At Papua New Guinea’s Post-Courier, our senior journalists often operate in the shadows, yet their courageous efforts are often overlooked — continuously pushing boundaries to bring us important stories that shape our lives and venturing outside their comfort zones to deliver top-notch content.
This is the tale of one of Post-Courier’s esteemed senior journalists, Gorethy Kenneth. From Tegese Village, Lontis on Buka Island in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, “GK” (Gee-Kay) as her colleagues fondly call her, has dedicated 23 years of her life to journalism at this newspaper.
When asked about who inspired her to pursue a career in media and journalism, she said, “My late father!” She mentions that she “always wanted to be an economist like her uncle Julius Longa”.
However, she states that “Maths was horrible . . . So, my late papa told me, I talk too much and should think about television — I ended up with newspaper reporting.”
Fast forward to 2024
Through her dedication and persistence, Kenneth is now a senior journalist within the company, specialising as a political editor. She commends the company for its commitment to well-researched investigative journalism, impartial reporting, comprehensive coverage, community involvement, thorough analysis, and informative content.
Starting off with Uni Tavur student journalist newspaper at the University of Papua New Guinea, Kenneth has amassed a wealth of experience as a profound writer and encountered different personalities over the years, noting numerous stories she covered during her tenure at the Post-Courier.
As a proud Bougainvillean, she highlights her interview with Francis Ona, the reclusive leader of her home province at the time. Reflecting on the experience, she remarks, “I was the first and last to interview him — the journey to get through to him was tough, despite my Bougainvillean heritage.”
Kenneth is known for her unique approach to investigative journalism. One memorable story she recalls, is about a scandalous love triangle between a former Secretary of Foreign Affairs and his secret lover, known as “Jolyne”.
Senior Post-Courier journalist Gorethy Kenneth . . . a distinguished career marked by championing significant projects and advocating for social change. Image: Post-Courier
Using a clever tactic, Kenneth assumed the identity of “Jolyne” and managed to reach the Secretary through a landline call, shedding light on the secretive affair. Amusingly, veteran journalists now refer to her as “Jolyne”, a nod to the character she ingeniously portrayed to deceive the unsuspecting Secretary.
In the early 2000s, she, alongside security reporter Robyn Sela, daringly stepped out of their comfort zone, orchestrating an audacious plan: deliberately getting themselves arrested and spending time in Boroko Jail.
Their goal? To delve into the conditions of a prison cell in Port Moresby and report on it firsthand. However, their scheme didn’t escape the notice of chief-of-staff Blaise Nangoi and editor Oseah Philemon, who, upon discovering their intentions, expressed concern.
“They almost sidelined us for getting bailed out with company money – BUT, we got our story,” she gladly remarked.
As one of Post-Courier’s prominent writers, Kenneth has faced numerous hurdles during her time as a journalist. She faced threats and legal disputes from unsatisfied readers and grappled with “ethical dilemmas” while covering sensitive topics — she has encountered her fair share of challenges.
Moreover, she has confronted issues surrounding gender and diversity during her career.
Senior Post-Courier journalist Gorethy Kenneth with her “big, big, big very big boss”, News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch. Image: Gorethy Kenneth/FB
In addition to these personal and professional obstacles, Kenneth highlights the impact of “digital disruption” on the newspaper industry. The transition from traditional print media to digital platforms, including the widespread use of social media and streaming services, has significantly challenged newspaper companies like the Post-Courier in recent years.
Fortunately, Kenneth managed to power through these challenges with the support of training and supervision provided by Post-Courier. She applauds the company for its unwavering support during trying times.
Additionally, she took proactive steps to enhance her understanding of journalistic issues, demonstrating her commitment to growth and professional development.
Gorethy Kenneth . . . proactive steps to enhance her understanding of journalistic issues, demonstrating her commitment to growth and professional development. Image: Post-Courier
Continuing to persevere, Gorethy forged a distinguished career marked by championing significant projects and advocating for social change. Armed with the ability to influence public opinion, she found her work as a journalist immensely rewarding.
Her career afforded her the opportunity to travel both locally and internationally, and she reported on stories rife with conflict and controversy. Furthermore, she finds fulfillment in the role of mentoring future journalists, cherishing the chance to impart her knowledge and experience onto the next generation.
When asked about what she is proud of, she says . . . “I am still 16 at heart – don’t tell me I’m old among my young journo colleagues.”
During her free time, she enjoys sipping on her whiskey and reading. She continues to support her family, friends, enemies and her community at a personal level and at a professional level as a senior journalist.
Republished from the Post-Courier with permission.
Reporting during the covid-19 pandemic in Papua New Guinea. Image: Post-Courier
Barely hours after being guest speaker at the University of the South Pacific‘s annual World Press Freedom Day event this week, Fiji media industry stalwart Stanley Simpson was forced to fend off local trolls whom he described as “hypocrites”.
“Attacked by both the Fiji Labour Party and ex-FijiFirst MPs in just one day,” chuckled Simpson in a quirky response on social media.
“Plus, it seems, by their very few supporters using myriads of fake accounts.
Simpson, secretary of the Fiji Media Association (FMA), media innovator, a founder and driving force of Mai TV, and a gold medallist back in his university student journalist days, was not taking any nonsense from his cyberspace critics, including Rajendra, the son of Labour Party leader and former prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry.
“I stand by my statements. And I love the attention now put on media freedom by those who went missing or turned a blind eye when it was under threat [under Voreqe Bainimarama’s regime post-2006 coup]. Time for them to own up and come clean.”
Briefly, this is the salvo that Simpson fired back after Rajendra Chaudhry’s comment “This Stanley Simpson fella . . . Did he organise any marches [against the Bainimarama takeover], did he organise any international attention, did he rally the people against the Bainimarama regime?” and other snipes from the trolls.
1. FLP [Fiji Labour Party]
At a period 2006-2007 when journalists were being bashed and beaten and media suppressed — the Fiji Labour Party and Chaudhry went silent as they lay in bed with the military regime.
“They try to gloss over it by saying the 1997 constitution was still intact. It was intact but useless because you ignored the gross human rights abuses against the media and political opponents.
“Where was FLP when Imraz, Laisa, Pita and Virisila were beaten? Where were they when Netani Rika, Kenneth Zinck, Momo, Makeli Radua were attacked and abused, when our Fiji Living Office was trashed and burnt down, and Pita and Dionisia put in jail cells like common criminals?
“It was when Chaudhry took on Fiji Water and it backfired and left the regime that they started to speak out. When Aiyaz [Sayed-Khaiyum, former Attorney-General] replaced him as No. 2. By then too late.
“Yes FLP — some of us who survived that period are still around and we still remember so you can’t rewrite what happened in 2006-2007 and change the narrative. You failed!”
“2. Alvick Maharaj [opposition MP for the FijiFirst Party]
“The funny thing about this statement is that I already knew last night this statement was coming out and who was writing it etc. I even shared with fellow editors and colleagues that the attacks were coming — and how useless and a waste of time it would be as it was being done by people who were silent and made hundreds of thousands of dollars while media were being suppressed [under the draconian Fiji Media Industry Development Act 2010 (MIDA) and other news crackdowns].
Troll-style swipes. Image: APR screenshot
“Ex-Fiji First MPs protecting their former PR colleagues for their platform which has been used to attack their political opponents. We can see through it all because we were not born yesterday and have experience in this industry. We can see what you are doing from a mile away. Its a joke.
“And your attacks on the [recent State Department] editors’ US trip is pathetic. Plus [about] the visit to Fiji Water.
“However, the positive I take from this — is that you now both say you believe in media freedom.
“Ok now practice it. Not only when it suits your agenda and because you are now in Opposition.
“You failed in the past when you governed — but we in the media will continue to endeavor to treat you fairly.
“Sometimes that also means calling you out.”
USP guest speech As guest speaker at USP, Simpson had this to say among making other points during his media freedom speech:
The USP World Press Freedom Day seminar on Monday. Image: USP/APR
“Journalists today work under the mega spotlight of social media and get attacked, ridiculed and pressured daily — but need to stay true to their journalism principles despite the challenges and pressures they are under.
“Today, we stand at a crossroads. To students here at USP — future journalists, leaders, and citizens — remember the previous chapter [under FijiFirst]. Understand the price paid for media freedom. Protect it fiercely. Speak out when it’s threatened, even if it’s unpopular or uncomfortable.
“To our nation’s leaders and influencers: defend a free media, even when it challenges you. A healthy democracy requires tolerance of criticism and commitment to transparency.”
Fiji rose four places to 40th (out of 180 nations) in the RSF 2025 World Press Freedom Index to make the country the Oceania media freedom leader outside of Australia (29) and New Zealand (16).
The New Zealand Māori Council and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa made a high profile appeal to Foreign Minister Winston Peters over Gaza today, calling for urgent action over humanitarian supplies for the besieged Palestinian enclave.
“Starving a civilian population is a clear breach of international humanitarian law and a war crime under the Rome Statute to the International Criminal Court,” said the open letter published by the two organisations as full page advertisements in three leading daily newspapers.
Noting that New Zealand has not joined the International Court of Justice for standing up to “condemn the use of starvation as a weapon of war”, the groups still called on the government to use its “internationally respected voice” to express solidarity for humanitarian aid.
The plea comes amid Israel’s increased attacks on Gaza which have killed at least 61 people since dawn, targeting civilians in crowded places and a Gaza City market.
The more than two-month blockade by the the enclave by Israel has caused acute food shortages, accelerating the starvation of the Palestinian population.
Israel has blocked all aid into Gaza — food, water, fuel and medical supplies — while more than 3000 trucks laden with supplies are stranded on the Egyptian border blocked from entry into Gaza.
At least 57 Palestinians have starved to death in Gaza as a result of Israel’s punishing blockade. The overall death toll, revised in view of bodies buried under the rubble, stands at 62,614 Palestinians and 1139 people killed in Israel.
The open letter, publlshed by three Stuff-owned titles — Waikato Times in Hamilton, The Post in the capital Wellington, and The Press in Christchurch, said:
Rt Hon Winston Peters Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston.Peters@parliament.govt.nz
Open letter requesting government action on the future of Gaza
Kia ora Mr Peters,
The situation in Occupied Gaza has reached another crisis point.
We urge our country to speak out and join other nations demanding humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
For more than two months, Israel has blocked all aid into Gaza — food, water, fuel and medical supplies. The World Food Programme says food stocks in Gaza are fully depleted. UNICEF says children face “growing risk of starvation, illness and death”. The International Committee of the Red Cross says “the humanitarian response in Gaza is on the verge of total collapse”.
Meanwhile, 3000 trucks laden with desperately needed aid are lined up at the Occupied Gaza border. Israeli occupation forces are refusing to allow them in.
Starving a civilian population is a clear breach of International Humanitarian Law and a War Crime under the Rome Statute to the International Criminal Court.
At the International Court of Justice many countries have stood up to condemn the use of starvation as a weapon of war and to demand accountability for Israel to end its industrial-scale killing of Palestinians in Gaza.
New Zealand has not joined that group. Our government has been silent to date.
After 18 months facing what the International Court of Justice has described as a “plausible genocide”, it is grievous that New Zealand does not speak out and act clearly against this ongoing humanitarian outrage.
Minister Peters, as Minister of Foreign Affairs you are in a position of leadership to carry New Zealand’s collective voice in support of humanitarian aid to Gaza to the world. We are asking you to speak on behalf of New Zealand to support the urgent international plea for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza and to initiate calls for a no-fly zone to be established over the region to prevent further mass killing of civilians.
We believe the way forward for peace and security for everyone in the region is for all parties to follow international law and United Nations resolutions, going back to UNGA 194 in 1948, so that a lasting peace can be established based on justice and equal rights for everyone.
New Zealand has an internationally respected voice — please use it to express solidarity for humanitarian aid to Gaza, today.
Nā
Ann Kendall QSM, Co-chair Tā Taihākurei Durie, Pou [cultural leader] NZ Māori Council
Maher Nazzal and John Minto, National Co-chairs Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA)
The NZ Māori Council and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa advertisement in New Zealand media today. Image: PSNA
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
After three solid days of talks in retreat mode, New Caledonia’s political parties have yet to reach an agreement on the French Pacific territory’s future status.
The talks, held with French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls and French Prime Minister’s special advisor Eric Thiers, have since Monday moved from Nouméa to a seaside resort in Bourail — on the west coast of the main island, about 200 km from the capital — in what has been labelled a “conclave”, a direct reference to this week’s meeting of Catholic cardinals in Rome to elect a new pope.
However, the Bourail conclave is yet to produce any kind of white smoke, and no one, as yet, claims “Habemus Pactum” to say that an agreement has been reached.
Under heavy security, representatives of both pro-France and pro-independence parties are being kept in isolation and are supposed to stay there until a compromise is found to define New Caledonia’s political future, and an agreement that would later serve as the basis for a pact designed to replace the Nouméa Accord that was signed in 1998.
The talks were supposed to conclude yesterday, but it has been confirmed that the discussions were going to last longer, at least one more day, probably well into the night.
Valls was initially scheduled to fly back to Paris today, but it has also been confirmed that he will stay longer.
Almost one year after civil unrest broke out in New Caledonia on 13 May 2024, leaving 14 dead and causing 2.2 billion euros (NZ$4.2 billion) in damage, the talks involve pro-France Les Loyalistes, Le Rassemblement, Calédonie Ensemble and pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), UNI-PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party).
Wallisian ‘third way’
Éveil Océanien, a Wallisian-based party, defends a “neither pro, nor against independence” line — what it calls a “third way”.
The talks, over the past few days, have been described as “tense but respectful”, with some interruptions at times.
The most sensitive issues among the numerous topics covered by the talks on New Caledonia’s future, are reported to be the question of New Caledonia’s future status and relationship to France.
Other sensitive topics include New Caledonia’s future citizenship and the transfer of remaining key powers (defence, law and order, currency, foreign affairs, justice) from Paris to Nouméa.
Valls, who is visiting New Caledonia for the third time since February 2025, said he would stay in New Caledonia “as long as necessary” for an inclusive and comprehensive agreement to be reached.
Earlier this week, Valls also likened the current situation as “walking on a tightrope above embers.”
“The choice is between an agreement and chaos,” he told local media.
Clashing demands
On both sides of the discussion table, local parties have all stated earlier that bearing in mind their respective demands, they were “not ready to sign at all costs.”
The FLNKS is demanding full sovereignty while on the pro-France side, that view is rejected after three referendums were held there between 2018 and 2021 said no to independence.
Valls’s approach was still trying to reconcile those two very antagonistic views, often described as “irreconcilable”.
“But the thread is not broken. Only more time is required”, local media quoted a close source as saying.
Last week, an earlier session of talks in Nouméa had to be interrupted due to severe frictions and disagreement from the pro-France side.
Speaking to public broadcaster NC la 1ère on Sunday, Rassemblement leader Virginie Ruffenach elaborated, saying “there had been profound elements of disagreements on a certain number of words uttered by the minister (Valls)”.
One of the controversial concepts, strongly opposed by the most radical pro-French parties, was a possible transfer of key powers from Paris to Nouméa, as part of a possible agreement.
Loyalists opposed to ‘independence-association’ “In what was advanced, the land of New Caledonia would no longer be a French land”, Ruffenach stressed on Sunday, adding this was “unacceptable” to her camp.
She also said the two main pro-France parties were opposed to any notion of “independence-association”.
“Neither Rassemblement, nor Les Loyalistes will sign for New Caledonia’s independence, let this be very clear.”
The pro-France camp is advocating for increased powers (including on tax matters) for each of the three provinces of New Caledonia, a solution sometimes regarded by critics as a form of partition of the French Pacific territory.
In a media release on Sunday, FLNKS “reaffirmed its . . . ultimate goal was Kanaky (New Caledonia’s) accession to full sovereignty”.
Series of fateful anniversaries On the general public level, a feeling of high expectations, but also wariness, seems to prevail at the news that discussions were still inconclusive.
In 1988, the Matignon-Oudinot peace talks between pro-independence leader at the time, Jean-Marie Tjibaou and pro-France leader Jacques Lafleur, were also held, in their final stage, in Paris, behind closed doors, under the close supervision of French Socialist Prime Minister Michel Rocard.
The present crucial talks also coincide with a series of fateful anniversaries in New Caledonia’s recent history — on 5 May 1988, French special forces ended a hostage situation and intervened on Ouvéa Island in the Gossana grotto, where a group of hard-line pro-independent militants had held a group of French gendarmes.
The human toll was heavy: 19 Kanak militants and 2 gendarmes were killed.
On 4 May 1989, one year after the Matignon-Oudinot peace accords were signed, Jean-Marie Tjibaou and his deputy Yeiwene Yeiwene were gunned down by hard-line pro-independence Kanak activist Djubelly Wea.
Valls attended most of these commemoration ceremonies at the weekend.
On 5 May 1998, the 27-year-old Nouméa Accord was signed between New Caledonia’s parties and then French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.
De facto Constitution
The Nouméa pact, which is often regarded as a de facto Constitution, was placing a particular stress on the notions of “re-balancing” economic wealth, a “common destiny” for all ethnic communities “living together” and a gradual transfer of powers from Paris to Nouméa.
The Accord also prescribed that if three self-determination referendums (initially scheduled between 2014 and 2018) had produced three rejections (in the form of “no”), then all political stakeholders were supposed to “meet and examine the situation thus generated”.
The current talks aimed at arriving at a new document, which was destined to replace the Nouméa Accord and bring New Caledonia closer to having its own Constitution.
Valls said he was determined to “finalise New Caledonia’s decolonisation” process.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
After 19 months of conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and drawn accusations of war crimes against Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu is once more preparing to escalate Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
The latest plan puts Israel on course for full occupation of the Palestinian territory and would drive Gazans into ever-narrowing pockets of the shattered strip.
It would lead to more intensive bombing and Israeli forces clearing and holding territory, while destroying what few structures remain in Gaza.
This would be a disaster for 2.2 million Gazans who have already endured unfathomable suffering.
Each new offensive makes it harder not to suspect that the ultimate goal of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition is to ensure Gaza is uninhabitable and drive Palestinians from their land. For two months, Israel has blocked delivery of all aid into the strip.
Child malnutrition rates are rising, the few functioning hospitals are running out of medicine, and warnings of starvation and disease are growing louder. Yet the US and European countries that tout Israel as an ally that shares their values have issued barely a word of condemnation.
They should be ashamed of their silence, and stop enabling Netanyahu to act with impunity.
In brief remarks on Sunday, US President Donald Trump acknowledged Gazans were “starving”, and suggested Washington would help get food into the strip.
But, so far, the US president has only emboldened Netanyahu. Trump returned to the White House promising to end the war in Gaza after his team helped broker a January ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Under the deal, Hamas agreed to free hostages in phases, while Israel was to withdraw from Gaza and the foes were to reach a permanent ceasefire.
But within weeks of the truce taking hold, Trump announced an outlandish plan for Gaza to be emptied of Palestinians and taken over by the US.
In March, Israel collapsed the ceasefire as it sought to change the terms of the deal, with Washington’s backing. Senior Israeli officials have since said they are implementing Trump’s plan to transfer Palestinians out of Gaza.
On Monday, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said: “We are finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip.”
Netanyahu insists an expanded offensive is necessary to destroy Hamas and free the 59 remaining hostages. The reality is that the prime minister has never articulated a clear plan since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack killed 1200 people and triggered the war.
Instead, he repeats his maximalist mantra of “total victory” while seeking to placate his extremist allies to ensure the survival of his governing coalition.
But Israel is also paying a price for his actions. The expanded offensive would imperil the lives of the hostages, further undermine Israel’s tarnished standing and deepen domestic divisions.
Israel has briefed that the expanded operation would not begin until after Trump’s visit to the Gulf next week, saying there is a “window” for Hamas to release hostages in return for a temporary truce.
Arab leaders are infuriated by Netanyahu’s relentless pursuit of conflict in Gaza yet they will fete Trump at lavish ceremonies with promises of multibillion-dollar investments and arms deals.
Trump will put the onus on Hamas when speaking to his Gulf hosts. The group’s murderous October 7 attack is what triggered the Israeli offensive.
Gulf states agree that its continued stranglehold on Gaza is a factor prolonging the war. But they must stand up to Trump and convince him to pressure Netanyahu to end the killing, lift the siege and return to talks.
The global tumult triggered by Trump has already distracted attention from the catastrophe in Gaza. Yet the longer it goes on, the more those who remain silent or cowed from speaking out will be complicit.
The author of the book Eyes of Fire, one of the countless publications on the Rainbow Warrior bombing almost 40 years ago but the only one by somebody actually on board the bombed ship, says he was under no illusions that France was behind the attack.
Eyes of Fire . . . the earlier 30th anniversary edition in 2015. Image: Little Island Press/DR
“You know with the horrible things they were doing at the time with their colonial policies in Kanaky New Caledonia, assassinating independence leaders and so on, and they had a heavy military presence.
“A sort of clamp down in New Caledonia, so it just fitted in with the pattern — an absolute disregard for the Pacific.”
He said it was ironic that four decades on, France had trashed the goodwill that had been evolving with the 1988 Matignon and 1998 Nouméa accords towards independence with harsh new policies that led to the riots in May last year.
Dr Robie’s series of books on the Rainbow Warrior focus on the impact of nuclear testing by both the Americans and the French, in particular, on Pacific peoples and especially the humanitarian voyages to relocate the Rongelap Islanders in the Marshall Islands barely two months before the bombing at Marsden wharf in Auckland on 10 July 1985.
Plantu’s cartoon on the Rainbow Warrior bombers from the slideshow. Image: David Robie/Plantu
“This edition is the most comprehensive work on the sinking of the first Rainbow Warrior, but also speaks to the first humanitarian mission undertaken by Greenpeace,” said publisher Tony Murrow.
“It’s an important work that shows us how we can act in the world and how we must continue to support all life on this unusual planet that is our only home.”
Little Island Press produced an educational microsite as a resource to accompany Eyes of Fire with print, image and video resources.
The book will be launched in association with a nuclear-free Pacific exhibition at Ellen Melville Centre in mid-July.
Samoa has dropped in its media and information freedom world ranking from 22 in 2024 to 44 in 2025 in the latest World Press Freedom Index compiled annually by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
The 2025 World Press Freedom Index released in conjunction with the annual Media Freedom Day on May 3, says despite the vitality of some of its media groups, Samoa’s reputation as a regional model of press freedom has suffered in recent years due to “authoritarian pressure” from the previous prime minister and a political party that held power for four decades until 2021.
Media landscape
The report lists independent media outlets such as the Samoa Observer, “an independent daily founded in 1978, that has symbolised the fight for press freedom.”
It also lists state-owned Savali newspaper “that focuses on providing positive coverage of the government’s activities.”
TV1, is the product of the privatisation of the state-owned Samoa Broadcasting Corporation. The Talamua group operates Samoa FM and other media outlets, while the national radio station 2AP calls itself “the Voice of the Nation.”
Political context
Although Samoa is a parliamentary democracy with free elections, the Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) held power for four decades until it was narrowly defeated in the April 2021 general election by Samoa United in Faith (Faʻatuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi, or FAST).
An Oceania quick check list on the 2025 RSF World Press Freedom rankings. While RSF surveys 180 countries each year, only Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, and Tonga are included so far. Image: PMW from RSF
The report says part of the reason for the HRPP’s defeat was its plan to overhaul Samoa’s constitutional and customary law framework, which would have threatened freedom of the press.
Championing media freedom
The Journalists Association of (Western) Samoa (JAWS) is the national media association and is press freedom’s leading champion. JAWS spearheaded a media journalism studies programme based at the National University of Samoa in the effort to train journalists and promote media freedom but the course is not producing the quality journalism students needed as its focus, time and resources have been given the course.
Meanwhile, the media standards continue to slide and there is fear that the standards will drop further in the face of rapid technological changes and misinformation via social media.
A new deal for journalism The 2025 World Press Freedom Index by RSF revealed the dire state of the news economy and how it severely threatens newsrooms’ editorial independence and media pluralism.
In light of this alarming situation, RSF has called on public authorities, private actors and regional institutions to commit to a “New Deal for Journalism” by following 11 key recommendations.
Strengthen media literacy and journalism training
Part of this deal is “supporting reliable information means that everyone should be trained from an early age to recognise trustworthy information and be involved in media education initiatives. University and higher education programmes in journalism must also be supported, on the condition that they are independent.”
Finland (5th) is recognised worldwide for its media education, with media literacy programmes starting in primary school, contributing to greater resilience against disinformation.
To mark the release of the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) partnered with the agency The Good Company to launch a new awareness campaign that puts an ironic twist on the glossy advertising of the tourism industry.
Three out of six countries featured in the exposé are from the Asia Pacific region — but none from the Pacific Islands.
The campaign shines a stark light on the press freedom violations in countries that seem perfect on postcards but are highly dangerous for journalists, says RSF.
Disguised as attractive travel guides, the campaign’s visuals use a cynical, impactful rhetoric to highlight the harsh realities journalists face in destinations renowned for their tourist appeal.
Along with Indonesia, Greece (89th), Cambodia (115), Egypt (170), Mexico (124) and the Philippines (116) are all visited by millions of tourists, yet they rank poorly in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, reports RSF.
‘Chilling narrative’
“The attention-grabbing visuals juxtapose polished, enticing aesthetics with a chilling narrative of intimidation, censorship, violence, and even death.
“This deliberately unsettling approach by RSF aims to shift the viewer’s perspective, showing what the dreamlike imagery conceals: journalists imprisoned, attacked, or murdered behind idyllic landscapes.”
The RSF Index 2025 teaser. Video: RSF
Indonesia is in the Pacific spotlight because of its Melanesian Papuan provinces bordering Pacific Islands Forum member country Papua New Guinea.
Despite outgoing President Joko Widodo’s 10 years in office and a reformist programme, his era has been marked by a series of broken promises, reports RSF.
“The media oligarchy linked to political interests has grown stronger, leading to increased control over critical media and manipulation of information through online trolls, paid influencers, and partisan outlets,” says the Index report.
“This climate has intensified self-censorship within media organisations and among journalists.
“Since October 2024, Indonesia has been led by a new president, former general Prabowo Subianto — implicated in several human rights violation allegations — and by Joko Widodo’s eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as vice-president.
“Under this new administration, whose track record on press freedom offers little reassurance, concerns are mounting over the future of independent journalism.”
Fiji leads in Pacific
In the Pacific, Fiji has led the pack among island states by rising four places to 40th overall, making it the leading country in Oceania in 2025 in terms of press freedom.
A quick summary of Oceania rankings in the 2025 RSF World Press Freedom Index. Image: RSF/PMW
Both Timor-Leste, which dropped 19 places to 39th after heading the region last year, and Samoa, which plunged 22 places to 44th, lost their impressive track record.
Of the only other two countries in Oceania surveyed by RSF, Tonga rose one place to 46th and Papua New Guinea jumped 13 places to 78th, a surprising result given the controversy over its plans to regulate the media.
RSF reports that the Fiji Media Association (FMA), which was often critical of the harassment of the media by the previous FijiFirst government, has since the repeal of the Media Act in 2023 “worked hard to restore independent journalism and public trust in the media”.
In March 2024, research published in Journalism Practice journal found that sexual harassment of women journalists was widespread and needed to be addressed to protect media freedom and quality journalism.
In Timor-Leste, “politicians regard the media with some mistrust, which has been evidenced in several proposed laws hostile to press freedom, including one in 2020 under which defaming representatives of the state or Catholic Church would have been punishable by up to three years in prison.
“Journalists’ associations and the Press Council often criticise politicisation of the public broadcaster and news agency.”
On the night of September 4, 2024, Timorese police arrested Antonieta Kartono Martins, a reporter for the news site Diligente Online, while covering a police operation to remove street vendors from a market in Dili, the capital. She was detained for several hours before being released.
Samoan harassment
Previously enjoying a good media freedom reputation, journalists and their families in Samoa were the target of online death threats, prompting the Samoan Alliance of Media Professionals for Development (SAMPOD) to condemn the harassment as “attacks on the fourth estate and democracy”.
In Tonga, RSF reports that journalists are not worried about being in any physical danger when on the job, and they are relatively unaffected by the possibility of prosecution.
“Nevertheless, self-censorship continues beneath the surface in a tight national community.”
In Papua New Guinea, RSF reports journalists are faced with intimidation, direct threats, censorship, lawsuits and bribery attempts, “making it a dangerous profession”.
“And direct interference often threatens the editorial freedom at leading media outlets. This was seen yet again at EMTV in February 2022, when the entire newsroom was fired after walking out” in protest over a management staffing decison.
“There has been ongoing controversy since February 2023 concerning a draft law on media development backed by Communications Minister Timothy Masiu. In January 2024, a 14-day state of emergency was declared in the capital, Port Moresby, following unprecedented protests by police forces and prison wardens.”
This impacted on government and media relations.
Australia and New Zealand
In Australia (29), the media market’s heavy concentration limits the diversity of voices represented in the news, while independent outlets struggle to find a sustainable economic model.
While New Zealand (16) leads in the Asia Pacific region, it is also facing a similar situation to Australia with a narrowing of media plurality, closure or merging of many newspaper titles, and a major retrenchment of journalists in the country raising concerns about democracy.
Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.
A leading Cook Islands environmental lobby group is hoping that the Cook Islands government will speak out against the recent executive order from US President Donald Trump aimed at fast-tracking seabed mining.
Te Ipukarea Society (TIS) says the arrogance of US president Trump to think that he could break international law by authorising deep seabed mining in international waters was “astounding”, and an action of a “bully”.
The order states: “It is the policy of the US to advance United States leadership in seabed mineral development.”
NOAA has been directed to, within 60 days, “expedite the process for reviewing and issuing seabed mineral exploration licenses and commercial recovery permits in areas beyond national jurisdiction under the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act.”
It directs the US science and environmental agency to expedite permits for companies to mine the ocean floor in the US and international waters.
In addition, a Canadian mining company — The Metals Company — has indicated that they have applied for a permit from Trump’s administration to start commercially mining in international waters.
The mining company had been unsuccessful in gaining a commercial mining licence through the International Seabed Authority (ISA).
‘Arrogance of Trump’
Te Ipukarea Society’s technical director Kelvin Passfield told Cook Islands News: “The arrogance of Donald Trump to think that he can break international law by authorising deep seabed mining in international waters is astounding.
“The United States cannot pick and choose which aspects of the United Nations Law of the Sea it will follow, and which ones it will ignore. This is the action of a bully,” he said.
“It is reckless and completely dismissive of the international rule of law. At the moment we have 169 countries, plus the European Union, all recognising international law under the International Seabed Authority.
“For one country to start making new international rules for themselves is a dangerous notion, especially if it leads to other States thinking they too can also breach international law with no consequences,” he said.
TIS president June Hosking said the fact that a part of the Pacific (CCZ) was carved up and shared between nations all over the world was yet another example of “blatantly disregarding or overriding indigenous rights”.
“I can understand why something had to be done to protect the high seas from rogues having a ‘free for all’, but it should have been Pacific indigenous and first nations groups, within and bordering the Pacific, who decided what happened to the high seas.
“That’s the first nations groups, not for example, the USA as it is today.”
South American countries worried
Hosking highlighted that at the March International Seabed Authority (ISA) assembly she attended it was obvious that South American countries were worried.
“Many have called for a moratorium. Portugal rightly pointed out that we were all there, at great cost, just for a commercial activity. The delegate said, ‘We must ask ourselves how does this really benefit all of humankind?’
Looking at The Metals Company’s interests to commercially mine in international waters, Hosking said, “I couldn’t help being annoyed that all this talk assumes mining will happen.
“ISA was formed at a time when things were assumed about the deep sea e.g. it’s just a desert down there, nothing was known for sure, we didn’t speak of climate crisis, waste crisis and other crises now evident.
“The ISA mandate is ‘to ensure the effective protection of the marine environment from the harmful effects that may arise from deep seabed related activities.
“We know much more (but still not enough) to consider that effective protection of the marine environment may require it to be declared a ‘no go zone’, to be left untouched for the good of humankind,” she added.
Meanwhile, technical director Passfield also added, “The audacity of The Metals Company (TMC) to think they can flaunt international law in order to get an illegal mining licence from the United States to start seabed mining in international waters is a sad reflection of the morality of Gerard Barron and others in charge of TMC.
‘What stops other countries?’
“If the USA is allowed to authorise mining in international waters under a domestic US law, what is stopping any other country in the world from enacting legislation and doing the same?”
He said that while the Metals Company may be frustrated at the amount of time that the International Seabed Authority is taking to finalise mining rules for deep seabed mining, “we are sure they fully understand that this is for good reason. The potentially disastrous impacts of mining our deep ocean seabed need to be better understood, and this takes time.”
He said that technology and infrastructure to mine is not in place yet.
“We need to take as much time as we need to ensure that if mining proceeds, it does not cause serious damage to our ocean. Their attempts to rush the process are selfish, greedy, and driven purely by a desire to profit at any cost to the environment.
“We hope that the Cook Islands Government speaks out against this abuse of international law by the United States.” Cook Islands News has reached out to the Office of the Prime Minister and Seabed Minerals Authority (SBMA) for comment.
Republished from the Cook Islands News with permission.
Entities and individuals that thrived under the previous government with public relations contracts now want to be part of the media or run media organisations, says Fiji Media Association (FMA) secretary Stanley Simpson.
He made the comments yesterday while speaking at a World Press Freedom Day event hosted by the journalism programme at the University of the South Pacific.
“We were attacked by fake accounts and a government-funded propaganda machine,” he said.
“It is ironic that those who once spinned and attacked the media as irrelevant — because they said no one reads or watches them anymore — now want to be part of the media or run media organisations.”
“There are entities and individuals that thrived under the previous government with PR contracts while the media struggled and now want to come and join the hard-fought new media landscape.”
Simpson said the Fijian media fraternity would welcome credible news services.
“We have to be wary and careful of entities that pop up overnight and their real agendas.”
“Particularly those previously involved with political propaganda.
“And we are noticing a number of these sites seemingly working with political parties and players in pushing agendas and attacking the media and political opponents.”
Among the many lessons to be learnt by Australia’s defeated Liberal-National coalition parties from the election is that they should stop getting into bed with News Corporation.
Why would a political party outsource its policy platform and strategy to people with plenty of opinions, but no experience in actually running a government?
The result of the federal election suggests that unlike the coalition, many Australians are ignoring the opinions of News Corp Australia’s leading journalists such as Andrew Bolt and Sharri Markson.
Last Thursday, in her eponymous programme on Sky News Australia, Markson said:
For the first time in my journalistic career I’m going to also offer a pre-election editorial, endorsing one side of politics […] A Dutton prime ministership would give our great nation the fresh start we deserve.
Sharri Markson issues own Dutton endorsement as ACM says ‘Australia is Tanya Plibersek’https://t.co/UYh0xKeXPR
After a vote count that sees the Labor government returned with an increased majority, Bolt wrote a piece for the Herald Sunadmonishing voters:
No, the voters aren’t always right. This time they were wrong, and this gutless and incoherent Coalition should be ashamed. Australians just voted for three more years of a Labor government that’s left this country poorer, weaker, more divided and deeper in debt, and which won only by telling astonishing lies.
That’s staggering. If that’s what voters really like, then this country is going to get more of it, good and hard.
The Australian and most of News’ tabloid newspapers endorsed the coalition in their election eve editorials.
Repudiation of minor culture war
The election result was a repudiation of the minor culture war Peter Dutton reprised during the campaign when he advised voters to steer clear of the ABC and “other hate media”. It may have felt good alluding to “leftie-woke” tropes about the ABC, but it was a tactical error.
The message probably resonated only with rusted-on hardline coalition voters and supporters of right-wing minor parties.
But they were either voting for the coalition, or sending them their preferences, anyway. Instead, attacking the ABC sent a signal to the people the coalition desperately needed to keep onside — the moderates who already felt disappointed by the coalition’s drift to the right and who were considering voting Teal or for another independent.
Attacking just about the most trusted media outlet in the country simply gave those voters another reason to believe the coalition no longer represented their values.
Reporting from the campaign bus is often derided as shallow form of election coverage. Reporters tend to be captive to a party’s agenda and don’t get to look much beyond a leader’s message.
But there was real value in covering Dutton’s daily stunts and doorstops, often in the outer suburbs that his electoral strategy relied on winning over.
What was revealed by having journalists on the bus was the paucity of policy substance. Details about housing affordability and petrol pricing — which voters desperately wanted to hear — were little more than sound bites.
Steered clear of nuclear sites
This was obvious by Dutton’s second visit to a petrol station, and yet there were another 15 to come. The fact that the campaign bus steered clear of the sites for proposed nuclear plants was also telling.
— C h r i s @chrishehim.bsky.social (@ChrisHeHim1) May 4, 2025
The grind of daily coverage helped expose the lateness of policy releases, the paucity of detail and the lack of preparation for the campaign, let alone for government.
On ABC TV’s Insiders, the Nine Newspapers’ political editor, David Crowe, wondered whether the media has been too soft on Dutton, rather than too hard as some coalition supporters might assume.
He reckoned that if the media had asked more difficult questions months ago, Dutton might have been stress-tested and better prepared before the campaign began.
Instead, the coalition went into the election believing it would be enough to attack Labor without presenting a fully considered alternative vision. Similarly, it would suffice to appear on friendly media outlets such as News Corp, and avoid more searching questions from the Canberra press gallery or on the ABC.
Reporters and commentators across the media did a reasonable job of exposing this and holding the opposition to account. The scrutiny also exposed its increasingly desperate tactics late in the campaign, such as turning on Welcome to Country ceremonies.
If many Australians appear more interested in what their prospective political leaders have to say about housing policy or climate change than the endless culture wars being waged by the coalition, that message did not appear to have been heard by Peta Credlin.
The Sky News Australia presenter and former chief-of-staff to prime minister Tony Abbott said during Saturday night’s election coverage “I’d argue we didn’t do enough of a culture war”.
On this World Press Freedom Day, we in the Pacific stand together to defend and promote the right to freedom of expression — now facing new and complex challenges in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
This year’s global theme is “Reporting a Brave New World: The impact of Artificial Intelligence on Press Freedom.”
AI is changing the way we gather, share, and consume information. It offers exciting tools that can help journalists work faster and reach more people, even across our scattered islands.
But AI also brings serious risks. It can be used to spread misinformation, silence voices, and make powerful tech companies the gatekeepers of what people see and hear.
In the Pacific, our media are already working with limited resources. Now we face even greater pressure as AI tools are used without fair recognition or payment to those who create original content.
Our small newsrooms struggle to compete with global platforms that are reshaping the media landscape.
We must not allow AI to weaken media freedom, independence, or diversity in our region.
Respect our Pacific voices
Instead, we must ensure that new technologies serve our people, respect our voices, and support the role of journalism in democracy and development.
Today, PINA calls for stronger regional collaboration to understand and manage the impact of AI. We urge governments, tech companies, and development partners to support Pacific media in building digital skills, protecting press freedom, and ensuring fair use of our content.
Let us ensure that the future of journalism in the Pacific is guided by truth, fairness, and freedom — not by unchecked algorithms.
Happy World Press Freedom to all media workers across the Pacific!
Kalafi Moala is president of the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) and also editor of Talanoa ‘o Tonga. Republished from TOT with permission.
An international NGO seeking to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza by sea says it has been in talks with Malta’s government about allowing a ship to enter Maltese waters to repair damage caused by a drone attack.
The ship named Conscience, operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), suffered damage to its front section including a loss of power when it was hit by two drones just outside Maltese territorial waters in the central Mediterranean early on Friday, the NGO said yesterday.
The coalition, an international non-governmental group, blamed Israel — which has blockaded, bombarded and starved Gaza — for the attack, reports Al Jazeera.
The Conscience, which set off from Tunisia, had been waiting to take on board some 30 peace and humanitarian activists from around the world before trying to sail to Gaza in the eastern Mediterranean.
The ship had been trying to deliver aid, including food and medicines, to the besieged enclave, where aid groups warn people are struggling to survive following a two-month total blockade by Israel.
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg said she was in Malta and had been planning to board the ship as part of the flotilla.
Prime Minister Robert Abela said yesterday that Malta was prepared to assist the ship with necessary repairs so that it could continue on its journey, once it was satisfied that the vessel held only humanitarian aid.
Ensuring safety
Coalition officials said yesterday that the ship was in no danger of sinking, but that they wanted to ensure it would be safe from further attacks while undergoing repairs, and able to sail out again.
Earlier yesterday, the coalition accused Malta of impeding access to its ship. Malta denied the claim, saying the crew had refused assistance and even refused to allow a surveyor on board to assess the damage.
Maltese authorities must permit the ‘Conscience’ immediate safe passage into Maltese waters, and provide all needed assistance as well as protection for the ship and all those on board. #BreakTheSiegehttps://t.co/4da8t80adJ
— Freedom Flotilla Coalition (@GazaFFlotilla) May 4, 2025
“The FFC would like to clarify our commitment to engagement with [Maltese] authorities to expedite the temporary docking of our ship for repairs and surveyors, so we can continue on the urgent humanitarian mission to Gaza,” the coalition said in a statement later in the day.
A Malta government spokesman said its offer was to assist in repairs out at sea once the boat’s cargo was verified to be aid.
Coalition officials said the surveyor was welcome to board as part of a deal being negotiated with Malta.
Israel blocked humitarian aid
Israel halted humanitarian aid to Gaza two months ago, shortly before it broke a ceasefire and restarted its war against Hamas, which has devastated the Palestinian enclave and killed more than 62,000 people.
Another NGO ship on a similar mission to Gaza in 2010 was stopped and boarded by Israeli troops, and nine activists were killed with a wounded 10th victim dying later. Other such ships have similarly been stopped and boarded, with activists arrested.
The New Zealand humanitarian charity Kia Ora Gaza is affiliated with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and a number of New Zealanders have participated in the FFC efforts to break the siege over the past decade.
Hamas issued a statement about the attack off Malta, accusing Israel of “piracy” and “state terrorism”.
Nauru’s ambition to commercially mine the seabed is likely at risk following President Donald Trump’s executive order last month aimed at fast-tracking ocean mining, anti-deep sea mining advocates warn.
The order also increases instability in the Pacific region because it effectively circumvents long-standing international sea laws and processes by providing an alternative path to mine the seabed, advocates say.
Titled Unleashing America’s Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources, the order was signed by Trump on April 25. It directs the US science and environmental agency to expedite permits for companies to mine the ocean floor in US and international waters.
It has been condemned by legal and environmental experts around the world, particularly after Canadian mining group The Metals Company announced last Tuesday it had applied to commercially mine in international waters through the US process.
The Metals Company has so far been unsuccessful in gaining a commercial mining licence through the International Seabed Authority (ISA).
Currently, the largest area in international waters being explored for commercial deep sea mining is the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, located in the central Pacific Ocean. The vast area sits between Hawai’i, Kiribati and Mexico, and spans 4.5 million sq km.
The area is of high commercial interest because it has an abundance of polymetallic nodules that contain valuable metals like cobalt, nickel, manganese and copper, which are used to make products such as smartphones and electric batteries. The minerals are also used in weapons manufacturing.
Benefits ‘for humankind as a whole’
Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the Clarion-Clipperton Zone falls under the jurisdiction of the ISA, which was established in 1994. That legislation states that any benefits from minerals extracted in its jurisdiction must be for “humankind as a whole”.
Nauru — alongside Tonga, Kiribati and the Cook Islands — has interests in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone after being allocated blocks of the area through UNCLOS. They are known as sponsor states.
In total, there are 19 sponsor states in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
Nauru is leading the charge for deep sea mining in international waters. Image: RNZ Pacific/Caleb Fotheringham
Nauru and The Metals Company Since 2011, Nauru has partnered with The Metals Company to explore and assess its block in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone for commercial mining activity.
It has done this through an ISA exploration licence.
At the same time, the ISA, which counts all Pacific nations among its 169-strong membership, has also been developing a commercial mining code. That process began in 2014 and is ongoing.
The process has been criticised by The Metals Company as effectively blocking it and Nauru’s commercial mining interests.
Both have sought to advance their respective interests in different ways.
In 2021, Nauru took the unprecedented step of utilising a “two-year” notification period to initiate an exploitation licencing process under the ISA, even though a commercial seabed mining code was still being developed.
An ISA commercial mining code, once finalised, is expected to provide the legal and technical regulations for exploitation of the seabed.
In the absence of a code
However, according to international law, in the absence of a code, should a plan for exploitation be submitted to the ISA, the body is required to provisionally accept it within two years of its submission.
While Nauru ultimately delayed enforcing the two-year rule, it remains the only state to ever invoke it under the ISA. It has also stated that it is “comfortable with being a leader on these issues”.
To date, the ISA has not issued a licence for exploitation of the seabed.
Meanwhile, The Metals Company has emphasised the economic potential of deep sea mining and its readiness to begin commercial activities. It has also highlighted the potential value of minerals sitting on the seabed in Nauru’s block in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
“[The block represents] 22 percent of The Metals Company’s estimated resource in the [Clarion-Clipperton Zone and] . . . is ranked as having the largest underdeveloped nickel deposit in the world,” the company states on its website.
Its announcement on Tuesday revealed it had filed three applications for mining activity in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone under the US pathway. One application is for a commercial mining permit. Two are for exploration permits.
The announcement added further fuel to warnings from anti-deep sea mining advocates that The Metals Company is pivoting away from Nauru and arrangements under the ISA.
Last year, the company stated it intended to submit a plan for commercial mining to the ISA on June 27 so it could begin exploitation operations by 2026.
This date appears to have been usurped by developments under Trump, with the company saying on Tuesday that its US permit application “advances [the company’s] timeline ahead” of that date.
The Trump factor Trump’s recent executive order is critical to this because it specifically directs relevant US government agencies to reactivate the country’s own deep sea mining licence process that had largely been unused over the past 40 years.
President Donald Trump signs a proclamation in the Oval Office at the White House last month expanding fishing rights in the Pacific Islands to an area he described as three times the size of California. Image: RNZ screenshot APR
That legislation, the Deep Sea Hard Mineral Resources Act, states the US can grant mining permits in international waters. It was implemented in 1980 as a temporary framework while the US worked towards ratifying the UNCLOS Treaty. Since then, only four exploration licences have been issued under the legislation.
To date, the US is yet to ratify UNCLOS.
At face value, the Deep Sea Hard Mineral Resources Act offers an alternative licensing route to commercial seabed activity in the high seas to the ISA. However, any cross-over between jurisdictions and authorities remains untested.
Now, The Metals Company appears to be operating under both in the same area of international waters — the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
Deep Sea Conservation Coalition’s Pacific regional coordinator Phil McCabe said it was unclear what would happen to Nauru.
“This announcement really appears to put Nauru as a partner of the company out in the cold,” McCabe said.
No Pacific benefit mechanism
“If The Metals Company moves through the US process, it appears that there is no mechanism or no need for any benefit to go to the Pacific Island sponsoring states because they sponsor through the ISA, not the US,” he said.
McCabe, who is based in Aotearoa New Zealand, highlighted extensive investment The Metals Company had poured into the Nauru block over more than 10 years.
He said it was in the company’s financial interests to begin commercial mining as soon as possible.
“If The Metals Company was going to submit an application through the US law, it would have to have a good measure of environmental data on the area that it wants to mine, and the only area that it has that data [for] is the Nauru block,” McCabe said.
He also pointed out that the size of the Nauru block The Metals Company had worked on in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone was the same as a block it wanted to commercially mine through US legislation.
Both are exactly 25,160 sq km, McCabe said.
RNZ Pacific asked The Metals Company to clarify whether its US application applied to Nauru and Tonga’s blocks. The company said it would “be able to confirm details of the blocks in the coming weeks”.
It also said it intended to retain its exploration contracts through the ISA that were sponsored by Nauru and Tonga, respectively.
Cook Islands nodule field – photo taken within Cook Islands EEZ. Image: Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Authority
Pacific Ocean a ‘new frontier’ Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) associate Maureen Penjueli had similar observations to McCabe regarding the potential impacts of Trump’s executive order.
Trump’s order, and The Metals Company ongoing insistence to commercially mine the ocean, was directly related to escalating geopolitical competition, she told RNZ Pacific.
“There are a handful of minerals that are quite critical for all kinds of weapons development, from tankers to armour like nuclear weapons, submarines, aircraft,” she said.
Currently, the supply and processing of minerals in that market, which includes iron, lithium, copper, cobalt and graphite, is dominated by China.
Between 40 and 90 percent of the world’s rare earth minerals are processed by China, Penjueli said. The variation is due to differences between individual minerals.
As a result, both Europe and the US are heavily dependent on China for these minerals, which according to Penjueli, has massive implications.
“On land, you will see the US Department of Defense really trying to seek alternative [mineral] sources,” Penjueli said.
“Now, it’s extended to minerals in the seabed, both within [a country’s exclusive economic zone], but also in areas beyond national jurisdictions, such as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, which is here in the Pacific. That is around the geopolitical [competition] . . . and the US versus China positioning.”
Notably, Trump’s executive order on the US seabed mining licence process highlights the country’s reliance on overseas mineral supply, particularly regarding security and defence implications.
He said the US wanted to advance its leadership in seabed mineral development by “strengthening partnerships with allies and industry to counter China’s growing influence over seabed mineral resources”.
The Metals Company and the US She believed The Metals Company had become increasingly focused on security and defence needs.
Initially, the company had framed commercial deep sea mining as essential for the world’s transition to green energies, she said. It had used that language when referring to its relationships with Pacific states like Nauru, Penjueli said.
However, the company had also begun pitching US policy makers under the Biden administration over the need to acquire critical minerals from the seabed to meet US security and defence needs, she said.
Since Trump’s re-election, it had also made a series of public announcements praising US government decisions that prioritised deep sea mining development for defence and security purposes.
In a press release on Trump’s executive order, The Metals Company chief executive Gerard Barron said the company had enough knowledge to manage the environmental risks of deep sea mining.
“Over the last decade, we’ve invested over half a billion dollars to understand and responsibly develop the nodule resource in our contract areas,” Barron said.
“We built the world’s largest environmental dataset on the [Clarion-Clipperton Zone], carefully designed and tested an off-shore collection system that minimises the environmental impacts and followed every step required by the International Seabed Authority.
“What we need is a regulator with a robust regulatory regime, and who is willing to give our application a fair hearing. That’s why we’ve formally initiated the process of applying for licenses and permits under the existing US seabed mining code,” Barron said.
ISA influenced by opposition faction
The Metals Company directed RNZ Pacific to a statement on its website in response to an interview request.
The statement, signed by Barron, said the ISA was being influenced by a faction of states aligned with environmental NGOs that opposed the deep sea mining industry.
Barron also disputed any contraventions of international law under the US regime, and said the country has had “a fully developed regulatory regime” for commercial seabed mining since 1989.
“The ISA has neither the mining code nor the willingness to engage with their commercial contractors,” Barron said. “In full compliance with international law, we are committed to delivering benefits to our developing state partners.”
President Trump’s executive order marks America’s return to “leadership in this exciting industry”, claims The Metals Company. Note the name “Gulf of America” on this map was introduced by President Trump in a controversial move, but the rest of the world regards it as the Gulf of Mexico, as recognised by officially recognised by the International Hydrographic Organisation. Image: Facebook/The Metals Company
‘It’s an America-first move’
Despite Barron’s observations, Penjueli and McCabe believed The Metals Company and the US were side-stepping international law, placing Pacific nations at risk.
McCabe said Pacific nations benefitted from UNCLOS, which gives rights over vast oceanic territories.
“It’s an America-first move,” said McCabe who believes the actions of The Minerals Company and the US are also a contravention of international law.
There are also significant concerns that Trump’s executive order has effectively triggered a race to mine the Pacific seabed for minerals that will be destined for military purposes like weapons systems manufacturing, Penjueli said.
Unlike UNCLOS, the US deep sea mining legislation does not stipulate that minerals from international waters must be used for peaceful purposes.
Deep Sea Conservation Coalition’s Duncan Currie believes this is another tricky legal point for Nauru and other sponsor states in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
Potentially contravene international law
For example, should Nauru enter a commercial mining arrangement with The Metals Company and the US under US mining legislation, any royalties that may eventuate could potentially contravene international law, Currie said.
First, the process would be outside the ISA framework, he said.
Second, UNCLOS states that any benefits from seabed mining in international waters must benefit all of “humankind”.
Therefore, Currie said, royalties earned in a process that cannot be scrutinised by the ISA likely did not meet that stipulation.
Third, he said, if the extracted minerals were used for military purposes — which was a focus of Trump’s executive order — then it likely violates the principle that the seabed should only be exploited for peaceful purposes.
“There really are a host of very difficult legal issues that arise,” he added.
The Metals Company says ISA is being influenced by a faction of states aligned with environmental NGOs that oppose the deep sea mining industry. Image: Facebook/The Metals Company/RNZ
The road ahead Now more than ever, anti-deep sea mining advocates believe a moratorium on the practice is necessary.
Penjueli, echoing Currie’s concerns, said there was too much uncertainty with two potential avenues to commercial mining.
“The moratorium call is quite urgent at this point,” she said.
“We simply don’t know what [these developments] mean right now. What are the implications if The Metals Company decides to dump its Pacific state sponsored partners? What does it mean for the legal tenements that they hold in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone?”
In that instance, Nauru, which has spearheaded the push for commercial seabed mining alongside The Metals Company, may be particularly exposed.
Currently, more than 30 countries have declared support for a moratorium on deep sea mining. Among them are Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, New Caledonia, Palau, Samoa, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Tuvalu.
On the other hand, Nauru, Kiribati, Tonga, and the Cook Islands all support deep sea mining.
Australia has not explicitly called for a moratorium on the practice, but it has also refrained from supporting it.
New Zealand supported a moratorium on deep sea mining under the previous Labour government. The current government is reportedly reconsidering this stance.
RNZ Pacific contacted the Nauru government for comment but did not receive a response.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Australia (ranked 29th) and New Zealand (ranked 16th) are cited as positive examples by Reporters Without Borders in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index of commitment to public media development aid, showing support through regional media development such as in the Pacific Islands.
The 2025 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has revealed the dire state of the news economy and how it severely threatens newsrooms’ editorial independence and media pluralism.
In light of this alarming situation, RSF has called on public authorities, private actors and regional institutions to commit to a “New Deal for Journalism” by following 11 key recommendations.
The media’s economic fragility has emerged as one of the foremost threats to press freedom.
According to the findings of the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, the overall conditions for practising journalism are poor (categorised as “difficult” or “very serious”) in half of the world’s countries.
When looking at the economic conditions alone, that figure becomes three-quarters.
Concrete commitments are urgently needed to preserve press freedom, uphold the right to reliable information, and lift the media out of the destructive economic spiral endangering their independence and survival.
That is where a New Deal for Journalism comes in.
The 11 RSF recommendations for a New Deal for Journalism:
1. Protect media pluralism through economic regulation Media outlets are not like other businesses and journalism does not provide services like other industries.
Although most news outlets are private entities, they serve the public interest by ensuring citizens’ access to reliable information, a fundamental pillar of democracy.
Media pluralism must therefore be guaranteed, both at market level and by ensuring individual newsrooms reflect a variety of ideas and viewpoints, regardless of who owns them.
In France (25th), debates around media ownership consolidation — particularly involving the Bolloré Group — have highlighted the risks to media pluralism.
In South Africa (27th), the Competition Commission is considering solutions to mitigate the threats posed by giant online platforms to the pluralism of the digital information space.
RSF 2025 World Press Freedom Index summary. Video: RSF
2. Adopt the JTI as a common standard News outlets, tech giants, and governments should embrace the Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI), an international standard for journalism.
More than 2000 media outlets in 119 countries are already engaged in the JTI certification process. Launched by RSF, the JTI acts as a common professional reference that does not judge an outlet’s content but evaluates the processes in its production of information, improving transparency around media ownership and editorial procedures, and promoting trustworthy outlets.
This certification provides a foundation to guide public funding, inform indexing and ranking policies, and enable online platforms and search engines to highlight reliable information while protecting themselves against disinformation campaigns.
3. Establish advertisers’ democratic responsibility Governments should introduce the principle that companies have a responsibility to help uphold democracy, similar to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Advertisers should be the first to adopt this concept as a priority, as their decision to shift their budgets to online platforms — or, worse, websites that fuel disinformation — makes them partially responsible for the economic decline of journalism.
Advertisers should be encouraged to link their advertising investments to criteria on reliability and journalistic ethics. Aligning advertising strategies with the public interest is vital for fostering a healthy media ecosystem and maintaining democracies.
This notion of a democratic responsibility for companies has notably been promoted by the steering committee of the French General Assembly of Information (États généraux de l’information) and may be included in the bill that will be examined in 2025 by the French National Assembly.
4. Regulate the gatekeepers of online information Democratic states must require digital platforms to ensure that reliable sources of information are visible to the public and remunerated.
The European Union’s Copyright Directive and Australia’s (29th) News Media Bargaining Code in — the first legislation regulating Google and Facebook — are two examples of legally requiring major platforms to pay for online journalistic content.
Canada (ranked 21st) has undertaken similar reforms but has faced strong resistance, particularly from Meta, which has retaliated by removing news content from its platforms.
To ensure the economic value generated by online journalistic content is fairly distributed, these types of laws must be broadly adopted and their effective implementation must be guaranteed.
Public authorities must also ensure fair negotiations so that media outlets are not crushed by the current imbalance of power between economically fragile news companies and global tech giants.
Lastly, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has made the need for fair remuneration for content creators all the more urgent, as their work is now used to train or feed AI models. This is simply the latest example of why regulation is necessary to protect journalistic content from new forms of technological exploitation.
To mark World Press Freedom Day, 3 May, Europeans Without Borders (ESF), Cartooning for Peace and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) have joined forces for Caricartoons, a campaign celebrating press freedom. Image: RSF screenshot PMW
5. Introduce a tax on tech giants to fund quality information The goal of introducing such a tax should be to redistribute all or part of the revenue unfairly captured by digital giants to the detriment of the media. The proceeds would be redirected to news media outlets and would finance the production of reliable information.
Several countries have already committed to reforms that tax major digital platforms, but almost none are specifically aimed at supporting the production of quality information from independent sources.
Indonesia (127th) implemented a tax on foreign digital services, while also requiring platforms to remunerate media outlets for the use of their content starting in 2024. France also established a specific tax on digital companies’ revenues in 2019.
6. Use public development aid to combat news deserts and strengthen reliable information from independent sources As crises, conflicts and authoritarian regimes multiply, supporting reliable information from independent sources and countering emerging news deserts has never been more important.
Official Development Assistance (ODA) must incorporate support for independent journalism, recognising that it is indispensable not only for economic development but also for strengthening democratic governance and promoting peace.
At least 1 percent of ODA should be allocated to financing independent media outlets in order to guarantee their sustainability.
At a time when certain support mechanisms — such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) — are under threat, commitments from donor states are more crucial than ever.
Australia (ranked 29th) and New Zealand (ranked 16th) are positive examples of this commitment, showing support through regional media development programmes, notably in the Pacific Islands.
7. Encourage the development of hybrid and other innovative funding models It is essential to develop support mechanisms that combine public funding with private contributions (donations, investments, and loans), such as the IFRUM, a fund proposed by RSF to reconstruct the media in Ukraine (62nd).
To diversify funding sources, states could strengthen tax incentives for investors and broaden the call for donors beyond their own residents and taxpayers.
8. Guarantee transparency and independence in the allocation of media aid Granting public or private subsidies to the media must be based on objective and transparent criteria that are subject to oversight by civil society. Only clear, equitable aid distribution can safeguard editorial independence and protect media outlets from political interference.
One such legislative solution is the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), which will come into force in 2025 across all European Union member states. It includes transparency requirements for aid distribution, obliges member states to guarantee the editorial independence of newsrooms, and mandates safeguards against political pressure.
Other countries have also established exemplary frameworks, such as Canada (21st), which has implemented a transparent system combining tax credits and subsidies while ensuring editorial independence.
9. Combat the erosion of public service media Public service media are not state media: they are independent actors, funded by citizens to fulfil a public interest mission. Their role is to guarantee universal access to reliable, diverse information from independent sources, serving social cohesion and democracy.
Financial and political attacks against these outlets — seen in many countries — threaten the public’s access to trustworthy information.
10. Strengthen media literacy and journalism training Supporting reliable information means that everyone should be trained from an early age to recognise trustworthy information and be involved in media education initiatives. University and higher education programmes in journalism must also be supported, on the condition that they are independent.
Finland (5th) is recognised worldwide for its media education, with media literacy programmes starting in primary school, contributing to greater resilience against disinformation.
11. Encourage nations to join and implement international initiatives, such as the Partnership for Information and Democracy The International Partnership for Information and Democracy, which promotes a global communication and information space that is free, pluralistic and reliable, already counts more than fifty signatory countries.
RSF stresses that journalism is a vital common good at a time when democracies are faltering.
This New Deal is a call to collectively rebuild the foundations of a free, trustworthy, and pluralistic public space.
Republished by Pacific Media Watch in collaboration with Reporters Without Borders.
World Media Freedom Day reflections of a protester
Yesterday, World Media Freedom Day, we marched to Television New Zealand in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland to deliver a letter asking them to do better.
Their coverage [of Palestine] has been biased at its best, silent at its worst.
I truly believe that if our media outlets reported fairly, factually and consistently on the reality in Gaza and in all of Palestine that tens of thousands of peoples lives would have been saved and the [Israeli] occupation would have ended already.
Instead, I open my Instagram to a new massacre, a new lifeless child.
I often wonder how we get locked into jobs where we leave our values at the door to keep our own life how (I hope) we wish all lives to be. How we all collectively agree to turn away, to accept absolute substandard and often horrific conditions for others in exchange for our own comforts.
Yesterday I carried my son for half of this [1km] march. He’s too big to be carried but I also know I ask a lot from him to join me in this fight so I meet him in the middle as I can.
Near the end of the march he fell asleep and the saying “dead weight” came to mind as his body became heavier and more difficult to carry.
I thought about the endless images I’ve seen of parents in Gaza carrying their lifeless child and I thought how lucky I am, that my child will wake up.
How small of an effort it is to carry him a few blocks in the hopes that something might change, that one parent might be spared that terrible feeling — dead weight.
Republished from an Instagram post by a Philippine Solidarity Network Aotearoa supporter.
Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has paid tribute to all those working the media industry in his message to mark World Press Freedom Day.
He said in his May 3 message thanks to democracy his coalition government had removed the “dark days of oppression and suppressions”.
“Today as we join the rest of the international community in celebrating World Press Freedom Day, let us recommit ourselves to the values and ideals of our fundamental human rights freedom of expression and the freedom of the press,” said Rabuka, a former coup leader.
RNZ Pacific reports Moce was left paralysed and bedridden in 2007 after being assaulted by soldiers shortly after the 2006 military coup.
“Today is also an opportune time to remember those in the media fraternity that made the ultimate sacrifice.”
‘Brave photographer’
“In particular, I pay tribute to my ‘Yaca’ (namesake), the late Sitiveni Moce who died in 2015.
“This brave newspaper photographer was set upon by a mob in Parliament House in 2000, and again by some members of the disciplined forces in 2007 for simply carrying out his job which was to capture history in still photographs.
“His death is a sombre reminder of the fickleness of life, and how we must never ever take our freedoms for granted.”
About 1000 pro-Palestinian protesters marked World Press Freedom Day — May 3 — today by marching on the public broadcaster Television New Zealand in Auckland, accusing it of 18 months of “biased coverage” on the genocidal Israeli war against Gaza.
They delivered a letter to the management board of TVNZ from Palestine Solidarity Network (PSNA) co-chair John Minto declaring: “The damage [done] to human rights, justice and freedom in the Middle East by Western media such as TVNZ is incalculable.”
The protesters marched on the television headquarters near Sky Tower about 4pm after an hour-long rally in the heart of the city at a precinct dubbed “Palestine Square” in the Britomart transport hub’s Te Komititanga Square.
Several opposition politicians spoke at the rally, calling for a ceasefire in the brutal war on Gaza that has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians with no sign of a let-up.
Labour Party’s disarmament and arms control spokesperson Phil Twyford was among the speakers that included Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson and Ricardo Menéndez March.
All three spoke strongly in support of Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick’s Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Davidson said the opposition parties were united behind the bill and all they needed were six MPs in the coalition government to “follow their conscience” to support it.
Appeals for pressure
They appealed to the protesters to put pressure on their local MPs to support the humanitarian initiative.
Protesters outside the Television New Zealand headquarters in Auckland today. Image: Asia Pacific Report
In The Hague this week, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) heard evidence from more than 40 countries and global organisations condemning Israel over its actions in deliberately starving the more than 2 million Palestinians by blockading the besieged enclave for more than the past two months.
Only the United States and Hungary spoke in support of Israel.
Mutlaq al-Qahtani, Qatari Ambassador to The Netherlands, also said there were “new trails of tears in the West Bank mirroring Gaza’s fate”.
Israel executing ‘genocidal war’ against Gaza, Qatar tells ICJ. Video: Al Jazeera
Among the speakers in the Auckland rally, one of about 30 similar protests for Palestine across New Zealand this weekend, was coordinator Roger Fowler of the Auckland-based Kia Ora Gaza humanitarian aid organisation, who denounced the overnight drone attack on the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla aid ship Conscience in international waters after leaving Malta.
The ship was crippled by the suspected Israel attack, endangering the lives of some 30 human rights activists on board. Fowler said: “That’s 2000 km away from Israel, that’s how desperate they are now to stop the Freedom Flotilla.”
A protester placard declaring “TVNZ, you’re biased reporting is shameful. Where is your integrity?” Image: Asia Pacific Report
He reminded protesters that Marama Davidson and retired trade unionist Mike Treen had been on previous aid protest voyages in past years trying to break the Israeli blockade, but there was no New Zealander on board in the current mission.
Media ‘credibility challenge’
Journalist and Pacific Media Watch convenor Dr David Robie spoke about World Media Freedom Day. He paid a tribute to the sacrifices of 211 Palestinian journalists killed by Israel — many of them targeted — saying Israel’s war on Gaza had become the “greatest credibility challenge for journalists and media of our times”.
Many protesters carried placards declaring slogans such as “TVNZ your biased reporting is shameful. Where is your integrity?”, “Journalists are not targets” and “Caring for the children of Palestine is what it’s about.”
After marching about 1km between Te Komititanga Square and the TVNZ headquarters, the protesters gathered outside the entrance chanting for fairness and balance in the reporting.
“TVNZ lies. For the past 18 months they have been nothing but complicit,” said one Palestinian speaker to a chorus of: “Shame!”
He said: “Every time TVNZ lies, a little boy in Gaza dies.”
Another Palestinian speaker, Nadine, said: “Every time the media lies, a little girl in Gaza dies.”
The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) letter to Television New Zealand’s board. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Deputation delivers TVNZ letter
A deputation from the protesters delivered the letter from PSNA’s John Minto addressed to the TVNZ board chair Alastair Carruthers but found the main foyer main entrance closed so the message was left.
Minto’s two-page letter calling for an independent review of TVNZ’s reporting on Palestine and Israel said in part:
“Over the past 18 months of industrial scale killing of Palestinians by the Israeli military in Gaza we have been regularly appalled at the blatantly-biased reporting on the Middle East by Television New Zealand.
“TVNZ’s reporting has been relentlessly and virulently pro-Israel. TVNZ has centred Israeli narratives, Israeli explanations, Israeli justifications and Israeli propaganda points on a daily basis while Palestinian viewpoints are all but absent.
“When they are presented they are given rudimentary coverage at best. More often than not Palestinians are presented as the incoherent victims of Israeli brutality rather than as an occupied people fighting for liberation in a situation described by the International Court of Justice as a “plausible genocide”.
“This pattern of systemic bias and unbalanced reporting is not revealed by TVNZ’s complaints system which focuses on individual stories rather than ingrained patterns of pro-Israel bias.
“Every complaint we have made to TVNZ has, with one minor exception, been rejected by your corporation with the typical refrain that it’s not possible to cover every aspect of an issue in a single story but that over time the balance is made up.
“Our issue is that the bias continues throughout TVNZ’s reporting on a story-by-story, day-by-day basis — the balance is never achieved. The reporting goes ahead just the way the pro-Israel lobby is happy with.”
The rest of the letter detailed many examples of the alleged systematic bias, such as failing to describe Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem and as “Occupied” territory as they are designated under international law, and failing to state the illegality of Israel’s military occupation.
Minto concluded by stating: “It is prolonging Israel’s illegal occupation, its apartheid policies, its ethnic cleansing and theft of Palestinian land. TVNZ is part of the problem – a key part of the problem.”
The letter called for an independent investigation.
Palestinian protesters at TVNZ headquarters while demonstrating against the public broadcaster’s coverage of the Israeli war against Gaza on World Press Freedom Day. Image: Asia Pacific Report
A human rights agency has called for an investigation into the drone attacks on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla aid ship Conscience with Israel suspected of being responsible.
The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said in a statement that the deliberate targeting of a civilian aid ship in international waters was a “flagrant violation” of the United Nations Charter, the Law of the Sea, and the Rome Statute, which prohibits the targeting of humanitarian objects.
It added: “This attack falls within a recurring and documented pattern of force being used to prevent ships from reaching the Gaza Strip, even before they approach its shores.”
The monitor is calling for an “independent and transparent investigation under Maltese jurisdiction, with the participation of the United Nations”.
It is also demanding “guarantees for safe sea passage for humanitarian aid bound for Gaza”.
“Any failure to act today will only encourage further attacks on humanitarian missions and deepen the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza,” said the monitor.
A spokesperson for the Gaza Freedom Flotilla said the group blamed Israel or one of its allies for the attack, adding it currently did not have proof of this claim.
Israeli TV confirms attack
However, Israel’s channel 12 television reported that Israeli forces were responsible for the attack.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) is a grassroots people-to-people solidarity movement composed of campaigns and initiatives from different parts of the world, working together to end the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza.
The organisation said its goals included:
breaking Israel’s more than 17-year illegal and inhumane blockade of the Gaza Strip;
educating people around the world about the blockade of Gaza;
condemning and publicising the complicity of other governments and global actors in enabling the blockade; and
responding to the cry from Palestinians and Palestinian organisations in Gaza for solidarity to break the blockade.
The MV Conscience — with about 30 human rights and aid activists on board — came under direct attack in international waters off the coast of Malta at 00:23 local time.
An 11th-hour blitzkrieg for the Australian election 2025 tomorrow claims the Greens are enabling extremists who “will do anything in their power to establish a worldwide Islamic Caliphate”. Wendy Bacon and Yaakov Aharon investigate the Dark Money election.
SPECIAL REPORT: By Wendy Bacon and Yaakov Aharon
Minority Impact Coalition is a shadowy organisation which appeared on Australia’s political landscape in February of this year.
According to its constitution, its object is to promote “mutual respect and tolerance between groups of people in Australia by actively countering racism and bringing widespread understanding and tolerance amongst all sectors of the community”.
However, it is spreading ignorance, fear and Islamophobia to millions of mostly male Australians living in the outer suburbs and the regions.
Advance is ‘transparent … easy to deal with’ Speaking to an Australian Jewish Association webinar, Roslyn Mendelle, who is of Israeli-American origin and a director of Minority Impact Coalition (MIC), said the rightwing Advance introduced her to the concept of a third party.
“Advance has been nothing but absolutely honest, transparent, direct, and easy to deal with,” Mendelle said.
The electoral laws, which many say are “broken by design”, mean that it will be several months before MIC’s major donors are revealed. Donors making repeated donations below $15,900 are unlisted “dark money”. (This threshold will change to $5000 in 2026).
Who’s paying to undermine Australian democracy? Scam of the week Video: MWM
Coming in second place, are the returns from the Australian Taxation Office.
In NSW, it is targeting Greens candidates everywhere and is also focussed on the Labor-held seat of Gilmore, challenged by Liberal Party candidate Andrew Constance.
Independent journalist Alex McKinnon reported that MIC spokesperson and midwife, Sharon Stoliar, wrote in an open letter:
“When you chant ‘from the river to the sea Palestine will be free’ . . . while wearing NSW Health uniforms, you are representing NSW Health in a call for genocide of Jews. YOU. ARE. SUPPORTING. TERRORISM… I. WILL. REPORT. YOU.”
Its campaign material is authorised by Joshu Turier, a retired boxer and right-wing extremist.
According to Facebook library, MIC’s ads are targeted at men, particularly between ages 35 and 54 in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales.
In mid-April, the group paid for an ad so extreme that Instagram pulled it, leading to Turier reposting on his own Facebook page again this week. He complained that “It’s beyond troubling when our media platforms remove simple, factual material.”
They are ‘coming for us’ {Editor … oh no!} By Wednesday, the video was back on MIC’s Facebook account. The video says that the Greens are deliberately enabling pro-Palestine student protesters, who
“Don’t actually believe in the concept of a nation. They don’t believe in borders. They don’t believe there is a national identity. They believe in the Islamic brotherhood.”
“. . . It is just the beginning. When antisemitism starts, it’s not going to stop. They are going to come for Christians, for Atheists, for Agnostics.”
MIC is spending big on billboards, campaign trucks, and professional videos targeting at least five electorates. But despite their big spending, they cannot be found on the Australian Electoral Commission transparency register.
According to the transparency advocacy group WhoTargets.Me, MIC has spent more than $50,000 on Google and Meta ads in the last month alone. This doesn’t account for billboards, trucks, labour, or the 200,000 addresses letterboxed in late March.
More investigation shows their donations will all flow through the QJ Collective Ltd (QJC), which also “powers” the Minority Impact Coalition website. QJC is registered as a significant third party with the Australian Electoral Commission.
Clones with ghost offices
Advance director Sandra Bourke and Roslyn Mendelle. Image: QJ Collective, Instagram
MIC and Queensland Jewish Collective are virtually identical. They have always had the same directors — with Azin Naghibi replacing Roslyn’s partner, Hava Mendelle, as both QJC and MIC director in March 2025.
When QJC first came to MWM’snotice last year, it was running a relatively well-funded campaign — although limited to several seats — to “Put the Greens Last” in the Queensland state election.
In September 2024, the group’s website stated that it was “non-partisan and not left or right-wing”, and that its “goal was to support Queenslanders in making informed decisions when voting for our leaders”. MIC is the vehicle for this campaign.
Today, neither the QJC nor MIC makes any such claim. The Collective’s website lists its leading “campaign’” as “exposing the two-faced nature of the Labor party”.
The alarming detail While the two “grassroots” groups share several of their total five different associated addresses, mostly consisting of shared offices, it is not a perfect match.
For both groups, directors Mendelle and Turier list their address as 470 St Pauls Terrace, Fortitude Valley, Queensland. There was no name or company, just an address, however, shared offices run by Jubilee Place are available at that location.
QJC and MIC director Naghibi lists her address on both extracts as 740 St Pauls Terrace, a non-commercial building.
Either Mendelle and Turier are living out of a shared office, or Naghibi is unable to remember the address of the shared office she has little real connection to.
Last year, MWM contacted the owners of QJC’s listed office address at Insolvency Company Accountants in Tewantin, Queensland. At first, the firm said that no one had heard of them. Following that, the firm said that the Collective is a client of the firm, however denied any further connection.
A fresh search this year showed an additional contact address listed by the grassroots Collective — this time 1700 km away — at 1250 Malvern Road, Malvern, Victoria. Again there was no name or company, just an address.
Located at that address is boutique accounting firm Greenberg & Co, which specialises in serving clients who are “high net worth individuals”. MWM contacted senior partner Jay Greenberg who said his role was only one of ‘financial compliance’. He said that he did have personal views on the election but these were not relevant. He declined to discuss further details.
Attack of the clones Better Australia is a third party campaigner that, like QJ Collective in 2024, claims to be bipartisan.
Its communications are authorised by Sophie Calland, an active member of NSW Labor’s Alexandria Branch. Her husband Ofir Birenbaum — from the nearby Rosebery Branch — is also a member of the third party Better Australia.
Co-convenor of Labor Friends of Israel, Eric Roozendaal, and former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s secretary, Yaron Finkelstein, provided further campaign advice at a members meeting.
Patron of Labor Friends of Israel and former Senator Nova Peris teamed up with Better Australia for a campaign video last week.
“When Greens leader Adam Bandt refuses to stand in front of the Australian flag,” Peris said, “I ask, how can you possibly stand for our country?”
Better Australia’s stated goal is to campaign for a major government “regardless of which major party is in office”.
The group urges voters to “put the Greens and Teals last”, warning that a Labor minority government would be chaos. The “non-partisan” third party has made no statements on the Liberal-National Coalition, nor on a minority government with One Nation.
Some Better Australia workers — who wear bright yellow jackets labelled “community advisor” — are paid, and others volunteer.
“Isabella” told MWM that her enlistment as a volunteer for the third party campaigner is “not political” — rather it is all “about Israel”.
Previously Isabella had protested in support of the Israeli hostages and prisoners of war held in Gaza.
Better Australia’s “community advisor” “Isabella” at a Bondi Junction polling booth. Image: Wendy Bacon/MWM
Another campaigner told us he was paid by Better Australia. He spoke little English and declined to say more.
Two schoolgirls campaigning at Rose Bay told MWM that they were paid by their father who had chaired a Better Australia meeting the previous evening. They declined to disclose his name.
Calland addressing her Israeli volunteers. Image: Better Australia/Instagram/MWM
MWM later interviewed this woman who is an Israeli on a working holiday visa. She was supporting the campaign because it fits her political “vision”: the Greens and independent MPs like Allegra Spender must be removed from office because they are “against Israel” and for a “Free Palestine” which would mean the end of “my country”.
Allegra Spender denies these assertions.
Greens leader Adam Bandt remained determinedly optimistic, telling MWM that organisations such as Better Australia and MIC,
“are able to run their disinformation campaigns because Australia has no truth in political advertising laws, which enables them to lie about the priorities of the Greens and crossbench without consequence, as well as huge corporate money flowing into politics.
“In this term of Parliament, Labor failed to progress truth in political advertising laws, and instead did a dirty deal with the Liberals on electoral reforms to try and shut out third parties and independents.”
Labor’s candidate for Wentworth, Savannah Peake, told MWM on Tuesday that she had known Calland for 18 months.
Peake said that while she knew Calland had previously founded Better Council, she had only discovered Calland was authorising Better Australia when she arrived at the booth that morning.
Peake told MWM that she had contacted the NSW Labor Head Office to voice her objections and was confident the issue would be “dealt with swiftly”.
The third party campaign runs contrary to Peake’s preferences, which tells supporters in Wentworth to vote #1 Labor and #2 Allegra Spender. MWM repeatedly tried to follow up with Peake throughout the week to find out what action NSW Labor had taken but received no reply.
Liberal candidate for Wentworth, Ro Knox, complies with Better Australia’s call to put Greens last on her voting preferences.
Many people in NSW Labor know about their fellow members’ involvement in Better Australia. The Minister for Environment and MP for Sydney Tanya Plibersek, state member Ron Hoenig and NSW Labor have all previously refused to answer questions.
A Labor volunteer at a Wentworth pre-poll booth told MWM that he disapproved if a fellow party member was involved with the third party. Two older Labor volunteers were in disbelief, having incorrectly assumed that the anti-Teal posters were authorised by the Trumpet of Patriots party.
Another said he was aware of Calland’s activities but had decided “not to investigate” further.
Better Australia focuses on Richmond By the end of the week, Better Australia had left a trail of “Put the Greens last’ placards across Sydney’s Inner West, one of them outside the Cairo Takeaway cafe where the third party’s organiser Ofir Birenbaum was first exposed.
The third party have extended their polling campaign to the seat of Richmond, on the North coast of NSW where campaign sources are expecting more volunteers on election day.
As parties dash to the finishing line, they are calling for more donations to counter the astroturfers. According to website TheyTargetYou, the major parties alone have spent $11.5 million on Meta and Google ads over the last month.
Better Australia splurged $200,000 on ads targeting digital TV, social media, and the Australian Financial Review. Digital ads will continue in the final three days of the election, exploiting loopholes in the mandated political advertising blackout.
The Australian public has made little progress towards transparency in the current term of government.
Until reforms are made, Silicon Valley tech giants will continue to profit from dodgy ads and astroturfing groups sowing division with each Australian election cycle.
Wendy Bacon is an investigative journalist who was the Professor of Journalism at UTS. She worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism. She is a long-term supporter of a peaceful BDS and the Greens.
Yaakov Aharon is a Jewish-Australian living in Wollongong. He enjoys long walks on Wollongong Beach, unimpeded by Port Kembla smoke fumes and AUKUS submarines. The article was first published by Michael West Media and is republished with permission.
BANGKOK and WASHINGTON – Press freedom is at its lowest ebb globally in more than two decades, Reporters Without Borders said Friday, as economic pressures shake the foundations of journalism.
The advocacy group, also known as Reporters sans frontières or RSF, said it classified the global state of press freedom as “difficult” for the first time since it began compiling its media index in 2002.
“Without economic independence, there can be no free press,” RSF said in a statement announcing the 2025 iteration of the press freedom index.
“When news media are financially strained, they are drawn into a race to attract audiences at the expense of quality reporting, and can fall prey to the oligarchs and public authorities who seek to exploit them,” it said.
News outlets are shutting down in nearly a third of the 180 countries included in the index, RSF said. Media in even relatively highly ranked nations such as New Zealand and South Africa are grappling with challenges of financial viability.
Tech companies such as Google, Meta and Apple are absorbing an ever growing share of advertising revenue at the same time as they contribute to the spread of manipulated and misleading content, according to RSF.
President Donald Trump’s second term has delivered an additional blow, the group said, by ending funding for U.S. public media including Voice of America and Radio Free Asia that reported on countries where authoritarian governments suppress independent voices.
The bottom three spots in the 2025 press freedom index were occupied by China, North Korea and Eritrea. The top three countries, from first to third respectively, were Norway, Estonia and the Netherlands.
China dropped six places from the previous year to 178th in a worsening of an already dire picture.
“China right now is the biggest jailor of journalists in the world,” said Aleksandra Bielakowska, RSF’s Asia Pacific advocacy manager.
“They really managed to arrest all the people that were courageous enough and who still wanted to report on issues in the ground,” she told RFA.
Press freedom is at its lowest ebb globally in the more than two decades, according to Reporters Without Borders.(Reporters Without Borders)
The erosion of what was limited press freedom in China began more than a decade ago and accelerated under President Xi Jinping, Bielakowska said, as he and loyalists concentrated state power in his person.
The media freedom situation in China is now almost akin to the total control over information exercised by North Korea’s dynastic government, she said.
The ability of foreign media to operate in China has also become heavily circumscribed.
Some 15 years ago foreign reporters could go to regions that chafed against Beijing’s rule such as Xinjiang and Tibet, but it is now impossible unless as part of a government-supervised propaganda trip, Bielakowska said.
“Not just an authoritarian country, but a really totalitarian system where nobody can speak up, nobody can report on any issues,” she said. “And reporters can only work as the party’s propaganda.”
Cambodian freelance journalist Mech Dara, who was released on bail, waves from a car in front of the main provincial prison of Kendal Province, southern Phnom Penh, Oct. 24, 2024.(Heng Sinith/AP)
China’s aggressive suppression of independent media is increasingly emulated in Southeast Asia and elsewhere.
Cambodia, a Beijing ally in Southeast Asia, dropped 10 places in the index to 161st.
Its continued slide reflected persecution and violence against reporters including the fatal December 2024 shooting of environmental journalist Chhoeung Chheung, who was investigating illegal logging.
A prominent Cambodian journalist, Mech Dara, who drew attention to corruption and human rights abuses, left the profession after being detained for several weeks last year.
“There’s been many journalists like this,” said Bielakowska. “For Mech Dara, he decided to give up on journalistic work despite being one of the most valued journalists inside of Cambodia because he could not continue working under this type of pressure.”
Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Tenzin Pema and Stephen Wright for RFA.
While Aotearoa New Zealand improved three places in the latest RSF World Press Freedom Index — up to 16th — and most other Pacific countries surveyed did well, it was a bad year generally for the Asia-Pacific region.
Fiji (40th — up four places) has done best out of island nations to edge Samoa (44 — slumping 22 places) out of its traditional perch.
In the region overall, press freedom and access to reliable news sources have been “severely compromised” by the predominance of regimes — often authoritarian — that strictly control information, often through economic means, reports RSF.
In many countries, the government has a tight grip on media ownership, allowing them to interfere in outlets’ editorial choices, says the regional report.
“It is highly telling that 20 of the region’s 32 countries and territories saw their economic indicators drop in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index,” said the RSF editors.
Authoritarian regimes’ systematic control
The region harbours some of the most advanced states in terms of media control.
In North Korea (179), the media are nothing more than propaganda tools entirely subordinate to the country’s totalitarian regime.
In China (178) and Vietnam (173), outlets are either state-owned or controlled by groups closely tied to the countries’ respective Communist parties, and the only independent reporting comes from freelance journalists who mainly operate underground.
The independent journalists “work under constant threat and with no financial stability”.
RSF’s World Press Freedom Index commentary. Video: RSF
Meanwhile, foreign outlets can find themselves blacklisted at any given moment.
Growing repression, increasing uncertainty
The crackdown on press freedom is spreading across the region and is increasingly inspired
by the Chinese method of controlling information, reports RSF.
Spotlight on the Asia-Pacific region for media freedom. Image: RSF
Since the 2021 military coup in Myanmar (169), many of the country’s independent outlets have been dismantled. The few that remain are forced to work underground or from exile and can barely continue operations due to the lack of sustainable revenue.
Similarly, crackdowns on press freedom in Cambodia (161) and Hong Kong (140), where the press freedom situation has become “very serious,” have led to newsroom closures, journalists fleeing into exile — often with fragile finances — and pro-government outlets absorbing most media funding.
In Afghanistan (175), at least 12 new media outlets were forced to close in 2024 due to new directives imposed by the Taliban.
In the United States, the decision made in March by President Donald Trump led to the
suspension of Radio Free Asia’s (RFA) shortwave radio programmes in Mandarin, Tibetan
and Lao, and its affiliated BenarNews service, which had been building up Pacific news coverage.
Most US-based staff, including at-risk visa holders, along with staff in Australia, were axed with the budget cuts, potentially turning entire regions into “information blackouts”.
Media concentration and political collusion
In several countries, the concentration of media ownership in the hands of political magnates threatened media plurality, the RSF Asia-Pacific editors said.
In India (151), Indonesia (127) and Malaysia (88 ), a handful of politically connected conglomerates control most media groups.
In Thailand (85), the major media groups maintain close ties with the military or royal elite, who directly influence their content.
Similarly, in Mongolia (102), influential individuals from the business world, who are
often close to those in power, own a dominant share of the media landscape and use it to
promote their political and economic interests.
In Pakistan (158), the authorities threaten independant outlets with the cancellation of government advertising contracts.
Economic pressure even in democracies
Independent outlets in established democracies have also fallen prey to economic pressure.
In Taiwan (24), a rare case of government pressure affected the English-speaking public
broadcaster TaiwanPlus, whose funding was also significantly reduced by Parliament, which
is controlled by opposition parties.
In Australia (29), the media market’s heavy concentration limits the diversity of voices represented in the news, while independent outlets struggle to find a sustainable economic model.
While New Zealand (16) leads in the Asia Pacific region, it is also facing a similar situation to Australia with a narrowing of media plurality, closure or merging of many newspaper titles, and a major retrenchment of journalists in the country raising concerns about democracy.
The closure of Newshub cited by RSF as one of the threats to media freedom in Aotearoa New Zealand. Image: RSF webinar screenshot PMW
Until four years ago, New Zealand had been regularly listed among the top 10 leading countries for press freedom — along with the Scandinavian countries — but last year dropped as far as 19th.
The RSF regional analyses are updated every year and shed light on the trends observed in each year’s Index and provide additional information.
The ranking and press freedom situation of each of the Index’s 180 countries are detailed in the country profiles, which can be consulted on the RSF website.
World Press Freedom is celebrated globally tomorrow – May 3 each year.
Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.
Authoritarian regimes’ systematic control . . . RSF Asia-Pacific bureau advocacy manager Aleksandra Bielakowska presenting the regional report at a webinar in Taipei today. Image: RSF webinar screenshot PMW
After a year and a half of war, nearly 200 Palestinian journalists have been killed by the Israeli army — including at least 43 slain on the job.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has brought multiple complaints before the International Criminal Court (ICC) and continues to tirelessly support Gazan journalists, working to halt the extraordinary bloodshed and the media blackout imposed on the strip.
“Journalists are being targeted and then slandered after their deaths,” RSF director-general Thibaut Bruttin said during a recent RSF demonstration in Paris in solidarity with Gazan journalists.
“I have never before seen a war in which, when a journalist is killed, you are told they are really a ‘terrorist’.”
The journalists gathered together with the main organisations defending French media workers and press freedom on April 16 in front of the steps of the Opéra-Bastille to condemn the news blackout and the fate of Palestinian journalists.
The slaughter of journalists is one of the largest media massacres this century being carried out as part of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
RSF said there was “every reason to believe that the Israeli army is seeking to establish a total silence about what is happening in Gaza”.
This was being done by preventing the international press from entering the territory freely and by targeting those who, on the ground, continue to bear witness despite the risks.
Mobilisation of journalists in Paris, France, in solidarity with their Gazan colleagues. Video: RSF
Last year, Palestinian journalists covering Gaza were named as laureates of the 2024 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, following the recommendation of an International Jury of media professionals.
The advocacy group Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has condemned the New Zealand government fpr failing to make a humanitarian submission to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearings at The Hague this week into Israel blocking vital supplies entering Gaza.
The ICJ’s ongoing investigation into Israeli genocide in the besieged enclave is now considering the illegality of Israel cutting off all food, water, fuel, medicine and other essential aid entering Gaza since early March.
Forty three countries and organisations have been submitting this week — including the small Pacific country Vanuatu (pop. 328,000) — but New Zealand is not on the list for making a submission.
Only Israel’s main backer, United States, and Hungary have argued in support of Tel Aviv while other nations have been highly critical.
“If even small countries, such as Vanuatu, can commit their meagre resources to go to make a case to the ICJ, then surely our government can at the very least do the same,” said PSNA national co-chair Maher Nazzal.
He said in a statement that the New Zealand government had gone “completely silent” on Israeli atrocities in Gaza.
“A year ago, the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister were making statements about how Israel must comply with international law,” Nazzal said
NZ ‘avoided blaming Israel’
“They carefully avoided blaming Israel for doing anything wrong, but they issued strong warnings, such as telling Israel that it should not attack the city of Rafah.
“Israel then bombed Rafah flat. The New Zealand response was to go completely silent.
Nazzal said Israeli ministers were quite open about driving Palestinians out of Gaza, so Israel could build Israeli settlements there.
PSNA co-chair Maher Nazzal . . . New Zealand response on Gaza is to “go completely silent”. Image: Asia Pacific Report
“And they are just as open about using starvation as a weapon,” he added.
“Our government says and does nothing. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had nothing to say about Gaza when he met British Prime Minister Keir Stamer in London earlier in the month.
“Yet Israel is perpetuating the holocaust of the 21st century under the noses of both Prime Ministers.”
Nazzal said that it was “deeply disappointing” that a nation which had so proudly invoked its history of standing against apartheid and of championing nuclear disarmament, yet chose to “not even appear on the sidelines” of the ICJ’s legal considerations.
ICJ examines Israel’s obligations in Occupied Palestine. Video: Middle East Eye
“New Zealand cannot claim to stand for a rules-based international order while selectively avoiding the rules when it comes to Palestine,” Nazzal said.
“We want the New Zealand government to urgently explain to the public its absence from the ICJ hearings.
“We need it to commit to participating in all future international legal processes to uphold Palestinian rights, and fulfil its ICJ obligations to impose sanctions on Israel to force its withdrawal from the Palestinian Occupied Territory.”
Teals and Greens are under political attack from a new pro-fossil fuel, pro-Israel astroturfing group, adding to the onslaught by far-right lobbyists Advance Australia for Australian federal election tomorrow — World Press Freedom Day. Wendy Bacon and Yaakov Aharon investigate.
SPECIAL REPORT: By Wendy Bacon and Yaakov Aharon
On February 12 this year, former prime minister Scott Morrison’s principal private secretary Yaron Finkelstein, and former Labor NSW Treasurer Eric Roozendaal, met in the plush 50 Bridge St offices in the heart of Sydney’s CBD.
The powerbrokers were there to discuss election strategies for the astroturfing campaign group Better Australia 2025 Inc.
Finkelstein now runs his own discreet advisory firm Society Advisory, while also a director of the Liberal Party’s primary think-tank Menzies Research Centre. Previously, he worked as head of global campaigns for the conservative lobby firm Crosby Textor (CT), before working for Morrison and as Special Counsel to former NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet.
Roozendaal earned a reputation as a top fundraiser during his term as general secretary of NSW Labor and a later stint for the Yuhu property developer. He is now a co-convenor of Labor Friends of Israel.
The two strategists have previously served together on the executive of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, where Finkelstein was vice-president (2010-2019) and Roozendaal was later the chair of public affairs (2019-2020).
Better for whom? Better Australia chairperson Sophie Calland, a software engineer and active member of the Alexandria Branch of the Labor party attended the meeting. She is a director of Better Australia and carries formal responsibility for electoral campaigns (and partner of Israel agitator Ofir Birenbaum).
Also present at the meeting was Better Australia 2025 member Alex Polson, a former staffer to retiring Senator Simon Birmingham and CEO of firm DBK Advisory. Other members present included another director, Charline Samuell, and her husband, psychiatrist Dr Doron Samuell.
Last week, Dr Samuell attracted negative publicity when Liberal campaigners in the electorate of Reid leaked Whatsapp messages where he insisted on referring to Greens as Nazis. “Nazis at Chiswick wharf,” Samuell wrote, alongside a photograph of two Greens volunteers.
The Better Australia group already have experience as astroturfers. Their “Put The Greens Last” campaign was previously directed by Calland and Polson under the entity Better Council Inc. in the NSW Local government elections in September 2024.
The Greens lost three councillors in Sydney’s East but maintained five seats on the Inner West Council.
But the group had developed bigger electoral plans. They also registered the name Better NSW in mid-2024. By the time the group met for the first time this year on January 8, their plans to play a role in the Federal election were already well advanced.
They voted to change the name Better NSW Inc. to Better Australia 2025 Inc.
Calland and Birenbaum Group member Ofir Birenbaum joined the January meeting to discuss “potential campaign fundraising materials” and a “pool of national volunteers”. Birenbaum is Calland’s husband and member of the Rosebery Branch of the Labor Party.
But by the time the group met with Finkelstein and Roozendaal in February, Birenbaum was missing. The day before the meeting, Birenbaum’s role in the #UndercoverJew stunt at Cairo Takeaway cafe was sprung.
This incident focused attention on Birenbaum’s track record as an agitator at Pro-Palestine events and as a “close friend” of the extreme-right Australian Jewish Association. The former Instagram influencer has since closed his social media accounts and disappeared from public view.
The minutes of the February meeting lodged with NSW Fair Trading mention a “discussion of potential campaign management candidates; an in-depth presentation and discussion of strategy; a review and amendments of draft campaign fundraising materials”. All of this suggests that consultants had been hired and work was well underway.
The group also voted to change Better Council’s business address and register a national association with ASIC so they could legally campaign at a national level.
On March 4, Calland registered Better Australia as a “significant third party” with the Australian Electoral Commission. This is required for organisations that expect their campaign to cost more than $250,000.
Three weeks later, Prime Minister Albanese called the election, and Better Australia’s federal campaign was off to the races.
Labor or Liberal, it doesn’t matter… According to its website, Better Australia’s stated goals are non-partisan: they want a majority government, “regardless of which major party is in office”.
“In Australia, past minority governments have seen stalled reforms, frequent leadership changes, and uncertainty that paralysed effective governance.”
No evidence has been provided by either Better Australia’s website or campaigning materials for these statements. In fact, in its short lifetime, the Gillard Labor minority government passed legislation at a record pace.
Instead, it is all about creating fear. A stream of campaigning videos, posts, flyers and placards carrying simple messages tapping into fear, insecurity, distrust and disappointment have appeared on social media and the streets of Sydney in recent weeks.
Wentworth independent Allegra Spender wasted no time posting her own video telling voters she was unfazed, and for her electorate to make their own voting choices rather than fall for a crude scare campaign.
Spender is accused of supporting anti-Israel terrorism by voting to reinstate funding for the United Nations aid agency UNRWA. Better Australia warns that billionaires and dark money fund the Teal campaign, alleging average voters will lose their money if Teals are reelected.
It doesn’t matter that most Teal MPs have policies in favour of increasing accountability in government or that no information is provided about who is backing Better Australia.
Anti-Green, too The anti-Greens angle of Better Australia’s campaign sends a broad message to all electorates to “Put the Greens Last”. It aims to starve the Greens of preferences. The campaign message is simple: the Greens are “antisemitic, support terrorism, and have abandoned their environmental roots”.
It does not matter that calls unite the peaceful Palestine protests for a ceasefire, or that the Greens have never stopped campaigning for the environment and against new fossil fuel projects.
Better Australia promotes itself as a grassroots organisation. In February, Sophie Calland told The Guardian that “Better Australia is led by a broad coalition of Australians who believe that political representation should be based on integrity and action, not extremist or elite activism”.
It has very few members and its operations are marked by secrecy, and voters will have to wait a full year before the AEC registry of political donations reveals Better Australia’s backers.
It fits into a patchwork of organisations aiming to influence voters towards a framework of right-wing values, including
“support for the Israel Defence Force, fossil fuel industries, nationalism and anti-immigration and anti-transgender issues.”
Advance Australia (not so fair)
Advance is the lead organisation in this space. It campaigns in its own right and also supports other organisations, including Minority Impact Coalition, Queensland Jewish Collective and J-United.
Advance claims to have raised $5 million to smash the Greens and a supporter base of more than 245,000. It has received donations up to $500,000 from the Victorian Liberal Party’s holding company, Cormack Foundation.
In Melbourne, ex-Labor member for Macnamara, Michael Danby, directs and authorises “Macnamara Voters Against Extremism”, which pushes voters to preference either Liberals or Labor first, and the Greens last. Danby has spoken alongside Birenbaum at Together With Israel rallies.
Together With Israel: Michael Danby (from left), activist Ofir Birenbaum, unionist Michael Easson OAM, and Rabbi Ben Elton. Image: Together With Israel Facebook group/MWM
The message of Better Australia — and Better Council before it — mostly aligns with Advance. These campaigns target women aged 35 to 49, who Advance claims are twice as likely to vote for the Greens as men of the same age.
The scare campaign targets female voters with its fear-mongering and Greens MPS, including Australia’s first Muslim Senator Mehreen Faruqi, and independent female MPS with its loathing.
Meanwhile, Advance is funded by mining billionaires and advocates against renewable energy.
Labor standing by in silence Better Australia is different from Advance, which is targeting Labor because it is an alliance of Zionist Labor and LIberal interests. Calland’s campaign may be effectively contributing to the election of a Dutton government. In the face of what would appear to be betrayal, the NSW Labor Party simply stands by.
The NSW Labor Rules Book (Section A.7c) states that a member may be suspended for “disloyal or unworthy conduct [or] action or conduct contrary to the principles and solidarity of the Party.”
Following MWM’s February exposé of Birenbaum, we sent questions to NSW Labor Head Office, and MPs Tanya Plibersek and Ron Hoenig, without reply. Hoenig is a member of the Parliamentary Friends of Israel and has attended Alexandria Branch meetings with Calland.
MWM asked Plibersek to comment on Birenbaum’s membership of her own Rosebery Branch, and on Birenbaum’s covert filming of Luc Velez, the Greens candidate in Plibersek’s seat of Sydney. Birenbaum shared the video and generated homophobic commentary, but we received no answers to any of our questions.
According to MWM sources, Calland’s involvement in Better Australia and Better Council before that is well known in Inner Sydney Labor circles. Last Tuesday night, she attended an Alexandria Branch meeting that discussed the Federal election. She also attended a meeting of Plibersek’s campaign.
No one raised or asked questions about Calland’s activities. MWM is not aware if NSW Labor has received complaints from any of its members alleging that Calland or Birenbaum has breached the party’s rules.
After all, when top Liberal and Labor strategists walk into a corporate boardroom, there is much to agree on.
It begins with a national campaign to keep the major parties in and independents and Greens out.
MWM has sent questions to Calland, Finkelstein, and Roozendaal, regarding funding and the alliance between Liberal and Labor powerbrokers but we have yet to receive any replies.
Wendy Baconis an investigative journalist who was professor of journalism at UTS. She has worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism. She is not a member of any political party but is a Greens supporter and long-term supporter of peaceful BDS strategies.
Yaakov Aharon is a Jewish-Australian living in Wollongong. He enjoys long walks on Wollongong Beach, unimpeded by Port Kembla smoke fumes and AUKUS submarines. This article was first published by Michael West Media and is republished with permission of the authors.
Striking senior New Zealand doctors have hit back at the Health Minister’s attack on their union for “forcing” patients to wait longer for surgery and appointments, due to their 24-hour industrial action.
Respiratory and sleep physician Dr Andrew Davies, who was on the picketline outside Wellington Regional Hospital, said for him and his colleagues, it was “not about the money” — it was about the inability to recruit.
“We’ve got vacant jobs that we’re not allowed to advertise,” he said. “It’s lies that they’re not getting rid of frontline staff.
“The job is technically there on paper, but if you’re not going to advertise for the job, you’re not going to fill it.
“In our department, we’ve waited months and months and months to fill some jobs, and you don’t just get a doctor next week. It takes six months for them to come.”
Dr Davies said no-one wanted to strike and have their patients miss out on care, but thousands of patients were already missing out on care every day, due to staff shortages.
“Every week, we’ve got empty clinics,” he said. “There is space in the clinics that’s not being used, because there’s not a doctor in the chair there.
“While, today, that’s 20 percent of the work of the week gone, because we’re on strike, in some departments, it’s 20 percent every week.
“Every day of the week, there’s a 20 percent deficit in the number of patients people are seeing.”
5500 doctors on strike
Nationwide, about 5500 members of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists are on strike until 11:59pm today, causing the cancellation of about 4300 planned procedures and specialist appointments.
In a social media post, Health Minister Simeon Brown blamed the union for the disruption, saying an updated offer last week — including a $25,000 bonus for those moving to “hard-to-staff regions” — was rejected by the union, before members even saw it.
Union executive director Sarah Dalton said she would be very happy to facilitate a meeting between doctors and the minister — or he could accept the invitation to attend its national conference.
“They would love to feel like someone up there was listening,” she said. “They don’t at the moment.
“We need to move away from rhetoric, and actually have some time and space for meaningful discussion.
“That’s one of the reasons we’re on strike today. After eight months of negotiating, there was nothing on the table from the employer.
“It was only after we called for strike action that anything changed, so let’s do better.”
Critical workforce shortages were undermining patient care and the current pay offer, which amounted to an increase of less than one percent a year for most doctors, would do nothing to fix that, Dalton said.
“How do you tackle vacancies? You put more time and effort in good terms and conditions for your permanent workforce, and you stop spending spending $380 million a year on locums and temps.
“We shouldn’t have that heavy reliance on those people, so we’ve got to change it.”
NZ training doctors for Australia After many years of study subsidised by the New Zealand taxpayer, Maeve Hume-Nixon recently qualified as a public health specialist, but may yet end up going overseas.
“I actually thought last year that I would have to go to Australia, where I would be paid another $100,000 minimum, because there were no jobs for me here, basically.
Newly qualified public health specialist Dr Maeve Hume-Nixon says she has struggled to get a job in New Zealand but could earn $100,000 more in Australia. Image: RNZ/Ruth Hill
“In the end, I managed to get an emergency extension to my contract and this has continued, but I don’t have security and it’s a pretty frustrating position to be in.”
Neurologist Dr Maas Mollenhauer said he was not able to access the tests he needed to provide care for his patients.
“I’ve seen patients that I have sent for urgent imaging, but they didn’t receive it, and then I got an email from one of my colleagues who was on call, telling me that patient had rocked up to the Emergency Department and, basically, the front half of their skull was full of brain tumour.”
Cancer patients waiting too long Medical oncologist Dr Sharon Pattison said the health system had reached the point where it was so starved of people and resources, it had become “inefficient”.
“Everyone is waiting for everything, so everything takes longer, and we are waiting until people get seriously ill, before we do anything about it.”
The government’s “faster cancer treatment time” target — 90 percent of patients receiving cancer management within 31 days of the decision to treat — would not give the true picture of what was happening for patients, she said.
“For instance, if I have someone with a potential diagnosis of cancer, there are so many points at which they are waiting — waiting for scan, waiting for a biopsy, waiting for a radiologist to report the scan to show us where to get the biopsy.
Medical oncologist Dr Sharon Pattison says some cancer patients are waiting too long to even get diagnosed, by which point it can be too late. Image: RNZ/Ruth Hill
“That radiologist may be overseas, so if I want to talk to that specialist I can’t do that. Then the wait for a pathologist to report on the biopsy can now take up to 6-8 weeks.
“We know that, for some people with cancer, if you wait for that long before we can even make your treatment plan, we’re going to make your outcomes worse.
“The whole system is at the point where we are making people more unwell, because we can’t do what we should be doing for them in the framework that we need to.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Thousands of senior hospital doctors and specialists walked off the job today for an unprecedented 24-hour strike in protest over stalled contract negotiations and thousands of other health workers protested across Aotearoa New Zealand against the coalition government’s cutbacks to the public health service Te Whatu Ora.
In spite of the disruptive bad weather across the country, protesters were out in force expressing their concerns over a national health service in crisis.
Among speakers criticising the government’s management of public health at a rally at the entrance to The Domain, near Auckland Hospital, many warned that the cutbacks were a prelude to “creeping privatisation”.
“Health cuts hurt services, the patients who rely on them, and the workers who deliver them,” said health worker Jason Brooke.
“Under this coalition government we’ve seen departments restructured, roles disestablished, change proposals enacted, and hiring freezes implemented.
“Make no mistake. This is austerity. This is managed decline.
“The coalition can talk all they like about spending more on healthcare, the reality for ‘those-of-us-on-the-ground’ is that we know that money is not being spent where it’s needed.”
Placards said “Fight back together for the workers”, “Proud to be union”, “We’re fighting back for workers rights”, and one poster declared: “Don’t bite the hand that wipes your bum — safe staffing now”.
Palestine supporters also carried a May Day message of solidarity from Palestinian Confederation of Trade Unions.
And I certainly did not expect Peter Dutton — amid an election campaign, one with citizens heading to the polls on World Press Freedom Day — to come out swinging at the ABC and Guardian Australia, telling his followers to ignore “the hate media”.
I’m not saying Labor is likely to be the great saviour of the free press either.
The ALP has been slow to act on a range of important press freedom issues, including continuing to charge journalism students upwards of $50,000 for the privilege of learning at university how to be a decent watchdog for society.
Labor has increased, slightly, funding for the ABC, and has tried to continue with the Coalition’s plans to force the big tech platforms to pay for news. But that is not enough.
The World Press Freedom Index has been telling us for some time that Australia’s press is in a perilous state. Last year, Australia dropped to 39th out of 190 countries because of what Reporters Without Borders said was a “hyperconcentration of the media combined with growing pressure from the authorities”.
We should know on election day if we’ve fallen even further.
What is happening in America is having a profound impact on journalism (and by extension journalism education) in Australia.
‘Friendly’ influencers
We’ve seen both parties subtly start to sideline the mainstream media by going to “friendly” influencers and podcasters, and avoid the harder questions that come from journalists whose job it is to read and understand the policies being presented.
What Australia really needs — on top of stable and guaranteed funding for independent and reliable public interest journalism, including the ABC and SBS — is a Media Freedom Act.
My colleague Professor Peter Greste has spent years working on the details of such an act, one that would give media in Australia the protection lacking from not having a Bill of Rights safeguarding media and free speech. So far, neither side of government has signed up to publicly support it.
Australia also needs an accompanying Journalism Australia organisation, where ethical and trained journalists committed to the job of watchdog journalism can distinguish themselves from individuals on YouTube and TikTok who may be pushing their own agendas and who aren’t held to the same journalistic code of ethics and standards.
I’m not going to argue that all parts of the Australian news media are working impartially in the best interests of ordinary people. But the good journalists who are need help.
The continuing underfunding of our national broadcasters needs to be resolved. University fees for journalism degrees need to be cut, in recognition of the value of the profession to the fabric of Australian society. We need regulations to force news organisations to disclose when they are using AI to do the job of journalists and broadcasters without human oversight.
And we need more funding for critical news literacy education, not just for school kids but also for adults.
Critical need for public interest journalism
There has never been a more critical need to support public interest journalism. We have all watched in horror as Donald Trump has denied wire services access for minor issues, such as failing to comply with an ungazetted decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
And mere days ago, 60 Minutes chief Bill Owens resigned citing encroachments on his journalistic independence due to pressure from the president.
The Committee to Protect Journalists is so concerned about what’s occurring in America that it has issued a travel advisory for journalists travelling to the US, citing risks under Trump administration policies.
Those of us who cover politically sensitive issues that the US administration may view as critical or hostile may be stopped and questioned by border agents. That can extend to cardigan-wearing academics attending conferences.
While we don’t have the latest Australian figures from the annual Reuters survey, a new Pew Research Centre study shows a growing gap between how much Americans say they value press freedom and how free they think the press actually is. Two-thirds of Americans believe press freedom is critical. But only a third believe the media is truly free to do its job.
If the press isn’t free in the US (where it is guaranteed in their constitution), how are we in Australia expected to be able to keep the powerful honest?
Every single day, journalists put their lives on the line for journalism. It’s not always as dramatic as those who are covering the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, but those in the media in Australia still front up and do the job across a range of news organisations in some fairly poor conditions.
If you care about democracy at all this election, then please consider wisely who you vote for, and perhaps ask their views on supporting press freedom — which is your right to know.
Alexandra Wake is an associate professor in journalism at RMIT University. She came to the academy after a long career as a journalist and broadcaster. She has worked in Australia, Ireland, the Middle East and across the Asia Pacific. Her research, teaching and practice sits at the nexus of journalism practice, journalism education, equality, diversity and mental health.
New Zealand’s Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) has upheld complaints about two 1News reports relating to violence around a football match in Amsterdam between local team Ajax and Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv.
The authority found an item on “antisemitic violence” surrounding the match, and another on heightened security in Paris the following week, breached the accuracy standard.
In a majority decision, the BSA upheld a complaint from John Minto on behalf of Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) about reporting on TVNZ’s 6pm 1News bulletin on 9 November 2024.
This comprised a trailer reporting “antisemitic violence”, an introduction by the presenter with “disturbing” footage of violence against Israeli fans described by Amsterdam’s mayor as “an explosion of antisemitism”, and a pre-recorded BBC item.
TVNZ upheld one aspect of this complaint over mischaracterised footage in the trailer and introduction. This was originally reported as showing Israeli fans being attacked, but later corrected by Reuters and other outlets as showing Israeli fans chasing and attacking a Dutch man.
“The footage contributed to a materially misleading impression created by TVNZ’s framing of the events, with an emphasis on antisemitic violence against Israeli fans without acknowledging the role of the Maccabi fans in the violence – despite that being previously reported elsewhere,” the BSA found.
A majority of the authority found TVNZ did not make reasonable efforts to ensure accuracy.
It considered the background to the events was highly sensitive and more care should have been taken to not overstate or adopt, without question, the antisemitic angle.
The minority considered it was reasonable for TVNZ to rely on Reuters, the BBC and Dutch officials’ description of the violence as “antisemitic”, in a story developing overseas in which not all facts were clear at the time of broadcast.
The authority considered TVNZ should have issued a correction when it became aware of the error with the footage. It therefore found the action taken was insufficient, but considered publication of the BSA’s decision to be an adequate remedy in the circumstances.
Western media’s embarrassing failures on Amsterdam violence. Video: AJ’s The Listening Post
In a separate decision, the authority upheld two complaints about a brief 1News item on 15 November 2024 reporting on heightened security in Paris in the week following the violence.
The item reported: “Thousands of police are on the streets of Paris over fears of antisemitic attacks . . . That’s after 60 people were arrested in Amsterdam last week when supporters of a Tel Aviv football team were pursued and beaten by pro-Palestinian protesters.”
TVNZ upheld both complaints under the accuracy standard on the basis the item “lacked the nuance” of earlier reporting on Amsterdam, by omitting to mention the role of the Maccabi fans in the lead-up to the violence.
The authority agreed with this finding but determined TVNZ took insufficient action to remedy the breach.
“The broadcaster accepted more care should have been taken, but did not appear to have taken any action in response, or made any public acknowledgement of the inaccuracy,” the BSA said.
The authority found the framing and focus careless, noting “the role of both sides in the violence had been extensively reported” by the time of the 15 November broadcast. TVNZ had also aired the mischaracterised footage again, not realising Reuters had issued a correction several days earlier.
As TVNZ was not monitoring the Reuters fact-check site, the correction only came to light when the complaints were being investigated.
Other standards raised in the three complaints were not breached or did not apply, the authority found.
The BSA did not consider an order was warranted over the item on November 15 – deciding publication of the decision was sufficient to publicly acknowledge and correct the breach, censure the broadcaster and give guidance to TVNZ and other broadcasters.
Palestinians do not have the luxury to allow Western moral panic to have its say or impact. Not caving in to this panic is one small, but important, step in building a global Palestine network that is urgently needed, writes Dr Ilan Pappé
ANALYSIS:By Ilan Pappé
Responses in the Western world to the genocide in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank raise a troubling question: why is the official West, and official Western Europe in particular, so indifferent to Palestinian suffering?
Why is the Democratic Party in the US complicit, directly and indirectly, in sustaining the daily inhumanity in Palestine — a complicity so visible that it probably was one reason they lost the election, as the Arab American and progressive vote in key states could, and justifiably so, not forgive the Biden administration for its part in the genocide in the Gaza Strip?
This is a pertinent question, given that we are dealing with a televised genocide that has now been renewed on the ground. It is different from previous periods in which Western indifference and complicity were displayed, either during the Nakba or the long years of occupation since 1967.
During the Nakba and up to 1967, it was not easy to get hold of information, and the oppression after 1967 was mostly incremental, and, as such, was ignored by the Western media and politics, which refused to acknowledge its cumulative effect on the Palestinians.
But these last 18 months are very different. Ignoring the genocide in the Gaza Strip and the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank can only be described as intentional and not due to ignorance.
Both the Israelis’ actions and the discourse that accompanies them are too visible to be ignored, unless politicians, academics, and journalists choose to do so.
This kind of ignorance is, first and foremost, the result of successful Israeli lobbying that thrived on the fertile ground of an European guilt complex, racism and Islamophobia. In the case of the US, it is also the outcome of many years of an effective and ruthless lobbying machine that very few in academia, media, and, in particular, politics, dare to disobey.
The moral panic phenomenon
This phenomenon is known in recent scholarship as moral panic, very characteristic of the more conscientious sections of Western societies: intellectuals, journalists, and artists.
Moral panic is a situation in which a person is afraid of adhering to his or her own moral convictions because this would demand some courage that might have consequences. We are not always tested in situations that require courage, or at least integrity. When it does happen, it is in situations where morality is not an abstract idea, but a call for action.
This is why so many Germans were silent when Jews were sent to extermination camps, and this is why white Americans stood by when African Americans were lynched or, earlier on, enslaved and abused.
What is the price that leading Western journalists, veteran politicians, tenured professors, or chief executives of well-known companies would have to pay if they were to blame Israel for committing a genocide in the Gaza Strip?
It seems they are worried about two possible outcomes. The first is being condemned as antisemites or Holocaust deniers. Secondly, they fear an honest response would trigger a discussion that would include the complicity of their country, or Europe, or the West in general, in enabling the genocide and all the criminal policies against the Palestinians that preceded it.
This moral panic leads to some astonishing phenomena. In general, it transforms educated, highly articulate and knowledgeable people into total imbeciles when they talk about Palestine.
It disallows the more perceptive and thoughtful members of the security services from examining Israeli demands to include all Palestinian resistance on a terrorist list, and it dehumanises Palestinian victims in the mainstream media.
On ‘Moral Panic’ and the Courage to Speak – Professor Ilan Pappé examines how fear of professional consequences silences Western voices in the face of genocide in Gaza — and what this reveals about power, complicity, and moral responsibility.
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) April 18, 2025
Lack of compassion
The lack of compassion and basic solidarity with the victims of genocide was exposed by the double standards shown by mainstream media in the West, and, in particular, by the more established newspapers in the US, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.
When the editor of The Palestine Chronicle, Dr Ramzy Baroud, lost 56 members of his family — killed by the Israeli genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip — not one of his colleagues in American journalism bothered to talk to him or show any interest in hearing about this atrocity.
On the other hand, a fabricated Israeli allegation of a connection between the Chronicle and a family, in whose block of flats hostages were held, triggered huge interest by these outlets.
This imbalance in humanity and solidarity is just one example of the distortions that accompanies moral panic. I have little doubt that the actions against Palestinian or pro-Palestinian students in the US, or against known activists in Britain and France, as well as the arrest of the editor of the Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah, in Switzerland, are all manifestations of this distorted moral behaviour.
A similar case unfolded just recently in Australia. Mary Kostakidis, a famous Australian journalist and former prime-time weeknight SBS World News Australia presenter, has been taken to the federal court over her — one should say quite tame — reporting on the situation in the Gaza Strip.
The very fact that the court has not dismissed this allegation upon its arrival shows you how deeply rooted moral panic is in the Global North.
But there is another side to it. Thankfully, there is a much larger group of people who are not afraid of taking the risks involved in clearly stating their support for the Palestinians, and who do show this solidarity while knowing it may lead to suspension, deportation, or even jail time. They are not easily found among the mainstream academia, media, or politics, but they are the authentic voice of their societies in many parts of the Western world.
The Palestinians do not have the luxury of allowing Western moral panic to have its say or impact. Not caving in to this panic is one small but important step in building a global Palestine network that is urgently needed — firstly, to stop the destruction of Palestine and its people, and second, to create the conditions for a decolonised and liberated Palestine in the future.
Dr Ilan Pappé is an Israeli historian, political scientist, and former politician. He is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, director of the university’s European Centre for Palestine Studies, and co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies. This article is republished from The Palestine Chronicle, 19 April 2025.
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