COMMENTARY: By Saige England

I sat in a cafe listening to one man telling another how to get more out of his workers — “his team”, kind of the way people talked about workhorses until some of us read Black Beauty and learned that sentient creatures have feelings, both animals and people.

I hope that people will wake up to the need to unite, to pull together. The best decluttering is decolonising.

Maybe Zohran Mamdani’s win is a sign that will herald a new era, an era when socialists can beat “the money men”. Maybe it’s time when we will all wake up to a different possibility. Maybe other values will be recognised.

• READ MORE: Other Saige England reports

Virtues do not come from wealth. Capital, capitalism (the key is in the word) is a system of exploitation. It was designed by merchants to make some rich and keep others poor. That’s the system.

Maybe you were not taught that? Of course you were not taught that. Think about it.

I listened to William Dalrymple being interviewed by Jack Tame last Sunday and I thought Jack — who I used to respect a lot before he failed to tackle genocide with Israel’s representative for genocide here in Aotearoa — I thought he, Jack, looked like a possum in the headlights when Dalrymple said that Donald Trump had a precursor in Benjamin Netanyahu and called genocide a genocide.

I like to think Jack and others like him (because I have been like them too) will learn to learn about the history of all people and not view history as an inevitable story of winners and losers.

Winners are exploiters
The winners are exploiters and if we want to save the planet we need a massive game change.

The legacy of colonisation.      Video: TVNZ Q&A

Look at the stats of the land that was taken for expansion and how that expansion was used to justify the extermination of one people to prop another people up. The stats, the real statistics show who was there before, show people lived on the land with the land and the waters.

Capitalism is a system of expansion and exploitation. It flourished for a while on slavery and it flourished for a while on settler colonialism, and it flourished for a while on keeping workers believing the story that they were working for greater glory when their take home pay did not equal the value of their labour.

And there is a difference between guilt and remorse. We can learn from the latter. The former, guilt, stagnates, it leads to defence and offence.

We need to recognise that we don’t need to prop up a dying system that flourishes on making some weak and others stronger.

We need to learn to change — those of us who were wrong can admit it and go forward differently. We can realise that the system was designed to make us fail to see the threads that connect all people. We can wake up now and smell the manure among the roses.

Good shit helps things grow, bad shit is toxic contaminated waste that turns things inwards, makes them gnarly.

Monsters are connected
Unfortunately, those who behave like monsters are connected not just to some of us but all of us.

We need to open our minds and our hearts to a different value system. We need to decolonise our senses.

If you defend a bad system because right now you are one of the few on a decent pay scale then you are part of the problem. You are the problem. You have been conned. A system is only fair if it is fair for all people.

Learning history gives us a map said Dalrymple (author of The Golden Road which tells the story of how great India was BEFORE it was stolen by Britain — how that country gave the world numbers and so much more) and we need to learn how the map was drawn.

As someone who reads history to write history, I encourage us all to read widely and deeply and to research so that we do not stop thinking and analysing, and so we can tell wrong from right.

Do not be neutral about wrongs as some historians would suggest. It is more than OK to call a wrong a wrong. In fact it is vital. Take a new lens into viewing history, not the one the masters have given you.

We miss seeing the world if we fail to think about who drew the map, how it was drawn up by men who carved up the world for the Empires intent on creating a golden age by enslaving most of the people to prop up those at the top.

World map’s curling edges
We need to look under the curling edges of the world map drawn up by the exploiter. We need to find the stories of those who were exploited and who had been part of the creation story of this planet before they were exploited.

Those of us who are descendants of colonisers also — many of us — descend from those who were exploited.

The stories of British workhouses, of the system of exile via banishment, of the theft of women’s rights, of the extreme brutal forms of punishment, the stories of the way the top class pushed down and down on the people of the fields and forests and forced them to serve and serve, these real stories are less well known than the myths.

Myths like the story of King Arthur are better known.

Some myths have been created as a form of propaganda. We need to unpick the stories that were told to keep us stupid, to keep us ignorant.

It is time to stop following the trail of crumbs to Buckingham Palace, or at least to see where the trail really leads — to pedophiles who preyed on others, to predators — not just one but many, to people brilliant at reconstructing themselves — creating some fall guys and some good guys and making some people villains.

That story is a lie that protects and processes dysfunction.

Acting on the truth
Blaming one part of the system prevents us from realising and acting on the truth that the whole system is one of exploitation.

This was always a horror story disguised as a fairy story. One crown could save so many poor. The monarchy is not a family that produced one disfunctional person it is the disfunction.

It promotes the lie that one group of people deserve wealth because they are better than another. What a sick joke.

So let’s back away from societies made by men who want to profit from others and get back to nature.

Let’s look on nature as a sister or mother — a sister or mother you love.

Let’s look at the so called natural disasters like climate change. Look at how they have been created by “noble men” and “noble women” and ignoble ones as well. Disasters that can be averted, prevented.

Who suffers the most in a natural disaster? Not the rich.

How do we heal?
So how do we hope and how do we heal? We see the change. We be the change.

I like listening to intelligent insightful people like Richard D Wolff and Yanis Varoufakis:

Mamdani beats the money men.      Video: Diem TV

Personally, for my mental and physical health I’ve been sea bathing, dipping in the sea. I join a group of mainly women who all have stories, and who plunge into nature for release and relief, to relieve ourselves from the debris. Uniting in nature.

I’ve learned that every day is different. The sea is always changing. No two waves are the same and they all pull in the same direction.

We are part moon, part wave, part light, part darkness. We are the bounty and the beauty.
I do have hope that we will all unite for common good. Sharing on common ground. The word Common is so much better than Capital.

If you are working for the kind of people that are discussing how to get more out of you for less, then unite.

And if you know people who are being exploited in any way at all unite with them not the exploiter. Be the change.

By helping each other we save each other. And that includes helping our friend and exploited lover: Nature.

Saige England is an award-winning journalist and author of The Seasonwife, a novel exploring the brutal impacts of colonisation. She is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

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.

SPECIAL REPORT: By Joe Hendren

Since the Israeli invasion of Lebanon I can’t help but think of a friend I met in Beirut.

He worked at the Regis Hotel, where I stayed in February 2015.

At one point, he offered to make me a Syrian dish popular in his hometown of Aleppo. I have long remembered his kindness; I only wish I remembered his name.

• READ MORE: US vetoes Gaza ceasefire resolution — Hezbollah set for ‘long war’
• How was a UN aid convoy robbed near Israeli military positions?
• Other Gaza, Lebanon reports

At the time, his home city was being destroyed. A flashpoint of the Syrian Civil War, the Battle of Aleppo lasted four long years. He didn’t mention this of course.

I was lucky to visit Lebanon when I did. So much has happened since then.

Economic crisis and a tragic port explosion
Mass protests took over Lebanese streets in October 2019 in response to government plans to tax WhatsApp calls. The scope of the protests soon widened, as Lebanese people voiced their frustrations with ongoing economic turmoil and corruption.

A few months later, the covid-19 pandemic arrived, deepening the economic crisis and claiming 10,000 lives.

On 4 August 2020, the centre of Beirut was rocked by one of the largest non nuclear explosions in history when a large amount of ammonium nitrate stored at the Port of Beirut detonated. The explosion killed 218 people and left an estimated 300,000 homeless. The government of Hassin Diab resigned but continued in a “caretaker” capacity.

Tens of thousands of protesters returned to the streets demanding accountability and the downfall of Lebanon’s political ruling class. While some protesters threw stones and other projectiles, an Al Jazeera investigation found that security forces violated international standards on the use of force. The political elite were protected.

In 2021, The World Bank summarised the situation:

“The Lebanon financial and economic crisis is likely to rank in the top 10, possibly top three, most severe crises episodes globally since the mid-nineteenth century. This is a conclusion of the Spring 2021 Lebanon Economic Monitor (LEM) in which the Lebanon crisis is contrasted with the most severe global crises episodes as observed by Reinhart and Rogoff (2014) over the 1857–2013 period.

“In fact, Lebanon’s GDP plummeted from close to US$ 55 billion in 2018 to an estimated US$ 33 billion in 2020, with US$ GDP/capita falling by around 40 percent. Such a brutal and rapid contraction is usually associated with conflicts or wars.”

The Lebanon Poverty and Equity Assessment, produced by the World Bank in 2024, found the share of individuals in Lebanon living under the poverty line more than tripled, rising from 12 percent to 44 percent. The depth and severity of poverty also increased over the decade between 2012 and 2022.

To make matters worse, the port explosion destroyed Lebanon’s strategic wheat reserves at a time when the war in Ukraine drove significant increases in global food prices. Annual food inflation in Lebanon skyrocketed from 7.67 percent in January 2019 to a whopping 483.15 percent for the year ending in January 2022. While food inflation has since declined, it remains high, sitting just below 20 percent for the year ending September 2024. The World Bank said:

“The sharp deterioration of the Lebanese pound, which lost 98 percent of its pre-crisis value by December 2023, propelled inflation to new heights. With imports constituting about 60 percent of the consumption basket (World Bank, 2022), the plunging currency led to triple-digit inflation which rose steeply from an annual average of 3 percent between 2011 and 2018, to 85 percent in 2019, 155 percent in 2020, and 221 percent in 2023 . . .

“Faced with falling foreign exchange reserves, the government withdrew subsidies on medication, fuel, and wheat further fuelling rising costs of healthcare and transport (Figure 1.2). Rapid inflation acted effectively as a highly regressive tax, striking hardest at the poor and those with fixed, lira-denominated incomes.” 

The ongoing crisis of the Lebanese economy has amplified the power of Hezbollah, a paramilitary group formed in 1982 in response to Israel’s invasion and occupation of Lebanon.

“Hezbollah is famous for entrenching its power in an elaborate social infrastructure of Islamic welfare. The social grip of those structures and services is increased by the ongoing crisis of the Lebanese economy. When the medical service fails, desperate families turn to the Hezbollah-run health service,” says Adam Tooze

As banks imposed capital controls, many Lebanese lost confidence in the financial system. The financial arm of Hezbollah, the al-Quad al-Hassan Association (AQAH), experienced a significant increase in clients, despite being subject to US Treasury sanctions since 2007.

The US accuses Hezbollah of using AQAH as a front to manage its financial activities. When a 28-year-old engineer, Hassan Shoumar, was locked out of his dollar accounts in late 2019, he redirected his money into his account at AQAH: “What I care about is that when I want my money, I can get it.”

While Hezbollah portrays itself as “the resistance”, as a member of the governing coalition in Lebanon, it also forms an influential part of the political elite. Adam Tooze gives an example of how the political elite is still looking after itself:

“[T]he Lebanese Parliament in a grotesque act of self-dealing in January 2024 passed a budget that promised to close the budget deficit of 12.8 of GDP by raising regressive value-added tax while decreasing the progressive taxes levied on capital gains, real estate and investments.

“For lack of reforms, the IMF [International Monetary Fund] is refusing to disburse any of the $3bn package that are allocated to Lebanon.”

While the protest movement called for a “technocratic” government in Lebanon, the experiences of Greece and other countries facing financial difficulties suggest such governments can pose their own risks, especially when they involve unelected “experts” in prominent positions.

One example is the political reaction to the counterproductive austerity programme imposed on Greece by the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF in the aftermath of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. This demonstrates how the demands of international investors can conflict with the needs of the local population.

Lebanon carries more than its fair share of refugees
Lebanon currently hosts the largest number of refugees per capita in the world, despite its scarce resources. This began as an overflow from the Syrian conflict in 2011, with nearly 1.2 million ‘displaced’ Syrians in Lebanon registered with UNHCR by May 2015.

When I visited Lebanon in 2015, I tried to grasp the scale of the refugee issue. In terms of population, Lebanon is comparable to New Zealand, with both countries having just over 5 million people.

I imagined what New Zealand would be like if it attempted to host a million refugees in addition to its general population. Yet in terms of land area Lebanon is only 10,400 square kilometres — about the size of New Zealand’s Marlborough region at the top of the South Island.

Now, imagine accommodating a population of over 5 million in such a small space, with more than a fifth of them being refugees.

While it was encouraging to see New Zealand increase its refugee quota to 1500 places in July 2020, we could afford to do much more in the current situation. This includes creating additional visa pathways for those fleeing Gaza and Lebanon.

#BREAKING
United States VETOES Security Council draft resolution that would have demanded an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and the release of all hostages

RESULT
In Favor: 14
Against: 1 (US)
Abstain: 0 pic.twitter.com/BpUj5xhJHE

— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) November 20, 2024

On top of all that – Israeli attacks and illegal booby traps
Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the ongoing Israeli invasion of Gaza, Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire across Lebanon’s southern border.

Israel makes much of the threat of rocket attacks on Israel from Hezbollah. However, data from US based non-profit organisation Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) shows Israel carried out 81 percent of the 10,214 attacks between between the two parties from October 7, 2023, and September 20, 2024.

These attacks resulted in 752 deaths in Lebanon, including 50 children. In contrast, Hezbollah’s attacks, largely centred on military targets, killed at least 33 Israelis.

Hezbollah continues to offer an immediate ceasefire, so long as a ceasefire also applies to Gaza, but Israel has refused these terms.

While the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) disputed these figures as an “oversimplification”, the IDF do not appear to dispute the reported number of Lebanese casualties. Hezbollah continues to offer an immediate ceasefire, so long as a ceasefire also applies to Gaza, but Israel has refused these terms.

In a further escalation, thousands of handheld pagers and walkie-talkies used in both civilian and military contexts in Lebanon and Syria suddenly exploded on September 17 and 18.

Israel attempted to deny responsibility, with Israeli President Isaac Herzog claiming he “rejects out of hand any connection” to the attack. However, 12 defence and intelligence officials, briefed on the attack, anonymously confirmed to The New York Times that Israel was behind the operation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later boasted during a cabinet meeting that he had personally approved the pager attack. The New York Times described the aftermath:

“Powered by just a few ounces of an explosive compound concealed within the devices, the blasts sent grown men flying off motorcycles and slamming into walls, according to witnesses and video footage. People out shopping fell to the ground, writhing in agony, smoke snaking from their pockets.”

The exploding devices killed 42 people and injured more than 3500, with many victims losing one or both of their hands or eyes. At least four of the dead were children.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikatri called the explosions “a serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty and a crime by all standards”.

While around eight Hezbollah fighters were among the dead, most of those killed worked in administration roles and did not take part in hostilities. Under international humanitarian law targeting non-combatants is illegal.

Additionally, the UN Protocol on Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices also prohibits the use of “booby-traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects which are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material”. Israel is a signatory to this UN Protocol.

Israel’s decision to turn ordinary consumer devices into illegal booby traps could backfire. While Israel frequently stresses the importance of its technology sector to its economy, who is going to buy technology associated with Israel now that the IDF have demonstrated its ability to indiscriminately weaponise consumer devices at any time?

International industry buyers will source elsewhere. Such a “silent boycott” could give greater momentum to the call from Palestinian civil society for boycotts, divestments and economic sanctions against Israel.

The booby trap pagers are also likely to affect the decisions of foreign airlines to service Israel on the grounds of safety. Since the war began in October 2023, the number of foreign airlines calling on Ben Gurion Airport in Israel has fallen significantly. Consequently, the cost of a round-trip ticket from the United States to Tel Aviv has risen sharply, from approximately $900 to $2500.

Israel targets civilian infrastructure in Lebanon
Israel has also targeted civilian organisations linked to Hezbollah, such emergency services, hospitals and medical centres operated by the Islamic Health Society (IHS). Israel claims Hezbollah is “using the IHS as a cover for terrorist activities”. This apparently includes digging people out of buildings, as search and rescue teams have also been targeted and killed.

Israel accuses the microloan charity AQAH of funding “Hezbollah’s terror activities”, including purchasing weapons and making payments to Hezbollah fighters. On October 20, Israel attacked 30 branches of AQAH across Lebanon, drawing condemnation from both Amnesty International and the United Nations.

Ben Saul, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism maintains AQAH is not a lawful military target: “International humanitarian law does not permit attacks on the economic or financial infrastructure of an adversary, even if they indirectly sustain its military activities.”

On top of all that — an Israeli invasion
In 1982, Israel attempted to use war to alter the political situation in Lebanon, with counterproductive results, including the creation of Hezbollah. In 2006, Hezbollah used the hilly terrain of southern Lebanon to beat Israel to a stalemate. Israel risks similar counterproductive outcomes again, at the cost of many more lives.

Yet on 1 October 2024, Israel launched a ground invasion of Lebanon, alongside strikes on Beirut, Sidon and border villages. The IDF confirmed the action on Twitter/X, promising a “limited, localised and targeted” operation against “Hezbollah terrorist targets” in southern Lebanon. One US official noted that Israel had framed its 1982 invasion as a limited incursion, which eventually turned into an 18-year occupation.

Israeli strikes have since expanded all over the country. According to figures provided by the Lebanese Ministry of Public Heath on November 13, Israel is responsible for the deaths of at least 3365 people in Lebanon, including 216 children and 192 health workers. More than 14,000 people have been wounded, and more than one million have been displaced from their homes.

Since September 30, 47 Israeli troops have been killed in combat in Southern Lebanon. Around 45 civilians in northern Israel have died due to rocket fire from Lebanon.

So, on top of an economic crisis, runaway inflation, unaffordable food, increasing poverty, the port explosion and covid-19, the Lebanese people now face a war that shows little signs of stopping.

Analysts suggest there is little chance of a ceasefire while Israel retains its “maximalist” demands, which include a full surrender of Hezbollah and allowing Israel to continue to attack targets in southern Lebanon.

A senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, Mohanad Hage Ali, believes Israel is feigning diplomacy to push the blame on Hezbollah. The best chance may come alongside a ceasefire in Gaza, but Israel shows little signs of negotiating meaningfully on that front either.

On September 26, the Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah BouHabib summarised the mood of the country in the wake of the pager attack:

“[N]obody expected the war to be taken in that direction. We Lebanese—we’ve had enough war. We’ve had fifteen years of war. . . .We’d like to live without war—happily, as a tourist country, a beautiful country, good food—and we are not able to do it. And so there is a lot of depression, especially with the latest escalation.”

In Aotearoa New Zealand, the Māori phrase “Kia kaha” means “stand strong”. If I could send a message from halfway across the world, it would be: “Kia kaha Lebanon. I look forward to the day I can visit you again, and munch on a yummy Za’atar man’ousheh while admiring the view from the beautiful Corniche Beirut.”

Joe Hendren holds a PhD in international business from the University of Auckland. He has more than 20 years of experience as a researcher, including work in the New Zealand Parliament, for trade unions and on various research projects. This is his first article for Asia Pacific Report. His blog can be found at http://joehendren.substack.com

New Zealand’s Green Party says it will double the Best Start payment from $69 a week to $140 — and it will also make it available for all children under three years.

Greens co-leader Marama Davidson announced the policy today, saying it is part of a “fully costed plan” paid for with a fair tax system.

“One in 10 children are growing up in poverty. For Māori, it is one in five. How is it possible that in a wealthy country like ours, there are thousands of children without enough to eat, a good bed, warm clothes, and decent shoes?,” she asked.

• READ MORE: Other NZ election 2023 reports

“That is why the Green Party would ensure all families have what they need for these early years, by doubling Best Start from $69 a week, to $140, and make it universal for all children under three years.”

Currently, families can receive the $69 weekly Best Start payment until their baby turns one, no matter the income.

However, they do not get that payment while they are receiving the paid parental leave payment. After the first year, only families earning under $96,295 are eligible to receive the payment until their child turns three.

The doubling of the Best Start payment is part of the Green Party’s Income Guarantee plan.

“This universal payment for the first three years recognises that just like in our older years through superannuation, the very first years of a new baby’s life are a time when every family needs extra support,” Davidson said.

Fairer Working for Families
“Under this plan we’ll also reform Working for Families into a simpler, fairer system.

“This will provide a payment of up to $215 every week for the first child, and $135 a week for every other child, in addition to the Best Start payments.

“With the Green Party in government, we can take action to guarantee every whānau has enough to get by no matter what.

“There is no reason for any child in Aotearoa to go hungry or to live in a damp, cold house. Poverty is a political choice.

“Our plan will provide lasting solutions that will guarantee everyone has what they need to live a good life and cover the essentials — even when times are tough.”

Since 2021, the Labour government has increased the Best Start payment from $60 to $69 a week.

• Monday night’s Newshub-Reid Research poll gave the Greens a boost, rising to 14.2 percent, as the Labour Party dipped slightly to 26.5 percent.

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.

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 Pacific Island community in Aotearoa New Zealand is grieving for the deaths of two men killed at an Auckland downtown construction site last week.

Solomona To’oto’o, 45, of Manurewa and Tupuga Sipiliano, 44, of Wattle Downs have been named as the victims of 24-year-old gunman Matu Reid, who also died.

Several others were wounded, including a police officer.

• READ MORE:  Three dead in Auckland CBD shooting, including gunman, police confirm
• Other Auckland gunman reports

The Samoa Observer reports friends and relatives of the two victims took to social media to express their condolences, and relatives of Sipiliago sent messages to the victim’s wife and children as they mourned.

The Samoa Police, Prison and Correction Services have extended their sympathies to the New Zealand Police, saying their thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected, along with their solidarity with the NZ Police.

Former Auckland city councillor and Pacific islands advocate Fa’anānā Efeso Collins told RNZ’s Morning Report the community was rallying around the families.

Fa’anānā said people he goes to church with were social workers and youth workers and are questioning what could have been done.

‘Some questioning’
“Some questioning became what else could we have done?” he said.

“How can we continue to support these communities and even the young man who undertook the shootings as well . . . I guess the holes in the community or in the system that we need to assist and fix and help to facilitate.”

He said some people were “really angry” while some were questioning how else to support young people going through these issues.

Fa’anānā said people were asking how to address issues like poverty, isolation and young people who had fallen out of the school system.

He said he had talked to social and youth workers in churches.

“Because even as young dads we are wondering what it is to get people to talk, to invite people to feel like they re connected to a community, because it is that connection that really is going to offer people support,” Fa’anānā said.

“We experience tragedy and triumphs as a village and the village wants to work out what else can be done to support.”He said it was also going to mean a conversation with public agencies like Ministry of Social Development and the Ministry of Education.

Tongans ‘thankful’ to police
A Tongan construction worker, Uate Vea, was one of those in the building at the time of the tragic deaths.

RNZ Pacific correspondent Kalafi Moala said Vea said they were at level 21 of the building where the shooting was taking place, about six levels away from the gunman, when they were instructed to leave.

“We ran down to level 15 before we were told to return to level 16 because the shooter was heading our way,” he said.

And while they moved to level 16, he heard more gunshots.

Vea said he was thankful that the NZ police were quick to send the helicopter which helped save them, Moala said.

He said there were eight Tongans altogether in his team and he understood there were more Tongans working at the site.

‘MATES help mates’
MATES in Construction has also extended its sympathies to the workers that were affected by the shooting.

In a statement last week it said it “is actively engaged to support impacted people throughout the industry.”

The suicide prevention group said it was “developing a plan to ensure there is a comprehensive process in place for the weeks ahead and intends to maintain a strong supportive presence on site” when workers returned to the site this week.

“It is important that workers know there is someone to turn to if they need help and know how to look after their mates on site who may be experiencing difficulties.

“MATES help mates and that is a priority for us during this sad time.”

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

Papua New Guinea’s foreign minister has vehemently defended his daughter against a furious backlash to a Tik Tok video she posted as part of PNG’s official delegation to King Charles III’s coronation.

The video posted by Savannah Tkatchenko flaunts extravagant meals in first class airport lounges and “elite” shopping experiences at luxury brands on the taxpayer-funded trip.

“We did some shopping around Singapore airport at Hermes and Louis Vuitton. For those of you that don’t know, Singapore airport shopping is so elite,” she said in the clip.

• READ MORE: Other King Charles III coronation reports

Savannah Tkatchenko attended the coronation in London alongside her father, Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko, and two other officials.

The video has garnered widespread criticism in PNG, with commentators saying money for the trip should have been spent on improving healthcare, education and other services in the impoverished county.

Speaking to ABC’s Pacific Beat, Minister Tkatchenko said critics of the video were “primitive animals” with “nothing better to do”.

He said his daughter did not actually purchase anything at some shops featured in the video.

‘My daughter is devastated’
“My daughter now is totally devastated. She is traumatised by some of the most ridiculous and useless comments that I’ve seen,” he said.

“Jealousy is a curse. And, you know, these people clearly show that they have got nothing to do in their lives.”

Speaking to ABC’s Pacific Beat, Mr Tkachenko said critics of the video were “primitive animals” with “nothing better to do” https://t.co/lO1wEpBJkd

— Ben Packham (@bennpackham) May 10, 2023

About 40 percent of Papua New Guineans live below the basic needs poverty line, according to World Bank data published in 2020.

Tkatchenko said his daughter was selected to attend the coronation in the place of his wife, who could not make the event.

“The best next person in my family was my eldest daughter, who is a qualified lawyer by profession,” he said.

“We went to London, we attended all the meetings and events, and she represented her country without fear or favour to the highest degree and honour.”

PNG social justice advocate and former election candidate Tania Bale said the minister’s response was “tone deaf”.

Fuuurious online backlash in PNG after FM Justin Tkachenko’s daughter posted a TikTok video of her (taxpayer funded) trip to London to attend the King’s Coronation. FM has responded angrily, saying his daughter has copped online abuse from “useless” people and “primitive animals” https://t.co/e6f7GCswOJ

— Stephen Dziedzic (@stephendziedzic) May 10, 2023

‘Completely offensive’
“It’s completely offensive to the people of Papua New Guinea and the suffering that we’re going through. It shows complete contempt for us,” she said.

“There’s just a big disconnect with what I’m seeing in this video of super luxury . . . and you contrast that with how our people actually live.”

According to local media, the coronation cost PNG taxpayers 6 million kina (NZ$2.7 million) — half of which was spent on an in-country celebration attended by Prime Minister James Marape.

Tkatchenko said he could not confirm reports that PNG Governor-General Bob Dadae also took a delegation of between 10 and 30 people to the coronation, saying the trips were “completely separate”.

“We attended the coronation because of our connection with the monarchy, the connection with the Commonwealth. It’s very straightforward. It’s nothing to hide,” he said.

Lae resident Laurence, who did not want to use his last name out of fear of reprisal for speaking out, said the spending did not seem justified.

Facing ‘a lot of issues’
“The country is facing a lot of issues and that sort of money should be spent on other services in a country instead of for just a single event or trip,” he said.

The video has now been removed from Tik Tok and Savannah Tkatchenko appears to have deleted her account.

Minister Tkatchenko said the coronation visit was a success for PNG.

“I hold my head up high. We had a fantastic coronation. Papua New Guinea was represented at the highest order. The King was so impressed,” he said.

The ABC has contacted Savannah Tkatchenko for comment.

Republished from ABC Pacific Beat with permission.

Last month The Daily Blog offered its New Year infamous news media gongs — and blasts — for 2022. In this extract, editor and publisher Martyn Bradbury names the mainstream media “blind spots”.

Graham Adams over at The Platform made the argument this year that the failure of mainstream media to engage with the debates occurring online is a threat to democracy.

With trust in New Zealand media at an all time low, I wondered what is the list of topics that you simply are NOT allowed to discuss on NZ mainstream media.

Here is my list of 17 topics over 30 years in New Zealand media:

1. Palestine: You cannot talk about the brutal occupation of Palestine by Israel in NZ media. It’s just not allowed, any discussion has to be framed as “Poor Israelis being terrorised by evil angry Muslims”. There is never focus on the brutal occupation and when it ever does emerge in the media it’s always insinuated that any criticism is anti-Semitism.
2. Child Poverty NEVER adult poverty: We only talk about child poverty because they deserve our pity. Adults in poverty can go screw themselves. Despite numbering around 800,000, adults in poverty are there because they “choose” to be there. The most important myth of neoliberalism is that your success is all your own, as is your failure. If an adult is in poverty, neoliberal cultural mythology states that is all on them and we have no obligation to help. That’s why we only ever talk endlessly about children in poverty because the vast majority of hard-hearted New Zealanders want to blame adults in poverty on them so we can pretend to be egalitarian without actually having to implement any policy.
3. The Neoliberal NZ experiment: You are never allowed to question the de-unionised work force that amputated wages, you can never question selling off our assets, you can never criticise the growth über alles mentality, you are never allowed to attack the free market outcomes and you can’t step back and evaluate the 35-year neoliberal experiment in New Zealand because you remind the wage slaves of the horror of it all.
4. Class: You cannot point out that the demarcation line in a capitalist democracy like New Zealand is the 1 percent richest plus their 9 percent enablers vs the 90 percent rest of us. Oh, you can wank on and on about your identity and your feelings about your identity in a never ending intersectionist diversity pronoun word salad, but you can’t point out that it’s really the 90 percent us vs the 10 percent them class break down because that would be effective and we can’t have effective on mainstream media when feelings are the currency to audience solidarity in an ever diminishing pie of attention.
5. Immigration: It must always be framed as positive. It can never be argued that it is a cheap and lazy growth model that pushes down wages and places domestic poor in competition with International student language school scams and exploited migrant workers. Any criticism of Immigration makes you a xenophobe and because the Middle Classes like travelling and have global skills for sale, they see any criticism of migrants as an attack on their economic privileges.
6. Hypertourism: We are never allowed to ask “how many is too many, you greedies”. The tourism industry that doesn’t give a shit about us locals, live for the 4 million tourists who visit annually. We are not allowed to ask why that amount of air travel is sustainable, we are not allowed to ask why selling Red Bull and V at tourist stops is somehow an economic miracle and we are certainly not allowed to question why these tourists aren’t directly being taxed meaningfully for the infrastructure they clog.
7. Dairy as a Sunset Industry: We are never allowed to point out that the millisecond the manufactured food industry can make synthetic milk powder, they will dump us as a base ingredient and the entire dairy industry overnight will collapse. With synthetic milks and meats here within a decade, it is time to radically cull herds, focus on only organic and free range sustainable herds and move away from mass production dairy forever. No one is allowed to mention the iceberg that is looming up in front of the Fonteera Titanic.
8. B-E-L-I-E-V-E victims: It’s like How to Kill a MockingBird was never written. People making serious allegations should be taken seriously, not B-E-L-I-E-V-E-D. That’s a tad fanatical Christian for me. It’s led to a change in our sexual assault laws where the Greens and Labour removed the only defence to rape so as to get more convictions, which when you think about it, is cult like and terrifying. Gerrymandering the law to ensure conviction isn’t justice, but in the current B-E-L-I-E-V-E victims culture it sure is and anyone saying otherwise is probably a rape apologist who should be put in prison immediately.
9. The Trans debate: This debate is so toxic and anyone asking any question gets immediately decried as transphobic. I’ve seen nuclear reactor meltdowns that are less radioactive than this debate. I’m so terrified I’m not going to say anything other than “please don’t hurt my family” for even mentioning it.
10. It’s never climate change for this catastrophic weather event: Catastrophic weather event after catastrophic weather event but it’s never connected to global warming! It’s like the weather is changing cataclysmically around us but because it’s not 100 percent sure that that cigarette you are smoking right now is the one that causes that lump inside you to become cancer, so we can’t connect this catastrophic weather event with a climate warming model that states clearly that we will see more and more catastrophic weather events.
11. Scoops: No New Zealand media will never acknowledge another media’s scoop in spite of a united front being able to generate more exposure and better journalism.
12. Te Reo fanaticism: You are not allowed to point out that barely 5 percent of the population speak Te Reo and that everyone who militantly fires up about it being an “official language” never seem that antagonistic about the lack of sign language use. Look, my daughter goes to a Māori immersion class and when she speaks Te Reo it makes me cry joyfully and I feel more connected to NZ than any other single moment. But endlessly ramming it down people’s throats seems woke language policing rather than a shared cultural treasure. You can still be an OK human being and not speak Te Reo.
13. Māori land confiscation: Māori suffered losing 95 percent of their land in less than a century, they were almost decimated by disease and technology brought via colonisation, they endured the 1863 Settlements Act, they survived blatant lies and falsehoods devised to create the pretext for confiscation, and saw violence in the Waikato. Māori have lived throughout that entire experience and still get told to be grateful because Pākehā brought blankets, tobacco and “technology”.
14. The Disabled: Almost 25 percent of New Zealand is disabled, yet for such a staggeringly huge number of people, their interests get little mention in the mainstream media.
15. Corporate Iwi: You can’t bring up that that the corporate model used for Iwi to negotiate settlements is outrageous and has created a Māori capitalist elite who are as venal as Pākehā capitalists.
16. Police worship: One of the most embarrassing parts about living in New Zealand is the disgusting manner in which so many acquiesce to the police. It’s never the cop’s fault when they shoot someone, it’s never the cop’s fault when they chase people to their death, it’s never the cop’s fault for planting evidence, it’s never the cops fault for using interrogation methods that bully false confessions out of vulnerable people. I think there is a settler cultural chip on our shoulders that always asks the mounted constabulary to bash those scary Māori at the edge of town because we are frightened of what goes bump in the night. We willingly give police total desecration to kill and maim and frame as long as long as they keep us safe. It’s sickening.
17. House prices will increase FOREVER! Too many middle class folk are now property speculators and they must see their values climb to afford the extra credit cards the bank sends them. We can never talk about house prices coming down. They must never fall. Screw the homeless, scre the generations locked out of home ownership and screw the working poor. Buying a house is only for the children of the middle classes now. Screw everyone else. Boomer cradle to the grave subsidisations that didn’t extend to any other generation. Free Ben and Jerry Ice Cream for every Boomer forever! ME! ME! ME!

You’ll also note that because so many media are dependent on real estate advertising, there’s never been a better time to buy!

• Pacific Media Watch notes that the the brutal Indonesian military occupation of West Papua, a half century of colonisation, and violations of human rights ought to be cited on this list too.

Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury is a New Zealand media commentator, former radio and TV host, and former executive producer of Alt TV — a now-defunct alternative music and culture channel. He is publisher of The Daily Blog and writes blogs at Tumeke! and TDB. Republished with permission.

Fiji’s new Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation, Lynda Tabuya, plans to use surveys and online platforms as an integral part of her ministry

During her official welcome yesterday along with her assistant minister, Sashi Kiran, Tabuya said that over the years she had made it her life goal to help those less fortunate.

She was happy that she could continue what she loved to do on a national stage in helping all Fijians.

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“As an integral part of my ministry, I plan on asking you — the citizens of Fiji — about the best way forward utilising surveys and online platforms,” Tabuya said.

“One of the foundations for building a better Fiji is providing equal opportunities to all Fijians irrespective of age, gender, physical ability or income level.”

To promote inclusivity and development, her ministry would continue to serve all Fijians through:

• The care and protection of children
• Greater policy intervention for older persons and persons with disability
• More innovative and targeted income support to families living or caught in the cycle of poverty; and
• Promoting gender equality and empowering women to reach their full potential.

Tabuya looked forward to strengthening and building on good partnerships with organisations whose activities and outputs support the ministries strategic objectives and those who provide services in the area of child protection and safeguarding, older people, people with disability, gender equality, women’s empowerment and ending violence against women and girls.

“During the turmoil of the last couple of months, the hymn ‘We Shall Overcome’ was often used as a source of inspiration,” she said.

“At this juncture, Fiji faces daunting poverty levels and incidences of domestic violence, but despite all these challenges I believe with God’s help and everyone working together, we shall overcome.

“I’m looking forward to working for the most disadvantaged in our society and together rebuilding Fiji into the way the world should be.”

Talebula Kate is a Fiji Times journalist. Republished with permission.

Deception and political spin crossed new boundaries this week with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, under pressure to explain the housing catastrophe in Rotorua, making the absurd statement:

“Our long-term plan is to get them into sustainable, long-term safe housing. It’s why for instance we’ve worked so hard to now have built 10 percent of all the state houses in New Zealand.”

Meaningless, ludicrous and irrelevant.

• READ MORE: Christopher Luxon denies National government’s actions caused state housing supply issue
• TVNZ’s Sunday showed devastating scenes from Rotorua and the enduring power of TV

Why was she not challenged by journalists on this preposterous statement?

The government has been demolishing state houses almost as fast as it builds them so that the net increase in state houses over the last five years stands at a piddling 1100 per year for a waiting list of 26,664. The waiting list has increased five-fold since Labour came to power in 2017.

Labour is taking us backwards on state housing at a spectacular rate.

And neither is it the fault of the previous National government. Labour has kept the policy settings for state house building the same as applied under National — right down to maintaining the same tough criteria to enable a low-income tenant or family to get on the waiting list.

Largest Labour privatisation since 1980s
The awful reason Labour is demolishing state houses and selling the land is to provide funding for Kainga Ora. The government doesn’t want to borrow to build, which any sensible government would, so it is forcing Kainga Ora to sell land and properties to do this.

It’s the largest privatisation of state assets by Labour since the 1980s.

Where are the journalists to put some simple questions to the Prime Minister?

• Why has Labour allowed the state house waiting list to INCREASE FIVE FOLD (from 5,000 in late 2017 to over 26,000 in 2022) with no effective policy response?
• Why does Labour still think it’s OK to produce just 1,100 net new state houses per year for a state house waiting list of over 26,000? (When Labour came to power there were 63,209 state houses which has increased to just 68,765 by June this year).
• Why are the number of children living in grotty motels STILL INCREASING?
• Why is the number of children living in cars STILL INCREASING?
• Why are the number of children in tents STILL INCREASING?
• Why is Labour still ONLY FUNDING 1600 new IRRS places (for state house and social housing providers combined) each year for the more than 26,000 families on the state house waiting list?
• Why does Labour still think it’s OK to keep the proportion of state house at just 3.6% of total housing stock when it was 5.4 percent in 1990?
• Why has Labour not instigated an industrial-scale state house building programme such as the first Labour government did in the 1930s? (Labour then built 3500 state houses each year – equivalent to 10,000 today on a population basis).
• Why is the government planning to sell 55 to 60 percent of crown land in Auckland to private property developers when we have a housing catastrophe for low-income New Zealanders?

Where are the journalists to expose this prime ministerial spin?

Republished from The Daily Blog with permission.

A birth of a child usually draws out changes from people. Parents, and even grandparents, recreate themselves in a bid to better address the demands of the new addition to the family.

Julio* knew this all too well. He first became a father at the young age of 17, and went on to work odd jobs to fulfill his responsibilities. But along the way, due to mounting pressure and the vicious cycle of poverty, Julio turned to illegal drugs.

“Sabi niya sa akin hindi ko siya maintindihan kasi ako raw may maayos na trabaho at madali makahanap ng panibagong trabaho kung sakali, samantalang siya, walang ganoong oportunidad para sa kanya,” Cristina, his younger sister, told Rappler in an interview.

• READ MORE: In Duterte’s drug war, justice is ‘nearly impossible’
• Other Philippine killings reports

(He told me I won’t be able to understand him because I have a stable job and can get another job if I want to, while he doesn’t have that opportunity.)

Julio eventually separated from his first wife, and met a new woman who then got pregnant. With a new baby on the way, 39-year-old Julio was determined more than ever to change.

He planned to start a sari-sari store, buy a refrigerator to sell frozen goods, just about anything to start anew.

“Gusto niya na iyong iyong nagawa niyang pagkukulang sa unang pamilya niya, hindi na ulit mangyari doon sa ipinagbubuntis ng kanyang kinakasama,” Cristina recalled. (He wanted to avoid repeating the same shortcomings he had with his first family.)

But President Rodrigo Duterte had other plans for Julio and thousands of others who came from the poorest communities in the Philippines. Drug dependents, for the country’s chief executive, are hopeless and useless to society.

Enemy out of drug users
Duterte made an enemy out of drug users and waged a “war” that smudged gutters, roads, and narrow alleys all over the country with blood.

RealNumberPH, the government’s unitary report on the drug war, shows that at least 6248 people have died at the hands of police during anti-illegal drug operations between July 2016 and April 30, 2022, while human rights groups estimate the total death toll to reach 30,000 to include victims of vigilante-style killings.

But figures obtained by Rappler show that the Philippine National Police (PNP) had already recorded 7884 deaths from July 1, 2016 to August 31, 2020.

On December 11, 2018, Julio became one of the thousands slain. One person told his family that their son was standing outside when he and a companion were abducted by men riding a white van.

Their lifeless bodies were found not long after.

Cristina was sure it was the police who killed his brother, but they feared going public with this allegation. It didn’t help that the sole witness, who talked to them during his brother’s funeral, was also eventually killed.

“Masakit ang pagkamatay niya pero iniisip ko na lang na at least nakita at naiburol namin siya, hindi tulad sa iba na nakikita na putol na ang kamay, wala na balita na bigla na lang nawawala,” she said.

(It hurts that he died but at least we were able to find his body and do a proper burial, unlike others who were dismembered or just disappeared completely.)

Duterte’s war on drugs
This is Duterte’s war on drugs, a key policy in his administration that has been scrutinised by both local and international bodies, including the International Criminal Court.

For Gloria Lai, regional director for Asia of the International Drug Policy Consortium, the bloody trail Duterte will leave behind once his presidential term ends on June 30 was highly unnecessary and preventable.

“[Killing people] is not a solution,” she told Rappler.

“What does success look like for the Duterte administration? It kept changing over time [and] there is no way you can say there is success,” Lai added.

The President and his allies’ rhetoric in the past six years would make one think that the Philippines has become a narcostate where drug users are behind the most violent crimes. For Duterte, they steal, they kill, they take innocent lives.

The Philippines indeed has issues with the proliferation of illegal drugs, but determining how widespread it is has been hard under the Duterte administration, given the overall lack of transparency and accurate data.

Duterte himself has been dropping different figures over the years. But a report released in February 2020 by Vice-President Leni Robredo following her short stint as co-chairperson of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs stated that there “is no common and reliable baseline data on the number of drug dependents in the country.”

‘Keeping their grip on power’
“It really just seemed to serve the administration well… to obtain power, to keep their grip on power, because it creates fear, it creates enemies, it creates scapegoats that justify really brutal and violent actions,” Lai said, adding that the drug issue was “exploited for political gain”.

Six years into the administration, the Duterte government remains tight-lipped, if not vague, about what it deemed key performance indicators of the bloody war on drugs.

PNP spokesperson Colonel Jean Fajardo said the police used two approaches in addressing the drug problem in the country. For the last six years, it had focused on reducing supplies and targeting their so-called pushers, up to high-value individuals.

“Dalawa po ang lagi nating ginagamit na approach dito po sa ating kampanya laban sa ilegal na droga. Ito po ‘yong tinatawag natin na supply reduction strategy and demand reduction strategy,” Fajardo told Rappler.

(We use two approaches in our campaign against illegal drugs. We call them supply reduction and demand reduction strategies.)

But despite this, the PNP and its partner Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) only managed to clear 25,061 out of 35,471 barangays it identified as being involved in illegal drugs. As of April 30, 2022, there are still 10,410 drug-affected barangays yet to be cleared by the PNP and PDEA.

Spike after start of bloody operations
This means, 29.34 percent of drug-affected barangays are yet to be cleared by drug enforcement authorities. Based on data on drug-affected barangays from 2016 to 2022, the Philippines saw a spike in 2017, a year after the start of bloody operations.

From 19,717 drug-affected villages in 2016, the number rose to 24,424 the following year. The number of drug-affected barangays then significantly dropped between 2020 and 2022 — the pandemic years.

In terms of collected illegal drugs, the authorities were able to seize P89.29-billion worth of illegal drugs from July 1, 2016 until April 30, 2022. PDEA, one of the lead agencies for Duterte’s drug war, boasted that they were able to seize 11,843.41 kilograms or P76.55-billion worth of shabu or crystalline methamphetamine.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has yet to release its 2022 report on synthetic drugs in Southeast Asia. But in their 2021 report, the UNODC reported that shabu was the cause of the majority of drug-related arrests and treatment admissions in the Philippines.

For six years, authorities were able to arrest a total of 341,494 individuals. Of this number, only 15,096 are considered high-value targets.

Based on the PNP’s classification, individuals who are considered high-value targets are those who run drug dens, are on the wanted list, and leaders and members of drug groups, among others.

This means that of the total number of arrested individuals due to illegal drug offences, only 4.42 percent or around four in every 100 people arrested are high-value targets.
Dehumanizing rhetoric, actions

Drug users bacame pawns
Duterte used drug users as pawns in his bid to make violence a norm in state policy and actions, Philippine Human Rights Information Center (PhilRights) executive director Nymia Pimentel-Simbulan said.

“The legacy that he will be leaving behind would be institutionalization of state violence, this particular government has a proclivity towards addressing societal problems using a war framework,” she told Rappler in an interview on Monday, June 13.

Staying true to his violent rhetoric, the President has effectively mobilised state resources to use violence and other punitive measures to address issues. Beyond the problem of illegal drugs, this approach can also be seen in the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

If the Duterte government was serious about eradicating drugs in the Philippines, Lai said that it should’ve aimed for programs that better suit this intended outcome instead of focusing on killings.

For one, the state should’ve highlighted how drug addiction is a health problem, therefore producing better health programs. For people who use illegal drugs like shabu to stay awake to work long hours, the government should invest in programs that will keep families out of the vicious cycle of poverty.

But as it is, Duterte’s rhetoric and actions further dehumanize drug dependents, lumping them together with those who are part of the illegal drug syndicates.

“If you forced them and placed them into a list where they could be hunted down and randomly interrogated by police, or even just prevent them from getting a job or going to a certain school, you just drastically diminished their life prospects,” Lai said.

Gap in social response
PNP spokesperson Fajardo admitted that there is still really a gap when it comes to social response, as well as rehabilitation facilities to cater to drug personalities.

“Sinasabi natin, we agree on the fact na ito pong drug problem natin ay health problem. Hindi lang social problem. So ‘yong mga pasilidad kulang, ‘yong ating mga livelihood na pupuwede po nating i-offer dito sa mga sumurrender pati na rin po ‘yong mga nagtutulak, ‘yong mga pusher. Hindi po sa wala, pero kulang po talaga ‘yong efforts,” Fajardo said.

(We say that we agree on the fact that this drug problem is a health problem. Not only social problems. So our facilities are lacking, the livelihood that we can offer for the surrenderees, to pushers. It’s not that we don’t have anything, but the efforts are not enough.)

There are 64 drug rehabilitation centers in the Philippines as of 2021 — 16 under the Department of Health, nine with the local government units, and 39 privately-owned. Together, these facilities have 4840 bed capacity.

In a forum in June 2021, DOH’s Dangerous Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment Programme manager Jose Leabres said there was a need for 11,911 additional in-patient beds for 2021 and 10,629 for 2022.

Data from the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) shows an increasing number of admissions to care facilities across the country. In 2021, there were at least 2344 new admissions.

A trail of blood
Duterte is leaving Malacañang on June 30 with a trail of blood from people killed in the name of his violent war on drugs. He also leaves behind thousands of orphaned children in the poorest communities, as well as a much more stigmatised issue of drug dependency in the Philippines.

It now falls on president-elect Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to “address all the harms done by the Duterte administration” on the issue of illegal drugs in the country, according to Lai, as well as giving justice to thousands of victims.

During the campaign season, Marcos said he will continue Duterte’s drug war, but would focus on its being a health issue. He also hinted about shielding it from the International Criminal Court.

Meanwhile, just this June, during courtesy calls with foreign ambassadors, Swedish Ambassador Annika Thunborg said there was a discussion to continue the drug war within the framework of the law and respect for human rights, among others.

PNP spokesperson Fajardo said the incoming administration should put focus on demand reduction.

“Pero ‘yong isa pa pong approach natin na tinatawag po nating demand reduction program, hangga’t may bumibili po, hangga’t may market po ay talagang meron at meron pong sisibol na panibagong players,” she said.

(But the other approach that we call the demand reduction program, until there are people who purchase drugs, until there is a market for them, there will always be new players.)
DRUG WAR DEATHS. Families of victims of drug-related extrajudicial killings and human rights advocates join a Mass at the Commission on Human Rights headquarters in Quezon City.

Not holding her breath
But Simbulan, whose group PhilRights has documented the victims of Duterte’s war on drugs, is not holding her breath, knowing the Marcos family’s track record and his alliance with Duterte.

“I am not that optimistic that it will adopt a different method or approach,” she said. “Chances are, it will adopt the same punitive violent approach in addressing the drug problem in the Philippines.”

IDPC’s Lai, meanwhile, said it’s going to be a massive turnaround if Marcos decides to do away with what Duterte has done. There is nothing preventing the incoming administration from focusing on drug issues, but it has to make sure to alter government response based on evidence and what communities really need, instead of a blanket campaign that puts a premium on killings.

Most importantly, the new administration should focus their resources on areas that would make a difference on people’s lives for the better.

“[They should] consider that in a lot of cases, the drug policies and the drug laws themselves have caused a lot more harm to people and communities than the actual drugs themselves,” Lai said.

* Names have been changed for their protection

Jodesz Gavilan is a Rappler reporter. Republished with permission.

A large number of New Zealanders are facing a perfect storm at retirement, with minimal savings and no house, raising the risk that thousands will enter old age in poverty.

According to the latest retirement expenditure guidelines from Massey University, a two-person retiree household living an urban “choices” lifestyle, which includes some luxuries, would need to have saved NZ$809,000.

In the provinces, a couple would need to have saved $511,000.

• READ MORE: How New Zealanders miss out on hundreds of thousands in retirement savings
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New Zealanders have traditionally relied on owning a home to support themselves during their retirement years. But many of the New Zealanders now aged between 50 and 65 – a cohort of almost half a million people – will go into retirement as renters after skyrocketing house prices over the last three decades put home ownership out of reach.

At the same time, this generation were already working adults when the Labour government introduced KiwiSaver in 2007, and are less likely to have a significant savings cushion.

Last year, Treasury raised concerns that this mixed group of baby boomers and generation X will not be able to financially manage retirement on their own.

Declining home ownership
Home ownership in New Zealand has fallen to the lowest rate in 70 years, with just 65 percent of people living in houses they own, down from the peak of 74 percent in the 1990s.

According to the 2018 Census, around one in four people between 50 and 65 don’t own the home they live in.

Research by Kay Saville-Smith from the Centre for Research Evaluation and Social Assessment suggests that by 2053 almost half of over-65s would be renting. That would mean 640,000 over-65s renting, including 326,000 renters aged over 85.

This issue of declining home ownership disproportionately affects those who have remained on low incomes throughout their working life. This, in turn, has stark consequences for Māori and Pacific people in New Zealand.

Between 1986 and 2013 the proportion of Māori and Pacific peoples living in owner occupied housing fell at a faster rate than the overall population (down 20 percent and 34.8 percent, respectively).

Skyrocketing rents
Also, in the last five years nationwide rents have risen 28 percent across all property types and regions.

For increasing numbers of people, housing — whether through ownership or renting — has become unaffordable.

The rapidly increasing rental costs have also reduced the ability of people to save for their own home.

KiwiSaver came too late

In 2007, the Labour-led government set up KiwiSaver as a voluntary savings scheme to help New Zealanders save for their retirement and to lift New Zealand’s low national savings rate.

But New Zealanders aged 50 to 64 were already adults and mid-career when KiwiSaver was launched. In our low-wage economy, they are likely to have contributed only 3 percent of wages, in addition to the employer’s 3 percent.

While some will have used their KiwiSaver account plus the government subsidy to put a deposit on a home purchase, few will have saved a significant nest egg for retirement. The 2021 Financial Markets Authority KiwiSaver Report showed average balances of only $26,410.

Squeaking by on superannuation
There is some support for retirees. When a person reaches the qualifying age of 65 years, they receive New Zealand Superannuation, currently $437 per week after tax for a single person.

But superannuation is predicated on owning your home rather than renting. Home ownership means effectively living rent free, with only rates and maintenance as regular necessary expenses in addition to food, power and phone.

Those people renting are currently confronted by a median weekly rental for a small house or apartment of $390 per week. While they may also be able to access the accommodation supplement and temporary additional support to assist with costs, a new threat has emerged in the form of inflation.

Consumer price index inflation peaked at close to 6.35 percent in early 2022, its highest level in three decades.

As well as steady increases in the price of electricity, petrol prices increased by 10 percent over the past year, and annual food prices rose 6.85 percent in February year-on-year. Fruit and vegetables are the largest contributors to the price rise. Car use can be contained with less recreational outings, but electricity, fruit and vegetables are needed for health.

None of this is going unnoticed. Treasury has raised the alarm about the increase of old age poverty. Many in the 50-65 age group share those concerns, and are approaching retirement with rational trepidation.

Dr Claire Dale is a research fellow, University of Auckland. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

National Federation Party leader Professor Biman Prasad has asked if the Fiji government inquiry into the Office of the Auditor-General will be held in public.

Professor Prasad was responding to the announcement this week of a Commission of Inquiry into the OAG “to inquire into and report on: the conduct, operations and performance of the Office of the Auditor-General” and other issues concerning the office.

Prasad, an economist before his political career, said commissions of inquiry were usually held in public.

• READ MORE: Fiji begins phased transition to digital television
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“So we ask the government if this will be a public inquiry?” he said.

“Will the public hear the allegations against the Auditor-General’s office? Will the Auditor-General be allowed to respond in public to the Government’s complaints?”

Professor Prasad claimed the commission of inquiry was being formed “to deflect questions about the tens of millions of dollars [the government] has spent on Walesi [Fiji’s controversial free new digital television platform]”.

“The government refuses to talk about Walesi’s accounts. Even though Walesi’s accounts up to 2017 are ready, the government refuses to release them.”

Petty argument while people in poverty
The NFP leader said the government would end 2021 as a “laughing stock”.

He said government “only cares about winning a petty argument even when tens of thousands of people are still living in poverty and despair because of the pandemic”.

“We are once again threatened by the omicron variant,” he said.

“Many families are in isolation because they have tested positive in homes, in villages and settlements on Vanua Levu, are struggling and are in need of help.

“What is the government doing to help? We should be preparing for the cyclone season and ensuring our people are safe.”

Luke Nacei is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Fiji’s opposition National Federation Party has blamed 1150 pandemic deaths on the Bainimarama government’s “shameful and despicable” ego-driven leadership.

“Stop bragging and taking the Lord’s name in vain when you have presided over the single biggest disaster and loss of lives in our country’s 51 years of independence,” said Dr Biman Prasad, a former professor of economics at the University of the South Pacific.

“Talk about issues like how to alleviate poverty that reached almost 30 percent at the time of the so-called ‘Bainimarama Boom’ but has now escalated to about 50 percent due to economic depression caused by covid-19.”

• READ MORE: The battle against covid is ‘about to end’ says Fiji PM
• Other Fiji covid crisis reports

This is the message to Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama from Dr Prasad after a message posted on the Fiji government social media page this week showing the prime minister as saying the battle against covid-19 pandemic was about to end — and declaring he had proved critics wrong and was in firm control.

“This is a national leader who brags about himself and claims he will secure every Fijian from clear and present danger,” Dr Prasad said in a statement.

“The prime minister forgets what he announced at the start of the second wave of the pandemic on April 19.”

“Then, he spoke about a grave and present danger to the lives of our people and the need to comply with strict measures and enforcement of lockdowns to contain and eliminate the virus.

‘1150 citizens’ lose their lives
“Almost six months later with the virus out of control due to the PM’s egoistic and ‘My Way or the Highway’ leadership in deciding to open up containment zones, 1150 citizens have lost their lives through no fault of theirs and more than 51,200 people have so far been infected”.

The Johns Hopkins University global covid dashboard (with data supplied by the Fiji government) states 649 deaths and 51,386 confirmed cases in Fiji as at today.

“And in a bid to keep a lid on the death toll and rate of infection, the Health Ministry split the death toll into two categories as well as significantly reduced testing and contact tracing.”

Dr Prasad claimed the ministry was now announcing deaths that occurred in the last three months saying it took time to investigate and determine the cause of death.

“It is shameful and despicable that instead of sympathising with the families who have lost loved ones and offering his genuine and sincere condolences, the PM showers himself with praise for his handling of the crisis,” Dr Prasad said.

“Does he have the courage to go to each individual family, undoubtedly, still grieving the loss of a loved one, and tell them that he is in firm control and protecting them from the grave danger posed by the pandemic?”

‘From containment to containers’
It was the prime minister, his government and their “From containment to containers” policy — allowing the virus to spread freely by opening up containment zones and installing three 12m container freezers as morgues — who must be held responsible for the “needless loss of life of our citizens and heaping pain, suffering and misery on the people”.

“The nation is at the crossroads, at odds with itself, due to failed leadership. Yet, we have a PM who says he is in firm control of the situation,” he said.

“This is symptomatic of a typical dictator who thinks he or she is always right despite the fact that people are dying, poverty is increasing and people are struggling to put food on the table.

“This façade must end at the next elections,” Dr Prasad added.

Fiji faces a general election next year.

Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao is leaving the sport that propelled him to stardom as he seeks the Philippine presidency in 2022

He is no longer fighting in the ring.

“My boxing career? My boxing career is already over,” Senator Pacquiao told actress Toni Gonzaga in Filipino on her YouTube programme Toni Talks at the weekend.

• READ MORE: Manny Pacquiao to run for president in 2022
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“It’s done because I’ve been in boxing for a long time and my family says that it is enough. I just continued [to box] because I’m passionate about this sport.

Pacquiao, who declared he is running for the Philippines presidency under the PDP-Laban faction of his and fellow Senator Koko Pimentel on Sunday, made it clear, however, that he was not leaving boxing altogether.

“I will just support other boxers for us to have a champion again.”

Pacquiao, boxing’s lone eight-division world champion, has long been helping Filipino boxers by way of his MP (Manny Pacquiao) Promotions headed by Sean Gibbons.

Already in the MP stable are World Boxing Organisation bantamweight champion Johnriel Casimero and International Boxing Federation super flyweight king Jerwin Ancajas.

Also in the fold is unbeaten featherweight Mark Magsayo, Tokyo Olympics bronze medalist Eumir Marcial, and world title contender Jonas Sultan.

In my household, the 1970s BBC comedy Fawlty Towers is on regular repeat for family entertainment.

Only two years ago it was authoritatively ranked as the greatest British sitcom ever.

Starring the six-foot-five manic comedian John Cleese, it depicts life in a chaotic English seaside hotel.

• READ MORE: Fiji government sacking of chief statistician branded ‘shameful’

Its owner, Basil Fawlty, is a man who thinks he is always right. His attempts to cover up small problems quickly turn into major disasters.

If you are already drawing comparisons between Fawlty Towers and the current Fiji government, you would not be the only one.

The most popular of its (only 12) episodes is called “The Germans”. A group of German tourists comes to stay. Basil doesn’t much like Germans but it’s money after all. Obsessed with not offending them he instructs everybody “don’t mention the war”.

The more he tries not to mention the war, the worse it gets. By the end of the episode he is doing frog-marching Hitler impressions and his guests are asking: “How did they ever win?”

This is what comes to mind when I think of our government and ethnic population data.

The more the government tries to pretend it doesn’t exist, the more public the issue becomes.

Statistics saga
The media was treated last week to an 8pm peroration from Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum. Maybe he forgot that this was way past every media company’s news deadline (the editors of the Fiji Sun, however, seemed to extend theirs so they could report the speech the next day).

The head of the Statistics Bureau was fired, marched out from his office by security personnel.

That guaranteed another cycle of bad press as opposition parties and NGOs issued statements and social media lit up.

Immediately the critics reminded us of what happens when the Attorney-General loses an argument. Vice-chancellors get deported.

The media is attacked for bias. He blasts his own lawyers for losing a court case (the “winning argument” he says they missed would be laughed out of any remotely sane court).

Why?

Comedy aside, surely the question to ask about this disaster-prone policy is “why”? I know of no other nation in the world where the government tells the people “you are not allowed to know the ethnic breakdown of people in your own country because it is bad for you”.

Those who question this policy are attacked by the Attorney-General as “obsessed with ethnicity”.

But a lot of effort and drama has gone into suppressing what is usual (and critically important) demographic information. Now it has been applied to punishing the man who made it available.

All of this seems to suggest that it is the Attorney-General, not us, who is obsessed.

“It is a big issue,” he told the media. “If you are going to start having compassion for people based on their ethnicity, then you are losing your sense of humanity and that’s precisely what has happened”.

Really? When did that happen?

When did we all decide that we would “have compassion” for only one ethnic group? We’ve barely had time to understand the data.

Mind-numbingly obvious
It is mind-numbingly obvious why ethnic data is important to government policymaking and operations.

As opposition MP Lenora Qereqeretabua put it two years ago, calling us all “Fijians” doesn’t make us the same”.

New Zealand health authorities have heart disease profiles for Indo-Fijians, a tiny slice of their own society. Why? Because they are “obsessed with ethnicity”?

No, because they understand that different ethnic groups have particular physiologies, diets and even lifestyles. They use the information to save lives.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that in Fiji the take up of coronavirus vaccines is lower in the indigenous population than for other races.

If everybody had the data, NGOs and health authorities could co-operate in working out why. They could upgrade the messaging and vaccination strategies to respond.

Because as we are all reminded, no Fijian is safe until everyone is vaccinated.

In the middle of the coronavirus it took weeks for the government to even start communicating virus information in vernacular languages.

Why? Were they instructed not to be “obsessed with ethnicity”?

Affirmative action
We need to understand ethnic performance gaps in critical areas such as education and poverty, representation in business and professional life. If we don’t, how are we going to fix them?

Are we going to pretend that cultures and lifestyles play no part in these gaps? Are we going to pretend that we can’t use targeted programmes and information to close them?

Past governments – yes, those evil “past governments” which get blamed for everything bad — tried to respond to these gaps with “affirmative action” policies in education and economic support. They were not, in my opinion, very effective.

In my view they addressed the symptoms, rather than the causes, of these gaps. So (in my view) it was necessary to re-think the affirmative action policies, look critically at what had gone wrong, and re-design them.

The gaps have not gone away. But for 15 years we have not been allowed to talk about them. So that is 15 years in which we have lost the opportunity to look for new, imaginative ways to deal with the gaps.

Fiji is like every other multiracial country in the world. Race is a natural fault line.

You cannot paper it over by saying “the Constitution says we are all Fijians now”.

When things go wrong, in times of economic, social and political stress, people look for simple answers to their problems.

Sometimes they are encouraged to find those simple answers by blaming people who do not look like them or speak like them.

And that’s when things go wrong. The explosions of 1987 and 2000 are not so long ago.

Are we all trying to pretend that these things could not happen again?

The current government seems to think that warning us against racism, or arresting people who criticise Bill 17, will deal with the problem (or maybe solve their own future election problems).

Nation-building
But like everything in the stunted and short-sighted vision they have offered us for 15 years, this government doesn’t seem to understand the essence of nation-building.

Our government seems to think that a nation is built when everyone is brought under control by the government and ordered around.

So, apparently, we must all call ourselves “Fijians”. We must pretend that we are all the same.

We must not be allowed our own local governments in case they disagree with the people in Suva. We must not be allowed autonomy in the schools that in many cases our own forefathers or religious communities built.

In the midst of our worst ever health and economic crisis, non-governmental organisations, charities and private citizens should not get government support because they cannot be controlled.

Instead, government will do everything. Dial 161 and take your chances.

But nations are not built like that. Nations are built by their people, helped by (not ordered around by) their governments.

Citizens do the building
In a well-run nation, it is the citizens who do the building. It is the citizens working together, in business, in community organisations, schools, health, in advocacy for minority groups, in town and city councils, who build.

They know what their communities need and respond to those needs.

The citizens, through their councils and committees and charitable trusts, argue with and criticise and demand things from the government. Because after all, the people who run the government are supposed to work for them.

It is citizens who can come up with the ideas and demand action and support from the government to deal with the obvious ethnic differences in income and poverty levels, in education and in other critical areas of national life.

But how can they do that when they don’t have the information and are not allowed to talk about it? All we have to talk about, it seems, is what will be the next episode in our very own series of Fawlty Towers.

Richard Naidu is a Suva lawyer, media commentator and former journalist in New Zealand and Fiji. His workmates think he is a bit like Basil Fawlty. This article was originally published in The Fiji Times and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.

Questions have been raised about why the head of Fiji’s Bureau of Statistics was fired by the Bainimarama government this week.

Kemueli Naiqama recently published this year’s household income and expenditure survey that showed three quarters of Fiji’s poorest people are indigenous Fijians, or i-Taukei.

It is the first time ethnicity has featured in data published in the annual survey.

• READ MORE: Fiji Bureau of Statistics CEO escorted out of his office

RNZ’s correspondent in the capital Suva, Lice Movono, told RNZ FirstUp the bureau had been “enhancing their ability to report information” and trying to be in line with sustainable development goals reporting.

“And the latest report shows that the poorest people in this country are the i-Taukei people,” Movono said.

“But more importantly that our poverty population — or the population that is living well below the poverty line — is very high.

“It would be directly opposite to the policies of this government to give information segregated according to ethnicity — it would be extremely embarrassing for a government that has been talking about producing an all time record high boom – economic growth,” she said.

Sacking defended
The Statistics Department comes under the Ministry for Economy.

The Minister, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum who is also Fiji’s Attorney-General, has defended his sacking of the country’s chief statistician.

Sayed-Khaiyum questioned the methodology used for the study and labelled it flawed.

“Poverty in Fiji is now measured by consumption, including the food grown in a family backyard, and not just income,” he said.

Sayed-Khaiyum told a media conference in Suva he had issues with the bureau’s analysis of ethnic and religious data in its 2019-2020 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES).

“We appreciate any independent office carrying out a proper, professional independent analysis of any data and understand the importance of reliable, timely and accurate statistics,” Sayed-Khaiyum said.

“And many may not know this or many may not delve further into this — we in fact approved this new methodology of moving away from what we call using the traditional income measure for welfare analysis — to using consumption expenditure for poverty measurement.”

New measuring yardstick
Sayed-Khaiyum said the consumption-based methodology for measuring poverty would “accurately and better assist in policy-making”.

He said the new yardstick did not just look at how much money a household earned but also at how they had access to services.

But there were many who disagreed with the attorney-general.

The University of the South Pacific’s senior lecturer in economics, Dr Neelesh Gounder, said the poverty estimates produced at all levels were reliable.

He said those not happy with the ethnic-based policy needed to target the policy and not the data.

Gounder said the survey was just the “messenger and shooting the messenger would not help.”

“Regarding data on ethnicity, there are several policy areas where ethnic-based data is relevant and required,” Dr Gounder said.

Ethnic data important
“Ethnic data allows us to see beyond presumed beliefs and prejudices that underly ethnic groups and it seems the government wants to avoid race-based policies that may arise from ethnic data.

“Recognising diversity based on ethnicity does not necessarily mean such differences should also lead to policy based on ethnicity.”

However, the government needs to understand that it is not the census or HIES that is causing ethnic tension in Fiji, Dr Gounder said.

The leader of the opposition Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA), Bill Gavoka, said reports Naiqama was escorted out of his office were “shameful”.

“It is truly troubling,” Gavoka said.

He said the Bureau of Statistics is independent of ministers and instead reported directly to Parliament, with staff who are civil servants, but without being under ministerial control.

“The statistics they generate are independent of government and to hear that the FBoS CEO Kemueli Naiqama was unceremoniously dismissed and escorted off-premises for the report of poverty in Fiji, says a lot about the type of democracy we have in Fiji,” Gavoka said.

Independence needed
He said SODELPA wants the Statistics Bureau to have independence from any undue outside influence, especially from a government that has been hyping about a “boom” that many knew was not true.

“The collection, compilation, analysis, abstraction, and publishing of statistical information relating to the economic and general activities must be carried out without fear and SODELPA tells the Attorney-General and FijiFirst, ‘hands off’,” Gavoka said.

By exceeding the scope of data collection and ignoring fact-based methodology, the government said Naiqama had breached the terms of his contract with the ministry.

Under his employment contract, Naiqama will be paid all salary and accrued entitlements for the period up to September 15, 2021.

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

Since the attacks on the United States by 15 Saudi Arabian Islamic fanatics on 11 September  2001 — now known as 9/11 —  the world has been divided by a “war on terror” with any protest group defined as “terrorists”.

New anti-terror laws have been introduced both in the West and elsewhere in the past 20 years and used extensively to suppress such movements in the name of “national security”.

It is interesting to note that the 9/11 attacks came at a time when a huge “global justice” movement was building up across the world against the injustices of globalisation.

• READ MORE: ‘Fortress USA’: How 9/11 produced a military industrial juggernaut
• 9/11 should have led to a criminal investigation, not a war
• Other 9/11 reports

Using the internet as the medium of mobilisation, they gathered in Seattle in 1999 and were successful in closing down the World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting.

They opposed what they saw as large multinational corporations having unregulated political power, exercised through trade agreements and deregulated financial markets, facilitated by governments.

Their main targets were the WTO, International Monetary Fund (IMF), OECD, World Bank, and international trade agreements.

The movement brought “civil society” people from the North and the South together under common goals.

Poorest country debts
In parallel, the “Jubilee 2000” international movement led by liberal Christian and Catholic churches called for the cancellation of US$90 billion of debts owed by the world’s poorest nations to banks and governments in the West.

Along with the churches, youth groups, music, and entertainment industry groups were involved. The 9/11 attacks killed these movements as “national security” took precedence over “freedom to dissent”.

Dr Dayan Jayatilleka, a former vice-president of the UN Human Rights Council and a Sri Lankan political scientist, notes that when “capitalism turned neoliberal and went on the rampage” after the demise of the Soviet Union, resistance started to develop with the rise of the Zapatistas in Chiapas (Mexico) against NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and culminating in the 1999 Seattle protests using a term coined by Cuban leader Fidel Castro “another world is possible”.

“All that came crashing down with the Twin Towers,” he notes. “With 9/11 the Islamic Jihadist opposition to the USA (and the war on terror) cut across and buried the progressive resistance we saw emerging in Chiapas and Seattle.”

Geoffrey Robertson QC, a British human rights campaigner and TV personality, warns: “9/11 panicked us into the ‘war on terror’ using lethal weapons of questionable legality which inspired more terrorists.

“Twenty years on, those same adversaries are back and we now have a fear of US perfidy—over Taiwan or ANZUS or whatever. There will be many consequences.”

But, he sees some silver lining that has come out of this “war on terror”.

Targeted sanctions
“One reasonably successful tactic developed in the war on terror was to use targeted sanctions on its sponsors. This has been developed by so-called ‘Magnitsky acts’, enabling the targeting of human rights abusers—31 democracies now have them and Australia will shortly be the 32nd.

“I foresee their coordination as part of the fightback—a war not on terror but state cruelty,” he told In-Depth News.

When asked about the US’s humiliation in Afghanistan, Dr Chandra Muzaffar, founder of the International Movement for a Just World told IDN that the West needed to understand that they too needed to stop funding terror to achieve their own agendas.

“The ‘war on terror’ was doomed to failure from the outset because those who initiated the war were not prepared to admit that it was their occupation and oppression that compelled others to retaliate through acts of terror.” he argues.

“Popular antagonism towards the occupiers was one of the main reasons for the humiliating defeat of the US and NATO in Afghanistan,” he added.

Looking at Western attempts to introduce democracy under the pretext of “war on terror” and the chaos created by the “Arab Spring”, a youth movement driven by Western-funded NGOs, Iranian-born Australian Farzin Yekta, who worked in Lebanon for 15 years as a community multimedia worker, argues that the Arab region needs a different democracy.

“In the Middle East, the nations should aspire to a system based on social justice rather than the Western democratic model. Corrupt political and economic apparatus, external interference and dysfunctional infrastructure are the main obstacles for moving towards establishing a system based on social justice,” he says, adding that there are signs of growing social movements being revived in the region while “resisting all kinds of attacks”.

Palestinian refugee lessons
Yekta told IDN that while working with Palestinian refugee groups in Lebanon he had seen how peoples’ movements could be undermined by so-called “civil society” NGOs.

“Alternative social movements are infested by ‘civil society’ institutions comprising primarily NGO institutions.

“‘Civil society’ is effective leverage for the establishment and foreign (Western) interference to pacify radical social movements. Social movements find themselves in a web of funded entities which push for ‘agendas’ drawn by funding buddies,” noted Yekta.

Looking at the failure of Western forces in Afghanistan, he argues that what they did by building up “civil society” was encouraging corruption and cronyism that is entangled in ethnic and tribal structures of society.

“The Western nation-building plan was limited to setting up a glasshouse pseudo-democratic space in the green zone part of Kabul.

“One just needed to go to the countryside to confront the utter poverty and lack of infrastructure,” Yekta notes.

”We need to understand that people’s struggle is occurring at places with poor or no infrastructure.”

Social movements reviving
Dr Jayatilleka also sees positive signs of social movements beginning to raise their heads after two decades of repression.

“Black Lives Matter drew in perhaps more young whites than blacks and constituted the largest ever protest movement in history. The globalised solidarity with the Palestinian people of Gaza, including large demonstrations in US cities, is further evidence.

“In Latin America, the left-populist Pink Tide 2.0 began with the victory of Lopez Obrador in Mexico and has produced the victory of Pedro Castillo in Peru.

“The slogan of justice, both individual and social, is more globalised, more universalised today, than ever before in my lifetime,” he told IDN.

There may be ample issues for peoples’ movements to take up with TPP (Transpacific Partnership) and RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) trade agreements coming into force in Asia where companies would be able to sue governments if their social policies infringe on company profits.

But Dr Jayatilleka is less optimistic of social movements rising in Asia.

Asian social inequities
“Sadly, the social justice movement is considerably more complicated in Asia than elsewhere, though one would have assumed that given the social inequities in Asian societies, the struggle for social justice would be a torrent. It is not,” he argues.

“The brightest recent spark in Asia, according to Dr Jayatilleka, was the rise of the Nepali Communist Party to power through the ballot box after a protracted peoples’ war, but ‘sectarianism’ has led to the subsiding of what was the brightest hope for the social justice movement in Asia.”

Robertson feels that the time is ripe for the social movements suppressed by post 9/11 anti-terror laws to be reincarnated in a different life.

“The broader demand for social justice will revive, initially behind the imperative of dealing with climate change but then with tax havens, the power of multinationals, and the obscene inequalities in the world’s wealth.

“So, I do not despair of social justice momentum in the future,” he says.

Republished under Creative Commons partnership with IDN – In-Depth News.

While I am always happy to celebrate any accolades my country and city might garner on the international stage, seeing Auckland/Tāmaki Makaurau awarded the top ranking in a recent “most liveable cities” survey left me somewhat flummoxed.

In particular, I would argue that many Māori whānau in Auckland do not enjoy the benefits of this supposed “liveability”.

This is important, given Māori comprised 11.5 percent of the Auckland population in the 2018 Census. Roughly one in four Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand are living in the greater Auckland region.

• READ MORE: Recession hits Māori and Pasifika harder. They must be part of planning New Zealand’s COVID-19 recovery
• Wage restraint aims to lift the lowest-earning public servants, but it won’t fix stubborn gender and ethnic pay gaps
• If New Zealand can radically reform its health system, why not do the same for welfare?

The survey was conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, sister company of The Economist, and looked at 140 world cities. Auckland was ranked 12th in 2019, but took top spot this year for one obvious reason:

Auckland, in New Zealand, is at the top of The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Liveability rankings, owing to the city’s ability to contain the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic faster and thus lift restrictions earlier, unlike others around the world.

Most cities in Europe plunged in the rankings this year as the EIU’s liveability index incorporated new indicators related to covid-19 https://t.co/8555hY1f2U

— The Economist Data Team (@ECONdailycharts) June 9, 2021

Alternative liveability criteria
Each city in the survey was rated on “relative comfort for over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure”.

Overall rankings depended on how those factors were rated on a sliding scale: acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable, intolerable. Quantitative measurements relied on “external data points”, but the qualitative ratings were “based on the judgment of our team of expert analysts and in-city contributors”.

The methodology, particularly around culture and environment, seems somewhat subjective. It’s predicated on the judgement of unnamed experts and contributors, and based on similarly undefined “cultural indicators”.

To better understand the living conditions of Māori in Auckland, therefore, we might use more robust “liveability” criteria. The New Zealand Treasury’s Living Standards Framework offers a useful model.

This sets out 12 domains of well-being: civic engagement and governance, cultural identity, environment, health, housing, income and consumption, jobs and earnings, knowledge and skills, time use, safety and security, social connections and subjective well-being.

The Māori experience
Applying a small handful of these measures to Māori, we find the following.

Housing: According to recent reports, Auckland house prices increased by about NZ$140,00 on average in the past year. That contributed to Auckland being the fourth-least-affordable housing market, across New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, the US, UK, Ireland, Canada and Hong Kong.

Next to that sobering fact, we can point to estimates that Māori made up more than 40 percent of the homeless in Auckland in 2019. We can only assume this rapid increase in house prices has made homelessness worse.

Poverty: Alongside housing affordability is the growing concern about poverty in New Zealand, and particularly child poverty. While there has been an overall decline in child poverty, Māori and Pacific poverty rates remain “profoundly disturbing”.

Employment: As of March 2021, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment recorded a Māori unemployment rate of 10.8 percent, well above the national rate (4.9 percent). This is particularly high for Māori youth (20.4 percent) and women (12.0 percent).

Health: Māori life expectancy is considerably lower than for non-Māori, and mortality rates are higher for Māori than non-Māori across nearly all age groups. Māori are also over-represented across a wide range of chronic and infectious diseases, injuries and suicide.

The digital divide: The Digital Government initiative has found Māori and Pasifika are among those less likely to have internet access, thus creating a level of digital poverty that may affect jobs and earnings, knowledge and skills, safety and security, and social connections.

Making Auckland liveable for all
Taken together, these factors show a different and darker picture for far too many Māori than “liveable city” headlines might suggest.

I say this as someone who has lived in Auckland for the majority of the past 60 years. It is a city I love, and I acknowledge the grace and generosity of the mana whenua of Tāmaki Makaurau, with whom I share this beautiful whenua and moana.

I am also part of a privileged group of Māori who enjoy job security, a decent income, a secure whānau and strong social networks.

But, until we address and ameliorate the inequities and disadvantages some of our whānau face, we cannot truly celebrate being the “most liveable city in the world”.

Dr Ella Henry is an associate professor at Auckland University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

The notion that the covid-19 pandemic was “the great equalizer’ should be dead and buried by now. If anything, the lethal disease is another terrible reminder of the deep divisions and inequalities in our societies.

That said, the treatment of the disease should not be a repeat of the same shameful scenario.

For an entire year, wealthy celebrities and government officials have been reminding us that “we are in this together”, that “we are on the same boat”, with the likes of US singer, Madonna, speaking from her mansion while submerged in a “milky bath sprinkled with rose petals,” telling us that the pandemic has proved to be the “great equalizer”.

• READ MORE: Covid-19 vaccine roll out starts in parts of the Pacific

“Like I used to say at the end of ‘Human Nature’ every night, we are all in the same boat,” she said. “And if the ship goes down, we’re all going down together,” CNN reported at the time.

Such statements, like that of Madonna, and Ellen DeGeneres as well, have generated much media attention not just because they are both famous people with a massive social media following but also because of the obvious hypocrisy in their empty rhetoric.

In truth, however, they were only repeating the standard procedure followed by governments, celebrities and wealthy “influencers” worldwide.

But are we, really, “all in this together”? With unemployment rates skyrocketing across the globe, hundreds of millions scraping by to feed their children, multitudes of nameless and hapless families chugging along without access to proper healthcare, subsisting on hope and a prayer so that they may survive the scourges of poverty – let alone the pandemic – one cannot, with a clear conscience, make such outrageous claims.

Not only are we not “on the same boat” but, certainly, we have never been. According to World Bank data, nearly half of the world lives on less than US$5.5 a day. This dismal statistic is part of a remarkable trajectory of inequality that has afflicted humanity for a long time.

The plight of many of the world’s poor is compounded in the case of war refugees, the double victims of state terrorism and violence and the unwillingness of those with the resources to step forward and pay back some of their largely undeserved wealth.

The boat metaphor is particularly interesting in the case of refugees; millions of them have desperately tried to escape the infernos of war and poverty in rickety boats and dinghies, hoping to get across from their stricken regions to safer places.

Sadly familiar sight
This sight has sadly grown familiar in recent years not only throughout the Mediterranean Sea but also in other bodies of water around the world, especially in Burma, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have tried to escape their ongoing genocide. Thousands of them have drowned in the Bay of Bengal.

The covid-19 pandemic has accentuated and, in fact, accelerated the sharp inequalities that exist in every society individually, and the world at large. According to a June 2020 study conducted in the United States by the Brookings Institute, the number of deaths as a result of the disease reflects a clear racial logic.

Many indicators included in the study leave no doubt that racism is a central factor in the life cycle of covid.

For example, among those aged between 45 and 54 years, “Black and Hispanic/Latino death rates are at least six times higher than for whites”. Although whites make up 62 percent of the US population of that specific age group, only 22 percent of the total deaths were white.

Black and Latino communities were the most devastated.

According to this and other studies, the main assumption behind the discrepancy of infection and death rates resulting from covid among various racial groups in the US is poverty which is, itself, an expression of racial inequality. The poor have no, or limited, access to proper healthcare. For the rich, this factor is of little relevance.

Moreover, poor communities tend to work in low-paying jobs in the service sector, where social distancing is nearly impossible. With little government support to help them survive the lockdowns, they do everything within their power to provide for their children, only to be infected by the virus or, worse, die.

Iniquity expected to continue
This iniquity is expected to continue even in the way that the vaccines are made available. While several Western nations have either launched or scheduled their vaccination campaigns, the poorest nations on earth are expected to wait for a long time before life-saving vaccines are made available.

In 67 poor or developing countries located mostly in Africa and the Southern hemisphere, only one out of ten individuals will likely receive the vaccine by the end of 2020, the Fortune Magazine website reported.

The disturbing report cited a study conducted by a humanitarian and rights coalition, the People’s Vaccine Alliance (PVA), which includes Oxfam and Amnesty International.

If there is such a thing as a strategy at this point, it is the deplorable “hoarding” of the vaccine by rich nations.

Dr Mohga Kamal-Yanni of the PVA put this realisation into perspective when she said that “rich countries have enough doses to vaccinate everyone nearly three times over, while poor countries don’t even have enough to reach health workers and people at risk”.

So much for the numerous conferences touting the need for a “global response” to the disease.

But it does not have to be this way.

While it is likely that class, race and gender inequalities will continue to ravage human societies after the pandemic, as they did before, it is also possible for governments to use this collective tragedy as an opportunity to bridge the inequality gap, even if just a little, as a starting point to imagine a more equitable future for all of us.

Poor, dark-skinned people should not be made to die when their lives can be saved by a simple vaccine, which is available in abundance.

Dr Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr Baroud is a non-resident senior research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). This article is republished with permission. His website is www.ramzybaroud.net

How determined are Labour to take the necessary steps to fix inequality and poverty? Will electoral calculations triumph over their principles and stated ambitions?

These are some of the questions being asked on the political left, as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s government looks determined to stand by while social problems continue to get worse under their watch.

During their last term in government, Ardern and colleagues failed to be transformational on their key promise of fixing inequality and poverty. And now they are choosing policies that massively increase inequality, while ignoring the plight of those at the bottom.

• READ MORE: ‘You can’t eat kindness’

That’s why this week more than 60 charities and NGOs made an open plea to the government to increase welfare benefits before Christmas.

Despite the extraordinary conditions at the moment, Ardern response was a firm “no”. Poverty advocates say Labour should be “ashamed”, with many suggesting that the prime minister’s own advocacy of kindness and compassion is directly contradicted by her actual decisions.

Writing in The New Zealand Herald today, Matthew Hooton argues that the poverty advocates “have a point” in their dissatisfaction, as “Ardern’s response to these issues is unsatisfactory”. He argues that this week’s rejection of benefit increases “has prompted the first mini-rebellion on her left”.

Hooton is particularly dismissive of Ardern’s plea for more time to consider benefit levels: “she says more ‘work’ is needed but it is not clear what ‘work’ is required to make a basic decision on benefit levels.

Why is more ‘work’ needed?
Ruth Richardson, after all, took just 53 days after the October 27 1990 election to announce her benefit cuts. It is not obvious why any more “work” is needed to make the opposite decision.

In any case, the “work” was presumably already done in Ardern’s now eight and a half years in the children’s portfolio and by her [Welfare Expert Advisory Group].”

So should the left be rebelling? And is Labour putting hanging on to power above tackling poverty? Hooton seems to believe so: “The Prime Minister just emotes her usual concern.

“This is not economically or socially sustainable — and surely not politically sustainable either. There must come a time when Ardern’s own political base demands something more on such issues than her frowny-concerned face.

“It will be another 100 years before Labour again wins a mandate like the one Ardern secured last month. If she won’t act now on the issues she says concern her, left-wing activists will be entitled to ask whether hungry children and young couples struggling to buy a house really mean anything to her beyond being useful walk-on parts during election campaigns.”

Similarly, writing in the National Business Review yesterday, Brent Edwards says the debate “is a pointed rejoinder to Ardern from those who do not believe she is as committed to reducing child poverty as her rhetoric suggests”, and he argues that the decision to keep benefits down is unsurprising, given that Ardern’s decisions are guided by electoral considerations.

Brent Edwards contrasts the benefit decision with the first policy announcement of the Finance Minister: “Grant Robertson announced the Cabinet had decided to extend the small business cashflow loan scheme, which was due to end next month, for another three years and extend the interest-free period from one to two years.

Wooing the business community
“It is also looking at other changes to make the scheme more accessible for small businesses. It was the new government’s first decision of this term and is part of its attempt to woo the business community.”

So, just how long will beneficiaries and others in poverty have to wait until Labour delivers? Today’s Stuff newspaper editorial asks: “It takes more than one term to solve it, but will it take more than two?”

The editorial says Ardern is risking damage to her own brand by talking about kindness but doing the opposite: “Poverty advocates are used to hearing governments say one thing about poverty, especially the emotionally powerful issue of child poverty, but do another.”

They also ask: “What is the political cost of kindness? Or conversely, what is the political cost of doing nothing?”

Poverty advocates are understandably upset by Ardern’s rejection of action on poverty, and some are starting to speak out strongly against her and the government. Auckland Action Against Poverty’s coordinator Brooke Stanley Pao has said that Ardern is “choosing to keep people and families in poverty”.

According to this article, Pao “challenged the prime minister and other politicians to try and live on the current benefit for a month and ‘see how they find themselves’.”

Brooke Stanley Pao also wrote about this just prior to the election, saying, “You can’t eat kindness“. Responding to Ardern’s mantra, she says “We want more than kindness. We want the political bravery necessary to lift people out of poverty. Anything else is lip service.”

Leftwing bloggers losing faith
Other leftwing bloggers are losing their faith that Labour and Ardern really believe in progressive politics. For example, No Right Turn says: “The message is clear: their ‘kindness’ extends only to rich people, who will be exempted from paying their fair share of the costs of the pandemic (or society in general).

“As for poor kids, they can keep on starving. Which once again invites the question: what is Labour for, exactly, if they’re not going to ever deliver anything?”

The Child Poverty Action Group reports “the dismayed, disappointed and, in some cases, furious response to its dismissal” of benefit increases by Ardern and asks of the Government, “What, exactly, are they waiting for?”

She argues that increased payments would have an immediate impact on alleviating poverty.

McAllister also draws attention to the Government making decisions in the Covid environment that are likely to worsen inequality while ignoring the needs of those at the bottom: “Using children as economic shock absorbers – that’s unreasonable.

“Covid-response policies that stretch inequity even further – that’s unreasonable. Child Poverty Action Group research this year has shown that core entitlements for those receiving benefits are mostly far below key poverty lines, and in some cases will be tipping people into severest poverty.

“We modelled a scenario that shows 70,000 additional children are at risk of poverty due to Covid-19 on current policy settings.”

Why Labour is ‘tinkering’
For more on what Janet McAllister thinks is wrong with the current government policies, see Why Labour’s tinkering of our welfare system just isn’t enough.

Looking back at what Labour have implemented over the last term, she concludes: “By themselves, these policies are disappointing. It’s still just tinkering around the edges and far from big, bold moves to cut the mustard.

“They’re of no use to many of our poorest families.”

Another poverty advocate, Max Rashbrooke of Victoria University of Wellington, has written in The Guardian about how disappointed he is with progress on child poverty under the government, and how things look set to get worse unless policies are implemented that live up to the lofty targets set by Ardern.

The problem according to Rashbrooke is that Ardern “has relied largely on the ‘third way’ policies of her Labour predecessor, Helen Clark, in her fight against child poverty.”

And so although there has been some “modest progress” on some poverty measures, these are essentially the result of picking the low-hanging fruit. He points to Treasury modelling showing that “the number of families in ‘material hardship’ – those reporting they are unable to afford basic items – will ‘rise sharply’.”

Is it true that the government can’t afford to increase benefits? Not according to business journalist Bernard Hickey, whose must-read column this week argues that Ardern and Robertson seem determined to massively increase inequality by following outdated economic philosophies.

Making homeowners richer
He asks: “Is it more important that homeowners are $100 billion richer? Or that hundreds of thousands of children are left unnecessarily in poverty?”

Here’s Hickey’s main point: “It is bizarre that a Labour government and a Reserve Bank that talk a big game on their social responsibilities and sustainability are choosing to pump up to $150 billion into increasing housing market valuations for the richest half of New Zealanders who own homes, but don’t think they can afford increasing benefits at a cost of $5.2 billion for the hundreds of thousands of kids and their parents living in poverty.”

He points out that “economists as conservative as those at the OECD, the IMF and the World Bank are now begging Governments to do things differently by spending money on the poor and on infrastructure, rather than just pumping up asset prices to make the rich even richer.”

Hickey also refers to a report out this week with findings from the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal study. You can read the report here: Now we are eight: Life in middle childhood.

Hickey sums up the inequality findings: “Nearly 40 per cent are living in cold, mouldy and damp homes. About a third are obese. About 20 per cent of the families surveyed did not have enough money to eat properly.

“Nearly 15 per cent of the eight-year-olds had already moved school twice, largely because of having to move from one rental property to the next.”

Not everyone is criticising Labour’s rejection of benefit increases. Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking says that giving into such a demand would take the government down a “slippery slope”, and be too expensive for little real gain.

Urgent need for relief
There is no doubt there is urgent need for relief for those at the bottom. And this week the Auckland City Mission launched a campaign to replenish their run-down stocks of food, noting that prior to covid they estimated “10 percent of Kiwis experienced food insecurity on a regular basis.

“Due to covid-19, it believes the figure is now closer to 20 percent – or one million people – who do not have enough good food to eat on a weekly basis.”

And today it’s being reported that the government’s two-tier welfare payments have come to an end.

Finally, what’s to be done about poverty and inequality, given this government has no great interest in being transformational on this issue? According to veteran leftwing commentator Chris Trotter, “it’s time for some ‘earnest struggle'”. He argues that Labour will only ever carry out leftwing reforms if they are forced to.

Trotter wants to see less reliance on appeals to Ardern and Robertson to “be kind”, and more mass marches down Auckland’s Queen St.

Dr Bryce Edwards is a New Zealand-based political scientist of reliability and prominence. His analysis and commentary is regularly published on EveningReport.nz. This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre with permission.

A pandemic can change the foundations of a society. But if this happens in New Zealand over the next three years, it will be for reasons beyond the control of the sixth Labour government. When it comes to the fundamental structure of state and economy, Labour is broadly committed to the status quo.

This was confirmed on election night when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, wearing a Labour red dress before a National blue background, declared: “We will be a party that governs for every New Zealander.”

In times of upset, people yearn for normality — and Ardern’s Labour Party was awarded a landslide for achieving something close to this. The risk of a further covid-19 outbreak is ever present, as today’s announcement of a community transmission case in Auckland reminded us.

• READ MORE: New Zealand’s new parliament turns red: the 2020 election results at a glance
  
• Jacinda Ardern promised transformation – instead the times transformed her
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Nevertheless, international spectators view our pandemic response with a wistful gaze. At a time when many nations went sour on liberal democracy and rolled the populist dice, New Zealand appears on the world stage like a tribute act to third-way politics, a nostalgic throwback to the relative sanity and stability of the long 1990s.

Yet for many people who live in Aotearoa New Zealand, the status quo isn’t working, and hasn’t for some time. These tensions are only intensifying.

Housing unaffordability is on the rise again, with implications for wealth inequality and deprivation. This is compounded further by the cascading economic effects of the global pandemic and unconventional manoeuvres in monetary policy that are pushing house prices higher.

Without remedial action, this inequality will leave New Zealand society more exposed to future shocks, not only from covid-19, but also the multiplying risks of climate change, biodiversity collapse, digital disruption and international instability. Inequality ensures uneven impacts, a recipe for further discontent and conflict.

No party for idealogues
Even from a purely electoral perspective, the Labour Party can’t afford inaction. It is easy to forget how precarious the prime minister’s position was at the beginning of the year.

She could boast enough policy wins to stack an early campaign video, yet hadn’t pulled a fiscal lever large enough to convince the public that her government was truly “transformational”.

Entering a second term, her policy agenda is more recognisable by what she won’t do than what she will — no capital gains tax, no wealth tax, indeed no new taxes at all beyond a tweak for the highest earners.

This leaves us with the longstanding conundrum of what the Labour Party is and what it really stands for these days. Ardern and her colleagues are not ideologues, but no politics is without ideology — a system of ideas, values and beliefs that orients its efforts.

I’ve argued in the past that Ardern’s government has a spirit of civic republicanism. This has met with reasonable scepticism, yet in the midst of the pandemic it feels more relevant than ever.

With borders drastically restricted, and old allies going wayward, there is a renewed sense of separateness, of independence in the world.

Might the pandemic seal New Zealand’s fate as the Commonwealth of Oceana, as a 21st century version of 17th century English republican John Harrington’s utopian island?

Kindness as a political virtue
The first symptom of republicanism belongs to Ardern herself. She is the active citizen par excellence. She embodies civic commitment and public-spiritedness, along with a good dose of humility. Even in emergencies, she remains one of us: primus inter pares, “first among equals”.

Analysts of Ardern’s political leadership emphasise her openness, honesty, self-discipline, empathy and, above all, her authenticity. For civic republicans, the exercise of such virtues is the lifeblood of public life. Indeed, insofar as Ardern has a distinctive political agenda, it is centred on the virtue of kindness.

Arguably, this has displaced the more principled commitments that might guide substantive structural reform. But kindness also provided vital emotional leadership in the raw moments following the Christchurch mosque attacks and the outset of the pandemic.

As the 18th century philosopher Montesquieu said, “Virtue in a republic is a most simple thing: it is a love of the republic.” Few could doubt Ardern’s devotion to the nation. But for the Labour Party, as for republicans, this has an exclusionary aspect.

Given the emphasis on citizens, republicans have tended to prioritise “us” over “them”. In the Athenian republic, only citizens could participate in democracy, and only wealthy men could be citizens — not women, not slaves, not foreigners.

Similarly, in New Zealand’s “team of five million”, only citizens have the full spectrum of rights and entitlements. For more than 300,000 temporary visa holders, whose compliance with pandemic restrictions was vital for containing the outbreak, there was minimal solidarity from government.

Many were frozen out of jobs during lockdown, unable to relocate due to visa conditions, and excluded from social welfare support. Others were stuck outside the country until very recently, unable to re-enter. From a liberal or internationalist perspective, this is hard to swallow. But there is a nativist strain within the Labour Party which will relish these harder borders.

None of this is to say that Labour’s politics aren’t liberal or social democratic. Ideologies can be mixed in the same way that economies can be. It is to say, more modestly, that some of the qualities that characterise the Ardern government align with civic republicanism.

And this helps to resist the lazy analysis that this government is nothing more than a continuation of what came before, another phase in an undifferentiable centrist blob.

Neither socialist nor purely liberal
But where to next? Firstly, this is not a government of pure socialist intentions. Accusations of this kind come from a place of confusion, delusion, or plain mischief. Socialism, simply put, involves collective ownership of the means of production.

This government already relinquished an unprecedented opportunity to socialise the economy when it implemented its wage subsidy scheme at the outset of the pandemic.

Public debt is growing precisely to keep private businesses in private hands. Labour’s resistance to substantive tax reform, even to reduce the debt it insists it must pay back, reveals its abandonment of redistribution as a practicable tool for social change.

Secondly, this is not a government of purely liberal intentions. It is ambivalent about the free flow of people and capital. Attorney-General David Parker, in particular, has prioritised citizens through restrictions on overseas buyers of housing and the “national interest” test for foreign investment.

It is notable that former National prime minister Sir John Key, guided by a vision of global liberalism that is increasingly endangered, is still railing against this.

Ardern’s government is also unembarrassed about a more active role for the state. Its approach for housing is illustrative — not just its boost to state-owned housing, but especially its embrace of the state’s potential as a developer providing houses directly to market.

Liberals see this as mere interference, but republicans tolerate government intervention wherever it improves the lives of citizens. In the wake of the pandemic, voters will be prone to agree.

The danger of losing trust
This touches on the defining feature of civic republicanism: its commitment to freedom from domination. Republicans accept the kinds of intervention that liberals fear, as long as they free people from situations of oppression and subjugation.

Domination should also be broadly understood to include regulations, poverty, sexism, racism, environmental degradation, employment relations — anything that thwarts our cherished projects.

This is where the republican spirit mostly clearly intersects with the sixth Labour government’s interest in well-being. The purpose of worrying about well-being is to improve people’s capabilities to live the kinds of lives they most value.

Because the aforementioned forms of oppression curtail such freedoms, we have a duty to overturn them, through intervention if necessary. Well-being economics isn’t merely about measurement; it is an emancipatory project.

Ardern’s government is most vulnerable to criticism when it falls short of this ideal — for example, the oppressive practices of Oranga Tamariki or ineffective infrastructure development. If voters won’t punish Ardern for not being socialist or liberal enough, they might still penalise her for failing to make real these republican impulses.

It is said that, in politics, what lifts you up is what will eventually drag you down. When the virtues of openness fail to strengthen transparency, when state intervention fails to deliver outcomes competently or effectively, when appeals to “the people” paper over vital differences, when the politics of kindness fail to prevent suffering — this is where trust will be lost.

The danger of electoral dominance is becoming your own worst enemy.

Dr David Hall is senior researcher in politics at Auckland University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

An immigration consultant is warning an entrenched underclass of unlawful workers will emerge unless the government provides emergency benefits to unemployed immigrants.

About one in ten of the workforce is an overseas worker on a temporary visa.

The Ministry of Social Development has previously signalled that those who have lost their jobs should approach their embassies for help.

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But immigration adviser Alain Koetsier said that was not a realistic option for many nationalities, who would be driven into bad situations.

He called on the Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni to implement a section of the Social Security Act, enacted for epidemic situations, to allow emergency welfare payments to immigrants.

“If they run out of money, then they effectively have very little recourse other than potentially turning to the unlawful job market, and working under the table,” he said.

“If they do that, not only do they expose themselves to slave-like work conditions, but they drive down wages for New Zealand workers, and New Zealand businesses can expect to be undercut by competitors who use cheap or free migrant labour, so it has very negative consequences for the entire New Zealand economy.

Facing extreme poverty
“Hardworking and taxpaying migrant workers will face the worst consequences – if they refuse to work unlawfully, they face extreme poverty, if they choose to breach their visa conditions out of desperation, they face deportation or exploitation.”

Many immigrants had no way of going home because borders were closed or no flights were available, he said.

“These workers may remain unlawfully employed for many years, fearful of approaching authorities lest they be punished. We could see a large underclass of illegal workers become entrenched in the New Zealand economy in the long term.

“The government will not receive any tax from the illegal labour but will need to spend more to fix the problems that result. The economic recovery from Covid-19 will be much harder in such a situation.”

Immigrants needed help after paying taxes and establishing a life in New Zealand, he said.

“There is a strong humanitarian component as well, that these migrants many of them have poured a lot of money, life savings into the New Zealand economy, and that they now need our help,” he added.

“I think that all these taxpaying migrants who have contributed so much to our country also deserve a helping hand at this time of crisis.”

INZ directs workers to embassies
Immigration New Zealand (INZ) continues to advise expats, who are not currently employed, and are experiencing financial difficulty during the pandemic to talk to their embassy or consulate for assistance.

“The government has agreed to relax visa conditions for a short period to allow temporary migrant workers and international students to further assist with our essential services during the Covid-19 response,” an INZ spokesperson said.

“Work visa holders with employer-specific work visas already employed in essential services will be able to vary their hours and be redeployed to do other roles within their current workplace.

“They can also perform their current role in a different workplace in the same region to help essential businesses keep operating while New Zealand remains at alert level 3 and for six weeks after that.

They said the government was also looking at a range of other options for temporary work visa holders and would make decisions as soon as possible.

Three new cases of covid-19
New Zealand has reported just three new cases of Covid-19 over the past 24 hours, the 12th day in a row the increase has remained in single digits.

Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said seven people were in hospital, but none are in intensive care.

Dr Bloomfield said there was now a total of 1129 confirmed cases, with 347 probable cases.

He said an earlier probable case had been reclassified as not a case.

“There was a significant increase in testing yesterday, with 5867 tests performed and our new total of tests in 134,570,” he said.

Today’s media conference. Video: RNZ News

He said 1241 people had now recovered from the coronavirus, an increase of 12 from yesterday. He said 84 percent of cases had now recovered.

The number of significant clusters remained at 16, and the death toll stood at 19.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said while people could now enjoy takeaways, it was vital distancing was occurring and people needed to stay at home if there was no proper reason to be outdoors.

She said there had been 185 breaches under alert level 3, including 81 in the past 24 hours and 48 new warnings.

Police have advised that after a bit of a spike in the first 24 hours of alert level 3, things have calmed down, she said.

“Please continue to act like you have the virus when you are out and about and if you see breaches, please report them.

“Now is not the time to loosen up our compliance.”

• This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.
• If you have symptoms of the coronavirus, call the NZ Covid-19 Healthline on 0800 358 5453 (+64 9 358 5453 for international SIMs) or call your GP – don’t show up at a medical centre.
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The sluggish delivery of crucial social assistance funds by Indonesia’s capital Jakarta administration in response to the Covid-19 outbreak is putting the city’s underprivileged citizens at a higher risk of slipping into destitution the longer the crisis stretches on.

On March 20, five days after the city started closing down schools and tourist destinations to curb the spread of the disease, Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan said that the administration would be disbursing social assistance to 1.1 million registered beneficiaries.

At the time, Jakarta officials were still formulating the amount and method of disbursement.

READ MORE: 70 million informal workers most vulnerable during pandemic

Fast forward to last Thursday, at a teleconference meeting with Vice-President Ma’ruf Amin, Anies announced that the number of beneficiaries had jumped to 3.7 million people due to a greater share of the population, comprising poor and vulnerable groups, dropping deeper into poverty.

“They [people in the vulnerable bracket] still earn a living, but once the economy contracts, they will have lost all of their income,” he said, pointing to street vendors and ojek (motorcycle taxi) drivers as prime examples of this group.

The governor has revealed that beneficiaries would be receiving Rp 1 million (US$60.45) in subsidies per household per month for April and May. The Social Affairs Ministry, which is set to allocate Rp. 4.57 trillion to the social assistance program, would be footing a larger chunk of each subsidy of Rp 880,000, while the remainder will be taken out of the city’s budget.

But with an additional 2.6 million recipients added to the tally, Anies said the administration would require approximately 10 days to complete their credentials – another massive undertaking.

Jakarta identity card
“Not all of them have a Jakarta identity card. Some are not even registered as beneficiaries of the social assistance programme,” he said, adding that the administration would use data it had been collecting through the One Jakarta programme, which employs the Family Welfare Movement (PKK) to collect household data.

Meanwhile, the Social Affairs Ministry’s director general for social empowerment, Pepen Nazarudin, said the ministry was still waiting on the details of the beneficiaries.

“The Jakarta administration is to inform us about the data before we will review it. We’ll convey the data to the President as soon as possible,” Pepen said.

The disbursement mechanism remains unclear but Pepen insisted it would abide by the physical distancing rules mandated by the government, hopeful of avoiding the rush and the long lines that often come with the distribution of staple food packages.

Flora Aninditya, a researcher at the University of Indonesia Economics and Business School’s Demographics Institute, emphasised that while speeding up the collection of data was important, the safety of the officers should be of utmost importance during an outbreak.

“There should be a protocol to ensure the safety of data collectors who go out into the field, while operational incentives like covered transportation costs or phone credits should also be provided,” she told the Post on Friday.

Separately, Foundation of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute (YLBHI) chairwoman Asfinawati deplored the Jakarta government’s “late” decision to set up a social safety net one month after the first COVID-19 infection was confirmed in the capital.

Falling deeper into poverty
She claimed that many people had lost income and could potentially fall deeper into poverty due to the government’s failure to identify risks and prepare mitigation strategies before measures to curb the spread of the virus were put in place.

“The risks should have been identified well in advance,” she said.

Jakarta RT/RW Forum chairman Muhammad Irsyad said he was worried that low-income groups would no longer heed the government’s call to stay indoors as uncertainty over their basic needs are thrown into doubt.

“Though I’ve seen residents obey the call [for physical distancing] for the past two weeks, they will eventually want to go out to find ways [to make money],” he said. “But residents may feel more at ease if they know it [social assistance] is available.”

The severity of the Covid-19 outbreak in the capital has triggered an outpouring of solidarity from individuals, community organisations, companies and government agencies that have gathered donations for the poor and provided protective gear for medical workers on the frontline.

Meanwhile, communities in Jakarta’s slums have reportedly begun producing their own antiseptic liquid for local use.

“These are truly very good initiatives to have as a nation, but they could also be seen as a corrective measure to make up for the failure of the state,” Asfinawati said.

Collective efforts
Wahyudi Djafar, deputy director of the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM), said that collective efforts to handle the outbreak should always be led by the government.

“The government should have been able to produce a map for people to track, for instance, where there is a shortage of protective equipment, so donations and other resources can be equally distributed,” he said.

Jakarta, currently the country’s epicenter of the Covid-19 outbreak, had reported 958 confirmed cases and 96 deaths as of Friday afternoon.

Sausan Atika is a journalist with The Jakarta Post.

• Indonesia’s strategy to combat COVID-19: What we know so far

A Papua New Guinean man who once resorted to crime to make a living is now running a bicycle repair business.

Collin Kunan is a long-time resident of West Taraka, one of Lae’s urban settlements where petty crime is rife because of high unemployment.

Kunan said he gave up criminal activities because he saw no future.

READ MORE: Damning report into PNG poverty and human rights abuses

Unemployment, poor sanitation, and overcrowding are common issues in urban settlements and West Taraka is no exception.

The population that really feel the pinch of these realities is the youth.

Most are school dropouts while others could not continue because of school fee issues.

Left with no job opportunities, most resort to petty crime to survive.

Switched lifestyles
Such was the case before for Kunan, now 45, who gave up that lifestyle to start a small bicycle repair business.

“If I do nothing I will pick up a gun and start stealing again. Since 2000, I made up my mind to work hard, make gardens to survive.”

Kunan started his business with repairing bicycles and now also sells bicycle parts – most of which he collects from rubbish dumps or from old bicycles donated to him.

As someone who is just starting this small business, Collin Kunan said he was not aware of SME grants from the government, saying there should be more awareness.

For now, Kunan says there are no big plans for his business as yet but he says he is glad he chose this life over resorting to crime.

Sharlyne Eri is a reporter for EM TV News, Lae. Asia Pacific Report republishes articles in partnership with the Pacific Media Centre.

Large landscapes of intact tropical forests will figure prominently in global strategies to avert catastrophic climate change and conserve biodiversity.

In this context, the extensive forests of Papua and West Papua provinces in Indonesia are now becoming the focus of international conservation efforts. There are many inherent perils to this new boom in conservation in the provinces, which could repeat past mistakes that have deprived and dispossessed indigenous Papuans from their lands.

Here we briefly outline the challenges of conservation, development and the recognition of indigenous land rights in West Papua province*, based on our ongoing collaborative applied research projects in the province that began in 2013.

READ MORE: The denial of traditional land rights in West Papua

West Papua Province, located in the Bird’s Head region of Papua (New Guinea) with a total area of 9.7 million hectares, retains more than 90 percent of its forest cover (Figure 1).

West Papua Province was created in 2003 by splitting the province previously known as Papua into two provinces. As one of the youngest provinces in Indonesia, West Papua is under pressure to accelerate socio-economic development.

The poverty rate in West Papua is high, although declining. In 2016, one fourth of West Papuans (225,800 people) lived under the regional poverty line, defined as 475 thousand Indonesian rupiah (about US$31) per month (Badan Pusat Statistik, 2017).

The rural areas of West Papua, which are mostly populated by indigenous Papuans, are poorer than urban areas.

Extensive forests
Although lagging behind in its socio-economic development, West Papua is one of few provinces with extensive native forests.

The total forest cover in West Papua is approximately 90 percent of the total area, for a total of 8.9 million hectares. This figure includes all forest cover within both state forests and non-forest areas.

Due to the biological diversity of the province as well its high proportion of forest cover, civil society organisations and international conservation organisations have advocated for the government to declare the province a conservation province.

The provincial government declared in 2015 that it would become a Conservation Province, and the supporting provincial regulation for the conservation province, now retitled as a “Sustainable Development Province”, has been drafted (Note 1).

There are many inherent dangers to the designation of West Papua as a conservation province. The province is rich in its natural environment but also has one of Indonesia’s highest rates of poverty.

Indonesian planning processes have historically not formally acknowledged customary ownership of land or zoned as forest areas.

By zoning areas as part of the forest estate, they fall under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, with conservation areas managed by the central government. There are several types of conservation areas under Indonesian law, including national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and hunting parks.

People displaced
Within the core areas of national parks and also the entire area of wildlife sanctuaries, no land uses are permitted. The establishment of conservation areas in Indonesia has historically led to the significant displacement of indigenous peoples from the core areas, restricting their access to both land and livelihoods.

The provincial government of West Papua, with the support of the Papuan People’s Council (Majelis Rakyat Papua) and civil society organisations (Note 2), have developed a draft provincial regulation on the recognition of customary land rights.

The regulation builds on the momentum of the Indonesian constitutional court decision in 2012, 35/PUU-X/2012, which recognised the rights of indigenous groups to lands within the Indonesian forest estate.

At present, there is uncertainty about how the sustainable development and customary land rights draft regulations would affect one other, once implemented.

Finally, in parallel to these initiatives, the administration of President Joko Widodo, which came into office in 2015, has been focusing on reducing poverty in regional areas of Indonesia, with a particular focus on the Indonesian portion of the island of New Guinea.

The main element of his policy has been to increase spending on infrastructure development as well as driving agricultural development. Previously remote and inaccessible areas of Papua are now finally getting access to roads and electricity, increasing their access to markets and other opportunities.

Can these three policy initiatives — for conservation, development and the recognition of indigenous land rights — be balanced in a way that benefits both indigenous Papuans and the environment?

Balanced solution
From our research in West Papua, undertaken through various initiatives since 2013, we highlight several challenges to finding a balanced solution:

• A systematic lack of spatial and socio-economic data on West Papuans, in particular their land ownership systems;
• Limited markets and low prices for commodities or crops produced by Papuans coupled with missing downstream industries that could add value to these products; and
• Spatial planning and land allocation processes that do not fully consider the rights and distribution of benefits to indigenous communities.

These challenges are all evident in the district of Fakfak, located in the central-western part of the province (Figure 1).

Fakfak District faces the Maluku Islands and historically, has long been integrated into the spice trade, especially for its local variety of nutmeg. Nutmeg and mace have been historically used worldwide for culinary purposes and can be processed further to produce essential oil and oleoresin.

Although Indonesia has been the center of nutmeg production for over a thousand years, the full potential of the nutmeg market remains untapped. One of the main undervalued nutmeg varieties is Papuan nutmeg (Myristica argentea Warb) or locally known as Pala Tomandin.

Papuan nutmeg is commercially grown in Fakfak and Kaimana districts in West Papua, with most of the production concentrated in Fakfak district. Nutmeg is cultivated in wild and semi-wild forests by indigenous farmers, in lands owned and managed under customary laws.

Diversified livelihoods
Despite being registered as a geographical indication in 2014 as Pala Tomandin, the demand and price for Papuan nutmeg remains low. Consequently, nutmeg farmers often have diversified livelihoods such as fishing and seaweed cultivation or farming other crops.

Deforestation has remained relatively limited in Fakfak District, although the period of 2010 to 2016 saw a spike in clearing related to forestry concessions and the allocation of an oil palm concession, according to data from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (Figure 2).

Concessions, where logging companies not owned by local communities extract timber, remain the main driver of deforestation, which is a trend that has been increasing. Forest degradation, which is the conversion of primary forests to secondary forest, has primarily been driven by forestry concessions and spiked dramatically during the period of 2000 to 2010.

The rate of forest degradation declined significantly after this period, with the majority of degradation now occurring outside of forestry concessions. Currently, indigenous land owners receive compensation payments for timber harvested by the concessionaires, although the amount and distribution of benefits may vary.

From our case studies in Fakfak District, local people have described localised processes of demographic expansion and increasing financial pressures, such as the costs of paying for secondary and tertiary education for their children, as the causes of this expansion into primary forest areas.

The case of Fakfak district reveals the complexity of solving the intertwined challenges of poverty, indigenous land rights and conservation. Recognising indigenous land rights should be prioritized, to achieve both social justice and environmental conservation.

In the Amazon region, for example, formal recognition of indigenous territories inhibits deforestation just as much as conservation areas do. The recognition of land rights requires maps that delineate the boundaries of indigenous territories.

Social taboos
There are social taboos, however, in delineating these boundaries as historically boundaries between different tribes and clans were established through wars and conflict. Without proper and legitimate mediation processes in place, mapping customary boundaries has the potential to reignite these conflicts.

In the absence of conflict mediation mechanisms and institutions, there are other methods available for delineating indigenous land ownership. INOBU, together with AKAPE, a Fakfak based NGO, has trialed mapping lands based on land use instead of ownership rights, particularly focused on nutmeg forest gardens in Fakfak district.

Thus far, we have mapped 263 farmers with a total area of 792 hectares in 20 villages. These maps provide indicative maps of customary use of forest areas, which will later serve as the basis for discussion on ownership rights between clans and tribes, and with the government.

Recognising the land rights will not be sufficient to solve the problem of deforestation and forest degradation, although it will help. Improving the value and markets for locally important forest commodities is crucial.

In Fakfak, we have been working on improving the markets and value of Papuan nutmeg while strengthening alternative livelihoods in order to alleviate the economic pressures on indigenous Papuan households.

We have been engaging with nutmeg exporters to ensure that the product meets the standards required by international markets. We have also been working with an Indonesian cosmetics company to help develop local industries for processed nutmeg products.

All these interventions, in turn, should be counterbalanced by strengthening customary institutions for sustainably managing forest resources. Finally, a district level, multi-stakeholder platform will guide the sustainable production of nutmeg in Fakfak district.

Broader application
The lessons from Fakfak district can be applied more broadly to the province of West Papua. We propose that the recognition of the land and resource rights of indigenous Papuans should be the immediate priority of the provincial government, donors and conservation and development organisations.

Conservation should be viewed through the prism of strengthening customary systems and institutions, including village (kampung) administrations, for managing the environment rather than the expansion of protected areas.

The recognition of indigenous land and resource rights should not, however, extinguish their rights to develop in accordance with their own aspirations. Rather, indigenous groups should be supported through interventions that help them to develop profitable and sustainable industries, as well as support for accessing health and education.

An essential part of this should be developing economic alternatives for indigenous people that increase the value of standing, well-managed forests. Strict conservation, where necessary, should be supported through adequate financial and other incentives, with the benefits distributed equitably.

Prior to establishing or expanding conservation areas, governments should also assess the potential effects on indigenous peoples, including how it will contribute to, or impede, poverty reduction targets and the likelihood of future conflicts.

The Jokowi administration’s proposed investments in roads and electrification could help improve the economic viability of new community-based enterprises in West Papua if designed and implemented with the participation of local stakeholders, especially indigenous communities.

Participatory planning
Without effective participatory planning, investments like these can lead to a natural resource-grabbing free-for-all.

The goals of both social justice and conservation are best served by recognition of land rights plus the development of economic alternatives for forest communities that enhance their livelihoods by increasing the value of their forests.

First and foremost, West Papuan’s indigenous peoples need to have a prominent seat at the table as the future of the province is planned.

*West Papua generally refers to all of the western half of Papua New Guinea island administered by Indonesia. West Papua, as referred to in this article, also applies to the smaller western province of the island as opposed to the larger Papua province.  This article article is republished from Mongabay – “News and inspiration from nature’s frontline”. Bernadinus Steni is secretary of the Institut Inovasi Bumi and Daniel Nepstad is the executive director of Earth Innovation Institute.

Notes:
1. As part of the draft regulation for a Sustainable Development Province (Ranperdasus Provinsi Pembangunan Berkelanjutan), the government has established the following targets: 1. Local governments and stakeholders ensure that the use of clean, renewable energy reaches 50 percent with the period of 20 years from the enactment of this local regulation; 2. Local governments commit to reduce the rate of deforestation by 80 percent of the average rate of deforestation and degradation in 2009; 3. With a minimum period of 20 years from the enactment of this special autonomy regulation, as much as 50 percent of forests will be managed sustainably; 4. Local governments are obliged to protect a minimum of 80 percent of important habitats and 50 percent of every type of ecosystem; and for coastal and marine areas: Local governments are obliged to preserve a minimum of 30 percent of coastal areas and waters as Water Conservation Areas that include a minimum of 20 percent of the area as No Take Zones within a specific period considering ecological attributes.

2. Inovasi Bumi (INOBU) and Earth Innovation Institute, supported by the Norad-financed Forest, Farms and Finance Initiative, supported the drafting and initial consultations for the draft special autonomy regulation on the recognition of indigenous peoples (Ranperdasus Pengakuan Masyarakat Hukum Adat Papua di Provinsi Papua Barat). The regulation is the first step towards recognizing the land rights of indigenous peoples, as the existence of customary groups must be acknowledged first.

Acknowledgement:
John Watts (INOBU, EII), Silvia Irawan (INOBU, EII) and Triyoga Widiastomo (INOBU) contributed to this Commentary; funding was provided by NORAD and the David and Lucille Packard Foundation.

Mangere Labour MP Aupito William Sio has hit out at claims by Tongan Māori Party candidate Manase Lua that Labour has done nothing for Pasifika people.

In comments reported by Kaniva News, Lua said Labour had backed 80 percent of the National Party’s legislation.

Aupito, who is Labour’s spokesperson for Pacific Island Affairs, said the Māori Party had been part of the National government and was responsible for New Zealand’s growing unequal society.

“They are responsible for the growing unequal society we now have,” Aupito said.

“While the wealth of the wealthiest New Zealanders continues to rise, we see more homelessness in our communities.

“People live in cars, garages, or share a bedroom among several people in a boarding house, a caravan, or hotel room.

“New Zealand never used to be this way. The Salvation Army tell us they see more and more people who work full-time coming to them for food parcels.

Māori Party support
““All this has happened under the National government, supported by the Māori Party.”

Aupito said that in opposition Labour had challenged the government on its spending of public funds and advocated strongly for more affordable housing, better fund healthcare, free education and for the lifting of family incomes and workers’ incomes.

“National has refused and only promised tax cuts, which favour the very wealthy.

“Labour has voted against the government’s budget in the last nine years because we don’t believe in giving wealthy people more money at the expense of creating more poverty, more homelessness and making it difficult for families to put their children through tertiary studies.”

Inequality more severe
In an interview with Kaniva News before the last election in 2014, Aupito said that in the previous six years inequality in New Zealand had become severe.

“People come to my office for a variety of reasons and often turn up as a last resort where they just aren’t getting any assistance from the various government departments,” he said.

“A lot of these issues have been determined by the struggles our families are facing.

“There’s also the housing crisis which affects so many of our Pacific families.

“The housing crisis has also been exacerbated due to the government removing itself from providing state houses.”

In the same interview, Aupito defended Labour’s record against criticism from the Pacific community for its stand on gay marriage.

He said at the time that while he respected members of the gay community, he had voted against gay marriage to reflect the views of the majority view of his Pasifika constituency.

• More NZ election stories

In its most strongly worded attack yet on the crackdown on drug pushers and users, the powerful Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines said killing people was not the answer to trafficking of illegal drugs.

The Church said, in a pastoral letter that was read out in sermons yesterday, it was disturbing that many did not care about the bloodshed, or even approved of it.

“An even greater cause of concern is the indifference of many to this kind of wrong. It is considered as normal, and, even worse, something that [according to them] needs to be done,” the bishops said in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by news agencies.

“An additional cause of concern is the reign of terror in many places of the poor. Many are killed not because of drugs. Those who kill them are not brought to account,” they said.

Duterte’s office strikes back
The Malacañang presidential palace has lashed back at the Church for the letter, blaming it for being “apparently out of touch” with the wishes of those who back the changes introduced by Duterte.

“The efforts of these church leaders might be put to better use in practical catechetics that build strong moral character among the faithful, and so contribute more to the reign of peace felt by ordinary citizens everywhere, especially those who are innocent of illegal activities,” Ernesto Abella, presidential spokesman, was quoted as saying by Philippine media.

The Catholic Church, to which more than 80 percent of Filipinos belong, has earned the ire of Duterte after bishops criticised the spate of killings linked to the president’s narcotics crackdown.

More than 7600 people have been killed since Duterte launched his anti-drugs campaign seven months ago, more than 2, in what police say were armed clashes during raids and sting operations.

Both the government and police have strenuously denied that extrajudicial killings have taken place.

• ‘No one can stop me,’ says Duterte
• INTERACTIVE: Who’s liable for the mounting death toll?

In 1936, Dutch geologist Jean Jacques Dozy climbed the world’s highest island peak: the forbidding Mount Carstensz, a snow-covered silver crag on what was then known as Dutch New Guinea. During the 4800m ascent, Dozy noticed an unusual rock outcrop veined with green streaks. Samples he brought back confirmed exceptionally rich gold and copper deposits.

Today, these remote, sharp-edged mountains are part of West Papua, Indonesia, and home to the Grasberg mine, one of the biggest gold mines – and third largest copper mine – in the world.

Majority-owned by the American mining firm Freeport McMoRan, Grasberg is now Indonesia’s biggest taxpayer, with reserves worth an estimated $100bn (£80bn).

But a recent fact-finding mission (by the Brisbane Archdiocese’s Catholic Justice and Peace Commission) described a “slow-motion genocide” (pdf) taking place in West Papua, warning that its indigenous population is at risk of becoming “an anthropological museum exhibit of a bygone culture”.

Since the Suharto dictatorship annexed the region in a 1969 UN referendum largely seen as a fixed land grab, an estimated 500,000 West Papuans have been killed in their fight for self-rule.

Decades of military and police oppression, kidnapping and torture have created a long-standing culture of fear.

Local and foreign journalists are routinely banned, detained, beaten and forced to face trial on trumped-up charges. Undercover police regularly trail indigenous religious, social and political leaders.

And children still in primary school have been jailed for taking part in demonstrations calling for independence from Indonesia.

“There is no justice in this country,” whispered one indigenous villager on condition of anonymity, looking over his shoulder fearfully. “It is an island without law.”

****

Dozy had not set out to find gold in 1936; his goal was to scale the region’s highest glacial peak. But his discovery sparked the interest of Freeport Sulphur – later to become Freeport Minerals Company and then, through a 1981 merger with the McMoRan Oil and Gas Company, Freeport McMoRan – whose board of directors included the well-connected Godfrey Rockefeller (serving from 1931 until the early 1980s) and Henry Kissinger (1988-1995).

Today, indigenous tribes such as the Kamoro and the Amungme claim their communities have been racked with poverty, disease, oppression and environmental degradation since the mine began operations in 1973.

“We are a coastal people, and we depend on the environment,” says the Kamoro’s chief, Hironimus Urmani, in Tipuka, a lowland village down-river from the Grasberg mine.

“Nature is a blessing from God, and we are known by the three Ss: sago [trees], sampan [canoes] and sungai [rivers]. But life is very difficult now.”

Urmani motions to the river opposite, languishing green and motionless. He claims that tailing sediment from the mine has raised the riverbed, suffocating the fish, oysters and shrimp on which the Kamoro diet and economy are traditionally based. A 2012 report from Earthworks and MiningWatch Canada (pdf) asserts that mine waste from Grasberg has “buried over 166 sq km of formerly productive forest and wetlands, and fish have largely disappeared”.

‘We need to earn money’
Although most Kamoro still try to eke out a living fishing and foraging for food, they struggle to find paid work, says Urmani. “We need to earn money. But now we face major competition from non-Papuan migrants.”

Locals fear that the government’s controversial transmigration programme, which resettles Indonesians from high-density islands such as Java to low-population areas, is wiping out their population completely. Indigenous Melanesian Christians – they comprised 96 percent of the population in 1971 (pdf) – now make up a 48 percent minority, with numbers expected to fall to 29 percent by 2020 if migration rates continue.

Clashes between the indigenous Christians – and migrant Indonesian Muslims – have also resulted in riots, fires and injuries.

“Land has been taken away, directly by Freeport … and indirectly, as the Indonesian settlers have appropriated it,” says Dr Agus Sumule, professor of agricultural socio-economics at the University of Papua.

“The stresses [on indigenous people] are intense,” says Sumule. “They have been very negatively impacted.”

The Indonesian government signed over to Freeport the right to extract mineral wealth from the Grasberg site in West Papua in 1967. A 2002 report (pdf) from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) details that land agreements were not negotiated with the Amungme until 1974, a year after the mine opened, and with the Kamoro in 1997.

The compensation paid for Kamoro and Amungme land has been mainly in the form of communal benefits, such as the building of homes, schools and places of worship. The IIED report notes, “Perceptions of land rights and historic compensation claims are a continuing source of dissatisfaction and conflict in the mining area.”

Recent census data shows Papua’s GDP per capita at $3510, compared to the Indonesian average of $2452. Yet Papua has the highest poverty rate in the country, nearly three times the national average. It also has the highest infant, child and maternal mortality rates in Indonesia, as well as the worst health indicators, and the poorest literacy rates.

Scale of destitution
The scale of destitution is best observed from the highland Amungme village of Banti, just 20 miles down from the Grasberg mine.

Estimates from Earthworks suggest that Freeport dumps as much as 200,000 tonnes of mine waste, known as tailings, directly into the Aikwa delta system every day. The practice has devastated the environment, according to Earthworks and locals, turning thousands of hectares of verdant forest and mangroves into wasteland and rendering turgid the once-crystal waters of the highlands.

The tailings from the Grasberg mine are so rich with ore that Papuans walk for as long as a week to get here. Crowding the length of the river and the delta wasteland, thousands of unlicensed panners shore up small sections to slow the river’s flow and dig into the thick sediment on the side.

Although some of these panners are located within Freeport’s official mining operations, they are not evicted or controlled in any way, they said. Instead, they claim they sell their findings to the police and military who work as security on the mine. (An anonymous Freeport source also confirmed this).

One of the panners, Martine Wandango, 25, bends over her pail of water as she filters out rocks and searches for ore. “You can only survive with money, and you can only find money from gold,” says Martine, who followed her husband to the delta 15 years ago by walking 60 miles over the mountains from their remote highland village.

“I work really hard as I want to give my children better lives, so they can go to school. But it isn’t enough, so she helps me here mining,” says Martine of her daughter, nine, who swings a gold pan in her hands. “On a good day, I can get three grammes, which I sell either to the police or [to buyers] in Timika.”

A tiny village when Freeport arrived here 40 years ago, Timika is now a boom town dotted with bars, brothels, gold-processing shops and various military personnel. Under Indonesian law, Freeport is a designated “strategic industry”, which mandates that external security for the mine, its access roads and its pipelines all be provided exclusively by Indonesia’s security forces.

Freeport never implicated
Freeport has never been implicated in any human rights abuses allegedly committed by the Indonesian military in Papua.

Freeport McMoRan, based in Phoenix, Arizona, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The company’s website defends its method of disposal of tailings at Grasberg, managed by PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI), an affiliate company: “PTFI’s controlled riverine tailings management system, which has been approved by the Indonesian government, uses the unnavigable river system in the mountainous highlands near our mine to transport tailings to an engineered area in the lowlands where the tailings and other sediments are managed in a deposition area.”

A 2009 report by the company says it utilises levees to contain tailings in the deposition area, and that the tailings management programme costs Freeport McMoRan $15.5m (£12.7m) each year. According to the report, company monitoring of aquatic life in the rivers found that fish and shrimp were suitable for consumption, as regulated by Indonesian food standards, while water quality samples met Indonesian and US Environmental Protection Agency drinking water standards for dissolved metals. In a 2011 BBC report (pdf) on alleged pollution in the area surrounding Grasberg, the company says that the tailings management method was chosen because studies showed the environmental impact caused by its waste material was reversible.

Elsewhere on its website, the company says: “We are committed to respecting human rights. Our human rights policy requires us (and our contractors) to conduct business in a manner consistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to align our human rights due diligence practices with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UN Guiding Principles).”

The company also emphasises its work with indigenous people in West Papua. A 2015 Freeport McRoRan report on working towards sustainable development said: “PTFI has engaged with indigenous Papuan tribes for decades, including through numerous formal agreements to promote workforce skills training, health, education and basic infrastructure development … In 2015, PTFI continued to evaluate the effectiveness of alternate options for Kamoro community members whose estuary transport routes are impacted by sedimentation associated with the controlled riverine tailings management system. Provision of smaller sized boats, in addition to 50 passenger vessels, for route flexibility as well as additional local economic development programmes were identified as additional mitigation measures during the year.”

Back in the area surrounding the Grasberg mine, many Papuans, struggling for work, find themselves pulled into the bar and sex industries that cater to the miners, particularly around the highland village of Banti. Here brothels and bars line up side by side, allegedly with help from the Indonesian military, who are said to supply sex workers and alcohol, according to a Freeport source who wished to remain anonymous.

Newfound promiscuity
Indigenous chiefs have watched as a newfound promiscuity has brought sexually transmitted infections that have ravaged their communities. “Traditional Papuan culture forbids free sex, but alcohol makes our communities vulnerable,” says the Amungme chief, Martin Mangal. “And brothels make it easy to contract HIV.”

HIV rates in West Papua are of “epidemic” proportions, according to the UN, 15 times higher than anywhere else in Indonesia. Driven almost entirely by unsafe sex, HIV is also far more prevalent among indigenous Papuans. Yet the existence of only one hospital – built by Freeport – means that most people, particularly those in remote highland villages, don’t get the help they need.

Late last year, the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, claimed he was willing to work towards a “better Papua”: “I want to listen to the people’s voices.”

However, human rights violations have actually increased since Widodo took power, according to Indonesia’s Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (Kontras), which has logged 1,200 incidents of harassment, beatings, torture and killings of Papuans by Indonesian security forces since his election in 2014.

The Indonesian government did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The country’s military has consistently denied any wrongdoing in Papua.

Despite everything, there have been small glimmers of hope. This summer, Dutch human rights law firm Prakken D’Oliveira submitted a formal legal complaint against Indonesia to the UN Human Rights Council, accusing the government of “long-term, widespread and systematic human rights violations” and the “complete denial of the right to self-determination of the people of West-Papua”.

Later this year, West Papua is expected to be granted full membership of the Melanesian Spearhood Group, an important sub-regional coalition of countries including Fiji, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea.

The Brisbane commission, which warned of the risk of genocide, is calling on Indonesia to allow Papua, once and for all, the right to self-determination.

Yet some fear the opportunity for change in Papua is long gone.

“Is healing even possible?” asked Professor Agus Sumule, shaking his head. “It could be too late.”

Susan Schulman is an award-winning video/photojournalist. She moved from her native New York to London in 1990. During the past 10 years she has chronicled many of the world’s forgotten tragedies, from the horrors of childbirth in Sierra Leone and child soldiers in Sudan to the wretched plight of gold miners in the Amazon basin. This article was first published in The Guardian and has been republished here with the permission of both the author and The Guardian. Go to The Guardian for full images and resource links.

How mining and militarisation led to an HIV epidemic in Papua

At the moment, he is trailing with less than 200,000 votes – 1 percent of the vote – separating him from establishment reformist Leni Robredo, who seized his early lead with a late surge of votes in rural areas.

Anti-establishment firebrand Rodrigo Duterte is set to have secured a huge presidential win after an incendiary campaign dominated by his profanity-laced vows to kill criminals.

Duterte, 71, the longtime mayor of the southern city of Davao, hypnotised millions with his vows of brutal but quick solutions to the nation’s twin plagues of crime and poverty.

Many believed the outgoing Aquino administration had failed to tackle these issues in spite off strong economic growth in recent years.

Duterte had a commanding lead over his four rivals with more than 38 percent of the vote.

He vowed that he would be a “dictator” against evil and that he would step down in six months if he failed to stamp out corruption.

“I will be strict. I will be a dictator, no doubt it. But only against forces of evil — criminality, drugs and corruption in government,” Duterte said in his hometown of Davao.

The unofficial tally late yesterday, was showing less than 93 percent of the total votes cast with Robredo, leading Senator Marcos by less than 200,000 votes

“It could easily shift… It’s less than one percentage point, which means we need 99-point-something [to see who is going to win],” Pulse Asia reasearch director Ana Tabunda said in an interview with Rappler.

Tight race
It’s higher than Tabunda’s earlier projection that a 97 percent transmission rate of the voting results will already show a winner in the tight race. Marcos previously led Robredo by 3 percentage points.

The camp of Marcos has warned of electoral cheating, noting that Robredo’s numbers rose late Monday night when people were supposedly not watching the results. They want the transmission of the results suspended, claiming that it is misleading people into thinking that Robredo is winning the race.

But Tabunda said she expected the late rise of Robredo’s numbers because of the demographics of her supporters.

Surveys showed that Marcos was stronger in urban areas, which were the first ones to transmit their results. Results from rural areas, where Robredo has more supporters, came in later because of slower internet connections.

• Earlier Duterte victory story
• Live election results

While I was grappling with the horrible impositions of Martial Law when I was editor-in-chief of Philippine Panorama, I had to run to some safe, soul-restorative place on weekends outside the city. It was at the home of Cris and his wife scientist, Flor, on the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) campus that I found comfort and assurance that all will be well, that the tyrant Ferdinand Marcos and his family will be driven away from the land, and that democracy will be restored.

His article should remind us that Martial Law should never happen again – and the

perpetrators not be returned to seats of power. – Domini M. Torrevillas, The Philippine Star

By CRISPIN C. MASLOG in Manila

Somehow, today’s university student generation is not to blame for its Martial Law amnesia. These people were not yet born at the time Martial Law was proclaimed 44 years ago!

We, the older folks, are to blame. We did not teach them history properly – and I mean by we, mainly the Philippine government and the mass media who suffered the most under the Martial Law regime of Ferdinand Marcos.

Now that the surviving members of the Marcos family are active in politics again and pushing a revisionist version of Martial Law history, we are worried, to say the least.

So when I told students at Silliman’s College of Mass Communication recently about the abuses during Martial Law proclaimed by Marcos in 1972, they were aghast at what they heard. I told the group that before Martial Law was proclaimed in 1972, the Philippines went through hard times under Marcos’ two four-year terms from 1965 to 1973 – the years of discontent.

There was a dramatic increase in poverty during Marcos’ two elective terms, resulting in social unrest.

Yet Marcos wanted to extend his term, which he could not do legally because he was limited by the Constitution to two presidential terms ending in 1972. So he decided to suspend the Constitution and declare Martial Law on Sept. 21, 1972.

The first few years under Martial Law were peaceful and orderly. The average person liked that people were disciplined. But people were disciplined because they were afraid.

More corrupt
And soon after 1972, Marcos and his family became more corrupt because no one, especially the mass media, was free to criticise them. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The next 14 years witnessed corruption unparalleled in Philippine history.

Instead of improving, the Philippine economy took a nosedive during the 14 years of Martial Law because of cronyism and economic plunder. Cronyism was an “economic system” where every major economic activity was controlled by the First Family, their relatives, or cronies.

This phenomenon was documented meticulously by Ricardo Manapat in his 615-page book, Some Are Smarter Than Others: The History of Marcos’ Crony Capitalism (Aletheia Publications, NY, 1991). The New York Times has reviewed the book as “impressively documented”.

Answering criticisms about relatives who became millionaires overnight during Martial Law, Madame Imelda is quoted to have replied: “My dear, there are always people who are just a little faster, more brilliant, more aggressive.”

The Manapat book is based on 11 years of research and writing and is the authoritative source of information on the economic plunder of the Philippines under Marcos. The title of the book is based on a famous quote from Madame Imelda.

The major cronies, as documented in Manapat’s book, were: Roberto Benedicto who controlled the sugar industry, Danding Cojuangco who monopolised the coconut industry, Antonio Floirendo who cornered the banana industry, and Hans Menzi who lorded over the mining and paper industries.

Cronyism meant giving loans to friends that had little or no collateral, whose corporations were undercapitalised. Marcos, family and his cronies used the national coffers, the resources of private banks, and even international loans from multinational banks for their business. Aid money from the US and Japan were placed at the disposal of Marcos’ money-making network.

Squandered loans
Until today we are still paying for these loans squandered by the Marcos regime.

The corruption reached such a massive scale that it took its toll on the Philippine economy and the lives of the average Filipino. By 1986, just before People Power I, the number of Filipinos living below the poverty line doubled from 18 million in 1965 to 35 million.

The history of this economic plunder is one of the blind spots in the minds of the Filipino millenials today.  It worries me and my generation no end, that the son of Ferdinand Marcos is running for vice-president of the land, and be just a heartbeat away from the presidency.

If that happens, philosopher George Santayana may again be proven right when he said long ago that a people who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat it.

Domini M. Torrevillas is a columnist on The Philippine Star. One of her From The Stands columns this month was devoted to this article by Professor Maslog and is republished here with the permission of the author. The Philippines presidential election is due on Monday, May 9.

• Martial Law under Marcos at Rappler

Fiji is already struggling to cope with the aftermath from the recent tropical cyclone Winston, other storms and the impact of climate change, but suicide among youth is also becoming a major concern for parents and communities.

Suicide became a national issue in Fiji last year when fresh statistics showed worrying trends. Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama showed his concern for the increasing rate of suicide cases, especially among youth.

Bainimarama said that counselling services and initiatives already existed in Fiji, but he would ask every branch of government to improve its response to youth suicide.

Last year, there were 89 cases of suicide from January to September, which had 10 cases of children aged under 16. Also, there were more than 20 people aged between 17 and 25 years who had committed suicide during the same time.

However, this issue has some deeper roots back into the 1990s.

Peter M. Forster (UK), Selina C. Kuruleca (Fiji) and C. R. Auxier (USA) published a report named A Note on Recent Trends in Suicide in Fiji in 2007 in the Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology. They collected suicide data from Adinkrah who reported in 1995 and from Booth who reported in the years 1997 and 1999.

They had cited that the “standardised” annual rate of suicide for the year 2002 at 15 per 100,000 population for male and 11 for females.

Current scenario
Government has launched National Child Helpline since last January in partnership with the Medical Services Pacific (MSP).

People in need for counselling are provided a toll free number 1325 to talk with trained counsellors. It is a 24-hour helpline.

“We have got almost 7000 calls since last September,” says Peci Baladrokadroka, a senior counsellor in MSP.

Naina Ragigia, a Fiji Police Force spokesperson, shows her concern because the force receives many calls related to suicide cases as well.

“The Fiji Police Force receives an average of 5 reports of suicide in a month. Most reports of suicide cases received are only attempted suicide, which is much higher than the suicide cases.”

People from different age groups, starting from 5 to 70 are attempting suicide.

“We have noticed young people around the age of 12-23 years are mostly victims of suicide cases,” says Ragigia.

Reasons for suicide
There are so many reasons ranging from child neglect to poverty which are leading people to commit suicide in Fiji.

“In young people, child neglect, sexual abuse and physical abuse are one of the major reasons,” says Peci Baladrokadroka.

Ragigia says that in some cases children are disappointed by his or her own parents.

“A 10-year-old boy was playing outside his home. His mother scolded him to come home and study. But that boy took this in a different way; he locked himself in his room and eventually hanged himself.

“Children from the young ages of 12 years are now committing this offence which is indeed a sad thing,” she said.

Entertainment programmes on television and radio are also contributing.

“Last year we had a case of 12-year-old girl. She was trying to mimic a scene [of a suicide] from the movie, but ended up dead instead,” says Ragigia.

Breaking points
For the young students career and good grade are also one of the major breaking points.

Matthew Galuvakadua works as a volunteer at Youth Champs for Mental Health.

“Family expectations put extreme pressure on young children, especially when exams are a concern,” he says.

Galuvakadua has been working with this organisation for the past four years. The group mainly focuses on suicide prevention for young people in Fiji and tries to reduce the stigma associated with it, especially people living with mental illness.

Apart from this, relationships and family issues are also among major reasons for suicide. Peci says that drugs, alcohol, educational needs and poverty also contribute.

The issue is becoming more serious each year and the government, with the help of local organisations and NGOs, is trying to deal with the suicide cases, but results are disappointing.

Reluctant over information
“When Asia Pacific Report tried to contact different organisations for statistical data and information, they were reluctant to give any details.

Ragigia says suicide is a very sensitive issue and how foreign media might present the scenario is difficult to judge.

“Organisations seem to be reluctant over this particular issue because they don’t want Fiji to be represented in a wrong way.”

Peci says the government is running many awareness programmes with different organisations.

The Fiji police also conducts various awareness programmes for the general community.

They have a fine relationship with the local health authorities.

Frequent check-ups
“The Fiji police is fortunate to have services of our local health authorities for offering a frequent medical check-up for the victims and there are also counselling services offered from local NGOs that we are able to refer to the victims for counselling purposes,” says Ragigia.

However, Galuvakadua thinks that the government should be more involved with mental health organisations.

“Government should work and form better relationships with existing mental health service providers in the community,” he says.

Galuvakadua also shows his concern about lack of rehabilitation centres in Fiji.

“The Community Recovery Outreach Programme is the only functioning rehabilitation programme that refers people at-risk from suicide to people living with mental illness, sending them to St Giles Hospital in Fiji.”

He hopes to see an improvement in the months ahead.

Ami Dhabuwala is a postgraduate student journalist at AUT University. She is reporting on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course and is currently in Fiji.

Fiji’s National Child Helpline – ring 1325

Indonesian police are seeking to question a Catholic priest over possible treason charges for leading a prayer service attended by members of an alleged Papuan separatist group.

Father John Djonga was summoned by police to appear at the station in Wamena on February 19. However, the priest refused to appear, saying that police also needed to contact his superiors at the Jayapura Diocese and that he needed to retain counsel before agreeing to meet with investigators.

Father Djonga led a prayer service on February 15 to inaugurate the office building of the Papuan Customary Council, where a banner of the separatist United Liberation Movement for West Papua was unveiled.

“I came to the programme as a priest on behalf of the Catholic Church. I just led the service,” he said.

“The council fights for the Papuan people so that they can be free from poverty. It also fights against human rights violations and for other social issues. I prayed for this during the service.”

Father Djonga, a noted human rights activist in the province, said he told police to send him a second letter in which diocesan officials also were notified “as I serve the diocese”.

He faces up to four months in prison by declining to answer the initial summons.

Diocese response
Father Yulianus Bidau Mote, chairman of the diocese’s Commission for the Laity, said Father Djonga’s presence at the ceremony was as a priest representing the diocese, therefore police needed to contact the diocese before summoning one of its priests for questioning.

“Don’t just send a letter. As an institution, the local police must be able to provide the diocese with notification,” he said.

Police said they wanted to interview Father Djonga as a possible witness to an act of treason; it was unclear if the priest was a suspect himself.

According to Papua police chief Inspector-General Paulus Waterpauw, police had questioned three witnesses so far.

Meanwhile, the Sydney chapter of the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA)  has written to Foreign Minister Julie Bishop concerning the intimidation of West Papuan representatives from the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) and other activists who attended the opening of an office in the town of Wamena in the Papuan Highlands on the February 15.

The Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister, Luhut Pandjaitan has also told the ULMWP to leave the country as it could pose a threat to the country’s territorial integrity.

The Jayawijaya Resort police have questioned a number of activists who attended the opening.  The security forces are trying to tarnish the ULMWP representatives as “separatists”, which raise grave concerns for their security as human rights defenders, and peaceful activists are regularly arrested because of accusations that they are so-called separatists.

Father Djonga faces possible treason charges because he led a prayer service on that day to inaugurate the office building of the Papuan Customary Council, where a banner of the ULMWP was unveiled.

Joe Collins of AWPA  said,  “We are urging the Foreign Minister to raise concerns about the threats by the security forces to representatives of the ULMWP with the Indonesian government,” said Joe Collins of AWPA.

“We also urge the Foreign Minister to encourage the Indonesian government to respond favourably to the request by the Pacific Island Forum (PIF) leaders to allow a PIF fact-finding mission to investigate the human rights situation in the territory.

Concern for human rights activists in Papua

By Shailendra Singh in Suva

Discussions about the concept of “Global Citizenship” are gaining momentum in various international forums, but remain largely unexplored in the Pacific Islands.

According to Ron Israel, co-founder of The Global Citizens’ Initiative, Global Citizens think beyond communities based on shared group identities. They see themselves as part of a larger, emerging world community.

In the Pacific, the late Tongan academic and philosopher, Professor Epeli Hau’ofa, had gone as far as proposing a common regional identify he called the “new Oceania”, comprising of people with a common Pacific heritage and commitment, rather than as members of diverse nationalities and races.

In Hau’ofa’s conceptualisation, an Oceanian was anyone who lived in the Pacific, and was committed to the region, regardless of ethnicity or religion. His framework also accounted for the “astounding mobility” of Pacific Islanders over the last half-century or more.

This expanded version of Oceania covered larger areas than was “possible under the term Pacific Islands region”, forming a “world of social networks that crisscross the ocean, all the way from Australia and New Zealand in the southwest, to the United States and Canada in the northeast”.

Hau’ofa felt that a common, enlarged Pacific identity was crucial for the advancement of collective regional interests, including the protection of the vital Pacific Ocean.

Connecting and mobilising people to agitate for common interests is the thread that binds the Oceanian and the Global Citizen concepts.

Global Citizen
Global Citizen is just more expansive. Its proponents link it to the universal values of justice, democratic participation, diversity, and global solidarity as the building blocks for peaceful, tolerant, inclusive and sustainable societies.

Pacific Island commentators laud the concept, but feel that certain cultural, economic, geographical and historical obstacles could stand in the way of its implementation.

Former University of the South Pacific academic in literature, Dr Som Prakash, feels that some Global Citizen values are incompatible with the cultural beliefs, philosophies and life-styles of Pacific Island societies.

For instance, egalitarianism is seen as inimical to the hierarchical nature of some Pacific societies, such as chiefly power in Fiji, the aristocracy in Tonga, and matai (chiefly) system in Samoa.

“Democracy, for example, is not always welcomed by traditional chiefs who are given much more power and authority than the ordinary folks,” says Prakash.

“It takes a while for the ordinary Pacific cultures to get accustomed to the questioning of elders and chiefs. Often peace (one of the pillars of Global Citizenship) is argued to be better attained under a benevolent dictator.”

There are some other apparent contradictions. As pointed out by Fiji’s former vice-president, Ratu Jone Madriwiwi, in collective Pacific societies like Fiji, group interests supersede individual interests.

Agents of change
Global citizenry, on the other hand, centers on individuals as the agents of change through instilling in them “awareness of the interconnected nature of the world and the need for a global focus for development”.

However, the likes of Fiji-based university student, Duane Mar, do not see the above paradoxes as obstacles. Mar points out that the Pacific is equally affected, if not more, by some common world problems, which transcend geographical cultural, and philosophical differences.

“Global citizen is a person whose ideals and thought processes are based around those of the general global issues, such as poverty, climate change and human rights,” says Mar.

“In many rural Pacific communities, the people are very much aware of issues like climate change, and the need to combat poverty. These issues are discussed at the community level and from there, villages often work with NGO groups to address them.”

Moreover, collectivism, based on group solidarity, has some clear parallels with the Global Citizen concept of “interdependency”, even though the Global Citizen model encompasses an “interdependent world” rather than just the village, or clan.

Global Citizen, as espoused by UNESCO and other institutions, promotes the idea that people’s “individual and collective actions have a global impact – and it is their responsibility to engage in positive actions for their communities and the planet”.

The idea of collective responsibility to address global problems is likely to resonate with Pacific peoples, especially in relation to global warming and sea-level rise, seen as a severe threat to the region.

Global warming
For years, one Pacific leader after another has stood up at various international forums to urge the industrialised nations to take responsibility for global warming and implement meaningful policies to reduce carbon emissions.

As Kiribati President Anote Tong has often pointed out, the Pacific region contributes the least, just three percent, to global warming, but many islands are on the “frontline” of sea level rise.”

Speaking at a recent meeting of Pacific Island leaders, Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama blamed the industrialised nations for “our slide into disaster”. He added that, “the industrialised world needs to reorganise its economies and its priorities to stop pumping excessive carbon emissions that are warming the planet. To let us sink beneath the waves is totally immoral. The world must not betray us.”

Another recent Pacific leaders’ meeting in the Papua New Guinean capital, Port Moresby, ended in a stalemate after Australia and New Zealand blocked a bid from low-lying island nations for a tougher global target.

This stance has led to increased polarisation, with one commentator stating that the “lacklustre response by Australia and New Zealand to the plight of Pacific nations has finally reached boiling point”.

‘Tragedy of the commons’
Mar describes the Pacific’s global warming predicament as the “tragedy of the commons”, which in this case refers to the actions of some nations having an adverse impact on those nations that did not contribute to the situation.

On his part, USP academic Dr Prakash sees Australia and New Zealand’s intransigency over global warming as perhaps the most recent example of the many ways in which the greater powers have treated the Pacific with “carelessness, if not contempt”.

Prakash feels that such treatment lead to scepticism in the region about what inevitably comes to be seen as “fancy notions of globalisation, often emanating from well-to-do nations”.

He adds that “the most visible and tangible effects of globalisation is the crass TV, mobile phones and social media that inundate our Pacific societies”.

However, as Mar points out, the Pacific has partially benefited from globalisation.

Furthermore, globalisation and Global Citizenry are two distinct ideas. In fact, Global Citizen principles aim to address situations such as “tragedy of the commons”, a by-product of globalisation, although it is easy to see how the two terms could be confused.

The reality is that despite their smallness and isolation, the Pacific region’s destiny is tied with the rest of the world, something which Hau’ofa was keenly aware of.

Surely Hau’ofa was thinking along Global Citizen lines when he wrote that “we cannot confront the issues of the Pacific Century as individual, tiny countries created by colonial powers and acting alone. We could indeed ‘fall off the map’ or disappear into the black hole of a gigantic Pan-Pacific doughnut”.

This article was first published by Indepth News and has been updated by the author for Asia Pacific Report.