A defiant Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) national chair, John Minto, has appealed to Aotearoa New Zealand to stand with the “majority of humanity” in the world and condemn genocide in Gaza.
Minto has called on Foreign Minister Winston Peters to “ignore the bullying” from pro-Israel Texas Senator Ted Cruz and have the courage to stop welcoming Israeli solders to New Zealand.
Peters has claimed Israeli media stories that New Zealand has stopped Israeli military visiting New Zealand are “fake news”.
Senator Cruz had quoted Israeli daily Ha’aretz in a tweet which said “It’s difficult to treat New Zealand as a normal ally within the American alliance system, when they denigrate and punish Israeli citizens for defending themselves”.
The Times of Israel had also reported this week that Israelis entering New Zealand were required to detail their military service.
US Senator Ted Cruz . . . “It’s difficult to treat New Zealand as a normal ally within the American alliance system.” Image: TDB
Minto responded in a statement saying that Peters “should not buckle” to a Trump-supporting senator who fully backed Israel’s genocide.
“Ted Cruz believes Israel should continue defending land it has stolen from Palestinians. He supports every Israeli war crime. New Zealand must be different,” he said.
Last September, New Zealand voted against the US at the United Nations General Assembly where the country sided with the majority of humanity — 124 votes in favour, 14 against and 43 abstentions — that ruled that Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory was illegal and it should leave within a year.
At the time, Peters declared: “New Zealand’s yes vote is fundamentally a signal of our strong support for international law and the need for a two-state solution.”
‘Different policy position’
“The New Zealand government has a completely different policy position to the US,” said Minto.
“That should be reflected in the actions of the New Zealand government. We must have an immigration ban on Israeli soldiers who have served in the Israeli military since October 2023 as well as a ban on any Israeli who lives in an illegal Israeli settlement on occupied Palestinian land.”
Minto said it was not clear what the current immigration rules were for different entry categories, but it did seem that some longer stay Israeli applicants were required to declare they had not committed human rights violations before they were allowed in.
“That’s what the Australians are doing. It appears ineffective at preventing Israeli troops having ‘genocide holidays’ in Australia – but it’s a start,” he said.
“We’d like to see a broader, effective, and watertight ban on Israeli troops coming here.
“Instead of bowing to US pressure New Zealand should be joining The Hague Group of countries, as proposed by the Palestine Forum of New Zealand, to take decisive action to prevent and punish Israeli war crimes.”
Immigration New Zealand reports that since 7 October 2023 it had approved 809 of 944 applications received from Israeli nationals across both temporary and residence visa applications.
Last December, Middle East Eye reported that at least two IDF soldiers had been denied entry to Australia and applicants were being required to fill out a document regarding their role in war crimes.
What will happen to Australia — and New Zealand — once the superpower that has been followed into endless battles, the United States, finally unravels?
With President Donald Trump now into his second week in the White House, horrific fires have continued to rage across Los Angeles and the details of Elon Musk’s allegedly dodgy Twitter takeover began to emerge, the world sits anxiously by.
The consequences of a second Trump term will reverberate globally, not only among Western nations. But given the deeply entrenched Americanisation of much of the Western world, this is about how it will navigate the after-shocks once the United States finally unravels — for unravel it surely will.
Leading with chaos Now that the world’s biggest superpower and war machine has a deranged criminal at the helm — for a second time — none of us know the lengths to which Trump (and his puppet masters) will go as his fingers brush dangerously close to the nuclear codes. Will he be more emboldened?
The signs are certainly there.
President Donald Trump 2.0 . . . will his cruelty towards migrants and refugees escalate, matched only by his fuelling of racial division? Image: ABC News screenshot IA
So far, Trump — who had already led the insurrection of a democratically elected government — has threatened to exit the nuclear arms pact with Russia, talked up a trade war with China and declared “all hell will break out” in the Middle East if Hamas hadn’t returned the Israeli hostages.
Will his cruelty towards migrants and refugees escalate, matched only by his fuelling of racial division?
This, too, appears to be already happening.
Trump’s rants leading up to his inauguration last week had been a steady stream of crazed declarations, each one more unhinged than the last.
Denial of catastrophic climate consequences
And will Trump be in even further denial over the catastrophic consequences of climate change than during his last term? Even as Los Angeles grapples with a still climbing death toll of 25 lives lost, 12,000 homes, businesses and other structures destroyed and 16,425 hectares (about the size of Washington DC) wiped out so far in the latest climactic disaster?
The fires are, of course, symptomatic of the many years of criminal negligence on global warming. But since Trump instead accused California officials of “prioritising environmental policies over public safety” while his buddy and head of government “efficiency”, Musk blamed black firefighters for the fires, it would appear so.
Will the madman, for surely he is one, also gift even greater protections to oligarchs like Musk?
“…pave the way for my Administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure Federal agencies”.
So, this too is already happening.
All of these actions will combine to create a scenario of destruction that will see the implosion of the US as we know it, though the details are yet to emerge.
The flawed AUKUS pact sinking quickly . . . Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with outgoing President Joe Biden, will Australia have the mettle to be bigger than Trump. Image: Independent Australia
What happens Down Under?
US allies — like Australia — have already been thoroughly indoctrinated by American pop culture in order to complement the many army bases they house and the defence agreements they have signed.
Though Trump hasn’t shown any interest in making it a 52nd state, Australia has been tucked up in bed with the United States since the Cold War. Our foreign policy has hinged on this alliance, which also significantly affects Australia’s trade and economy, not to mention our entire cultural identity, mired as it is in US-style fast food dependence and reality TV. Would you like Vegemite McShaker Fries with that?
So what will happen to Australia once the superpower we have followed into endless battles finally breaks down?
‘Trump has promised chaos and chaos is what he’ll deliver.’
His rise to power will embolden the rabid Far-Right in the US but will this be mirrored here? And will Australia follow the US example and this year elect our very own (admittedly scaled down) version of Trump, personified by none other than the Trump-loving Peter Dutton?
If any of his wild announcements are to be believed, between building walls and evicting even US nationals he doesn’t like, while simultaneously making Canadians US citizens, Trump will be extremely busy.
There will be little time even to consider Australia, let alone come to our rescue should we ever need the might of the US war machine — no matter whether it is an Albanese or sycophantic Dutton leadership.
It is a given, however, that we would be required to honour all defence agreements should our ally demand it.
It would be great if, as psychologists urge us to do when children act up, our leaders could simply ignore and refuse to engage with him, but it remains to be seen whether Australia will have the mettle to be bigger than Trump.
Republished from the Independent Australia with permission.
After many years of heated debate over whether January 26 is an appropriate date to celebrate Australia Day — with some councils and other groups shifting away from it — the tide appears to be turning among some groups.
Some local councils, such as Geelong in Victoria, are reversing recent policy and embracing January 26 as a day to celebrate with nationalistic zeal.
They are likely emboldened by what they perceive as an ideological shift occurring more generally in Australia and around the world.
But what of young people? Are young Australians really becoming more conservative and nationalistic, as some are claiming? For example, the Institute for Public Affairs states that “despite relentless indoctrination taking place at schools and universities”, their recent survey showed a 10 percent increase in the proportion of 18-24 year olds who wanted to celebrate Australia Day.
However, the best evidence suggests that claims of a shift towards conservatism among young people are unsupported.
The statement “we should not celebrate Australia Day on January 26” was featured in the Deakin Contemporary History Survey in 2021, 2023, and 2024.
Respondents were asked to indicate their agreement level. The Deakin survey is a repeated cross-sectional study conducted using the Life in Australia panel, managed by the Social Research Centre. This is a nationally representative online probability panel with more than 2000 respondents for each Deakin survey.
Robust social survey
With its large number of participants, weighting and probability selection, the Life in Australia panel is arguably Australia’s most reliable and robust social survey.
The Deakin Contemporary History Survey consists of several questions about the role of history in contemporary society, hence our interest in whether or how Australians might want to celebrate a national day.
Since 1938, when Aboriginal leaders first declared January 26 a “Day of Mourning”, attitudes to this day have reflected how people in Australia see the nation’s history, particularly about the historical and contemporary dispossession and oppression of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
In 2023, we found support for Australia Day on January 26 declined slightly from 2021, and wondered if a more significant change in community sentiment was afoot.
With the addition of the 2024 data, we find that public opinion is solidifying — less a volatile “culture war” and more a set of established positions. Here is what we found:
This figure shows that agreement (combining “strongly agree” and “agree”) with not celebrating Australia Day on January 26 slightly increased in 2023, but returned to the earlier level a year later.
Likewise, disagreement with the statement (again, combining “strongly disagree” and “disagree”) slightly dipped in 2023, but in 2024 returned to levels observed in 2021. “Don’t know” and “refused” responses have consistently remained below 3 percent across all three years. Almost every Australian has a position on when we should celebrate Australia Day, if at all.
Statistical factors
The 2023 dip might reflect a slight shift in public opinion or be due to statistical factors, such as sampling variability. Either way, public sentiment on this issue seems established.
As Gunai/Kurnai, Gunditjmara, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta writer Nayuka Gorrie and Amangu Yamatji woman associate professor Crystal McKinnon have written, the decline in support for Australia Day is the result of decades of activism by Indigenous people.
Though conservative voices have become louder since the failure of the Voice Referendum in 2023, more than 40 percent of the population now believes Australia Day should not be celebrated on January 26.
In addition, the claim of a significant swing towards Australia Day among younger Australians is unsupported.
In 2024, as in earlier iterations of our survey, we found younger Australians (18–34) were more likely to agree that Australia Day should not be celebrated on January 26. More than half of respondents in that age group (53 percent) supported that change, compared to 39 percent of 35–54-year-olds, 33 percent of 55–74-year-olds, and 29 percent of those aged 75 and older.
Conversely, disagreement increases with age. We found 69 percent of those aged 75 and older disagreed, followed by 66 percent of 55–74-year-olds, 59 percent of 35–54-year-olds, and 43 percent of 18–34-year-olds. These trends suggest a steady shift, indicating that an overall majority may favour change within the next two decades.
What might become of Australia Day? We asked those who thought we should not celebrate Australia Day on January 26 what alternative they preferred the most.
Among those who do not want to celebrate Australia Day on January 26, 36 percent prefer replacing it with a new national day on a different date, while 32 percent favour keeping the name but moving it to a different date.
A further 13 percent support keeping January 26 but renaming it to reflect diverse history, and 8 percent advocate abolishing any national day entirely. Another 10 percent didn’t want these options, and less than 1 peecent were unsure.
A lack of clarity
If the big picture suggests a lack of clarity — with nearly 58 percent of the population wanting to keep Australia Day as it is, but 53 percent of younger Australians supporting change — then the task of finding possible alternatives to the status quo seems even more clouded.
Gorrie and McKinnon point to the bigger issues at stake for Indigenous people: treaties, land back, deaths in custody, climate justice, reparations and the state removal of Aboriginal children.
Yet, as our research continues to show, there are few without opinions on this question, and we should not expect it to recede as an issue that animates Australians.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation has misled the Australian Parliament and is liable to prosecution — not that government will lift a finger to enforce the law, reports Michael West Media.
SPECIAL REPORT:By Michael West
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation has misled the Australian Parliament. In a submission to the Senate, the company claimed, “Foxtel also pays millions of dollars in income tax, GST and payroll tax, unlike many of our large international digital competitors”.
However, an MWM investigation into the financial affairs of Foxtel has shown Foxtel was paying zero income tax when it told the Senate it was paying “millions”. The penalty for lying to the Senate is potential imprisonment, although “contempt of Parliament” laws are never enforced.
The investigation found that NXE, the entity that controls Foxtel, paid no income tax in any of the five years from 2019 to 2023. During this time it generated $14 billion of total income.
The total tax payable across this period is $0. The average total income is $2.8 billion per year.
Foxtel Submission to the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee Inquiry into The Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (2021 Measures No.1) Bill. Image: MWM screenshot
Why did News Corporation mislead the Parliament? The plausible answers are in its Foxtel Submission to the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee Inquiry into The Broadcasting Legislation Amendment.
In May 2021 — which is also where the transgression occurred — the media executives for the American tycoon were lobbying a Parliamentary committee to change the laws in their favour.
By this time, Netflix had leap-frogged Foxtel Pay TV subscriptions in Australia and Foxtel was complaining it had to spend too much money on producing local Australian content under the laws of the time. Also that Netflix paid almost no tax.
Big-league tax dodger
They were correct in this. Netflix, which is a big-league tax dodger itself, was by then making bucketloads of money in Australia but with zero local content requirements.
Making television drama and so forth is expensive. It is far cheaper to pipe foreign content through your channels online. As Netflix does.
The misleading of Parliament by corporations is rife, and contempt laws need to be enforced, as demonstrated routinely by the PwC inquiry last year. Corporations and their representatives routinely lie in their pursuit of corporate objectives.
If democracy is to function better, the information provided to Parliament needs to be clarified, beyond doubt, as reliable. Former senator Rex Patrick has made the point in these pages.
Even in this short statement to the committee of inquiry (published above), there are other misleading statements. Like many companies defending their failure to pay adequate income tax, Foxtel claims that it “paid millions” in GST and payroll tax.
Companies don’t “pay” GST or payroll tax. They collect these taxes on behalf of governments.
Little regard for laws
Further to the contempt of Parliament, so little regard for the laws of Australia is shown by corporations that the local American boss of a small gas fracking company, Tamboran Resources, controlled by a US oil billionaire, didn’t even bother turning up to give evidence when asked.
This despite being rewarded with millions in public grant money.
Politicians need to muscle up, as Greens Senator Nick McKim did when grilling former Woolies boss Brad Banducci for prevaricating over providing evidence to the supermarket inquiry.
Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker. This article was first published by Michael West Media and is reopublished with permission.
US President Donald Trump’s promise to deliver a national AI plan in just 180 days is a clear signal of the country’s ambitions for the technology, and what’s at stake for the world’s largest economy. That’s if there was any doubt after Mr Trump days earlier had announced the Stargate Project, a US$500 billion (A$792…
Norwegian ammunition specialist Nammo announced that it has signed a contract to deliver its advanced 25 mm x 137 APEX PGU-47/U ammunition for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF’s) Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II combat aircraft. Details of the contract were not disclosed, although Nammo noted that production of the ammunition is expected to commence […]
Longer range/endurance UAVs make a different to the tyranny of distance when it comes down to ISR. For full situational awareness, governments and their armed forces are electing to perform intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions across international waters and borders with uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAV), and this is most evident in the Asia Pacific […]
“A state party cannot escape its human rights responsibility when outsourcing asylum processing to another state,” committee member Mahjoub El Haiba said.
After the decisions were released, a spokesperson for the Australian Home Affairs Department said “it has been the Australian government’s consistent position that Australia does not exercise effective control over regional processing centres”.
“Transferees who are outside of Australia’s territory or its effective control do not engage Australia’s international obligations.
“Nauru as a sovereign state continues to exercise jurisdiction over the regional processing arrangements (and individuals subject to those arrangements) within their territory, to be managed and administered in accordance with their domestic law and international human rights obligations.”
Australia rejected allegations
Canberra opposed the allegations put to the committee, saying there was no prima facie substantiation that the alleged violations in Nauru had occurred within Australia’s jurisdiction.
The committee disagreed.
“It was established that Australia had significant control and influence over the regional processing facility in Nauru, and thus, we consider that the asylum seekers in those cases were within the state party’s jurisdiction under the ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights),” El Haiba said.
“Offshore detention facilities are not human-rights free zones for the state party, which remains bound by the provisions of the Covenant.”
Refugee Action Coalition spokesperson Ian Rintoul said this was one of many decisions from the committee that Australia had ignored, and the UN committee lacked the authority to enforce its findings.
Detainees from both cases claimed Australia had violated its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), particularly Article 9 regarding arbitrary detention.
The first case involved 24 unaccompanied minors intercepted at sea, who were detained on Christmas Island before being sent to Nauru in 2014.
High temperatures and humidity
On Nauru they faced high temperatures and humidity, a lack of water and sanitation and inadequate healthcare.
Despite all but one being granted refugee status that year, they remained detained on the island.
In the second case an Iranian asylum seeker and her extended family arrived by boat on Christmas Island without valid visas.
Although she was recognised as a refugee by the authorities in Nauru in 2017 she was transferred to mainland Australia for medical reasons but remains detained.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The Australian Department of Defence has awarded Thales Australia a A$100 million contract to acquire an additional 44 4×4 Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicles (PMVs), the company announced on 8 January. The company noted that the new Bushmaster PMVs will be used by the Australian Army’s second High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) long-range fires regiment, […]
To be Jewish does not mean an automatic identification with the rogue state of Israel. Nor does it mean that Jews are automatically threatened by criticism of Israel, yet our media and Labor and Liberal politicians would have you believe this is the case.
We are seeing a debate in Australia about the so-called rise of antisemitism which includes rally chants for Gaza at a time when we are witnessing the most horrific Israeli genocide of Palestinians in which our government is complicit.
Jewish peak bodies here and internationally have continually linked their identity to that of Israel.
Why? Can generations of Jews in this country still believe that Israel represents anything like the myths that were perpetrated at its inception?
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the Zionist Federation of Australia, the Jewish Board of Deputies and others, all staunchly defend this apartheid state that is accused of plausible genocide by the UN International Court of Justice and confirmed by dozens of human rights and legal NGOs, UN Rapporteurs, medical organisations and holocaust scholars.
Israel’s Prime Minister and former Defence Minister have been charged as war criminals by the International Criminal Court and must be arrested and tried in the Hague, yet Australia maintains a cosy relationship with Israel and our media dutifully repeats its outright lies verbatim.
Conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism has been the main focus of the Israeli state and its defenders for decades. With the emergence of the Palestinian-led Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement in 2005, Israel’s narrative was countered, leading to a persistent Israeli directed campaign to link BDS with antisemitism.
Colonial, occupying power
BDS focuses on the actions of Israel as a colonial, occupying power violating international law against the indigenous people of Palestine. It is anti-racist and human rights-centred.
On December 11, we heard Prime Minister Albanese at the Jewish Museum in Sydney combining his support for Jewish people with his ongoing condemnation and active campaigning against BDS.
He referred to the Marrickville Council BDS motion, (which I proposed back in 2010 along with my Greens councillor colleague, Marika Kontellis), and again repeated the bald-faced mistruths that were spread back then about BDS and the intent and focus of the Marrickville motion.
“I was part of a campaign against BDS in my own local government area. At the time I argued that if you start targeting businesses because they happen to be owned by Jewish people, you’ll end up with the Star of David above shops.
“And that ended in World War II, during the Holocaust, with six million lives lost, murdered. We need an end to antisemitism.”
In one sentence we see Albanese’s extremely offensive equation of the horror of the Holocaust and antisemitism, directly linked to BDS. Why would a prime minister and local federal member deliberately mischaracterise BDS, given the movement has always been clear that its targets are global companies and corporations that are complicit in the Israeli state’s apartheid and genocidal actions, as well as Israeli government bodies and arms companies?
What is in it for Albanese, Wong, Plibersek or Dutton and all of the politicians back in 2010/2011 who appeared to think there was political advantage in scapegoating BDS by jumping on the frenzied anti-BDS campaign?
Fawning support for Israel
It was obvious back then, as it is now, that their fawning support for the rogue Israeli state knows no bounds. Lock step in line with the United States outlier position, Australia has maintained its repugnant inaction in the face of 15 months of Israel’s genocide in Gaza despite continued condemnation by the UN and a majority of states.
But Australia has, however, appointed a public supporter of Zionism and the Israeli state, as its special envoy on antisemitism.
The inaction by all states since 1948 to apply sanctions has gifted Israel the impunity that’s led to its industrial scale slaughter of innocents in Gaza and its continuing violence and killing of civilians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. All governments must bear responsibility for this.
At the time of the Marrickville BDS, he used the situation to attempt to discredit the Greens who were challenging the incumbent Labor state member, Carmel Tebbutt (his former wife). He fanned the national media frenzy that was fed by pro-Israel Jewish lobbyists who were the long-time custodians of the “reputation” of Israel.
Marrickville Council and the Greens were characterised as antisemites who would be pulling Jewish books out of the local library.
This insanity was akin to what is happening today. The legitimate opposition to the worst, most egregious, brutality of the Israeli state has somehow been cleverly morphed into so-called expressions of antisemitism.
Absurd claims on protest
In the media conference of December 11, Albanese also made absurd claims that the peaceful 24-hour protest outside his electorate office in Marrickville was displaying Hamas symbols in a vile attempt to discredit the constituents he had refused to meet for more than eight months.
He and his colleagues in Canberra continue to appease the powerful Israel lobby at the expense of our rights and the rights and visibility of the whole Palestinian population here and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories who are now literally on death row.
Back then, we heard locally that he and the party had bullied the four Labor councillors to vote to rescind the Marrickville BDS motion that they had all previously wholeheartedly supported. Some months earlier these same councillors had also supported a motion condemning the latest Israeli strike against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
The meaning of BDS was no secret to them — they appreciated that it was important for a council to check its ethical purchasing guidelines to ensure that it was not supporting companies that were in violation of international human rights law by operating in the illegal Israeli settlements or by providing technology or services that maintained Israel’s apartheid and dispossession of Palestinians.
They knew then, as we know now, that this is not antisemitic. They knew then that no Jewish businesses per se were the target of this peaceful civil rights movement. And they knew then that the Labor Party was lying for political gain.
Now, as for far too many decades, political parties in power in this country have failed Palestinians for political gain and at the behest of Israel lobby groups which dare to speak on behalf of anti-Zionist Jews like me.
Despite all the gratuitous rhetoric, these politicians have failed to uphold the basic precepts of human rights law — rights they regularly give lip service to, but rights they will never defend by taking the action required of them as signatories to numerous UN conventions.
Australia must sanction Israel
To act with humanity and to act as required by international law, Australia must sanction and end all economic and military ties with the Israeli state.
We must expel the Israeli ambassador and bring our ambassador back and we must prosecute any Australian citizen or resident who has joined the IDF to kill Palestinians. We must also support Palestinian refugees and take all action necessary to assist those in Gaza for as long as it takes.
But as we have seen so clearly this year, most governments have not acted to pressure Israel to end its barbaric colonial project. To protest as allies and to call out the hypocrisy of governments and politicians that speak of a rules-based order while enabling a state that has continually breached fundamental human rights laws, is to be called antisemitic.
The pressure applied to governments, universities and the like in recent years to adopt the discredited IHRA definition of antisemitism is precisely because it equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
It’s the perfect tool for shutting down condemnation of Israel’s grave human rights violations. We’ve seen some universities and parliaments endorse it in deference to this pressure, despite the serious flaws that have been identified, including from Jewish Israeli experts.
Now more than ever BDS is imperative.
BDS campaigns will work to isolate Israel as it should be isolated until it complies with international law. Multinational companies are increasingly loath to be associated with this terror state.
Major pension funds are divesting from companies that are complicit in Israel’s human rights violations and local councils, unions and universities are taking steps to ensure they divest from any partnerships or investments that would make them part of the chain of complicity and liable for prosecution by the International Court of Justice as enabling Israel’s genocide.
The facts are indisputable. Australia’s complicity with Israel’s genocide and colonisation of Palestine can be countered by individuals, churches, unions, councils and students taking immediate and urgent BDS action.
Do not wait for Labor or Liberal politicians in this country to act, as they are doing their best to shut us down and to appease Israel. Their complicity will never be forgotten.
Cathy Peters is a former Greens councillor on the Marrickville Council from 2008-2011 and the co-founder of BDS Australia. She worked as a radio producer and executive producer for the ABC for 30 years making some documentaries on the Israeli occupation. She is Jewish and her grandparents and other relatives perished in the Holocaust. She has travelled to Gaza and throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories on a number of occasions and is a long-time advocate for Palestinian rights and justice. First published in the Australia social policy journal Pearls and Irritations and republished with permission.
On December 10, it was made public that the Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA) has concluded a contract with Boeing Japan Co., Ltd. for the “research and development of unmanned aerial vehicles [UAV] capable of combat in collaboration with manned aircraft”. The contract, signed on October 18 and worth 155,177,000 JPY (approx. 1 million […]
Navigating the shared challenges of climate change, geostrategic tensions, political upheaval, disaster recovery and decolonisation plus a 50th birthday party, reports a BenarNews contributor’s analysis.
COMMENTARY:By Tess Newton Cain
Vanuatu’s devastating earthquake and dramatic political developments in Tonga and New Caledonia at the end of 2024 set the tone for the coming year in the Pacific.
The incoming Trump administration adds another level of uncertainty, ranging from the geostrategic competition with China and the region’s resulting militarisation through to the U.S. response to climate change.
And decolonisation for a number of territories in the Pacific will remain in focus as the region’s largest country celebrates its 50th anniversary of independence.
The deadly 7.3 earthquake that struck Port Vila on December 17 has left Vanuatu reeling. As the country moves from response to recovery, the full impacts of the damage will come to light.
The economic hit will be significant, with some businesses announcing that they will not open until well into the New Year or later.
Amid the physical carnage there’s Vanuatu’s political turmoil, with a snap general election triggered in November before the disaster struck to go ahead on January 16.
On Christmas Eve a new prime minister was elected in Tonga. ‘Aisake Valu Eke is a veteran politician, who has previously served as Minister of Finance. He succeeded Siaosi Sovaleni who resigned suddenly after a prolonged period of tension between his office and the Tongan royal family.
Eke takes the reins as Tonga heads towards national elections, due before the end of November. He will likely want to keep things stable and low key between now and then.
Fall of New Caledonia government
In Kanaky New Caledonia, the resignation of the Calédonie Ensemble party — also on Christmas Eve — led to the fall of the French territory’s government.
After last year’s violence and civil disorder – that crippled the economy but stopped a controversial electoral reform — the political turmoil jeopardises about US$77 million (75 million euro) of a US$237 million recovery funding package from France.
In addition, and given the fall of the Barnier government in Paris, attempts to reach a workable political settlement in New Caledonia are likely to be severely hampered, including any further movement to secure independence.
Possibly the biggest party in the Pacific in 2025 will be the 50th anniversary of Papua New Guinea’s independence from Australia, accompanied hopefully by some reflection and action about the country’s future.
Eagerly awaited also will be the data from the country’s flawed census last year, due for release on the same day — September 16. But the celebrations will also serve as a reminder of unfinished self-determination business, with its Autonomous Region of Bougainville preparing for their independence declaration in the next two years.
The shadow of geopolitics looms large in the Pacific islands region. There is no reason to think that will change this year.
Trump administration unkowns
A significant unknown is how the incoming Trump administration will alter policy and funding settings, if at all. The current (re)engagement by the US in the region started with Trump during his first incumbency. His 2019 meeting with the then leaders of the compact states — Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Republic of Marshall Islands — at the White House was a pivotal moment.
Under Biden, billions of dollars have been committed to “securitise” the region in response to China. This year, we expect to see US marines start to transfer in numbers from Okinawa to Guam.
However, given Trump’s history and rhetoric when it comes to climate change, there is some concern about how reliable an ally the US will be when it comes to this vital security challenge for the region.
The last time Trump entered the White House, he withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement and he is widely expected to do the same again this time around.
In addition to polls in Tonga and Vanuatu, elections will be held in the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, New Caledonia and for the Autonomous Bougainville Government.
There will also be a federal election in Australia, the biggest aid donor in the Pacific, and a change in government will almost certainly have impacts in the region.
Given the sway that the national security community has on both sides of Australian politics, the centrality of Pacific engagement to foreign policy, particularly in response to China, is unlikely to change.
Likely climate policy change
How that manifests could look quite different under a conservative Liberal/National party government. The most likely change is in climate policy, including an avowed commitment to invest in nuclear power.
A refusal to shift away from fossil fuels or commit to enhanced finance for adaptation by a new administration could reignite tensions within the Pacific Islands Forum that have, to some extent, been quietened under Labor’s Albanese government.
Who is in government could also impact on the bid to host COP31 in 2026, with a decision between candidates Turkey and Australia not due until June, after the poll.
Pacific leaders and advocates face a systemic challenge regarding climate change. With the rise in conflict and geopolitical competition, the global focus on the climate crisis has weakened. The prevailing sense of disappointment over COP29 last year is likely to continue as partners’ engagement becomes increasingly securitised.
A major global event for this year is the Oceans Summit which will be held in Nice, France, in June. This is a critical forum for Pacific countries to take their climate diplomacy to a new level and attack the problem at its core.
In 2023, the G20 countries were responsible for 76 percent of global emissions. By capitalising on the geopolitical moment, the Pacific could nudge the key players to greater ambition.
Several G20 countries are seeking to expand and deepen their influence in the region alongside the five largest emitters — China, US, India, Russia, and Japan — all of which have strategic interests in the Pacific.
Given the increasingly transactional nature of Pacific engagement, 2025 should present an opportunity for Pacific governments to leverage their geostrategic capital in ways that will address human security for their peoples.
Dr Tess Newton Cain is a principal consultant at Sustineo P/L and adjunct associate professor at the Griffith Asia Institute. She is a former lecturer at the University of the South Pacific and has over 25 years of experience working in the Pacific islands region. The views expressed here are hers, not those of BenarNews/RFA. Republished from BenarNews with permission.
With the door now shut on 2024, many will heave a sigh of relief and hope for better things this year.
Decolonisation issues involving the future of Kanaky New Caledonia and West Papua – and also in the Middle East with controversial United Nations votes by some Pacific nations in the middle of a livestreamed genocide — figured high on the agenda in the past year along with the global climate crisis and inadequate funding rescue packages.
Asia Pacific Report looks at some of the issues and developments during the year that were regarded by critics as betrayals:
The assembly passed a resolution on December 11 demanding an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, which was adopted with 158 votes in favour from the 193-member assembly and nine votes against with 13 abstentions.
Of the nine countries voting against, the three Pacific nations that sided with Israel and its relentless backer United States were Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Tonga.
The other countries that voted against were Argentina, Czech Republic, Hungary and Paraguay.
Thirteen abstentions included Fiji, which had previously controversially voted with Israel, Micronesia, and Palau. Supporters of the resolution in the Pacific region included Australia, New Zealand, and Timor-Leste.
Ironically, it was announced a day before the UNGA vote that the United States will spend more than US$864 million (3.5 billion kina) on infrastructure and military training in Papua New Guinea over 10 years under a defence deal signed between the two nations in 2023, according to PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko.
Any connection? Your guess is as good as mine. Certainly it is very revealing how realpolitik is playing out in the region with an “Indo-Pacific buffer” against China.
However, the deal actually originated almost two years earlier, in May 2023, with the size of the package reflecting a growing US security engagement with Pacific island nations as it seeks to counter China’s inroads in the vast ocean region.
Noted BenarNews, a US soft power news service in the region, the planned investment is part of a defence cooperation agreement granting the US military “unimpeded access” to develop and deploy forces from six ports and airports, including Lombrum Naval Base.
Two months before PNG’s vote, the UNGA overwhelmingly passed a resolution demanding that the Israeli government end its occupation of Palestinian territories within 12 months — but half of the 14 countries that voted against were from the Pacific.
Affirming an International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion requested by the UN that deemed the decades-long occupation unlawful, the opposition from seven Pacific nations further marginalised the island region from world opinion against Israel.
Several UN experts and officials warned against Israel becoming a global “pariah” state over its 15 month genocidal war on Gaza.
The final vote tally was 124 member states in favour and 14 against, with 43 nations abstaining. The Pacific countries that voted with Israel and its main ally and arms-supplier United States against the Palestinian resolution were Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Palau, Tonga and Tuvalu.
Flags of decolonisation in Suva, Fiji . . . the Morning Star flag of West Papua (colonised by Indonesia) and the flag of Palestine (militarily occupied illegally and under attack from Israel). Image: APR
In February, Fiji faced widespread condemnation after it joined the US as one of the only two countries — branded as the “outliers” — to support Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory in an UNGA vote over an International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion over Israel’s policies in the occupied territories.
Fiji’s envoy at the UN, retired Colonel Filipo Tarakinikini, defended the country’s stance, saying the court “fails to take account of the complexity of this dispute, and misrepresents the legal, historical, and political context”.
However, Fiji NGOs condemned the Fiji vote as supporting “settler colonialism” and long-standing Fijian diplomats such as Kaliopate Tavola and Robin Nair said Fiji had crossed the line by breaking with its established foreign policy of “friends-to-all-and-enemies-to-none”.
Indonesian military forces on patrol in the Oksop regency of the West Papua region.
2. West Papuan self-determination left in limbo For the past decade, Pacific Island Forum countries have been trying to get a fact-finding human mission deployed to West Papua. But they have encountered zero progress with continuous roadblocks being placed by Jakarta.
Pacific leaders have asked for the UN’s involvement over reported abuses as the Indonesian military continues its battles with West Papuan independence fighters.
A highly critical UN Human Right Committee report on Indonesia released in May highlighted “systematic reports about the use of torture” and “extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of Indigenous Papuan people”.
But the situation is worse now since President Prabowo Subianto, the former general who has a cloud of human rights violations hanging over his head, took office in October.
Fiji’s Sitiveni Rabuka and Papua New Guinea’s James Marape were appointed by the Melanesian Spearhead Group in 2023 as special envoys to push for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ visit directly with Indonesia’s president.
Prabowo taking up the top job in Jakarta has filled West Papuan advocates and activists with dread as this is seen as marking a return of “the ghost of Suharto” because of his history of alleged atrocities in West Papua, and also in Timor-Leste before independence.
Already Prabowo’s acts since becoming president with restoring the controversial transmigration policies, reinforcing and intensifying the military occupation, fuelling an aggressive “anti-environment” development strategy, have heralded a new “regime of brutality”.
And Marape and Rabuka, who pledged to exiled indigenous leader Benny Wenda in Suva in February 2023 that he would support the Papuans “because they are Melanesians”, have been accused of failing the West Papuan cause.
Protesters at Molodoï, Strasbourg, demanding the release of Kanak indigenous political prisoners being detained in France pending trial for their alleged role in the pro-independence riots in May 2024. Image: @67Kanaky /X
3. France rolls back almost four decades of decolonisation progress
When pro-independence protests erupted into violent rioting in Kanaky New Caledonia on May 13, creating havoc and destruction in the capital of Nouméa and across the French Pacific territory with 14 people dead, intransigent French policies were blamed for having betrayed Kanak aspirations for independence.
While acknowledging the goodwill and progress that had been made since the 1988 Matignon accords and the Nouméa pact a decade later following the bloody 1980s insurrection, the French government lost the self-determination trajectory after two narrowly defeated independence referendums and a third vote boycotted by Kanaks because of the covid pandemic.
This third vote with less than half the electorate taking part had no credibility, but Paris insisted on bulldozing constitutional electoral changes that would have severely disenfranchised the indigenous vote. More than 36 years of constructive progress had been wiped out.
“It’s really three decades of hard work by a lot of people to build, sort of like a future for Kanaky New Caledonia, which is part of the Pacific rather than part of France,” I was quoted as saying.
France had had three prime ministers since 2020 and none of them seemed to have any “real affinity” for indigenous issues, particularly in the South Pacific, in contrast to some previous leaders.
In the wake of a snap general election in mainland France, when President Emmanuel Macron lost his centrist mandate and is now squeezed between the polarised far right National Rally and the left coalition New Popular Front, the controversial electoral reform was quietly scrapped.
New French Overseas Minister Manual Valls has heralded a new era of negotiation over self-determination. In November, he criticised Macron’s “stubbornness’ in an interview with the French national daily Le Parisien, blaming him for “ruining 36 years of dialogue, of progress”.
But New Caledonia is not the only headache for France while pushing for its own version of an “Indo-Pacific” strategy. Pro-independence French Polynesian President Moetai Brotherson and civil society leaders have called on the UN to bring Paris to negotiations over a timetable for decolonisation.
West Papuan leader Benny Wenda (left) and Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka . . . “We will support them [ULMWP] because they are Melanesians.” Rabuka also had a Pacific role with New Caledonia. Image: Fiji govt/RNZ Pacific4. Pacific Islands Forum also fails Kanak aspirations
Kanaks and the Pacific’s pro-decolonisation activists had hoped that an intervention by the Pacific Islands Forum in support of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) would enhance their self-determination stocks.
However, they were disappointed. And their own internal political divisions have not made things any easier.
On the eve of the three-day fact-finding delegation to the territory in October, Fiji’s Rabuka was already warning the local government (led by pro-independence Louis Mapou to “be reasonable” in its demands from Paris.
Rabuka and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown and then Tongan counterpart Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni visited the French territory not to “interfere” but to “lower the temperature”.
But an Australian proposal for a peacekeeping force under the Australian-backed Pacific Policing Initiative (PPI) fell flat, and the mission was generally considered a failure for Kanak indigenous aspirations.
Taking the planet’s biggest problem to the world’s highest court for global climate justice. Image: X/@ciel_tweets
5. Climate crisis — the real issue and geopolitics
In spite of the geopolitical pressures from countries, such as the US, Australia and France, in the region in the face of growing Chinese influence, the real issue for the Pacific remains climate crisis and what to do about it.
Controversy marked an A$140 million aid pact signed between Australia and Nauru last month in what was being touted as a key example of the geopolitical tightrope being forced on vulnerable Pacific countries.
This agreement offers Nauru direct budgetary support, banking services and assistance with policing and security. The strings attached? Australia has been granted the right to veto any agreement with a third country such as China.
Critics have compared this power of veto to another agreement signed between Australia and Tuvalu in 2023 which provided Australian residency opportunities and support for climate mitigation. However, in return Australia was handed guarantees over security.
The previous month, November, was another disappointment for the Pacific when it was “once again ignored” at the UN COP29 climate summit in the capital Baku of oil and natural gas-rich Azerbaijan.
The Suva-based Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) condemned the outcomes as another betrayal, saying that the “richest nations turned their backs on their legal and moral obligations” at what had been billed as the “finance COP”.
The new climate finance pledge of a US$300 billion annual target by 2035 for the global fight against climate change was well short of the requested US$1 trillion in aid.
Climate campaigners and activist groups branded it as a “shameful failure of leadership” that forced Pacific nations to accept the “token pledge” to prevent the negotiations from collapsing.
Much depends on a climate justice breakthrough with Vanuatu’s landmark case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) arguing that those harming the climate are breaking international law.
The case seeks an advisory opinion from the court on the legal responsibilities of countries over the climate crisis, and many nations in support of Vanuatu made oral submissions last month and are now awaiting adjudication.
Given the primacy of climate crisis and vital need for funding for adaptation, mitigation and loss and damage faced by vulnerable Pacific countries, former Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Meg Taylor delivered a warning:
“Pacific leaders are being side-lined in major geopolitical decisions affecting their region and they need to start raising their voices for the sake of their citizens.”
Virgin Australia has confirmed a “serious security incident” with its flight crew members who were in Fiji on New Year’s Day.
Virgin Australia’s chief operating officer Stuart Aggs said the incident took place on Tuesday night – New Year’s Eve
The crew members were in Fiji on night layover.
Fiji police said two crew members had alleged they were raped while out clubbing and one alleged her phone had been stolen.
They had gone out to a nightclub in Martintar.
“I’m sorry to advise of a serious security incident which affected a number of crew in Nadi, Fiji, on Tuesday evening,” said Aggs on New Year’s Day.
“Our immediate priority is to look after the wellbeing of our crew involved and make sure they are supported. The safety and welfare of our people is our number one priority.”
Virgin Australia has kept the crew members in Nadi as police investigations continue.
Largest ever exercise draws in international air forces fielding over 130 fast-jets. Australia hosted its largest ever fast-jet exercise from 12 July through to 2 August, attracting more than 130 fighters that operated out of Tindal and Darwin in Australia’s far north. This location was particularly well suited to Exercise Pitch Black 2024, thanks to […]
Michael Leunig — who died in the early hours of Thursday December 19, surrounded by “his children, loved ones, and sunflowers” — was the closest thing Australian cartooning had to a prophet. By turns over his long career, he was a poet, a prophet and a provocateur.
The challenge comes in attempting to understand Leunig’s significance: for Australian cartooning; for readers of The Age and other newspapers past; and for the nation’s idea of itself.
On this day, do you remember the gently philosophical Leunig, or the savagely satirical one? Do you remember a cartoon that you thought absolutely nailed the problems of the world, or one you thought was terribly wrong-headed?
Leunig’s greatness lay in how intensely he made his audiences think and feel.
There is no one straightforward story to tell here. With six decades of cartooning at least weekly in newspapers and 25 book-length collections of his work, how could there be?
The light and the dark One thread is an abiding fondness for the whimsical Leunig. Mr Curly and Vasco Pyjama live on in the imaginations of so many readers.
Particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, Leunig’s work seemed to hold a moral and ethical mirror up to Australian society — sometimes gently, but not without controversy, such as his 1995 “Thoughts of a baby lying in a childcare centre”.
Feed the Inner Duck. Image: Michael Leunig, CC BY-NC-ND
Another thread is the dark satirist.
In the 1960s and 1970s, he broke onto the scene as a wild man in Oz, the Sunday Observer and the Nation Review who deplored Vietnam and only escaped the draft owing to deafness in one ear.
Then he apparently mellowed to become the guru of The Age, still with a capacity to launch the occasional satirical thunderbolt. Decidedly countercultural, together with Patrick Cook and Peter Nicholson, Leunig brought what historian Tony Moore has called “existential and non-materialist themes to the Australian black-and-white tradition”.
By 1999, he was declared a “national living treasure” by the National Trust, and was being lauded by universities for his unique contributions to the national culture.
But to tell the story of Leunig’s significance from the mid 90s on is to go beyond the dreamer and the duck. In later decades you could see a clear distinction between some cartoons that continued to console in a bewildering world, and others that sparked controversy.
Politics and controversy Leunig saw 9/11 and the ensuing “War on Terror” as the great turning point in his career. He fearlessly returned to the themes of the Vietnam years, only to receive caution, rebuke and rejection from editors and readers.
He stopped drawing Mr Curly and Vasco Pyjama. The world was no longer safe for the likes of them.
Then there was a cartoon refused by The Age in 2002, deemed by editor Michael Gawenda to be inappropriate: in the first frame, a Jew is confronted by the gates of the death camp: “Work Brings Freedom [Arbeit Macht Frei]”; in the second frame an Israeli viewing a similar slogan “War Brings Peace”.
Rejected, it was never meant to see the light of day, but ABC’s Media Watch and Crikey outed it because of the constraint its spiking represented to fair media comment on the Middle East.
That the cartoon was later entered, without Leunig’s knowledge, in the infamous Iranian “Holocaust Cartoon” competition of 2006, has only added to its infamy and presaged the internet’s era of the uncontrollable circulation of images.
A decade later, from 2012, he reworked Martin Niemöller’s poetic statement of guilt over the Holocaust. The result was outrage, but also acute division within the Australian Jewish community.
First They Came. Image: Michael Leunig, CC BY-NC-ND
Dvir Abramovich (chairperson of the Anti-Defamation Commission) made a distinction between something challenging, and something racist, believing it was the latter.
Harold Zwier (of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society) welcomed the chance for his community to think critically about Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank.
Mummy was Busy. Image: Michael Leunig, CC BY-NC-ND
Then from 2021 — a covid-19 vaccination needle atop an armoured tank, rolling towards a helpless citizen.
Leunig’s enforced retirement (it is still debated whether he walked or was pushed) was long and drawn-out. He filed his last cartoon for The Agethis August. By then, he had alienated more than a few of his colleagues in the press and the cartooning profession.
Support of the downtrodden Do we speak ill of the dead? We hope not. Instead, we hope we are paying respect to a great and often angry artist who wanted always to challenge the consumer society with its dark cultural and geopolitical secrets.
Leunig’s response was a single line of argument: he was “Just a cartoonist with a moral duty to speak”.
You don’t have to agree with every provocation, but his purpose is always to take up the cause of the weak, and deploy all the weaponry at his disposal to support the downtrodden in their fight.
“The role of the cartoonist is not to be balanced”, said Leunig, but rather to “give balance”.
For Leunig, the weak were the Palestinian civilians, the babies of the post-iPhone generation, and those forced to be vaccinated by a powerful state; just as they were the Vietnamese civilians, the children forced to serve their rulers through state-sanctioned violence, the citizens whose democracy was undercut by stooges of the establishment.
That deserves to be his legacy, regardless of whether you agree or not about his stance.
The coming year will give a great many people pause to reflect on the life and work of Leunig. Indeed, he has provided us with a monthly schedule for doing just that: Leunig may be gone, but 2025 is already provided for, via his last calendar.
The union for Australian journalists has welcomed the delivery by the federal government of more than $150 million to support the sustainability of public interest journalism over the next four years.
Combined with the announcement of the revamped News Bargaining Initiative, this could result in up to $400 million in additional funding for the sector over the coming years.
The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance says the new funding under the News Media Assistance Program (News MAP) will boost journalism and media diversity but must be tied to the enforcement of minimum employment standards for all media workers, including freelancers, says the MEAA website.
The acting director of MEAA media, Michelle Rae, said the Albanese government had picked up on recommendations from the union during consultation over the News MAP earlier this year.
“We are pleased that the government has adopted a holistic and structured approach to support for the news media industry, rather than the patchwork of band aid solutions that have been implemented in the past,” she said.
“MEAA has long argued that commercially produced public interest journalism requires systematic, long-term support beyond a three-year time frame to ensure its viability and to promote a diverse media landscape.
“The longer-term approach confirmed by the government will allow media outlets to plan for their future sustainability with additional certainty about their income over the next four years.”
Importantly, the new funding was primarily directed at local and community news, the sector that had been most impacted by the decline of advertising revenue over the past two decades.
“The $116.7 million to support this sector will go a long way towards helping communities in regional Australia and the suburbs of our main cities to rebuild local journalism in areas that have become or are in danger of becoming news deserts,” Rae said.
“The unique role of Australian Associated Press as an independent and accessible news service has been recognised with $33 million in new funding.
“MEAA also welcomes the government’s commitment to mandate at least $6 million of its advertising budget is spent in regional newspapers.”
Rae said that while it was worthwhile to explore measures to attract philanthropic funding of the news media industry, any solutions to the decline of public interest journalism must not be reliant on sponsorships or donations that undermine the independence of media outlets.
“There is a place for demand-side incentives to subscribe and pay for quality news media through the use of subsidies, vouchers or tax deductibility,” she said.
“But care must be taken to ensure that philanthropic funding does not allow donors to dictate the editorial policies of media outlets.”
Palestinian history is “deliberately ignored” and is being effectively “erased” as part of Western news media narratives, while establishment forces work to shut down anyone speaking out against Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, academics have told a university conference of legal and Middle East experts.
Also, the murder of Palestinians and resistance by them had been routinely mischaracterised as “loss and failure” on their part as though it was their own fault.
Although the conference took place over one and-a-half days in July and brought together Arab, Muslim, Jewish and Indigenous speakers from Palestine, Australia, Germany, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom, details have only just been released.
The release of the conference proceedings comes more than one year on from the start of the Israeli War on Gaza, now extended into Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, with arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and an Amnesty International investigation concluding Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
The western media has ranged from selective reporting of facts… and publishing outright lies that justify the murder of Palestinians.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) at least 45,097 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including over 17,492 children, with more than 107,244 people injured and in excess of 10,000 people missing under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
By comparison 63 journalists were killed in 20 years of the Vietnam War.
Posed war crime questions
The conference posed major questions regarding the erasing of Palestinian history, how it enables present-day war crimes and how defiance has resonated and inspired ongoing resistance by:
Palestinians fighting to defend their lives and their land, or as seen around the world, in civic protests;
the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement;
human rights advocacy;
alternative social media production; and
legal challenges in the highest of our international institutions, the ICC and the International Court of Justice.
The conference was officially opened with the Welcome to Country, from Uncle Greg Simms, Gadigal elder of the Dharug Nation.
Uncle Greg spoke about the importance of land and country to the survival of Australia’s Indigenous people, the role of ancestral ties and connections, the importance of history and allies in the face of genocide, and the need to empathise with the people of Palestine at this time.
Dr Janine Hourani’s address. Video: UTS
Janine Hourani from the University of Exeter and Palestinian Youth Movement, in her keynote speech detailed the history of Palestinian resistance to Zionist occupation, addressing how the recording of history, privileged by a select few, served to stifle narratives, as well as erase key figures and moments in time, “reproducing a particular version of Palestinian history that focuses on defeat and loss, rather than resistance and rebellion”.
“The Western media has ranged from selective reporting of facts, reporting Palestinians as ‘died’ and Israeli settlers as ‘murdered’ and publishing outright lies that justify the murder of Palestinians,” said Hourani.
“Since October we’ve heard multiple political interventions being made about the Western media’s complicity in the current genocide in Palestine.”
Souheir Edalbi, a law lecturer at Western Sydney University, convened the session that followed, featuring four speakers.
Anti-Palestinian racism
Randa Abdelfattah, an author, lawyer and academic, addressed anti-Palestinian racism which serves to disarm criticism of Israel and Zionism.
Udi Raz, an academic and activist based in Germany, presented a case study of Mizrahi or Arab Jews in Germany, interrogating the definition of semitism and otherness in that context, the culturally pervasive racism towards Arabs, and German anxieties about what constitutes a non-European identity.
Annie Pfingst, an author and academic, listed 11 different types of “erasure” by Israel, from the confiscation, possession and renaming of Palestinian villages through to the holding of Palestinian bodies killed by the Israeli forces, not returned to their families, or buried in the “cemetery of numbers”.
She described a “necrological regime” that turns dead bodies into prisoners of the state, penalising and torturing the community, serving “to further evict the native in line with the structure of the settler colonial imperative of elimination”.
We have seen many instances of pro-Palestinian voices who have been sacked from their work places.
Jessica Holland, a researcher, curator and archivist, discussed how the history of archiving of Palestinian material is “deeply embedded within a legacy of coloniality”, and the importance of Palestinian social history and archiving projects, in redressing and countering hegemonic understandings and organisation of materials.
“Journalists, teachers, doctors, health care workers, public servants, lawyers, artists, food hospitality workers. Across every profession and industry [showing] solidarity with Palestine has been met with a repertoire of repressive tactics, disciplinary employment processes, cancelled contracts, lawfare, police brutality, parliamentary scrutiny, coordinated complaints and harassment campaigns, media coverage, doxxing, harassment, attempts at law reform and policy amendments,” said Abdelfattah.
“We have seen in the past few days the treatment of [Senator] Fatima Payman and the intimidation, bullying and silencing she has endured.
“We have also seen many instances of pro-Palestinian voices who have been sacked from their work places.”
On day two of the conference Aunty Glendra Stubbs gave the Acknowledgement of Country, which was followed by the keynote speaker Jeff Halper, anthropologist, author, lecturer, political activist and director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.
Normalising violence
Halper addressed how Israel as a Zionist settler colonial state normalises violence, erasure and apartheid against Palestinians, where physical and cultural genocide are built in, necessitating indigenous resistance.
A second panel, “Social Movements, in Defiance”, convened by Alison Harwood, a social change practitioner, included speakers Nasser Mashni from the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN), Sarah Schwartz from the Jewish Council of Australia, and Latoya Rule from UTS Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research.
Speakers shared insights on how social movements mobilise from within their diverse communities, to reach and potentially impact the Australian and international social and political stage.
Interdisciplinary storyteller and media producer Daz Chandler presented a series of pre-recorded interviews and a live discussion with participants involved in University campus encampments from around the world including activists from Birzeit University in the Occupied West Bank, Mexico, Trinity College in Dublin, UCLA, the University of Melbourne, University of Tokyo, University of Sydney and Monash University.
Two further sessions focused on responses “From the Field”, with a third panel convened by Paula Abboud, a cultural worker, educator, writer and creative producer, featuring The Age journalist Maher Moghrabi, author and human rights lawyer Sara Saleh, Lena Mozayani from NSW Teachers for Palestine, and Dr Sana Pathan from ANZ Doctors for Palestine.
Each reflected on their work and the challenges they encountered in their respective professional fields. Obstructions they faced ranged from hindering and silencing the expression of ideas, through to the prevention of carrying out critical on-the-ground work to save lives.
Hometown of Nablus
The final panel of the conference was moderated by Derek Halawa, a Palestinian living in the diaspora, who shared his experience of travelling to his hometown of Nablus.
He followed virtual footsteps from his cousin’s video, through the alley ways, to reach the home of his great grandfather, a journey which culminated in reaching the steps of Al Aqsa Mosque, with both spaces symbolising belonging and hope.
Cathy Peters, media worker and co-founder of BDS Australia described a diverse range of disruption movements calling for the end of ties with Israeli companies, since the war on Gaza.
This was followed by RIta Jabri Markwell, solicitor and adviser to the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network, addressing specific points of Australian law dealing with terrorism, freedom of speech, and racial discrimination.
The conference, which was was co-convened by Barbara Bloch, Wafa Chafic, James Goodman, Derek Halawa and Christina Ho, concluded with UTS Sociology Professor James Goodman giving an overview of the proceedings and potential actions post-conference.
One post-conference outcome is an additional series of interviews produced by Daz Chandler exploring the power of creative practices utilised within the Palestinian resistance movement.
It features renowned Palestinian contemporary artist Khaled Hourani, Ben Rivers: co-founder of the Palestinian Freedom Bus, Yazan al-Saadi: co-founder of Cartoonists for Palestine, Taouba Yacoubi: Sew 4 Palestine, Birkbeck University of London; and artist and activist from Naarm Melbourne, Margaret Mayhew.
The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) has successfully launched a Tomahawk cruise missile during a test and evaluation exercise conducted off the west coast of the United States, the Australian Department of Defence (DoD) announced on 10 December. The Tomahawk missile was launched from Hobart-class air warfare destroyer HMAS Brisbane, making Australia only the third country […]
The A$140 million aid agreement between Australia and Nauru signed last week is a prime example of the geopolitical tightrope vulnerable Pacific nations are walking in the 21st century.
The deal provides Nauru with direct budgetary support, stable banking services, and policing and security resources. In return, Australia will have the right to veto any pact Nauru might make with other countries — namely China.
The veto terms are similar to the “Falepili Union” between Australia and Tuvalu signed late last year, which granted Tuvaluans access to Australian residency and climate mitigation support, in exchange for security guarantees.
In exchange for investment in military infrastructure development, training and equipment, the US gains unrestricted access to six ports and airports.
Also last week, PNG signed a 10-year, A$600 million deal to fund its own team in Australia’s NRL competition. In return, “PNG will not sign a security deal that could allow Chinese police or military forces to be based in the Pacific nation”.
These arrangements are all emblematic of the geopolitical tussle playing out in the Pacific between China and the US and its allies.
This strategic competition is often framed in mainstream media and political commentary as an extension of “the great game” played by rival powers. From a traditional security perspective, Pacific nations can be depicted as seeking advantage to leverage their own development priorities.
But this assumption that Pacific governments are “diplomatic price setters”, able to play China and the US off against each other, overlooks the very real power imbalances involved.
The risk, as the authors of one recent study argued, is that the “China threat” narrative becomes the justification for “greater Western militarisation and economic dominance”. In other words, Pacific nations become diplomatic price takers.
Defence diplomacy Pacific nations are vulnerable on several fronts: most have a low economic base and many are facing a debt crisis. At the same time, they are on the front line of climate change and rising sea levels.
The costs of recovering from more frequent extreme weather events create a vicious cycle of more debt and greater vulnerability. As was reported at this year’s United Nations COP29 summit, climate financing in the Pacific is mostly in the form of concessional loans.
At the country level, government systems often lack the capacity to manage increasing aid packages, and struggle with the diplomatic engagement and other obligations demanded by the new geopolitical conditions.
In August, Kiribati even closed its borders to diplomats until 2025 to allow the new government “breathing space” to attend to domestic affairs.
In the past, Australia championed governance and institutional support as part of its financial aid. But a lot of development assistance is now skewed towards policing and defence.
Kiribati: threatened by sea level rise, the nation closed its borders to foreign diplomats until 2025. Image: Getty Images/The Conversation
Lack of good faith At the same time, many political parties in Pacific nations operate quite informally and lack comprehensive policy manifestos. Most governments lack a parliamentary subcommittee that scrutinises foreign policy.
The upshot is that foreign policy and security arrangements can be driven by personalities rather than policy priorities, with little scrutiny. Pacific nations are also susceptible to corruption, as highlighted in Transparency International’s 2024 Annual Corruption Report.
Since 2019, my country has become a hotbed for diplomatic tensions and foreign interference, and undue influence.
Similarly, Pacific affairs expert Distinguished Professor Steven Ratuva has argued the Australia–Tuvalu agreement was one-sided and showed a “lack of good faith”.
Behind these developments, of course, lies the evolving AUKUS security pact between Australia, the US and United Kingdom, a response to growing Chinese presence and influence in the “Indo-Pacific” region.
The response from Pacific nations has been diplomatic, perhaps from a sense they cannot “rock the submarine” too much, given their ties to the big powers involved. But former Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Meg Taylor has warned:
Pacific leaders were being sidelined in major geopolitical decisions affecting their region and they need to start raising their voices for the sake of their citizens.
Unless these partnerships are grounded in good faith and genuine sustainable development, the grassroots consequences of geopolitics-as-usual will not change.
The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) has conducted its first test firing of a Tomahawk land-attack sea-launched cruise missile, taking a major step towards introducing the weapons system into operational service. The RAN is set to become the third navy to operate Tomahawk, following the US Navy and UK Royal (RN). The test firing was conducted […]
The seven people hospitalised in Fiji with suspected severe alcohol poisoning are reported to be in a stable condition, says Tourism Fiji chief executive Brent Hill.
Seven people, including four Australian tourists and one American, and two other foreigners who live in Fiji, had been drinking cocktails at the 5-star Warwick Resort in the Coral Coast before they fell ill.
All have now been transferred to the larger Lautoka Hospital from Sigatoka Hospital because of the severity of their condition.
Hill told RNZ Pacific they were all now in a stable condition and there had been improvement in some symptoms.
“We don’t want to speculate on exactly the cause; we don’t know that yet,” he said.
“But what we do know is that it was limited to only seven tourists at one resort and only at one bar in that resort as well.
“Talking to the management they’re quite perplexed as to how it’s happened, and certainly there are no accusations around that something’s been put into their drink or been diluted or using a foreign substance.”
A local ‘had seizures’
A resort guest, who did not want to be named, told RNZ Pacific that his friend, a local, was having seizures on Saturday afternoon and was still too ill to get up.
The guest said he was certain the drinks had been tampered with.
“We have not received any proper communication from the Warwick team and just asked one of my friends to sign an indemnity form.”
He said that he and the group that he was with had all had one drink each at the adult pool bar.
“Everyone that I saw at the Sigatoka Hospital all drank the piña colada.
“The hospital and doctors were the saving grace . . . they were really overwhelmed, but tried their best to get everyone stable and moved out to Lautoka ICU overnight.”
Fiji’s Health Secretary Dr Jemesa Tudravu told local media two out of the seven affected individuals had been placed on life support over the weekend. However, they had since recovered and remained in critical condition.
Tudravu said all those affected were tourists, and no locals involved.
Affected locals ignored
But the resort guest who spoke to RNZ Pacific claims that Tudravu has completely ignored the fact that locals were also affected.
A Fiji police spokesperson said on Monday that a 26-year-old local woman been discharged from Sigatoka Hospital.
“Others have been transferred to Lautoka Aspen Hospital and we will wait for medical authorities to clear the victims first before we can interview them,” he said.
“But police investigation is already underway.”
Fiji’s Lautoka Hospital . . . all seven people – including four Australians – involved in the suspected alcohol poisoning case were transferred there. Image: Reinal Chand/Fiji Times
Hill said the tourism industry was very conscious of the recent tainted alcohol incident in Laos, where several people died, but said it’s “a long way from that”.
“The resort has certainly given us assurance that there’s no indication around substituting substances in beverages and so on. So it’s a little bit of a mystery that a nice resort would experience something like this.”
When asked if tourists needed to be careful ordering cocktails in Fiji, Hill said people needed to be careful anywhere around the world, including at home.
‘Unfortunate experience’
“The risk is very, very small, but at the same time, we don’t want to diminish for these seven people.
“It’s obviously been a really unfortunate experience and we certainly are trying to work out what’s caused that and our investigation is continuing.”
Brent said he had never heard of anything like this happening in Fiji before.
He hoped it would not affect Fiji’s reputation as a tourist destination.
“I do understand, of course, based on recent events in Southeast Asia that people want assurance that they can be safe, and certainly from our perspective it’s a really isolated case.”
A spokesperson for Warwick Fiji told RNZ Pacific that they had “nothing to disclose”.
RNZ Pacific was told the general manager of the high-end resort would not front for an interview because the suspected poisoning was still under investigation.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
“Offshore operators are consolidating a significant market share of New Zealand betting — and the revenue which New Zealand’s racing industry relies on is certainly not guaranteed,” Peters told Parliament in support of the Bill.
But offshore tech companies have also been pulling the revenue rug out from under local news media companies for years, and there has been no such speedy response to that.
Digital platforms offer cheap and easy access to unlimited overseas content — and tech companies’ dominance of the digital advertising systems and the resulting revenue is intensifying.
Profits from online ads shown to New Zealanders go offshore — and very little tax is paid on the money made here by the likes of Google and Facebook.
“As the government we must ensure regulatory settings are enabling the best chance of success,” he said in a statement.
The media have been crying out for this low-hanging fruit for years — but the estimated $6 million boost is a drop in the bucket for broadcasters, and little help for other media.
The big bucks are in tech platforms paying for the local news they carry.
Squeezing the tech titans In Australia, the government did it three years ago with a bargaining code that is funnelling significant sums to news media there. It also signalled the willingness of successive governments to confront the market dominance of ‘big tech’.
When Goldsmith took over here in May he said the media industry’s problems were both urgent and acute – likewise the need to “level the playing field”.
The government then picked up the former government’s Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, modelled on Australia’s move.
But it languishes low down on Parliament’s order paper, following threats from Google to cut news out of its platforms in New Zealand – or even cut and run from New Zealand altogether.
(The News Bargaining Incentive announced on Thursday could allow the Australian government to tax big digital platforms if they do not pay local news publishers there)
Meanwhile, news media cuts and closures here roll on.
The lid keeps sinking in 2024
The Spinoff’s Duncan Greive . . . “The members’ bucket is pretty solid. The commercial bucket was going quite well, and then we just ran into a brick wall.” Image: RNZ Mediawatch
“I’ve worked in the industry for 30 years and never seen a year like it,” RNZ’s Guyon Espiner wrote in The Listener this week, admitting to “a sense of survivor’s guilt”.
Just this month, 14 NZME local papers will close and more TVNZ news employees will be told they will lose jobs in what Espiner described as “destroy the village to save the village” strategy.
Whakaata Māori announced 27 job losses earlier this month and the end of Te Ao Māori News every weekday on TV. Its te reo channel will go online-only.
Digital start-ups with lower overheads than established news publishers and broadcasters are now struggling too.
Spinoff founder Duncan Grieve has charted the economic erosion of the media all year at The Spinoff and on its weekly podcast The Fold.
In a recent edition, he said he could not carry on “pretending things would be fine” and did not want The Spinoff to go down without giving people the chance to save it.
“We get some (revenue) direct from our audience through members, some commercial revenue and we get funding for various New Zealand on Air projects typically,” Greive told RNZ Mediawatch this week.
“The members’ bucket is pretty solid. The commercial bucket was going quite well, and then we just ran into a brick wall. There has been a real system-wide shock to commercial revenues.
“But the thing that we didn’t predict which caused us to have to publish that open letter was New Zealand on Air. We’ve been able to rely on getting one or two projects up, but we’ve missed out two rounds in a row. Maybe our projects . . . weren’t good enough, but it certainly had this immediate, near-existential challenge for us.”
Critics complained The Spinoff has had millions of dollars in public money in its first decade.
“While the state is under no obligation to fund our work, it’s hard to watch as other platforms continue to be heavily backed while your own funding stops dead,” Greive said in the open letter.
The open letter said Creative NZ funding had been halved this year, and the Public Interest Journalism Fund support for two of The Spinoff’s team of 31 was due to run out next year.
“I absolutely take on the chin the idea that we shouldn’t be reliant on that funding. Once you experience something year after year, you do build your business around that . . . for the coming year. When a hard-to-predict event like that comes along, you are in a situation where you have to scramble,” Grieve told Mediawatch.
“We shot a flare up that our audience has responded to. We’re not out of the woods yet, but we’re really pleased with the strength of support and an influx of members.”
Paddy Gower outside the Newshub studio after news of its closure. Image: RNZ/Marika Khabazi
Newshub shutdown A recent addition to The Spinoff’s board — Glen Kyne — has already felt the force of the media’s economic headwinds in 2024.
“It was heart-wrenching because we had looked at and tried everything leading into that announcement. I go back to July 2022, when we started to see money coming out of the market and the cost of living crisis starting to appear,” Kyne told Mediawatch this week.
“We started taking steps immediately and were incredibly prudent with cost management. We would get to a point where we felt reasonably confident that we had a path, but the floor beneath our feet — in terms of the commercial market — kept falling. You’re seeing this with TVNZ right now.”
Warner Brothers Discovery is a multinational player in broadcast media. Did they respond to requests for help?
“They were empathetic. But Warner Brothers Discovery had lost 60-70 percent of its share price because of the issues around global media companies as well. They were very determined that we got the company to a position of profitability as quickly as we possibly could. But ultimately the economics were such that we had to make the decision.”
Smaller but sustainable in 2025? Or managed decline?
Glen Kyne is a recent addition to the Spinoff’s board . . . “It’s slightly terrifying because the downward pressures are going to continue into next year.” Image: RNZ/Nick Monro
He is one of a handful of people who know the sums, but Stuff is certainly producing ThreeNews now with a fraction of the former budget for Newshub.
Can media outlets settle on a shape that will be sustainable, but smaller — and carry on in 2025 and beyond? Or does Kyne fear media are merely managing decline if revenue continues to slump?
“It’s slightly terrifying because the downward pressures are going to continue into next year. Three created a sustainable model for the 6pm bulletin to continue.
“Stuff is an enormous newsgathering organisation, so they were able to make it work and good luck to them. I can see that bulletin continuing to improve as the team get more experience.”
No news is really bad news If news can’t be sustained at scale in commercial media companies even on reduced budgets, what then?
Some are already pondering a “post-journalism” future in which social media takes over as the memes of sharing news and information.
How would that pan out?
“We might be about to find out,” Greive told Mediawatch.
“Journalism doesn’t have a monopoly on information, and there are all kinds of different institutions that now have channels. A lot of what is created . . . has a factual basis. Whether it’s a TikTok-er or a YouTuber, they are themselves consumers of news.
“A lot of people are replacing a habit of reading the newspaper and listening to ZB or RNZ with a new habit — consuming social media. Some of it has a news-like quality but it doesn’t have vetting of the information and membership of the Media Council . . . as a way of restraining behaviour.
“We’ve got a big question facing us as a society. Either news becomes this esoteric, elite habit that is either pay-walled or alternatively there’s public media. If we [lose] freely-accessible, mass-audience channels, then we’ll find out what democracy, the business sector, the cultural sector looks like without that.
“In communities where there isn’t a single journalist, a story can break or someone can put something out . . . and if there’s no restraint on that and no check on it, things are going to happen.
“In other countries, most notably Australia, they’ve recognised this looming problem, and there’s a quite muscular and joined-up regulator and legislator to wrestle with the challenges that represents. And we’re just not seeing that here.”
They are in Australia.
In addition to the News Bargaining Code and the just-signalled News Bargaining Incentive, the Albanese government is banning social media for under-16s. Meta has responded to pressure to combat financial scam advertising on Facebook.
To-do in 2025 “There are fairly obvious things that could be done that are being done in other jurisdictions, even if it’s as simple as having a system of fines and giving the Commerce Commission the power to sort of scrutinise large technology platforms,” Greive told Mediawatch.
“You’ve got this general sense of malaise over the country and a government that’s looking for a narrative. It’s shocking when you see Australia, where it’s arguably the biggest political story — but here we’re just doing nothing.”
Not quite. There was the holiday ad reform legislation this week.
“Allowing broadcasting Christmas Day and Easter is a drop in the ocean that’s not going to materially change the outcome for any company here,” Kyne told Mediawatch.
“The Fair Digital News Bargaining bill was conceived three years ago and the world has changed immeasurably.
“You’ve seen Australia also put some really thoughtful white papers together on media regulation that really does bring a level of equality between the global platforms and the local media and to have them regulated under common legislation — a bit like an Ofcom operates in the UK, where both publishers and platforms, together are overseen and managed accordingly.
“That’s the type of thing we’re desperate for in New Zealand. If we don’t get reform over the next couple of years you are going to see more community newspapers or radio stations or other things no longer able to operate.”
Grieve was one of the media execs who pushed for Commerce Commission approval for media to bargain collectively with Google and Meta for news payments.
Backing the Bill – or starting again? Local media executives, including Grieve, recently met behind closed doors to re-assess their strategy.
“Some major industry participants are still quite gung-ho with the legislation and think that Google is bluffing when it says that it will turn news off and break its agreements. And then you’ve got another group that think that they’re not bluffing, and that events have since overtaken [the legislation],” he said.
“The technology platforms have products that are always in motion. What they’re essentially saying — particularly to smaller countries like New Zealand — is: ‘You don’t really get to make laws. We decide what can and can’t be done’.
“And that’s quite a confronting thing for legislators. It takes quite a backbone and quite a lot of confidence to sort of stand up to that kind of pressure.”
The government just appointed a minister of rail to take charge of the current Cook Strait ferry crisis. Do we need a minister of social media or tech to take charge of policy on this part of the country’s infrastructure?
“We’ve had successive governments that want to be open to technology, and high growth businesses starting here.
“But so much of the internet is controlled by a small handful of platforms that can have an anti-competitive relationship with innovation in any kind of business that seeks to build on land that they consider theirs,” Greive said.
“A lot of what’s happened in Australia has come because the ACCC, their version of the Commerce Commission, has got a a unit which scrutinises digital platforms in much the same way that we do with telecommunications, the energy market and so on.
“Here there is just no one really paying attention. And as a result, we’re getting radically different products than they do in Australia.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Israeli soldiers have been denied visas to enter Australia over war crime concerns — and the New Zealand government is now being called on by Palestine solidarity activists to act immediately to stop Israeli soldiers visiting.
Some Israeli soldiers have been denied visas to enter Australia after being required to fill in a 13-page form designed to determine if they had been involved in war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza.
The Middle East Eye reports Israeli visa applicants are asked about their involvement in physical or psychological abuse, their roles as guards or officials in detention facilities, and whether they had participated in war crimes or genocide.
This follows last month’s ruling from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity over atrocities committed since October 7 last year.
However, Israelis coming to New Zealand face no such requirements, says the Palestine Solidarity Network (PSNA)
Since 2019, Israelis have been able to enter New Zealand for three months without needing a visa. This visa-waiver is used by Israeli soldiers today for “rest and recreation” from the genocide in Gaza.
“We face having Israeli soldiers rejected by Australia over war crime concerns jumping on a plane to New Zealand,” said PSNA national chair John Minto in a statement.
‘Suspend all IDF visas’ call
“We cannot depend on Israeli soldiers to give accurate reports of their involvement in war crimes so we have asked the government to suspend all visas for Israelis who are serving or who have served in the Israeli Defence Force [IDF].”
United Nations officials, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and now Amnesty International have all used the term genocide to describe the actions of the Israeli military in Gaza where more than 45,000 People – mostly women and children – have been slaughtered by the IDF.
“Last month, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Minto said.
“All the red flags for genocide have been visible for months but our National-led coalition government is giving the green light to those responsible for war crimes to enter New Zealand.
“New Zealand’s response to genocide in Gaza has been a cowardly refusal to stand up for the Genocide Convention which requires us to ‘prevent and punish’ the crime of genocide.
“This needs to change today.”
Former Israeli justice minister barred
Australia’s recent denial of visas to two Israeli soldiers — siblings in one family — follows a similar case involving the former Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who was denied a visa last month over fears of “incitement”, reports the Middle East Eye.
The Australian Department of Home Affairs told the former Israeli justice minister she had been denied a visa to travel to the country under the Migration Act.
The act allows the government to deny entry to individuals likely to “vilify Australians” or “incite discord” within the local community.
The charge of “advocating genocide” against Australian Mark Regev, a former Israeli ambassador to Britain and spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will head to the International Criminal Court after Australia’s prosecution service dropped the case following a diplomatic note from Israel.
The charge against Regev was brought initially in a private prosecution by Uncle Robbie Thorpe, an indigenous Krautungalung Elder and human rights advocate.
Thorpe charged Regev with aligning himself as a government spokesman with statements made by Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, which the U.N. special rapporteur for the Palestinian occupied territories called genocidal.
Norwegian defence company Kongsberg announced on 10 December that it had successfully performed the first-ever launch of a representative Naval Strike Missile (NSM) from an Australian-made launcher at the Commonwealth Joint Proofing Experimental Unit (JPEU) in Port Wakefield, South Australia. According to Kongsberg, the test was conducted under the auspices of the Australian Department of […]
Pacific police chiefs have formally opened the headquarters and training center for a new stand-by, mutual assistance force in Australia to support countries during civil unrest, natural disasters and major events.
The Pacific Policing Initiative was declared operational just 17 months after chiefs agreed in 2023 on the need to create a multinational unit, with US$270 million (A$400 million) in funding from Australia.
The PPI comes as Australia and its allies are locked in a geostrategic contest for influence in the region with China, including over security and policing.
Riots in Solomon Islands and violence in Papua New Guinea, the region’s increased exposure to climate change impacts, escalating transnational crime and securing a higher standing internationally for the Pacific’s forces were key drivers.
PNG Police Commissioner David Manning (centre) flanked by Vanuatu Police Commissioner Robson Iavro (left), Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw (second right) and Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus at the PPI launch on Tuesday. Image: BenarNews/Stefan Armbruster
At a flag-raising ceremony in Brisbane on Tuesday, Papua New Guinea’s Police Commissioner David Manning hailed the PPI’s funding as an “unprecedented investment” in the region.
“The PPI provides a clear, effective, and agile mechanism to which we can support our Pacific family in times of need to uphold the law and maintain order in security,” said Manning, who chairs the PPI design steering committee.
He said issues in deploying foreign police throughout the region still needed to be resolved but the 22 member nations and territories were “close to completing the guiding legal framework around Pacific Island countries to be able to tap into this.”
The constitutional difficulties of deploying foreign police are well known to Manning after PNG’s highest court ruled two decades ago that a deployment of Australian Federal Police there was illegal.
“That incident alone has taught us many lessons,” he said, adding changes had been made to the Constitution and relevant legislation to receive assistance and also to deploy to other countries lawfully.
Manning said no deployments of the Pacific Support Group had currently been requested by Pacific nations.
Impetus for the PPI was a secretive policing and security deal Beijing signed with Solomon Islands in 2022 that caused alarm in Washington and Canberra.
Several other Pacific nations — including Tonga, Samoa and Kiribati — also have policing arrangements with China to provide training and equipment. On Monday, Vanuatu received police boats and vehicles valued at US$4 million from Beijing.
“I wouldn’t say it locks China out, all I’m saying is that we now have an opportunity to determine what is best for the Pacific,” Manning said.
“Our countries in the Pacific have different approaches in terms of their relationship with China. I’m not brave enough to speak on their behalf, but as for us, it is purely policing.”
Samoan Police Minister Lefau Harry Schuster on Tuesday also announced his country would be hosting the PPI’s third “center of excellence”, specialising in forensics, alongside ones in PNG and Fiji.
He said the PPI will use the Samoan Police Academy built by China and opened in June.
“We wanted it to be used not just for Samoa, but to open up for use by the region,” Schuster said in Brisbane.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw said the PPI “symbolises our commitment as part of the Pacific region” and enhances the Pacific’s standing internationally.
“Asia represents Australia and the Pacific at the moment at Interpol,” he said. “We want to show leadership in the region and we want a bit more status and recognition from Interpol.”
Kershaw said “crime in our region is becoming more complex”, including large seizures of drug shipments.
“The fact is that we’re able to work together in a seamless way and combat, say, transnational, serious and organized crime as a serious threat in our region.”
“At the same time, we’ve all got domestic issues and I think we’re learning faster and better about how to deal with domestic issues and international issues at the same time.”
Police ministers and chiefs from across the Pacific attended the launch of the PPI’s Pinkenba Hub on Tuesday. Image: BenarNews/Stefan Armbruster
Asked about tackling community policing of issues like gender-based violence, he said it was all part of the “complex” mix.
The Australian and Samoan facilities complete the three arms of the PPI consisting of the Pacific Support Group, three regional training centers and the co-ordination hub in Brisbane.
The Pinkenba centre in Brisbane will provide training — including public order management, investigations, close personal protection — and has accommodation for 140 people.
Training began in July, with 30 officers from 11 nations who were deployed to Samoa to help with security during the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in October, the largest event the country has ever hosted.
Schuster expressed surprise about how quickly the PPI was established and thanked Australia and the region for their support.
“This is one initiative I’m very happy that we didn’t quite do it the Pacific way. [The] Pacific way takes time, a long time, we talk and talk and talk,” he joked.
“So I look forward to an approach like this in the future, so that we do things first and then open it later.”
This article is republished from BenarNewswith permission.
Political commentators see the Nauru-Australia Treaty signed this week by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Nauru’s President David Adeang as a move to limit China’s influence in the region.
Refugee advocates claim it is effectively a bribe to ensure Australia can keep dumping its refugees on Nauru, where much of the terrain is an industrial wasteland following decades of phosphate mining.
The Refugee Action Coalition told RNZ Pacific that there were currently between 95 and 100 detainees at the facility, the bulk of whom are from China and Bangladesh.
The Nauru-Australia Treaty signed by Nauru’s President David Adeang (left) and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra on Monday. Image: Facebook/Anthony Albanese/RNZ Pacific
The deal was said to have been struck after months of secretive bilateral talks, on the back of lucrative counter offers from China.
The treaty ensures that Australia retains a veto right over a range of pacts that Nauru could enter into with other countries.
In a written statement, Albanese described the agreement as a win-win situation.
“The Nauru-Australia treaty will strengthen Nauru’s long-term stability and economic resilience. This treaty is an agreement that meets the need of both countries and serves our shared interest in a peaceful, secure and prosperous region,” he said.
‘Motivated by strategic concerns’ – expert However, a geopolitics expert says Australia’s motivations are purely selfish.
Australian National University research fellow Dr Benjamin Herscovitch said the detention centre had bipartisan support and was a crucial part of Australia’s domestic migration policies.
“The Australian government is motivated by very self-interested strategic concerns here,” Herscovitch told RNZ Pacific.
“They are not ultimately doing it because they want to assist the people of Nauru, Canberra is doing it because it wants to keep China at bay and it wants to keep offshore processing in play.”
The Refugee Action Coalition in Sydney agrees.
The Coalition’s spokesperson Ian Rintoul said Canberra had effectively bribed Nauru so it could keep refugees out of Australia.
“It’s a very sordid game. It’s a corrupt arrangement that the Australian government has actually bought Nauru and made it a wing of its domestic anti-refugee policies,” he said.
“It’s small beer for the Australian government that thinks that off-shore detention is critical to its domestic political policies.”
Rintoul said that in the past foreign aid had not been used to improve life for Nauruans.
“The relationship between Nauru and Australia is pretty extraordinary and Nauru has been able to effectively extort huge amounts of foreign aid to upgrade their prison, they’ve built sports facilities,” he said.
“I suspect a large amount of it has also found its way into the pockets of various elites.”
Herscovitch said Nauru is in a prime position to negotiate with its former coloniser.
“When China comes knocking, Australia immediately gets nervous and wants to put on the table offers that will keep those Pacific countries coming back to Australia.
“That provides a wide range of Pacific countries with a huge amount of leverage to extract better terms from Australia.”
He added it was unclear exactly how the funds would be used in Nauru.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The incoming Trump administration will bring a dangerous brew of Christian nationalism and anti-Palestinian racism
Things can always get worse. Much worse.
The Biden/Harris administration has bank-rolled and funded Israel’s mass slaughter in Gaza, the sight of the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world.
Israeli soldiers wilfully post their crimes online for all the globe to see. Palestinian journalists are being deliberately targeted by Israel in an unprecedented way.
Every day brings new horrors in Gaza, Lebanon and beyond. And that’s not ignoring the catastrophes in Syria, Sudan and Myanmar.
But we can’t despair or disengage. It can be hard with an incoming Trump White House stuffed with radicals, evangelicals and bigots but now is not the time to do so.
We must keep on reporting, investigating, sharing, talking and raising public awareness of the real threats that surround us every day (from the climate crisis to nuclear war) and finding ways to solve them.
Always find hope.
New global project
Here’s some breaking news. I’ve said nothing about this publicly. Until now.
I’ve spent much of the year working on a documentary film series inspired by my best-selling book, The Palestine Laboratory. I’ve travelled to seven countries over many months, filming under the radar due to the sensitivity of the material.
I can’t say much more at this stage except that it’s nearly completed and will be released soon on a major global broadcaster.
The photo at the top of the page is me in a clip from the series in an undisclosed location (after I’d completed a voice-over recording session.)
Stay tuned for more. This work will be ground-breaking.
My recent work has largely focused on the worsening disaster in the Middle East and I’ve spoken to media outlets including CNN, Al Jazeera English, Sky News and others.
You can see these on my website and YouTube channel.
I’m an independent journalist without any institutional backing. If you’re able to support me financially, by donating money to continue this work, I’d hugely appreciate it.
The Australian Department of Defence (DoD) has shortlisted two foreign shipbuilders to develop a replacement for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN)’s ageing ANZAC-class frigates under the A$10 billion SEA3000 general-purpose frigate programme, it announced on 25 November. According to the DoD, the two downselected companies – out of an initial group of five shipbuilders – […]
![PNG police commissioner David Manning (center) flanked by Vanuatu Police Commissioner Robson Iavro (left), Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw (2nd right) and Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus at the PPI launch, pictured on Dec. 10, 2024. [Stefan Armbruster/BenarNews]](https://media.rnztools.nz/rnz/image/upload/s--VKcmxE_e--/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050/v1733947676/4KFAQQU_papacific_policing_initiative_2_jpeg?_a=BACCd2AD)
![Police ministers and chiefs from across the Pacific attended the launch of the PPI’s Pinkenba Hub, pictured on Dec. 10, 2024. [Stefan Armbruster/BenarNews]](https://media.rnztools.nz/rnz/image/upload/s--Zzq6dq4l--/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050/v1733947676/4KFAQQU_papacific_policing_initiative_1_jpeg?_a=BACCd2AD)
