did not vote.

Le grand perdant de cette élection est donc le Tapura. Après presque deux mandats, Edouard Fritch retrouvera les bancs de l’Assemblée de la Polynésie. Le groupe est réduit de plus de la moitié. La stratégie de réconciliation avec Gaston… Tahiti Polynesie https://t.co/q4s14GilkM pic.twitter.com/2RCcNvAfox

— polynesiela1ere (@Polynesiela1ere) May 2, 2023

Where did it go wrong for the autonomist parties?

As expected, a dejected Tapura-Amuitahira’a party and an ex-president-to-be Édouard Fritch said that this defeat was the price that the autonomist platform was paying for not being united and de facto handing the victory to the independence party.

He acknowledged himself that his alliance with Flosse could have given him around 42 percent of the ballots, but in the end the strategy did not work and they only got 38.5 percent.

Fritch bitterly acknowledged that the population — who he insists are a majority of autonomists — would carry the image of an independent country because Tavini would be in power at the Territorial Assembly.

He said that the future of this country was not independence; it needed to remain with their trusted partner within the French Republic.

His disappointment is without doubt aimed at the other autonomist party of A Here ia Porinetia, which decided to run alone and rejected any alliance with Fritch and Flosse.

Opened the door
Tavini can thank the two leaders of A here ia Porinetia, Nicole Sanquer and Nuihau Laurey, for opening the door to victory and running the country.

The new challenges for Fritch and Flosse will be to rebuild the autonomist platform and be an opposition party that will defeat the independence party in the next elections because Mā’ohi Nui is not ready to be independent.

A mea culpa for unpopular measures and actions that the outgoing government had carried out, especially during the covid-19 pandemic, did not feature as reasons for this defeat.

On the contrary, Fritch doubled down, insisting that the independence party had “lied” to the people regarding their ultimate objective — “get rid of France”.

As for Édouard Fritch’s ally, Gaston Flosse, when interviewed regarding the autonomist defeat, he branded the soon-to-be president Moetai Brotherson “a liar” along with Oscar Temaru, and the next president of the Assembly Antony Geros.

The situation prompted the interviewer to cut short the interview.

The newly created and alternative autonomist platform, A here ia Porinetia, has acknowledged their voters totalled around 25,000 and they will have three representatives in the Territorial Assembly.

Constructive, watchful opposition
They want to be a constructive and watchful opposition that will hold the new local government accountable. Nuihau Laurey has rejected an offer made by Moetai Brotherson to work in his government.

French Overseas Minister Gerald Darmanin has congratulated Oscar Temaru and Moetai Brotherson for their victory and stressed that “the Polynesians have voted for change and the French government is acknowledging this democratic choice”.

Here are the likely next steps following this election:

May 1 is Labour Day in Ma’ohi Nui but the official results of the election will be presented in a round press by the representative of the High Commissioner that will spell out the names of those who will sit in the Assembly from all three parties.

On the May 11 all the Assembly representatives will take their seats as members of Parliament. They will first elect a new president of the Territorial Assembly who is most likely to be Antony Geros, the mayor of Paea, a district that voted overwhelmingly blue.

The autonomist party might present a candidate from their ranks to stand against Antony Geros but this is very unlikely to happen as the opposition party do not have the numbers.

Following the election of the Assembly president (Speaker in the Westminster system), the next most important election to take place will be that of the new President of the territory.

Good for democracy
In this presidential election, Édouard Fritch will likely present himself as the candidate to stand against Moetai Brotherson as it is good for democracy and decorum to have two opposing candidates.

The new President will be elected and will already have formed his new government. He will present the new ministers of his local administration to the public.

It is customary to present the new cabinet either at the actual Presidential Palace in Tarahoi or wherever the new president decides to take residence.

In 2004, Oscar Temaru refused to take residence in the Presidential Palace which he described as an “opulent house made for a dictator” and it was not the house of the people.

Moetai Brotherson has already given some names for his new government and is keen to keep the equality of gender parity but hinted at more women. He also mentioned being interested in taking on the Ministry of New Technologies.

Other likely posts:

• Eliane Tevahitua will be Vice-President and who could inherit the Culture and Heritage ministry;
• Vannina Ateo, who was general secretary for Tavini, will inherit the Civil Service ministry;
• Rony Teriipaia, an academic and expert in the Tahitian language,  will be Education Minister; and
• Jordy Chan, who has an engineering background, will be Minister for Big Works and Equipment.

A lot of work awaits this new administration, but the Tavini team seems ready to run the country alone.

Ena Manuireva is an Aotearoa New Zealand-based Tahitian doctoral candidate at Auckland University of Technology and a commentator on French politics in Ma’ohi Nui and the Pacific. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report.

One of New Zealand’s wealthiest people says he supports a capital gains tax, as new research lays the groundwork for a fresh tax debate.

A two-year investigation by Inland Revenue has found New Zealand’s ultra-rich pay tax at less than half the rate of the average person.

The findings come as no surprise to many, including one of the 311 richlisters who responded to the government survey.

• READ MORE: Other reports on NZ economy

The man, who did not want to be named, made his fortune on untaxed capital gains but supports taxing those gains — saying it was only fair to bring New Zealand into line with other countries.

However, he said a more broad-brush approach — like a capital gains tax on all properties beyond the family home — would do more for the government’s revenue.

“You could take all the money off [rich listers] and it would fund the government for a day. The government spends about $100 billion a year and taxes about $100 billion a year, so anything that happens needs to materially contribute to the revenue side of things. Otherwise, it’s just the politics of envy.”

In a speech on Tuesday, Revenue Minister David Parker described the report’s findings as “ground-breaking” but would not venture any suggestions as to how the government might respond.

Answers – for the future
“What, if anything, do we do about that [disparity] here in New Zealand? We’re not providing the answers today. That is for the future.”

Other political parties have split down ideological lines with National and ACT on one side and the Greens and Te Paati Māori on the other.

National leader Christopher Luxon on Tuesday came to the defence of New Zealand’s uber-wealthy, arguing they already pay their fair share of tax.

“It’s not the wealthy that are the problem here… this government has pumped up asset values and the wealthy have done well,” Luxon told reporters.

“The top 2 percent of New Zealanders are paying about 26 percent of all our income taxes and I think that is entirely fair.”

Luxon said National would deliver “middle working-class New Zealanders” a tax cut, while Labour was “softening us up for a tax grab”.

ACT leader David Seymour criticised the study as a “politically-driven fishing expedition to find people with money and take it from them”.

‘Fishing expedition’
“[Parker’s] fishing expedition wasn’t about gathering information,” he said. “It was about creating a narrative that he can ride to more taxes on Kiwis.”

On the other side of the argument, Green revenue spokesperson Chlöe Swarbrick put up an empassioned argument for a comprehensive capital gains tax or wealth tax.

“The super rich in Aotearoa are much much richer than we thought them to be,” Swarbrick said.

“To allow millionaires to continue to not pay their fair share after this explosive evidence is a political choice. Poverty is a political choice.”

Te Paati Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi told RNZ there was no excuse for inaction.

“It’s just absolutely shocking, cruel and very unkind. Until they do something about it Labour, National and ACT will continue to be the bullies at school picking on the poor people.”

The government was yet to announce a new tax policy but is promising to bring one to this year’s election campaign and Parker has signalled it will be informed by this latest research.

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

A National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) report claims that “wage theft has shamefully become an endemic part of universities’ business models” while Australia’s biggest public universities record massive surpluses and their vice-chancellors earn more than A$1 million a year in wages.

The union report, released late last month and titled Wage Theft, exposes a staggering amount in wages that has allegedly been stolen from casual academic staff.

An analysis of 34 cases conservatively estimates that a collective amount of A$83.4 million is owed to staff across the higher education sector. More than A$80 million has been uncovered since 2020 across public universities.

• READ MORE: Other Australian university reports

Thousands of casual academic staff were laid off during covid-19 pandemic closures starting from March 2020 when revenue from foreign students fell dramatically.

NTEU argues that this should not be an excuse for some of Australia’s wealthy universities not to pay proper wages to hard-working staff who are integral to teaching and research which “generates revenue and delivers immeasurable public good”.

Bigger problem than anticipated
“It’s deeply disappointing but not at all surprising that the staggering wage theft figure is even higher than the NTEU first calculated,” Dr Alison Barnes, national president of NTEU, said in a media statement.

“Even more sadly, the true figure will rise well beyond AU$107.8 million once ongoing cases are settled. Systemic wage theft is endemic in our public universities. This is simply unacceptable,” she added.

Barnes told University World News it was also “unacceptable” that A$107.8 million “has been stolen from higher education staff while universities post huge surpluses and vice-chancellors collect million-dollar salaries”.

At fault are some of Australia’s top universities which also attract huge numbers of foreign students.

The University of Melbourne topped the list with an estimated “wage theft” bill of A$31.6 million, while the University of Sydney came second with A$12.75 million and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University) third with A$10 million.

Higher education wage theft comes in many forms, according to the NTEU report.

It includes being paid for fewer hours than the work takes, piece rates for marking instead of the actual time worked, and sham contracting to undercut award and agreement entitlements.

Teaching misclassification is among the most common forms of wage theft in universities.

According to Barnes, two-thirds of all Australian university staff are employed insecurely. With high rates of casualisation among university academic staff, casually employed workers are more vulnerable to wage theft than those who have secure employment, argues the NTEU report.

“Many workers are reluctant to raise complaints over underpayment, or to ask for compensation for hours worked for free when they require contract renewals every teaching period,” it notes.

Fresh revelations and claims
New revelations from the University of Melbourne have taken its underpayment tally beyond A$45 million, cementing it as the leading culprit. Monash University admitted to A$8.6 million in wage theft in 2021.

The management is now fighting tooth and nail against new claims, going to the Fair Work Commission in an attempt to change its enterprise agreement so it is no longer liable to pay staff the money the union alleges is owed.

Bill Logan (not his real name) has worked as a casual for many years at Melbourne University and lately at RMIT. Speaking to University World News on condition of anonymity out of fear that his casual contracts may be denied in the next round, he said that as a casual you have job security for only three months at a time.

Casual lecturers, even though they do the same work as full-time lecturers — preparing tutorials, marking and student administration — are not considered for full-time academic appointments.

After reading the NTEU report, he said: “I still can’t figure out how it has happened as universities pay via software and it is approved by a few people at the top before payments.”

He said it was ironic that universities underpay staff “while teaching students how to practise good governance”.

Logan admits that having job flexibility is a highlight of doing casual teaching.

However, he points out disadvantages: “Until the pre-semester preparation, we didn’t know whether we would be able to do tutoring for the semester, because it depends on the number of students [enrolled for the course].”

“Casuals are not paid for administrative tasks such as writing recommendation letters for internships or further studies [for students],” he added.

Personal sacrifices
Speaking on ABC TV’s 7.30 Report, Natalia Chulio, who has worked as a casual sociology lecturer at the University of Sydney for the past decade, said that to do such work she had had to make a lot of sacrifices in her personal life.

“I can’t have children because I don’t have a guaranteed income … You are always doing work that you are not paid for. For example, I am paid for 28 hours of face-to-face work per week, but I work for more than 45 hours a week.

“I’m underpaid when it comes to marking.”

Logan said: “Even though casual tutors are paid at a higher rate [in academia] than in other sectors, there is no consistency in payments. [Thus] casuals are discriminated against [for example] when you apply for bank loans.”

According to the Wage Theft report, the University of Melbourne admitted in November 2022 that it had started back-paying more than 15,000 staff who were owed A$22 million. That revelation came a little over a year after Melbourne repaid A$9.5 million to 1000 casual academics.

It posted a A$584 million surplus in 2022.

When interviewed on the 7.30 Report, Professor Nicola Phillips, provost of the University of Melbourne, admitted that the system needed an overall. “This is not a sustainable model for us and it is not a desirable one for the future,” she said. “We are looking at dramatically reducing our number of casual contracts as a way of employing staff.”

Logan agreed that institutions like Melbourne University should employ permanent part-time staff rather than casuals.

“Permanent part-time tutors could be hired who could teach a variety of similar subjects,” he argued, pointing out that casuals “teach different but similar subjects” every semester.

‘Tackle insecure work’ plea
“We’re calling on the federal government to address wage theft through tackling its chief cause — insecure work,” said NTEU’s Barnes. “Wage theft in higher education is a deep crisis. We need urgent action to create the better universities that Australia deserves.”

Barnes called on the Australian government to pass laws that make wage theft a crime.

“That needs to happen alongside a mechanism for staff to quickly recover money stolen from them,” she said.

She also encouraged all university staff to become union members.

“The NTEU has pursued enterprise agreements which include secure jobs guarantees, like at Western Sydney University, to increase permanent roles,” she said.

• The full NTEU Wage Theft report

Dr Kalinga Seneviratne is a Sri Lanka-born journalist, radio broadcaster, television documentary maker and a media and international communications analyst. He was head of research at the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) in Singapore from 2005-2012.This article was originally published by University World News and has been republished here with permission.

Distinguished Professor Steven Ratuva has added yet another first to his long list of accomplishments, becoming the University of Canterbury’s first Te Amorangi, or pro-vice-chancellor Pacific.

The university’s Tumu Whakarae vice-chancellor Professor Cheryl de la Rey has confirmed the appointment of Dr Ratuva, director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, to UC’s senior leadership team, a UC News statement said.

“It is an honour to have an outstanding scholar appointed to this new role, solidifying our commitment to increasing visibility and outcomes for our Pasifika students and staff,” Professor De la Rey said.

• READ MORE: Articles by Distinguished Professor Steven Ratuva on Asia Pacific Report

Distinguished Professor Ratuva’s appointment was made in alignment with the university’s Pasifika Strategy, which was endorsed by the UC Council in 2018.

The strategy aspires to ensure Pasifika students realise a strong sense of belonging and are supported to develop academic goals of success, with the richness of their cultural heritage enhanced, valued and nurtured.

In recent years, Distinguished Professor Ratuva’s work has been recognised with a UC Research Medal (2019) — the university’s highest honour — and the Royal Society of New Zealand-Te Apārangi’s Metge Medal (2020), the country’s highest award in social science research excellence.

Dr Ratuva, originally from the Suva-based University of the South Pacific, was the first Pacific person and foreign national to win both of the esteemed and highly contested awards.

In 2021, he became the first Pacific person to be named a distinguished professor.

“It is gratifying to designate a Pacific representative of such calibre to the university’s senior leadership team, and I look forward to working alongside Distinguished Professor Ratuva on the strategy for Pacific development, and its implementation,” Professor De la Rey said.

• University of Canterbury’s Pasifika Strategy

The severe impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle on the North Island, and the five severe weather events experienced by the Thames–Coromandel region in just the first two months of 2023, are merely the latest examples of more frequent erosion-triggering rainfall events over the past decade.

Inevitably with the heavy rain, soil, rocks and woody material (also known as “slash”) from landslides have flowed down onto valleys and flood plains, damaging the environment and risking human safety.

Clear-fell harvesting of pine forests on steep erosion-prone land has been identified as a key source of this phenomenon.

• READ MORE: Things fall apart: why do the ecosystems we depend on collapse?
• Rewilding isn’t about nostalgia – exciting new worlds are possible
• How to get sustainable forestry right
• Other Cyclone Gabrielle reports

So we need to ask why we harvest pine forests on such fragile land, and what needs to change to prevent erosion debris and slash being washed from harvested land.

Pine was a solution
Ironically, most of these pine forests were planted as a solution to soil erosion that had resulted from the clearing of native forests to create hill country pastoral farms.

The clearing of native forests happened in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but the consequences — erosion, flooding and floodplains covered in silt and rocks — only became apparent decades later.

Research has shown that pastoral farming on our most erosion-susceptible soils is not sustainable. The productivity of the land is being degraded by loss of soil and large areas have been buried with sediment eroded from hill country farms upstream.

So the need to reforest large areas of erosion-prone farmland is scientifically well accepted.

Why pine?
But why did we choose radiata pine for our reforestation efforts instead of other tree species?

Even today, it is hard to find affordable and feasible alternatives to radiata pine. Affordable is the key word here.

We are not a rich country and our liking for “Number 8 wire” solutions makes a virtue out of necessity — we don’t have the money to pay for anything fancier.

Radiata pine is a cheap and easy tree to establish and it grows fast and reliably. Planting native or other exotic trees, such as redwoods, is possible, but it costs more and needs more skill and care to grow a good crop.

‘Has to be done’: Forestry industry under fire as McAnulty calls for slash to be investigated https://t.co/7lx5G2t07W

— Newshub Politics (@NewshubPolitics) February 14, 2023

The problem with radiata pine is that if grown as a commercial crop, it is clear-fell harvested after about 28 years.

The clear-felled land is just as erosion-prone as it was before trees were planted — with the added threat of large amounts of logging slash now mixed in with the erosion debris.

It can take six years or more after harvesting before the replanted pine trees cover the ground and once again provide protection to the soil.

Benefits of pine come with a cost
If we take a long-term perspective, research shows that even a radiata pine forest that is clear-felled once every 28 years will still significantly reduce erosion, compared with a pastoral farm on erosion-prone hill country.

This is because the erosion from the clear-felled forest is outweighed by the reduced erosion once the replanted trees cover the land.

However, this is not much comfort to communities in the path of the flood-borne soil and logs from that clear-felled forest. It’s difficult to take a long-term perspective when your backyards and beaches are covered with tonnes of wood and soil.

Slash a byproduct of efficiency
Whatever benefits radiata pine forests bring, we need to transition forest management away from “business as usual” clear-felling on erosion-prone hill country.

This transition is possible, but one important problem is not often discussed. The pine forests are privately owned by a range of people including iwi, partnerships made up of mum-and-dad investors and large international forestry companies.

All these people have created or acquired these forests as an investment.

A typical pine forest investment makes a good financial return, but this assumes normal efficient forestry, including clear-felling large areas with highly-productive mechanised logging gangs.

It has become clear that we need to manage forests differently from this large-scale “efficient” model to reduce the risk of erosion and slash from erosion-prone forests.

Changing how we manage these forests will inevitably reduce the economic return, and forest investors will absorb this reduction.

When a cyclone bears down on the East Coast, it’s not just wind and rain residents brace for. https://t.co/h9TJr3Q2dv

— Stuff Business (@NZStuffBusiness) February 15, 2023

Time for a permanent fix
If we go back to when the pine forests being harvested today were planted, the forests had a social value — not just in reducing erosion but in providing employment in rural areas where few jobs were available.

This social value was recognised by government funding, initially through tree planting by a government department, the NZ Forest Service. With the rise of free market economics in the 1980s, such direct government investment was considered inefficient and wasteful.

The Forest Service was disbanded in 1987 and its forests were sold to forestry companies. However, the government continued to promote tree planting on erosion-prone land with subsidies to private investors.

As these forests grew, they came to be considered purely as business investments and were bought and sold on that basis. When the time came to harvest the trees, the expectation was that these could be clear-fell harvested in the same conventional way as commercial forests growing on land with no erosion risk.

As erosion started occurring on the harvested sites, it became clear why these trees were originally planted as a social investment to protect the land and communities from soil erosion.

Aotearoa New Zealand has achieved control of erosion with a Number 8 wire solution- encouraging private investors to grow commercial pine forests on erosion-prone land. The problem with Number 8 wire solutions is that after a while the wire fails, and you have to find a permanent fix.

Conventional commercial pine forestry was a good temporary solution, but now we need to find a more sustainable way to grow forests on our most erosion-prone lands – and it won’t be as cheap.

Mark Bloomberg, adjunct senior fellow Te Kura Ngahere — New Zealand School of Forestry, University of Canterbury.  This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

The fate of Myanmar has major implications for a free and open Indo-Pacific.

An undemocratic Myanmar serves no one’s interests except China, which is consolidating its economic and strategic influence in its smaller neighbour in pursuit of its two-ocean strategy.

Since the coup China has been — by far — the main source of foreign investment in Myanmar.

• READ MORE: Friday essay: if growing US-China rivalry leads to ‘the worst war ever’, what should Australia do?
• Conflict in the South China Sea threatens 90 percent of Australia’s fuel imports: study
• As Myanmar suffers, the military junta is desperate, isolated and running out of options

This includes US$2.5 billion in a gas-fired power plant to be built west of Myanmar’s capital, Yangon, that will be 81 percent owned and operated by Chinese companies.

Among the dozens of infrastructure projects China is funding are high-speed rail links and dams. But its most strategically important investment is the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, encompassing oil and gas pipelines, roads and rail links costing many tens of billions of dollars.

The corridor’s “jewel in the crown” is a deep-sea port to be built at Kyaukphyu, on Myanmar’s west coast, at an estimated cost of US$7 billion.

This will finally give China its long-desired “back door” to the Indian Ocean.

Natural gas from Myanmar can help China reduce its dependence on imports from suppliers such as Australia. Access to the Indian Ocean will enable China to import gas and oil from the Middle East, Africa and Venezuela without ships having to pass through the contested waters of the South China Sea to Chinese ports.

About 80 percent of China’s oil imports now move through the South China Sea via the Malacca Strait, which is just 65 kilometres wide at its narrowest point between the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia’s Sumatra.

Overcoming this strategic vulnerability arguably makes the Kyaukphyu port and pipelines the most important element of China’s Belt and Road initiative to reshape global trade routes and assert its influence over other nations.

Deepening relationship
Most of China’s infrastructure investment was planned before Myanmar’s coup. But whereas other governments and foreign investors have sought to distance themselves from the junta since it overthrew Myanmar’s elected government in February 2021, China has deepened its relationship.

China is the Myanmar regime’s most important international supporter. In April Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China would support Myanmar “no matter how the situation changes”. In May it used its veto power on the United Nations Security Council to thwart a statement expressing concern about violence and the growing humanitarian crisis in Myanmar.

Work continues on projects associated with the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor. New ventures (such as the aforementioned power station) have been approved.
More projects are on the cards. In June, for example, China’s embassy in Myanmar announced the completion of a feasibility study to upgrade the Wan Pong port on the Lancang-Mekong River in Myanmar’s east.

Debt trap warnings
In 2020, before the coup, Myanmar’s auditor general Maw Than warned of growing indebtedness to China, with Chinese lenders charging higher interest payments than those from the International Monetary Fund or World Bank.

At that time about 40 percent of Myanmar’s foreign debt of US$10 billion was owed to China. It is likely to be greater now. It will only increase the longer a military dictatorship, with few other supporters or sources of foreign money, remains in power, dragging down Myanmar’s economy.

Efforts to restore democracy in Myanmar should therefore be seen as crucial to the long-term strategic interests of the region’s democracies, and to global peace and prosperity, given the increasing belligerence of China under Xi Jinping.

Xi, now president for life, this month told the People’s Liberation Army to prepare for war. A compliant and indebted Myanmar with a deep-sea port controlled by Chinese interests tips the scales towards that happening.

A democratic and independent Myanmar is a counter-strategy to this potential.

Calls for sanctions
Myanmar’s democracy movement wants the international community to impose tough sanctions on the junta. But few have responded.

The United States and United Kingdom have gone furthest, banning business dealings with Myanmar military officials and state-owned or private companies controlled by the military.

The European Union and Canada have imposed sanctions against a more limited range of individuals and economic entities.

South Korea has suspended financing new infrastructure projects. Japan has suspended aid and postponed the launch of Myanmar’s first satellite. New Zealand has suspended political and military contact.

Australia has suspended military cooperation (with some pre-existing restrictions on dealing with military leaders imposed following the human rights atrocities committed against the Rohingya in 2017.

But that’s about it.

Myanmar’s closest neighbours in the ten-member Association of South-East Asian Nations are still committed to a policy of dialogue and “non-interference” – though Malaysia and Indonesia are increasingly arguing for a tougher approach as the atrocities mount.

The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project says the only country now more violent than Myanmar is Ukraine.

Given its unique geo-strategic position, self-interest alone should be enough for the international community to take greater action.

Dr Htwe Htwe Thein, associate professor, Curtin University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

A new report on the economic impacts of climate change faced by the world’s most at-risk countries has found the climate crisis has made vulnerable economies poorer.

The Climate Vulnerable Economies Loss Report has found climate-threatened nations, including those in the Pacific, lost approximately US$525 billion in damage over the last two decades.

It reveals climate change wiped out one-fifth of the wealth of poor countries, which would be twice as wealthy today if not for climate change.

• READ MORE: Other cimate crisis reports

Marshall Islands climate envoy Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner said the findings of the report were “staggering”.

She said climate change affected every facet of human society and the effects went far beyond the economic, especially for those in the Pacific.

She said the non-economic damages might not be counted in dollars and cents but they were significant for people and communities.

“I think for us in the Pacific, we’re trying our hardest to make sure that the non-economic losses are just as much highlighted, you know, as some of this more large scale and that slow-onset event such as what we’re seeing in the atoll, nations, like the Marshall Islands, in particular, are also highlighted as really important,” she said.

The study was launched by the Vulnerable 20 Group or V-20, which represents 55 climate-threatened countries from across the world, at the UN climate talks currently taking place in the German city of Bonn.

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

Aotearoa New Zealand’s Pacific Minister Aupito William Sio is set to travel to Fiji tomorrow, while Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta is under increased pressure over Pacific relationships.

Sio, who is also associate foreign affairs minister, will travel to Fiji from tomorrow to meet with Pacific ministers, and return on Saturday.

He said he would be discussing shared concerns with other large ocean states, aiming to build and strengthen relationships after the Our Ocean Conference in Palau in March.

• READ MORE: Other China in the Pacific reports

“The Pacific is central to the lives, cultures and well-being of Aotearoa New Zealand and our Pacific whanau, aiga, kainga, kopu tangata, and fanau. At the Our Ocean Conference, I encouraged progress on issues such as the conservation of our marine environments and the sustainable use of ocean resources, and I intend to continue these dialogues during my visit,” he said in a statement.

He will also meet with Fiji’s minister of health.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta has been under increasing pressure over New Zealand’s approach to the Pacific as China’s own Foreign Minister Wang Yi toured eight Pacific countries.

Wang secured co-operation agreements with Samoa and Kiribati after officially signing a security agreement with the Solomon Islands.

Greater US attention
The United States has also been turning increased attention to the region, setting up the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework with 12 other countries including New Zealand.

China was unable to get its broader regional agreement signed by Pacific countries, however, and Mahuta said that reflected the Pacific’s view that regional measures should be discussed at a regional level — and she believed that would be discussed at the upcoming Pacific Islands Forum in July.

Mahuta has faced questions over why her Chinese counterpart was was able to do a full tour of the Pacific before she could, and this morning told reporters New Zealand’s relationship with the Pacific was very good, and in good shape.

“In fact the Pacific rely on us to be consistent, respectful, reliable in the way that we work with them and partner their aspirations … I’ll be absolutely looking to meet with my Pacific foreign minister counterparts, which I already have for many of them.

“When the border opened for Fiji, which was one of the earliest border openings, I went there to demonstrate that we want to engage very quickly and as border settings allow I’m going to absolutely try and get to many of the places across the Pacific.”

China had the resources to do a full Pacific tour, had been working for a long time to build its relationship with the Pacific, and Chinese interests in the Pacific were not new, she said.

“They have the resources to do that obviously but they have over a period of time secured a strong relationship across the whole of the Pacific and they’re building on that.

“What is unusual is that they’ve done eight pacific countries… in a very short time.”

She planned to travel to Solomon Islands as soon as the country’s foreign minister, Jeremiah Manele, was available to meet with her.

Sio meanwhile will also participate in events to celebrate Samoa Language Week and the 60th Anniversary of Samoa’s independence upon his return to Aotearoa New Zealand.

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