Te Reo Māori Society member Dr Rob Pouwhare felt a mixture of emotions at the exhibition, including joy at how far the language had come.
“Things have advanced so quickly, so much is happening and I’m so thrilled that our kids are connecting with the language. Not just our kids, I see many New Zealand kids, Pākehā kids also connecting with the language,” Pouwhare said.
Māori Language Festival director Mere Boynton said it had been an emotional process.
“It is such a significant time for us and the petition is really the kaupapa, it’s essential, it’s the ngako of this hui ahurei and that’s the reason why mana whenua asked for a hui ahurei so that there was taonga that people could see,” Boynton said.
Flags fly as crowds march towards Parliament to mark 50 years the presentation of the Māori Language petition. Image: Angus Dreaver/RNZ
Contrasting scenes
Come midday there were contrasting scenes to what unfolded on the steps of Parliament in 1972, when the group including Ngā Tamatoa, Te Reo Māori society and Te Huinga Rangatahi, led by kaumātua Rev Hemi Potatau and Te Ouenuku Rene, delivered the 33,000-strong signed petition to MPs.
They were the champions from across the motu calling for the revitalisation of te reo Māori — and it was key moment in the reclamation.
But today — 50 years on — tino rangatiratanga flags flew on the forecourt, te reo Māori was heard throughout the crowd as thousands came together to reflect and remember the battle fought for the language.
Many in the crowd included kōhanga reo and kura kaupapa students — and other students and members of the public from near and far, young and old.
Those gathered on the stage and just in front included members of that ope that arrived there half a century with a goal — a goal to keep te reo Māori alive.
There were others of course who were not there — like the late like Hana Te Hemara who spearheaded the petition and its message — and those rangatira who led them but they were top of mind for all attending.
When RNZ asked Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Te Raki Paewhenua year 11 students Marara and Kahurangi what they would think now, their response was, “I think they would be proud”.
‘Long way to go’
“But we still have a long way to go,”
That was a key sentiment of the day — reflecting on how far Aotearoa has come in 50 years but how far there still is to go in the revitalisation and now increase of the use of te reo Māori.
Moana Maniapoto speaks to the crowd outside Parliament. Image: Angus Dreaver/RNZ
Rawiri Paratene, who stood with his daughter and Greens co-Leader Marama Davidson, was touched by the event.
“I’m proud to be part of it and great to see heaps of my mates and see them on the stage and they’re all fluent,” Paratene said.
Davidson said: “We’re all proud of my pāpā, my nana who was the generation who were traumatised to lose our reo and her love for her tamariki lives in us still.
“I’m proud that my dad was part of an amazing group of rangatahi. I can’t believe they were 18-17”.
Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke — a descendent of Hana Te Hemara, who handed over the petition — also spoke at the event.
Half a century later she had picked up the rakau and spoke of the wins Māori have had since then.
Hana Te Hemara, who handed over the te reo petition … her descendant Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke also spoke at the anniversary event: “We’re even decolonising our blankets and chocolate.” Image: Twitter
“Māori Health Authority, Māori wards, Matariki, kura kaupapa, kōhanga reo, Te Matatini. We’re even decolonising our blankets and chocolate,” Maipi-Clarke said.
‘Are you ready’ plea
She ended by asking the audience if they were ready.
“I’ll leave the decision with you whether you want to jump on our waka or not, because with or without you we will sail in both worlds.
“We’ve come so far but we’ve got so long to go. Let’s see what we can do in the next 50 years.”
Māori Language Commissioner Rawinia Higgins said it was up to the next generation to carry on strengthening the language.
“As much as we take for granted today the language and all the initiatives that have come out of the language, I think there’s so much more to do and it’s the young people,” Higgins said.
“So the young people brought this petition to parliament, it’s the young people who are here today celebrating that and hopefully find inspiration from all those unsung heroes.”
Supporters of te reo had come so far in that time — and those signatures had not gone to waste, she said.
She was encouraging rangatahi to speak with their grandparents about their fight to keep the language going with hopes it would be even stronger in another 50 years.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
ANALYSIS:By David Engel, Albert Zhang and Jake Wallis
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has analysed thousands of suspicious tweets posted in 2021 relating to the Indonesian region of West Papua and assessed that they are inauthentic and were crafted to promote the policies and activities of the Indonesian government while condemning opponents such as Papuan pro-independence activists.
This work continues ASPI’s research collaboration with Twitter focusing on information manipulation in the Indo-Pacific to encourage transparency around these activities and norms of behaviour that are conducive to open democracies in the region.
It follows our August 24 analysis of a dataset made up of thousands of tweets relating to developments in Indonesia in late 2020, which Twitter had removed for breaching its platform manipulation and spam policies.
This report on Papua focuses on similar Twitter activity from late February to late July 2021 that relates to developments in and about Indonesia’s easternmost region.
This four-month period was noteworthy for several serious security incidents as well as an array of state-supported activities and events in the Papua region, then made up of the provinces of West Papua and Papua.
These incidents were among many related to the long-running pro-independence conflict in the region.
A report from Indonesia’s Human Rights Commission detailed 53 violent incidents in 2021 across the Papua region in which 24 people were killed at the hands of both security forces and the armed wing of the Free Papua Organisation (OPM) separatist movement, the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB).
‘Armed criminal group’
Jakarta normally referred to this group by the acronym “KKB”, which stands for “armed criminal group”.
This upsurge in violence followed earlier cases involving multiple deaths. The most notorious took place in December 2018, when TPNPB insurgents reportedly murdered a soldier and at least 16 construction workers working on a part of the Trans-Papua Highway in the Nduga regency of Papua province (official Indonesian sources have put the death toll as high as 31).
The Indonesian government responded by conducting Operation Nemangkawi, a major national police (POLRI) security operation by a taskforce comprising police and military units, including additional troops brought in from outside the province.
The security operation led to bloody clashes, allegations of human rights abuses and extrajudicial killings, and the internal displacement of many thousands of Papuans, hundreds of whom, according to Amnesty International Indonesia, later died of hunger or illness.
Besides anti-insurgency actions, an important component of the operation was the establishment of Binmas Noken Polri, a community policing initiative designed to conduct “humanitarian police missions or operations” and assist “community empowerment” through programmes covering education, agriculture and tourism development.
“Noken” refers to a traditional Papuan bag that indigenous Papuans regard as a symbol of “dignity, civilisation and life”. Binmas Noken Polri was initiated by the then national police chief, Tito Karnavian, the same person who created the recently disbanded, shadowy Red and White Special Task Force highlighted in our August 24 report.
A key development occurred in April 2021 when pro-independence militants killed the regional chief of the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) in an ambush. Coming on the back of other murders by independence fighters (including of two teachers alleged to be police spies earlier that month), this prompted the government to declare the KKB in Papua—that is, the TPNPB “and its affiliated organisations”—”terrorists” and President Joko Widodo to order a crackdown on the group.
9 insurgents killed
Nine alleged insurgents were killed shortly afterwards.
In May 2021, hundreds of additional troops from outside Papua deployed to the province, some of which were part of an elite battalion nicknamed “Satan’s forces” that had earned notoriety in earlier conflicts in Indonesia’s Aceh province and Timir-Leste.
During the same month, there were large-scale protests in Papua and elsewhere over the government’s moves to renew and revise the special autonomy law, under which the region had enjoyed particular rights and benefits since 2001.
The protests included demonstrations staged by Papuan activists and students in Jakarta and the Javanese cities of Bandung and Yogyakarta from May 21-24. The revised law was ushered in by Karnavian, who was then (and is still) Indonesia’s Home Affairs Minister.
The period also saw ongoing preparations for the staging of the National Sports Week (PON) in Papua. Delayed by one year because of the covid-19 pandemic, the event eventually was held in October at several specially built venues across the province.
The dataset we analysed represents a diverse collection of thousands of tweets put out under such hashtags as #BinmasNokenPolri, #MenolakLupa (Refuse to forget), #TumpasKKBPapua (Annihilate the Papuan armed criminal group), #PapuaNKRI (Papua unitary state of the Republic of Indonesia), #Papua and #BongkarBiangRusuh (Take apart the culprits of the riots).
Most were overtly political, either associating the Indonesian state with success and public benefits for Papuans or condemning the state’s opponents as criminals, and sometimes doing both in the same tweet.
Papuan Games tweets Among several tweets under #Papua proclaiming that the province was ready to host the forthcoming PON thanks to Jakarta’s investment in facilities and security, 18 dispatched on June 25 proclaimed: “PAPUA IS READY TO IMPLEMENT PON 2020!!! Papua is safe, peaceful and already prepared to implement PON 2020. So there’s no need to be afraid. Shootings by the KKB … are far from the PON cluster [the various sports facilities] … Therefore everyone #ponpapua #papua”.
Many tweets were clearly aimed at shaping public perceptions of the pro-independence militia and others challenging the state.
Under #MenolakLupa in particular, numerous tweets related to past and contemporary acts of violence by the pro-independence militants. Two sets of tweets from March 22 and 24 that recall the 2018 attack at Nduga are especially noteworthy, in that both injected the term “terrorist” into the armed criminal group moniker that the state had been using hitherto, making it “KKTB”. This was a month before the formal designation of the OPM as a “terrorist” organisation.
As if to stress the OPM’s terrorist nature, subsequent tweets under #MenolakLupa carried through with this loaded terminology. For example, tweets on June 15 stated that in 2017 “KKTB committed sexual violence” against as many as 12 women in two villages in Papua.
A fortnight later, another set of tweets said that in 2018 the “armed terrorist criminal group” had held 14 teachers hostage and had taken turns in raping one of them, causing her “trauma”. Others claimed former pro-independence militants had converted to the cause of the Indonesian unitary state and therefore recognised its sovereignty over Papua.
Some tweets relate directly to specific contemporary events. Examples are flurries of tweets posted on July 24-25 in response to the protests against the special autonomy law’s renewal that highlight the alleged irresponsibility of demonstrations during the pandemic, such as: “Let’s reject the invitation to demo and don’t be easily provoked by irresponsible [malign] people. Stay home and stay healthy always.”
Others are tweets put out under #TumpasKKBPapua after the shooting of the two teachers, such as: “Any religion in the world surely opposes murder or any other such offence, let alone of this teacher. Secure the land of the Bird of Paradise.”
Warning over ‘hoax’ allegations
Other tweets warn Papuans not to succumb to “hoax” allegations about the security forces’ behaviour or other claims by overseas-based spokespeople such as United Liberation Movement of West Papua’s Benny Wenda and Amnesty International human rights lawyer Veronica Koman.
Tweets on April 1 under #PapuaNKRI, for example, warned recipients not to “believe the KKB’s Media Propaganda, let’s be smart and wise in using the media lest we be swayed by fake news.”
Many of the tweets in the dataset are strikingly mundane, with content that state agencies already were, or would have been, publicising openly. A tweet on February 27 under #Papua, for example, announced that the Transport Minister would prioritise the construction of transport infrastructure in the two provinces.
Those under #BinmasNokenPolri often echoed advice that receivers of the tweet could just as easily see on other media, such as POLRI’s official Binmas Noken website.
Some were public announcements about market conditions and community policing events where, for example, people could receive government assistance such as rice, basic items and other support.
Most reflected Binmas Noken’s community engagement purpose, ranging from a series on May 20 promoting a child’s “trauma healing” session with Binmas Noken personnel to another tweeted out on June 20 advising of a badminton contest involving villages and police arranged under the Nemangkawi Task Force.
‘Healthy body, strong spirit’
A further 34 tweets on June 20 advised that “inside a healthy body is a strong spirit”, of which the first nine began with the same broad sentiment expressed in the Latin motto derived from the Roman poet Juvenal, “Mens sana in corpore sano.” (Presumably, after this first group of tweets it dawned on the sender that his or her classical erudition was likely to be lost on indigenous Papuan residents.)
As with the tweets analysed in our August 24 report, based on behavioural patterns within the data, we judge that these tweets are likely to be inauthentic—that is, they were the result of coordinated and covert activity intended to influence public opinion rather than organic expressions by genuine users on the platform.
Without conclusively identifying the actors responsible, we assess that the tweets mirror the Widodo government’s general position on the Papuan region as being an inalienable part of the Indonesian state, as well as the government’s security policies and development agenda in the region.
The vast majority are purposive: by promoting the government’s policies and activities and condemning opponents of those policies (whether pro-independence militia or protesters), the tweets are clearly designed to persuade recipients that the state is providing vital public goods such as security, development and basic support in the face of malignant, hostile forces, and hence that being Indonesian is in their interests.
Dr David Engel is senior analyst on Indonesia in ASPI’s Defence and Strategy Programme. Albert Zhang is an analyst with ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre. His research interests include information and influence operations, and disinformation. Dr Jake Wallis is the Head of Programme, Information Operations and Disinformation with ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre. This article is republished from The Strategist with permission.
Prime Minister James Marape says Papua New Guineans will be consulted on key constitutional questions relating to Bougainville’s 97.7 percent vote for independence.
In his maiden speech after being voted in as the country’s 9th Prime Minister, he said the issue infringed on PNG’s national unity and it touched on sovereignty, which was a huge constitutional burden for the government and the people.
He said the Autonomous Region of Bougainville was an important agenda for his government and that by 2024 the referendum vote issue would be brought to Parliament.
“This question for Bougainville is a test to our national union. We will consult with the rest of the country because our people must have a say,” Marape said in his speech.
“This year and first half of next year we will consult the country on some of the key constitutional questions and we will work to the plan that we set out in Wabag, in that by 2024 we bring the matter to Parliament.
“It is a political question so a political solution must be found.
“I have and continue to have one vote. But the question on altering our national boundary is a constitutional matter, and the entire nation must be consulted. The result of the referendum stands as high as Mt Wilhelm. It cannot be diluted.
“We will deliver on that political commitment to find that political solution that is mutually acceptable to Bougainville and Papua New Guinea.
“The journey is still a long way ahead … when our union is in question, it infringes on our national unity, it touches on our sovereignty which is a huge constitutional burden on us.
“Our union together was placed together by the constitutional definition in 1975, it will only take a constitutional amendment to unbundle this union.
“I want to ask Bougainvilleans, fear not, Papua New Guineans fear not. Let’s take this journey together and we find a political solution to this political question to our people in Bougainville.”
Gorethy Kenneth is a PNG Post-Courier senior journalist. Republished with permission.
In Fiji’s politically charged context, national elections are historically a risky period. Since the 2022 campaign period was declared open on April 26, the intensity has been increasing.
Moreover, with three governments toppled by coups after the 1987, 1999 and 2006 elections, concerns about a smooth transfer of power are part of the national conversation.
The frontrunners in the election, which must be held by January 2023 but is likely to be held later this year, are two former military strongmen — Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and former Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka.
Both men have been involved in Fijian coups in the past. Rabuka took power through the 1987 coups in the name of Indigenous self-determination. He became the elected prime minister in 1992 but lost power in 1999 after forming a coalition with a largely Indo–Fijian party.
Bainimarama staged his 2006 coup in the name of good governance, multiracialism and eradicating corruption, before restoring electoral democracy and winning elections under the FijiFirst (FF) party banner in 2014 and 2018.
FijiFirst was formed by the leaders and supporters of the 2006 coup during the transition back to democratic government via the 2014 election. Many of the FF leaders were part of the post-coup interim government that created the 2013 constitution, which delivered substantial changes to Fiji’s electoral system.
These changes included the elimination of seats reserved for specific ethnicities, replaced by a single multi-member constituency covering the whole country, and the creation of a single national electoral roll. Seat distribution is proportional, meaning each of the eight competing parties will need to get five percent of the vote to win one of the 55 seats up for grabs this year.
Popularity a key factor
As votes for a particular candidate are distributed to those lower down their parties’ ticket once they cross the five percent threshold, the popularity of single candidates can make or break a party’s electoral hopes.
For example, Bainimarama individually garnered 69 percent of FF’s total votes in 2014 and 73.81 percent in 2018, demonstrating the extent to which his party’s fortunes rest on his personal brand.
This will be crucial as FF’s majority rests on a razor thin margin, having won in 2018 with only 50.02 percent of the vote, compared to its 59.14 percent in 2014.
As for his major rival Rabuka, following his split with the major Indigenous Fijian party, Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA), he formed and now heads the People’s Alliance Party (PAP).
The split came after Rabuka lost a leadership tussle with SODELPA stalwart Viliame Gavoka. Rabuka’s departure is seen as a setback for SODELPA, given that he attracted 77,040, or 42.55 percent, of the total SODELPA votes in 2018.
When it comes to issues, the state of the economy, including cost of living and national debt, are expected to be at the top of most voters’ minds. Covid-19 brought a sudden halt to tourism — which before the pandemic made up 39 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) — putting 115,000 people out of work.
As a result, the government borrowed heavily during this period, which according to the Ministry of Economy saw the “debt-to-GDP ratio increase to over 80 percent at the end of March 2022 compared to around 48 per cent pre-pandemic”.
Poverty ‘undercounted’
The government stated that it borrowed to prevent economic collapse, while the opposition accused it of reckless spending. The World Bank put the poverty level at 24.1 percent in April 2022, but opposition politicians have claimed this is an undercount.
For example, the leader of the National Federation Party (NFP) Professor Biman Prasad has claimed the real level of unemployment is more than 50 percent.
Adding to this pressure is inflation, which reached 4.7 percent in April — up from 1.9 percent in February — and while the government blames price increases in wheat, fuel, and other staples on the war in Ukraine, the opposition attributes it to poor economic fundamentals.
Another factor which could define the election outcome was the pre-election announcement of a coalition between the PAP and NFP. By combining the two largest opposition parties, there is clearly a hope to form a viable multiethnic alternative to FF.
This strategy, however, is not without risks in the country’s complex political milieu. In the 1999 election, the coalition between Rabuka’s ruling Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei Party and NFP failed when Rabuka’s 1987 coup history was highlighted during campaigning.
This saw NFP’s Fijian supporters of Indian descent desert the party.
Whether history will repeat itself is one of the intriguing questions in this election. According to some estimates, FF received 71 percent of Indo-Fijian votes in 2014, and capturing this support base is crucial for the opposition’s chances.
Transfer of power concerns
Against the background of pressing economic and social issues loom concerns about a smooth transfer of power. Besides Fiji’s coup culture, such anxieties are fuelled by a constitutional provision seen to give the military carte blanche to intervene in national politics.
Section 131(2) of the 2013 Fijian constitution states: ‘It shall be the overall responsibility of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces to ensure at all times the security, defence and well-being of Fiji and all Fijians’.
This has concerned many opposition leaders, such as NFP president Pio Tikoduadua, who has called for the country to rethink how this aspect of the constitution should be understood.
These concerns are likely to increase by the prospect of a close or hung election. As demonstrated after last year’s Samoan general election, the risk of a protracted dispute over the results could have adverse implications for a stable outcome.
As such, it is essential that all candidates immediately commit to respect the final result of the election whatever it may be and lay the foundations for a peaceful transition of power. In the longer-term interest, however, it will be necessary for Fiji to clarify the potential domestic power of the military implied by the constitution to put all undue speculation to rest.
Dr Shailendra Singh is coordinator of the University of the South Pacific journalism programme. This article is based on a paper published by ANU Department of Pacific Affairs (DPA) as part of its “In brief” series. The original paper can be found here.It was first published at Policy Forum, Asia and the Pacific’s platform for public policy analysis and opinion. Republished with the permission of the author.
If there is a glimmer of hope in Papua New Guinea’s violence marred national general elections, then it has to be the elevation of a lone woman to the National Parliament.
It took the People’s National Congress (PNC) Governor-elect of Central Province, Rufina Peter, three attempts to wrest power away from Pangu’s Robert Agarobe at the close of counting last week.
The contest went down to the wire and Peter won on the weight of second and third preferential votes from eliminated candidates to unseat Agarobe.
She becomes the second woman to win the Central regional seat –– the first being vocal Papua Besena MP Dame Josephine Abaijah. And she is the eighth woman to be elected to Parliament, the first in a decade.
In another major development, the people of Madang are on the cusp of sending a second woman to join Peter in Parliament.
Rai Coast hopes up
In the remote district of Rai Coast –– famous for hosting a Russian anthropologist a century ago – jittery voters are keeping their fingers crossed as distribution of preferences was taking place over the weekend.
These are the same preferences that elevated Peter and given Sawang’s strong lead in the first half of the count, the preferences are hoped to push her to victory.
Last Friday, she was in second place on 5086 votes after the first preferences were completed from defending MP Peter Sapia’s LLG area, pushing Sapia to 7127 votes.
Counting of preferential votes is continuing at a snail’s pace in Rai Coast as the coasties hold their breath.
More than 62,361 people of Central Province cast their vote for Peter, who polled 3444 more votes against incumbent Agarobe.
She surpassed the absolute majority of 60,640 after the 20th exclusion of Nelson Saroa who had 25,551 votes distributed, which pushed Rufina to collect 6779, making her reach the target with 62,361 votes against Agarobe who had 58,917 votes.
She said at her declaration on Friday night that she was aware of the magnitude of politics played out on the floor of Parliament, the tasks ahead of her, the wrestling she would need to do to give her Central Province people what they deserve.
First woman declared
An economist and Goilala’s first female politician, Rufina Peter is now the first woman to be declared in the 2022 national election.
Peter admitted that being elected as the political head of a province came with great responsibility and she was confident she could deliver to her people by working as a team.
PNC leader Peter O’Neill was first to congratulate the party’s “iron lady”, saying her declaration was a proud moment for the party.
“Rufina Peter’s declaration is a proud moment for our Party. She fought hard and stands strongly for those she represents. It is a pity that the ferocity and aggressive nature of this terrible national general election has sidelined a record number of female candidates,” O’Neill said.
In an interview over the weekend, Peter said Central Province had many educated elites who were instrumental in building the nation on the eve of independence.
“In my five years, I will make that happen again while in office, I will carry my people’s plight, I will fight for our women, our children and the underprivileged,” she said.
Dedicated to ‘female empowerment’
Peter assured the people of Central and PNG women that she stood ready to work with all members-elect in Central and the provincial administration to serve her people in five districts.
The new governor also thanked her predecessor, Robert Agarobe, for leading and governing Central Province over the past five years.
She dedicated her victory to God, the women of Central and male champions of women empowerment.
She acknowledged all security forces and electoral officials for delivering the elections in trying circumstances, and also praised the PNC party for believing in and endorsing her to run under its banner.
Gorethy Kennethis a senior PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.
A Fiji political leader is calling out the Australian and New Zealand governments on their “deafening silence” over human rights issues in the region.
The leader of the opposition National Federation Party, Professor Biman Prasad, has called out the two countries for not acknowledging what he described as “the declining standards” of democracy, governance, human rights, media freedom and freedom of speech issues in some Pacific countries.
Prasad said the recent 2022 Pacific Islands Leaders’ Forum ended with prime minister Anthony Albanese and Jacinda Ardern refusing to speak up on the decline in the standards of democracy.
“What concerns me is that the Pacific Forum is an important leaders’ meeting and both Australia and New Zealand are members,” Professor Prasad told RNZ’s Pacific Waves.
“One would have expected, even to the dislike of some within the forum, at least some mention of how the Pacific Forum is going to deal with declining standards of democracy, good governance, human rights, media freedom and freedom of speech,” he said.
“[But] no word from leaders, particularly Australia and New Zealand, was a bit concerning.”
Failed over glaring issues
The forum leaders’ meeting, he said, failed to address glaring issues, such as:
the Fiji government’s spat with the head of the regionally-owned University of the South Pacific;
questionable governance practices and attacks on free speech in Solomon Islands;
the deterioration of decolonisation arrangements in New Caledonia.
According to Prasad, Albanese and Ardern refused to discuss these in Suva because they feared it would push Pacific nations “further into the arms of China”.
Such a stance gives credibility to the claim that “Australia and New Zealand are preoccupied with their own strategic interests first, before the interests of Pacific Island countries,” he wrote in a Development Policy Centre blog last week.
“I can speak about Fiji more specifically. As leader of an opposition political party in Parliament, I experienced first-hand the bullying, the intimidation by this government and the declining standards of democracy, of transparency and accountability,” he said.
“Fiji continues to behave in the guise of championing climate change around the world that everything is hunky dory in Fiji. It is not and that is why the forum is important.”
He said “appeasing autocratic leaders” to keep Beijing at bay was unacceptable and the sooner Canberra and Wellington realised appeasement was not the best strategy, the better it would be for the region.
NZ’s ‘no comment’
RNZ Pacific contacted both the Australian and New Zealand governments for comment.
New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it had no comment to make on Professor Prasad’s blog.
However, a spokesperson for Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Australia had a long-standing history of supporting work to strengthen regional action in support of human rights.
“Our focus was on the contributions we can make as a member of the Pacific family, rather than what others may be doing,” it said.
“Australia will talk to partner governments directly where we have concerns about democracy, transparency and the rule of law.”
Australia will be contributing up to A$7.7 million (NZ$8.6 million] over the next four-and-a-half years to support the Pacific Community in implementing the Human Rights and Social Development Division Business Plan to strengthen human rights in the region.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
A district mayor says the Aotearoa New Zealand local government sector is ready to launch into a future that embraces more youthful members, Māori and climate change action.
Whanganui mayor Hamish McDouall said the Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) annual conference underway in Palmerston North had “launched our heads into the future”.
McDouall, the vice-president of LGNZ, said yesterday the hot topics were the changing face of elected membership, partnership with Māori and climate change.
“The clear message is about the future. The future is going to change. It is about youth involvement and embracing hapū and iwi.
“With the next generations’ birth rates significantly higher for Māori than Pākehā, co-governance arrangements and those kind of things just have to be in place.
“The exciting thing about today is you can tell that local government is wanting change, ready for change.”
The sector could not ignore the climate change crisis, McDouall said.
Climate deniers ‘on wrong planet’
“If there’s any climate change denier out there, you’re on the wrong planet. Local government needs to get more active and make bold decisions.
“Any decision we make proactively now is going to make it less difficult to adapt in 10 years. We’ve just got to do things now.
“I have climate change sceptics on my council but anyone entering local government should understand this is the crisis for the rest of our lives.”
The third burning issue at the conference was rating, McDouall said.
“Rates don’t work as a funding tool alone – that’s why Three Waters is happening, because we simply can’t afford it.”
Thirty-five councils across the country will have Māori wards at this year’s local body elections, 32 of them for the first time.
Te Maruata collective ‘thrilled’
Bonita Bigham, chair of the sector’s Māori collective Te Maruata, said the network was thrilled to be welcoming more than 50 new Māori ward members into the sector in October.
Te Maruata spent a day together before the main conference began on Wednesday.
“We were thrilled — really thrilled — for the first time ever to have at least six Māori mayoral candidates in the room,” Bigham said.
But she said it was clear that the council environment does not support Māori elected members. The results of a survey of elected members released by LGNZ this week revealed that half the respondents have experienced racism, gender discrimination and other harmful behaviour.
“So [on Tuesday] we launched Te Āhuru Mōwai, a tuakana-teina initiative which will enable Māori members on any council to reach out into our collective strength and experience for guidance and support,” Bigham said.
In his president’s address, Stuart Crosby said local councils must build relationships and partnerships with all sectors of the community, including tangata whenua.
“It’s not about power and control anymore. It’s all about partnership. We cannot serve our communities and do our jobs justice if we don’t partner with mana whenua.”
Most diverse sector
Far North District councillor Moko Tepania, co-chair of LGNZ’s Young Elected Member (YEM) network, told the conference that “YEMs” represent the most diverse sector of local government.
“That gives an indication of how different local government will look in the future compared to today and the past,” he said.
Tepania, 31, is running for the Far North mayoralty in October’s elections. If successful he’ll be the youngest ever Far North mayor. He was elected as a Kaikohe-Hokianga Ward councillor at the last local government election in 2019.
Ruapehu District’s youngest councillor Elijah Pue is also running for mayor. At 28, he, too, would be the youngest mayor ever elected in his district if successful. He was elected as a Waimarino-Waiouru Ward representative in 2019.
Pue said yesterday co-governance and partnership were being openly and frankly discussed.
“How do we embody the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in a way that allows councils to focus on community wellbeing, and partnerships and relationships for the betterment of our mokopuna?
“We want meaningful change in our communities. Our outlook no longer needs to be for a 10-year long-term plan, it actually needs to be for a thousand-year generational outlook.
Future-focused leadership
“We need future-focused leadership that doesn’t dwell on the past. We need younger, browner, more future-focused leadership that puts our grandchildren, born or unborn, at the forefront of our decisions.”
Fellow Ruapehu mayoralty contender, councillor Adie Doyle, said the clear thrust of the conference was that youth and Māori would have greater input into local government.
“It’s just the way the population statistics are going. The importance of partnerships and working together – some people call it co-governance – is a key takeaway.
“These conferences are designed to challenge your thinking. You come away with maybe a different perspective.
“I support the principle of partnerships, but they have to be fit for purpose, and not all partnerships need to be equal – it’s about working together for the benefit of both parties. It’s for problem solving.”
YEM co-chair Lan Pham – the highest polling candidate elected to Environment Canterbury Regional Council in 2016 – said the key imperative of the network of elected members aged 40 or younger was a transformational approach to environmental protection.
“Every major transformation didn’t just happen, they were designed. We think it’s time for this level of change to happen again.”
Decide on next steps
Horizons Regional Council chair Rachel Keedwell told the conference it was crucial for local government to focus on the YEM vision and decide on the next steps urgently.
“We need to start putting those in place now and focus on the legacy that we’re leaving rather than whether we are going to get re-elected,” Keedwell said.
“We’re moving too slow for the size of the crises that are in front of us. I could get overwhelmed by the scale of the task in front of us: biodiversity, pollution, water quality – numerous crises at the same time.
“We’ve focused on economy rather than environment. That’s how we’ve ended up where we are. We’re living beyond the capacity of the earth. We’re living on credit and that credit is borrowed from the next generation.”
The four-day conference is being attended by a record more than 600 mayors, chairs, councillors, community board members and stakeholders who are hearing from the Prime Minister and other Ministers, the Opposition and sector leaders about policy areas and issues that impact councils and local communities.
The conference ends today.
Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ on Air. Asia Pacific Report is an LDR partner.
A lively 43sec video clip surfaced during last week’s Pacific Islands Forum in the Fiji capital of Suva — the first live leaders’ forum in three years since Tuvalu, due to the covid pandemic.
Posted on Twitter by Guardian Australia’s Pacific Project editor Kate Lyons it showed the doorstopping of Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare by a melee of mainly Australian journalists.
A doorstop on security and China greets Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare (in blue short) at the Pacific islands Forum in Suva last week. Image: Twitter screenshot
But Lyons made a comment directed more at questioning journalists themselves about their newsgathering style:
“Australian media attempt to get a response from PM Sogavare, who has refused to answer questions from international media since the signing of the China security deal, on his way to a bilateral with PM Albanese. He stayed smilingly silent.”
Prominent Samoan journalist, columnist and member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) gender council Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson picked up the thread, saying: “Let’s talk western journalism vs Pacific doorstop approaches.”
Lagipoiva highlighted for her followers the fact that “the journos engaged in this approach are all white”. She continued:
‘A respect thing’
“We don’t really do this in the Pacific to PI leaders. it’s a respect thing. However there is merit to this approach.”
A “confrontational” approach isn’t generally practised in the Pacific – “in Samoa, doorstops are still respectful.”
A thread
Let’s talk western journalism vs. Pacific journalism doorstop approaches. You will see in this, that the journos engaged in this approach are all white. We don’t really do this in the Pacific to PI leaders. It’s a respect thing. However there is merit to this approach. https://t.co/GcsJVDICFb
But she admitted that Pacific journalists sometimes “leaned” on western journalists to ask the hard questions when PI leaders would “disregard local journalists”.
“Even though this approach is very jarring”, she added, “it is also a necessary tactic to hold Pacific island leaders accountable.”
So here is the rub. Where were the hard questions in Suva — whether “western or Pacific-style” — about West Papua and Indonesian human rights abuses against a Melanesian neighbour? Surely here was a prime case in favour of doorstopping with a fresh outbreak of violations by Indonesian security forces – an estimated 21,000 troops are now deployed in Papua and West Papua provinces — in the news coinciding with the Forum unfolding on July 11-14.
In her wrap about the Forum in The Guardian, Lyons wrote about how smiles and unity in Suva – “with the notable exception of Kiribati” – were masking the tough questions being shelved for another day.
“Take coal. This will inevitably be a sticking point between Pacific countries and Australia, but apparently did not come up at all in discussions,” she wrote.
“The other conversation that has been put off is China.
“Pacific leaders have demonstrated in recent months how important the Pacific Islands Forum bloc is when negotiating with the superpower.”
Forum ‘failed moral obligation’
In a column in DevPolicy Blog this week, Fiji opposition National Federation Party (NFP) leader and former University of the South Pacific economics professor Dr Biman Prasad criticised forum leaders — and particularly Australia and New Zealand — over the “deafening silence” about declining standards of democracy and governance.
While acknowledging that an emphasis on the climate crisis was necessary and welcome, he said: “Human rights – including freedom of speech – underpin all other rights, and it is unfortunate that that this Forum failed in its moral obligation to send out a strong message of its commitment to upholding these rights.”
Back to West Papua, arguably the most explosive security issue confronting the Pacific and yet inexplicably virtually ignored by the Australian and New Zealand governments and news media.
Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre coordinator Shamima Ali and fellow activists at the Morning Star flag raising in solidarity with West Papua in Suva last week. Image: APR screenshot FV
In Suva, it was left to non-government organisations and advocacy groups such as the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) and the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) to carry the Morning Star of resistance — as West Papua’s banned flag is named.
The Fiji women’s advocacy group condemned their government and host Prime Minister Bainimarama for remaining silent over the human rights violations in West Papua, saying that women and girls were “suffering twofold” due to the increased militarisation of the two provinces of Papua and West Papuan by the “cruel Indonesian government”.
Spokesperson Joe Collins of the Sydney-based AWPA said the Fiji Forum was a “missed opportunity” to help people who were suffering at the hands of Jakarta actions.
“It’s very important that West Papua appears to be making progress,” he said, particularly in this Melanesian region which had the support of Pacific people.
Intensified violence in Papua
The day after the Forum ended, Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) general secretary Reverend James Bhagwan highlighted in an interview with FijiVillage how 100,000 people had been displaced due to intensified violence in the “land of Papua”.
Pacific Conference of Churches general secretary Reverend James Bhagwan … “significant displacement of the indigenous Papuans has been noted by United Nations experts.” Image: FijiVillage
He said the increasing number of casualties of West Papuans was hard to determine because no humanitarian agencies, NGOs or journalists were allowed to enter the region and report on the humanitarian crisis.
Reverend Bhagwan also stressed that covid-19 and climate change reminded Pacific people that there needed to be an “expanded concept of security” that included human security and humanitarian assistance.
In London, the Indonesian human rights advocacy group Tapol expressed “deep sorrow” over the recent events coinciding with the Forum, and condemned the escalating violence by Jakarta’s security forces and the retaliation by resistance groups.
Tapol cited “the destruction and repressive actions of the security forces at the Paniai Regent’s Office (Kantor Bupati Paniai) that caused the death of one person and the injury of others on July 5″.
“Acts of violence against civilians, when they lead to deaths — whoever is responsible — should be condemned,” Tapol said.
“We call on these two incidents to be investigated in an impartial, independent, appropriate and comprehensive manner by those who have the authority and competency to do so.”
Ruapehu District councillor Vivienne Hoeta has had many instances of discrimination in her role.
She recalls one conversation with another councillor over lunch which left her speechless.
“Well your people should be alright, they’ve raised the benefit. I’m like, ‘um actually, I have a degree, my children have degrees, so does my husband and most of my family are well educated on both sides.’
“‘Aw, no no no, I don’t mean you, I mean in general’,” she said.
‘What about the drawings?’
Or the time she was at a public meeting in Taumaranui speaking alongside Māori colleague Elijah Pue when she was asked:
“What do you think about the drawings on your fellas faces, won’t that get mixed up with gangs. The room went quiet, a few kuia in the background answered him but I actually didn’t know at the time how to answer that question.
“All I did was say, ‘can you explain your relevance to the long term plan with regards to that statement’. [To] which that Pākehā gentleman said, ‘aw I’d like to hear from someone educated’,” she said.
It had also been felt by Wellington Councillor Tamatha Paul during her first campaign in 2019.
“There was definitely a really small but very hateful minority group of people who would follow candidates around and livestream them and whenever the candidates would speak Māori they would yell at them on their livestream, while they were livestreaming and tell them to speak English.”
It’s racism like this that has forced Local Government New Zealand, which represents all 78 councils to launch a new mentoring programme, Te Āhuru Mōwai, for newly elected Māori members.
Māori governance group Te Maruata chair Bonita Bigham hopes it will help.
Tackling things that get ‘tricky’
“We hope that the strength of our Te Maruata network will enable those people to feel that they’ve got others to reach out to, that they’ve got experienced members within local government who can advise them and assist them when they find things are getting a bit tricky,” said Bigham.
Viv Hoeta is optimistic it will make a difference.
“This mentoring programme is so integral for supporting new Māori that are going to come in and have to deal with that and giving them the support to deal with it in a way that is mana enhancing, but that is also professional and shows the light of who Māori are,” said Hoeta.
Thirty-two councils across the motu are bringing in Māori wards this year and that means 50 new Māori councillors.
The hope is that will help better reflect the population.
Bonita Bigham said it was essential for Māori councillors to want to stay.
“It’s really important that our people feel like they’re supported enough, that they can see that there is a role and that there voices are valued and that their contributions are critical to the ongoing decision making of the councils in a robust and diverse decision making of council,” said Bigham.
Survey showed racism
Earlier this week, a Local Government New Zealand survey showed 49.5 percent of councillors had experienced racism or gender discrimination.
Tamatha Paul warned new candidates being in council was not a comfortable place to be for Māori.
“We put ourselves in these positions and we put ourselves forward because we want to prevent harm to our people. We do it because we want to make sure that our people have a critical outcome with their non-Māori counterparts.
“And we want to show the people that Māori ways of being and doing things are good for everybody,” Paul said.
A sentiment shared by Hastings Councillor and Ngāti Kahungunu chair Bayden Barber, who agreed it wasn’t easy.
“Council can be a lonely place for a Māori councillor. So you might have one, or two. Some councils wouldn’t even have a Māori on there,” he said.
The Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) has condemned the absence of West Papua in last week’s Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) official communique, saying it was “greatly disappointed” that the human rights situation in the Indonesian-ruled Melanesian region had not been mentioned.
“it is understandable that the PIF has huge challenges in the region and in particular climate change. But for all the talk about inclusiveness it would appear West Papua is not a major concern for the Forum,” spokesperson Joe Collins said in a statement.
“The PIF could have shown solidarity with the Papuan people by a simple statement of concern about the human rights situation in West Papua (particularly as the situation continues to deteriorate).”
Collins called on the forum to continue to urge Jakarta to allow a fact-finding mission to the region.
“The leaders would have had the support of the people of the Pacific region in doing so,” he added.
It’s a wrap- From the Suva Agreement to the 2050 Strategy, get the last word on what’s next for regionalism in the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Communique 2022 at https://t.co/VwQslLSmXkpic.twitter.com/MHTNd6rh9O
Papua People’s Petition (PRP) protesters have braved brutal police blockades, forced dispersals and assaults while staging simultaneous mass actions across Papua.
The actions were held on Thursday to demonstrate the people’s opposition to revisions of the Special Autonomy Law on Papua (Otsus), the creation of new autonomous regions (DOB) and reaffirming demands for a referendum on independence.
Reports by Suara Papua have covered the following rallies:
Jayapura A PRP action in Jayapura was held under tight security by police who subsequently broke up the rally, resulting in several people being hit and punched by police.
Four students — Welinus Walianggen, Ebenius Tabuni, Nias Aso and Habel Fauk — were assaulted by police near the PT Gapura Angkasa warehouse at the Cenderawasih University (Uncen) in Waena, Jayapura when police forcibly broke up the student protest.
According to Walianggen, one of the action coordinators, scores of police officers used batons and rattan sticks to disperse them.
Meanwhile, PRP protesters arriving from different places conveyed their demands at the Papua Regional House of Representatives (DPRP) office. Although they were blocked by police, negotiations were held at the main entrance to the Parliament building.
Several DPRP members then met with the demonstrators who handed over a document stating their opposition to the creation of the three new provinces (South Papua, Central Papua and the Papua Highlands) — ratified by the House of Representatives (DPR) during a plenary meeting in Senayan, Jakarta, on Thursday, June 31 — and and demanding that revisions to the Special Autonomy law be revoked.
Timika In Timika, a PRP action was held in front of the Mimika Indonesian Builders Association (Gapensi) offices but this was broken up by police.
Despite not having permission from police, several speakers expressed the Papuan people’s opposition to Otsus, the DOBs and demands for a referendum. The speakers also called for the closure of the PT Freeport gold and copper mine and the cancellation of planned mining activities in the Wabu Block.
Nabire In Nabire, PRP protesters held their ground against the police but many people who had gathered at Karang Tumaritis, SP 1 and Siriwini were arrested and taken away by the Nabire district police.
A short time later, demonstrators from several places headed towards the Nabire Regional House of Representatives (DPRD) office where they packed into the Parliament grounds.
While they were giving speeches, the demonstrators who had been arrested rejoined the action after being dropped off by several Nabire district police vehicles.
Meepago Speakers representing various different organisations and elements of Papuan society in the Meepago region took turns in expressing their views.
PRP liaison officer for the Meepago region Agus Tebai said that the Papuan people, including those from Meepago, rejected Otsus and the DOBs in the land of Papua. Speakers also said that Otsus and the recently enacted laws on the creation of three new provinces in Papua must be annulled.
Tebai said that the Papuan people were calling for an immediate referendum to determine the future of West Papua. These demands were handed over to the people’s representatives and accepted by three members of the Nabire DPRD.
Manokwari In Manokwari, PRP protesters gathered on the Amban main road and gave speeches.
The hundreds of demonstrators were blocked by police and prevented from holding a long march to the West Papua DPRD offices. Negotiations between police and the action coordinator achieved nothing and the demonstrators then disbanded in an orderly fashion.
Similar mass actions were also held in Yahukimo, Boven Digoel, Sorong and Kaimana in West Papua province.
Wamena In Wamena, meanwhile, the Lapago regional PRP conveyed its support for protesters who took to the streets via video. According to PRP Lapago Secretary Namene Elopere there was no action in Wamena for the Lapago region in accordance with the initial schedule because they were still coordinating with the Jayawijaya district police.
Aside from protest in Papua, simultaneous actions were also held in Bali, Ambon (Maluku), Surabaya (East Java), Yogyakarta (Central Java), Bandung (West Java) and Jakarta.
A Fiji women’s advocacy group has condemned their government for remaining silent over the human rights violations in West Papua amid the Pacific Islands Forum being hosted by Prime Minister Voreqe Bainmarama this week.
Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) coordinator Shamima Ali with other staff members and activists made the criticisms at a ceremony raising the independence flag Morning Star, banned in Indonesia.
The women raised the flag of West Papua on Wednesday to show their solidarity.
West Papua’s Morning Star flag-raising in Suva this week. Image: Fijivillage
Ali said this ceremony was done every Wednesday to remember the people of West Papua, particularly women and girls who were “suffering twofold” due to the increased militarisation of the two provinces of Papua and West Papuan by the “cruel Indonesian government”.
She said this was a perfect time since all the Pacific leaders were in Fiji for the forum but the Fiji government stayed silent on the issue.
Ali added that with Fiji as the chair of the forum, Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama should have negotiated for West Papua to be on the agenda.
Wenda appeals to Pacific Islands Forum
Meanwhile, United Liberation Movement of West Papua interim president Benny Wenda has appealed to Pacific leaders to show “timely and effective leadership” on the great issues facing the Pacific — “the human rights crisis in West Papua and the existential threat of climate change”.
“West Papua is a green land in a blue ocean. Our blue Pacific has always united our peoples, rather than dividing them,” he said in a statement.
Shamima Ali speaking out on West Papua in Suva. Video: Fijivillage
“In this spirit of Pacific solidarity, we are grateful for the support our Pacific family showed for our struggle in 2019 by calling for Indonesia to allow the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, to visit West Papua.”
However, Indonesia continued to undermine the forum by refusing to allow a UN visit to take place.
“For decades, we have been crying that Indonesia is bombing our villages and killing our people, but we have been ignored,” Wenda said.
“Now, the world is taking notice of our struggle. The United Nations has shown that up to 100,000 West Papuan civilians have been internally displaced by Indonesian military operations in the past three years alone.
“They have fled into the bush, where they lack access to shelter, food, water, and proper medical facilities. This is a rapidly worsening human rights disaster, requiring immediate attention and intervention by the United Nations.
“Indonesia hears the increasing calls for a UN visit, but is employing delaying tactics to avoid exposing their crimes against my people to the world.”
The president of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua, Benny Wenda, has arrived to a warm welcome in Port Vila from London where he is based.
Representatives of the Vanuatu West Papua Independence Committee, who are organising his trip, made sure the media was present only during a welcome ceremony at the Shefa provincial government headquarters.
Shefa province has adopted the people of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) as “brothers and sisters of Vanuatu”.
France’s abolition of the status of an overseas minister has received mixed reactions in both France and its overseas territories, with a pro-independence Tahitian member of the National Assembly condemning the “bad signal”.
A French Polynesian member of the French National Assembly, Moetai Brotherson, said the change of of status “sends a bad signal to the overseas territories”.
“We remember the way Mr Darmanin sent forces to Guadeloupe. We also remember the declarations [against independence] in New Caledonia,” he said.
Brotherson said the new representatives were unknown to French Polynesia and New Caledonia, adding he would rather have a single minister exercising full power over the overseas territories.
Negative reactions also came from the French right-wing opposition’s Marine Le Pen as well as overseas territory officials.
Newly elected MP in favour
However, a newly elected New Caledonian French National Assembly member and anti-independence politician, Nicolas Metzdorf, said he supported this new move.
“An association of overseas territories minister and minister of interior is excellent news for our territories,” he said.
“It is a demonstration that Emmanuel Macron considers the overseas territories in the same way as mainland France.”
Darmanin and Carenco are set to tour all of the overseas territories, starting with a visit to Reunion on Thursday.
Darmanin said he put the institutional questions of New Caledonia at the top of his priorities.
“I think of the subject of ecology but also institutional questions,” he said.
“I think of New Caledonia and the Ministry of the Interior that has for a long time pondered on the subject with many colleagues there. There is a clear need for two ministers to take care of the overseas territories.”
Resigned after one month
The previous minister, Yael Braun-Pivet, resigned last month after just one month in office to successfully run for the presidency of the French National Assembly.
Carenco was Secretary-General of New Caledonia in 1990 and 1991.
Last December, New Caledonia voted against independence in the third and final referendum under the Noumea Accord.
The vote was boycotted by the pro-independence side which refuses to accept the result as the legitimate outcome for the indigenous Kanak people to be decolonised.
It regards the rejection of full sovereignty at the ballot box as the Noumea Accord’s failure to entice the established French settlers to join it to form a new nation.
However, the anti-independence camp says the three “no” votes are the democratic expression of the electorate to remain part of France.
Paris wants to draw up a new statute for a New Caledonia within France and put it to a vote in New Caledonia in June 2023.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
French Polynesia’s nuclear test veterans have called for July 2 to be made a public holiday to remember the impact of France’s nuclear weapons tests on the local population.
The call was made as more than 2000 people gathered in the Tahitian capital Pape’ete to mark the 56th anniversary of the first test at Moruroa Atoll, which is still a French military no-go zone.
The annual commemoration was organised by Moruroa e Tatou and Association 193, whose name refers to the number of atomic tests carried out over three decades.
The groups keep demanding that France pay compensation for those affected by the tests.
Since 1995, the local health system has paid out US$800 million to treat a total of 10,000 people suffering from any of the 23 cancers recognised by law as being the result of radiation.
An atmospheric nuclear explosion at Moruroa atoll in 1971. Image: RNZ/AFP
The head of Moruroa e tatou, Hiro Tefaarere, described the tests as France’s largest case of “genocide”.
The head of the Māohi Protestant Church, Francois Pihaatae, said the truth about the tests begins to be known.
After ending the tests in 1996, France continued to claim until 2009 that none of the tests had any negative effect on French Polynesians’ health.
A compensation law was adopted in 2010 and despite its revision, most claims have failed.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The debris of the nuclear testing monitoring bunker Denise on Moruroa Atoll … still a French military no-go zone. Image: RNZ/AFP
— Stefan Armbruster (@StefArmbruster) July 1, 2022
Papua New Guinea’s caretaker Prime Minister James Marape appealed to the nation to pray for peace and calm ahead of polling.
Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai said the polling dates would differ according to the regions and provinces.
Electoral Commission headquarters in Port Moresby … 3600-plus candidates and 6000 polling teams in the 22 provinces. Image: Johnny Blades/RNZ Pacific
He said most of the polling would take place on 11-12 July, and not go beyond 15 July, to give time for counting officials to do their jobs before the return of writs.
Jame Marape said voters must treat their duty to choose their leaders seriously.
Call centre for the general elections PNG police have set up a call centre to provide information about the election including polling schedules, and polling sites and to report an election-related concern or crime.
Police Commissioner David Manning said callers can call the hotline number 1-800-500, which has five lines available 24 hours a day until 31 August to help people with election questions.
Police Commissioner David Manning … briefing on elections hotline number. Image: EMTV
All police complaints to the hotline will be referred to the Joint Security Task Force Command Centre for assessment before the information is forwarded to the various police commands around the country to take further action.
Commissioner Manning said during the election period members of the security forces, especially police will be heavily engaged in election security operations so the people are not given the assurance that someone will be there to listen to them.
He said all commands from around the country were being positioned to provide security for polling when it commenced.
Commonwealth Observers Group The Commonwealth Observer Group (COG) is in Papua New Guinea and has begun the assessment of the electoral process.
Chaired by the former President of Nauru, Baron Waqa, the group is composed of nine eminent people from across the Commonwealth. They include specialists in politics, elections, civil society, academia as well as the media.
The Commonwealth Observer team … nine eminent people from across the Commonwealth and specialists in politics, elections, civil society, academia and media are included. Image: The Commonwealth
As part of its work to support the election the group will now meet various stakeholders, including political parties, the police, civil society groups, citizen observer and monitor groups, and the media.
During the 21 days of polling, the group will observe the opening, voting, closing, counting and results in management processes. The interim statement of its preliminary findings will be issued on 24 July.
The group will then submit its final report for consideration by the Commonwealth Secretary-General, who will, in turn, share it with the Papua New Guinea government and other stakeholders. The group is scheduled to leave Papua New Guinea by 31 July 2022.
The Commonwealth Observer Group members are:
Baron Divavesi Waqa – Chairperson, former President of Nauru
Dr Nicole George, university lecturer and researcher, the University of Queensland, Australia
Some said the US Supreme Court’s controversial ruling on abortion was none of our business, because we don’t have the same legal or political set-up, let alone its religious cleavages and cultural conflicts.
Opinion leaders in our media didn’t agree — and provoked a significant political response.
Days after his election to the National Party leadership in December last year, Christopher Luxon sat down for an interview where he outlined some hardline views on abortion.
Pressed by Newshub’s Jenna Lynch on whether he felt the practice was tantamount to murder, he said “that’s what a pro-life position is”.
Those comments have become newsworthy again this week, as the US Supreme Court handed down a decision to overturn the right to abortion enshrined in the decision Roe v Wade.
Local media, pro-choice advocates and politicians all expressed concern that the National leader would act on his beliefs, and work to ban a practice he considers all-but murderous, if he was able to form a government.
Their worry only escalated after National’s MP for Tāmaki, Simon O’Connor, posted a Facebook status following the Supreme Court’s decision saying “Today is a good day”.
Noted Luxon’s pro-life views
TheNew Zealand Herald ran an initial story focusing on how every party in Parliament had condemned the court’s ruling bar National. It also noted Luxon’s pro-life views.
Even after Luxon moved to clarify that there would be no changes to abortion law under any government he leads, Labour’s Grant Robertson said people have a “right to be sceptical” about his statements given the views he expressed to Lynch.
Newshub’s Amelia Wade pressed Luxon further on his stance, asking Luxon for his opinion of women who get abortions. He didn’t answer the question directly in Newshub’s report.
“As I’ve said I have a pro-life stance. I think it’s a very difficult and a very agonising decision,” he said.
These stories — and a corresponding outcry on social media — provoked right-wing figures who see it as an attempt to stir up a US-style culture war.
Political commentator Ben Thomas played down the concern over Luxon’s anti-abortion views in an interview on Newstalk ZB.
“We’ve seen pro-life prime ministers like Bill English, Jim Bolger, deputy prime ministers like Jim Anderton just not go anywhere near [abortion] when they’ve been in government,” he pointed out.
Plea to stop US culture war
On Twitter, he pleaded for people to stop trying to stir up US culture wars in New Zealand.
That was echoed by National’s Nicola Willis, who had been criticised for failing to speak up against the Roe v Wade ruling despite her socially liberal credentials.
“I actually think that these attempts by Labour to import US-style culture wars into New Zealand is irresponsible. It is creating needless anxiety,” she told the Herald.
The concern over abortion becoming a political wedge issue is understandable.
But it’s worth noting there’s an element of political convenience in politicians’ statements as well.
National would benefit if people stopped talking about its leader’s publicly-stated position that abortion is tantamount to murder and go back to discussing the cost of living crisis.
It’s hard to get the politics out of politics.
Still deep divisions
Pro-choice advocates have also taken issue with the idea their anxiety is “needless”.
The decision to take abortion out of the Crimes Act in 2020 only passed by a comparatively narrow margin, 68-51.
Two-thirds of National’s caucus voted against it back then, with the aforementioned Simon O’Connor ending his speech with a Latin phrase which translates to “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord”.
Former National MP Amy Adams recently told the media that deep divisions remain in National on the issue.
As for the US culture wars, they appear to have gained a foothold already. Some people might have noticed them camped out on Parliament’s lawns for the better part of a month.
The question for pro-choice supporters is whether to sit back and hope these movements don’t gain momentum, or to apply as much political pressure as possible to protect their own position.
In this case they prompted a strong commitment from an anti-abortion politician to not act on his views if in power. Arguably they succeeded by speaking out strongly and decisively.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Manukau Urban Māori Authority (MUMA) is welcoming the government’s health reforms as an important first step to improving Māori and Pasifika health in south Auckland.
But some in the health sector say the jury is still out on what will be achieved in Counties Manukau.
Under the reforms, the country’s 20 district health boards have now been replaced by Te Whatu Ora (Health New Zealand).
The new Crown entity will be responsible for running hospitals, primary and community health services.
The government says it will allow for more consistent delivery of health services nationwide and help stop the postcode lottery people face accessing healthcare based on where they live.
The reforms also include the establishment of Te Aka Whai Ora (the Māori Health Authority) to improve indigenous health which will work in partnership with Health NZ.
Muma chairman Bernie O’Donnell has seen the country’s district health boards work first-hand, as a member of the now-defunct Auckland DHB.
Greater responsibility for Māori
He said establishing a Māori Health Authority would give Māori greater responsibility for the delivery of their own health services.
“For too long the health system hasn’t addressed the wellbeing of Māori, or those at the bottom of the cliff,” O’Donnell said. “The reality is we couldn’t continue with what we had. Something had to be done and this is it.”
He said critics of the health reforms are defending a system which had to be replaced.
“The old way the DHBs were run didn’t work for our people. For too long it’s been non-Māori telling us what’s best for us.”
Manukau Urban Māori Authority board chairman Bernie O’Donnell … “we’re expecting Māori and Pasifika health in south Auckland will get better under the reforms.” Image: Stephen Forbes/LDR
He said ongoing issues left by the Counties Manukau DHB, such as Middlemore Hospital’s under-pressure emergency department and its workforce shortages would all have to be addressed under the changes.
“But what we’re expecting is that Māori and Pasifika health in south Auckland will get better under the reforms,” O’Donnell said.
However, he admitted there’s a lot at stake.
‘Time will tell’
“If that doesn’t happen we won’t have achieved anything of significance,” he said. “But only time will tell.”
Yet not everyone is as certain as O’Donnell on what impact the changes will have.
Turuki Healthcare chief executive Te Puea Winiata said there were still a lot of unanswered questions about the reforms.
Winiata said the creation of the new authority dedicated to indigenous health is an important first step.
But she said it was vital that the new entity had the ability to make its own decisions and help support Māori self-determination.
“The resourcing of the Māori Health Authority is going to be critical to its success,” she said.
Many reform attempts
Winiata said she had worked in the health sector for the past 30 years and in that time had seen a number of attempts by the government of the day to restructure the health system.
She said it was hard to predict what impact the health reforms would have in south Auckland.
“But I think in 12 months’ time we will be able to look at what changes have been made and see what’s been achieved.”
Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ on Air. Asia Pacific Report is an LDR partner.
The US Supreme Court’s recent ruling to throw out Roe v Wade is an issue of relevance to political leaders in Aotearoa New Zealand.
The decision was met with enthusiasm by those opposed to abortion here, including opposition National MP for Tāmaki Simon O’Connor.
Pro-choice groups such as Abortion Rights Aotearoa (ALRANZ) expressed alarm, not only for American women but for what this might signal for New Zealand.
This has left opposition leader Christopher Luxon with a dilemma. He found himself caught up in questions that put a spotlight on his pro-life values, politics and integrity.
Luxon’s anti-abortion beliefs are not news. In the days following his election as party leader late last year, when asked to confirm if, from his point of view, abortion was tantamount to murder, he clarified “that’s what a pro-life position is”.
Yet, in recent days, Luxon has repeatedly and emphatically sought to reassure voters National would not pursue a change to this country’s abortion laws should it win government.
Abortion is legal in Aotearoa, decriminalised in 2020 within the framework of the Abortion Legislation Act. It’s clear Luxon hopes his assurances will appease those of a pro-choice view, the position of most New Zealanders according to polling in 2019.
Principle and pragmatism in leadership It has long been argued good leadership is underpinned by strength of character, a clear moral compass and integrity — in other words, consistency between one’s words and actions.
National MP Simon O’Connor has returned to Parliament with an apology to colleagues over a social media post that celebrated the US Supreme Court’s overturning of abortion law.https://t.co/dR4eBM8Z4K
Whether a leader possesses the prudence to gauge what is a practically wise course of action in a given situation that upholds important values, or simply panders to what is politically safe and expedient, offers insights into their character.
Over time, we can discern if they lean more strongly toward being values-based or if they tend to align with what Machiavelli controversially advised: that to retain power a leader must appear to look good but be willing to do whatever it takes to maintain their position.
Of course both considerations have some role to play as no one is perfect. We should look for a matter of degree or emphasis. A more strongly Machiavellian orientation is associated with toxic leadership.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has characterised herself as a “pragmatic idealist”. Her track record indicates a willingness to accept considerable political heat in defence of key values.
This is seen, for example, in her sustained advocacy of covid-related health measures such as vaccine mandates and managed isolation, even when doing so was not the politically expedient path to follow.
Luxon’s leadership track record in the public domain is far less extensive. Much remains unknown or untested as to what kind of leader he is. Being leader of the opposition is, of course, a very different role to that of prime minister.
However, in his maiden speech Luxon described his Christian faith as something that anchors him and shapes his values, while also arguing politicians should not seek to force their beliefs on others.
His response to this week’s controversy proves he is willing to set aside his personal values for what is politically expedient. This suggests he is less of an idealist and more a pragmatist.
This may be a relief to the pro-choice lobby, given his anti-abortion beliefs. But if the political calculus changes, what might then happen?
The matter is not settled New Zealand’s constitutional and legal systems differ from those of the US, but the Supreme Court decision proves it is possible to wind back access to abortion.
Even if Luxon’s current assurance is sincerely intended, it may not sustain should the broader political acceptability of his personal beliefs change. And on that front, there are grounds for concern.
The National Council of Women’s 2021 gender attitudes survey revealed a clear increase in more conservative, anti-egalitarian attitudes. Researchers at The Disinformation Project also found sexist and misogynistic themes feature strongly in the conspiracy-laden disinformation gaining influence in New Zealand.
If these kinds of shifts in public opinion continue to gather steam, it may become more politically tenable for Luxon to shift gear regarding New Zealand’s abortion laws.
In such a situation, the right to abortion may not be the only one imperilled. A 2019 survey in the US showed a strong connection between an anti-abortion or “pro-life” stance and more general anti-egalitarian views.
It is clear Luxon is aiming to reassure the public he has no intentions to advance changes to our abortion laws. But his seeming readiness to set aside personal beliefs in favour of what is politically viable also suggests that, if the political landscape changes, so too might his stance.
A broader question arises from this: if a leader is prepared to give up a presumably sincerely held conviction to secure more votes, what other values that matter to voters might they be willing to abandon in pursuit of political power?
The Civil Organisations Solidarity for Papua Land has condemned Indonesia’s Papua expansion plan of forming three new provinces risks causing new social conflicts.
And the group has urged President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to cancel the plan, according to a statement reports Jubi.
The group — comprising the Papua Legal Aid Institute (LBH Papua), JERAT Papua, KPKC GKI in Papua Land, YALI Papua, PAHAM Papua, Cenderawasih University’s Human Rights and Environment Democracy Student Unit, and AMAN Sorong — said the steps taken by the House of Representatives of making three draft bills to establish three New Autonomous Regions (DOB) in Papua had created division between the Papuan people.
As well as the existing two provinces (DOB), Papua and West Papua, the region would be carved up to create the three additional provinces of Central Papua, South Papua, and Central Highlands Papua.
The solidarity group noted that various movements with different opinions have expressed their respective aspirations through demonstrations, political lobbying, and even submitting a request for a review of Law No. 2/2021 on the Second Amendment to Law No. 21/2001 on Papua Special Autonomy (Otsus).
These seven civil organisations also noted that the controversy over Papua expansion had led to a number of human rights violations, including the breaking up of protests, as well as police brutality against protesters.
However, the central government continued to push for the Papua expansion, and the House had proposed three bills for the expansion.
Wave of demonstrations The Civil Organisations Solidarity for Papua Land said it was worried the expansion plan would raise social conflicts between parties with different opinions.
They said such potential for social conflict had been seen through a wave of demonstrations that continue to be carried out by the Papuan people — both those who rejected and supported new autonomous regions.
The potential for conflict could also be seen from the polemic on which area would be the new capital province.
In addition, rumours about the potential for clashes between groups had also been widely circulated on various messaging services and social media.
“All the facts present have only shown that the establishment of new provinces in Papua has triggered the potential for social conflicts,” the solidarity group said.
“This seems to have been noticed by the Papua police as well, as they have urged their personnel to increase vigilance ahead of the House’s plenary session to issue the new Papua provinces laws,” said the group.
The group reminded the government that the New Papua Special Autonomy Law, which is used as the legal basis for the House to propose three Papua expansion bills, was still being reviewed in the Constitutional Court.
Public opinion ignored
Furthermore, the House’s proposal of the bills did not take into account public opinion as mandated by Government Regulation No. 78/2007 on Procedures for the Establishment, Abolition, and Merger of Regions.
“It is the most reasonable path if the Central Government [would] stop the deliberation of the Papua Expansion plan, which has become the source of disagreement among Papuan people.
“We urged the Indonesian President to immediately cancel the controversial plan to avoid escalation of social conflict,” said the Civil Organisations Solidarity for Papua Land.
The solidarity group urged the House’s Speaker to nullify the Special Committee for Formulation of Papua New Autonomous Region Policy, as well as the National Police Chief and the Papuan Governor to immediately take the necessary steps to prevent social conflict in Papua, by implementing Law No. 7/2012 on Handling Social Conflicts.
The seven civil organisations also urged all Papuan leaders not to engage in activities that could trigger conflict between opposing groups over the Papua expansion.
“Papuan community leaders are prohibited from being actively involved in fuelling the polarisation of this issue,” the group said.
For the first time in U.S. history, the Supreme Court has retracted a fundamental constitutional right. “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Samuel Alito wrote for the majority of five right-wing zealots on the court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. They held that “procuring an abortion is not a fundamental constitutional right because such a right has no basis in the Constitution’s text or in our Nation’s history.”
Since the day Roe v. Wade was decided nearly 50 years ago, its opponents have executed a methodical campaign to overturn it. There is no reason, in fact or in law, to erase the constitutional right to abortion. The Constitution still protects abortion, and there have been no factual changes since 1973 that would support abolishing it. The only thing that has changed is the composition of the court. It is now packed with radical Christian fanatics who have no qualms about imposing their religious beliefs on the bodies of women and trans people, notwithstanding the Constitution’s unequivocal separation of church and state.
Alito was joined by Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett in stripping protection of the right to self-determination from half the country’s population.
In their collective dissent, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan said the majority “has wrenched this choice from women and given it to the States.” They wrote that the court is “rescinding an individual right in its entirety and conferring it on the State, an action the Court takes for the first time in history.”
Noting, “After today, young women will come of age with fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers had,” the dissenters conclude: “With sorrow — for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection — we dissent.”
During the December oral argument, Sonia Sotomayor expressed concern about how the Supreme Court would “survive the stench” of the overtly ideological overruling of Roe. It will show, she said, that the Court’s rulings are “just political acts.”
By overturning Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the court’s majority confirmed the significance of Sotomayor’s query. While purporting to shift the restriction or abolition of abortion to the states, the court has engaged in a political act. It delegated the fate of a right that had been moored in the Constitution to the political process.
As Chemerinsky notes, “there was no deference to the political process earlier this week when the conservatives on the court declared unconstitutional a New York law limiting concealed weapons that had been on the books since 1911 or struck down a Maine law that limited financial aid to religious schools.”
Brett Kavanaugh insisted in his concurrence that the Constitution is “neither pro-life nor pro-choice.” Arguing that it is “neutral” on abortion, he claimed that the issue should be left to the states and “the democratic process.” But partisan gerrymandering and the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act to the detriment of Democrats and people of color belie the court’s purportedly “democratic” and “neutral” delegation of abortion to the states.
The court held in Roe that abortion was a “fundamental right” for a woman’s “life and future.” It said that states could not ban abortion until after viability (when a fetus is able to survive outside the womb), which generally occurs around 23 weeks. Nineteen years later, the court reaffirmed the “essential holding” of Roe in Casey, saying that states could only place restrictions on abortions if they don’t impose an “undue burden” on the right to a pre-viability abortion.
Alito wrote in Dobbs that since abortion is no longer a fundamental constitutional right, restrictions on it will be judged under the most lenient standard of review — the “rational basis” test. That means a law banning or restricting abortion will be upheld if there is a “rational basis on which the legislature could have thought that it would serve legitimate state interests.”
At issue in Dobbs was Mississippi’s 2018 Gestational Age Act, which outlaws nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, well before viability. The law contains exceptions for medical emergencies and cases of “severe fetal abnormality,” but no exception for rape or incest.
The majority said that Mississippi’s interest in “protecting the life of the unborn” and preventing the “barbaric practice” of dilation and evacuation satisfied the rational basis test so its law would be upheld. The court accepts the notion of protecting “fetal life” but nowhere mentions what the dissenters call “the life-altering consequences” of reversing Roe and Casey.
In both Roe and Casey, the court grounded the right to abortion in the liberty section of the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment, which says that states shall not “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The court in Roe relied on several precedents saying that the right of personal liberty prohibits the government from interfering with personal decisions about contraception, marriage, procreation, family relationships, child-rearing and children’s education.
The Dobbs majority said the Constitution contains no reference to abortion and no constitutional provision implicitly protects it. In order to be protected by the Due Process Clause, a right must be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” According to the majority, there is no liberty interest because the law didn’t protect the right to abortion in the 19th century.
To his credit, John Roberts did not vote to overturn Roe and Casey, writing that the majority’s “dramatic and consequential ruling is unnecessary to decide the case before us.” Mindful of the threat this “serious jolt to the legal system” will pose to the legitimacy of the Roberts Court, the chief justice sought to split the baby, so to speak. He discarded the viability test and upheld the Mississippi law, leaving the issue of the constitutionality of abortion to a future case. Purporting to be a supporter of abortion rights, Roberts said women in Mississippi could choose to have an abortion before 15 weeks of pregnancy.
In order to justify their rejection of stare decisis (respect for the court’s precedent) to which the members in the majority had pledged fealty during their confirmation hearings, Alito wrote that Roe was “egregiously wrong.” He and the others in the majority had the nerve to compare abortion to racial segregation, drawing an analogy between the court’s overruling of Roe and its rejection of Plessy v. Ferguson in Brown v. Board of Education.
Nearly half the states have laws banning or severely restricting abortion. Almost one in five pregnancies (not counting miscarriages) end in abortion, which is one of the most frequent medical procedures performed today. Twenty-five percent of American women will end a pregnancy in their lifetime. Now that Roe has been overturned, it is estimated that 36 million women and others who can become pregnant will be denied the fundamental right to choose whether to continue a pregnancy.
The dissenters observed that under laws in some states (like Mississippi) that don’t offer exceptions for victims of rape or incest, “a woman will have to bear her rapist’s child or a young girl her father’s — no matter if doing so will destroy her life.”
Alito wrote, “The Court emphasizes that this decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”
But the dissenters were not convinced. “No one should be confident that this majority is done with its work,” their dissent warned. The dissenters noted that the right to abortion enshrined in Roe is “part of the same constitutional fabric” as the rights to contraception and same-sex marriage and intimacy. “Either the mass of the majority’s opinion is hypocrisy, or additional constitutional rights are under threat. It is one or the other.”
Thomas didn’t pull any punches in his concurrence. He said that the court “should reconsider” other precedents based on substantive due process, including Griswold v. Connecticut (the right to contraception), Lawrence v. Texas (the right to same-sex sexual conduct) and Obergefell v. Hodges (the right to same-sex marriage).
In Alito’s draft opinion, which was leaked to Politico in May, he wrote that the rights protected by Lawrence and Obergefell are not “deeply rooted in history.” But the final majority opinion didn’t go that far. Kavanaugh would not have signed onto it. He wrote in his concurrence, “Overruling Roe does not mean the overruling of [Griswold, Obergefell, Loving v. Virginia (right to interracial marriage)], and does not threaten or cast doubt on those precedents.”
The dissenters frame the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling as a gross attack on the right to self-determination: “The Court’s precedents about bodily autonomy, sexual and familial relations, and procreation are all interwoven — all part of the fabric of our constitutional law, and because that is so, of our lives. Especially women’s lives, where they safeguard a right to self-determination.”
It is that right to self-determination that the five ultra-conservative members of the court have wrenched away from half of the people in the United States.
Sitiveni Rabuka is infamous for making Fiji a republic after carrying out a military coup 35 years ago by overthrowing an Indo-Fijian dominated government to help maintain indigenous supremacy.
Rabuka has been a central figure in Fijian politics since 1987 — as the nation’s first coup maker, a former prime minister, most recently the leader of opposition, and now a reformed Christian and politician, and the leader of the People’s Alliance Party.
The former military strongman has positioned himself as the chief rival of the country’s incumbent Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama — a former military commander and coup leader himself — as Fijians prepare to head to the polls at some stage later this year.
Lieutenant-Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka … as he was at the time of the two 1987 Fiji military coups that he led. Image: Matthew McKee/Pacific Journalism Review
Rabuka, now 73, is on a campaign trail in Aotearoa New Zealand on a mission — to share with the Fijian diaspora how “politics will affect their relatives” back at home and raise funds for his campaign to topple Bainimarama’s FijiFirst government.
In an exclusive interview with RNZ Pacific’s senior journalist Koroi Hawkins, he spoke about his vision for a better Fiji, raising the living standards of the Fijian people, and why he is the man to return the country back to “the way the world should be.”
“I’m here to talk to the supporters who are here,” Rabuka said.
“We do not have a branch in New Zealand so most of our supporters here have not formed themselves into a branch or into a chapter and I’m just out here to talk to them. They’ve been very supportive on this journey and that’s why I’m here.”
Koroi Hawkins: Why is it important to be talking to people outside of Fiji for the elections?
Rabuka: It is very important to speak to the diaspora. Some of them are now [New Zealand] citizens and may not vote. But they have relatives in Fiji and politics will affect their relatives. It is good for them to know how things are, and how things could turn out if we do not have the change that we advocate.
KH: Is there a fundraising aspect to this overseas election campaigning as well?
Rabuka: That is also the case. Fiji is feeling the impacts of covid-19 and also the rising food prices and the reduction of employment opportunities, hours at work and things like that, has reduced our income earning capacities and so many of us have been relying on government handouts, which is not healthy for a nation. We would like to encourage people to find out their own alternative methods of coping with the crisis that we are now facing, health and economic, and also to communicate those back to those at home.
We are also here to thank the people for the remittances of $1.5 billion [that] came into Fiji over the last two years, and a lot of that came from New Zealand, Australia and America. We were grateful to the three governments of the United States of Australia and New Zealand for hosting the diaspora.
KH: One of your strongest campaign messages has been about poverty with estimates around almost 50 percent of Fijians are now living in hardship. How do you propose to deliver on this promise?
Rabuka: Those are universal metres that I applied and for Fiji it can be effectively much lower if we were to revert to our own traditional and customary ways of living. Unfortunately, many of the formerly rural dwellers have moved to the urban centres where you must be earning to be able to maintain a respectable and acceptable way of life and living standards and so on.
Those surveys and the questions were put out to mostly those in the informal settlement areas where the figures are very high. It is true that according to universal metres and measures, yes, we are going through very difficult times. And the only way to do that is to give them opportunities to earn more. Those that are living in the villages now can earn a lot more. Somebody sent out a message this morning, calculating the income per tonne of cassava and dalo; it is way more than what we get from sugar in the international market.
KH: This pandemic, it’s really exposed how dependent Fiji is on tourism. This really hit Fiji hard. What is your economic vision for Fiji?
Rabuka: We just don’t want to be relying totally on one cow providing the milk. We will need to be looking at other areas. We have to diversify our economy to be able to weather these economic storms when they come because we cannot foresee them. But what we can do is have something that can weather whatever happens. Whether it is straightforward health or effects of wars and crises in other parts of the world. Agriculture and fisheries and forestry, when you talk about these things it also reminds us of our responsibilities towards climate change. We have to have sustainable policies to make sure these areas we want to diversify into do not unfairly hurt the areas that we are trying to save and sustainably used when we consider climate change.
KH: Talking about agriculture, the goal seems to be always import substitution and attempts to do that so far have been mild. Even downstream processing also seems problematic. Are there any specific ways you see food for agriculture other than the things that have been tried not just in Fiji, but around the region that are not really taking a hold in a lot of Pacific countries?
Rabuka: I think it is the choices we have made. There is a big opportunity for us to go into downstream processing of our agricultural produce and use those to substitute for the imports we get. If you look at the impact on the grain market in the world as a result of the Ukrainian war. What else can we have in Fiji now or in other countries that can substitute the grain input into the diet. So those are the things that we need really need to be doing now.
There has been a lot of research done at the Koronivia Research Station and they are laying there in files stored away in the libraries and the archives. We need to go back to those and see what has been done. Very interesting story about the former the late president Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau when he went to Indonesia and he found a very big coconut. He wanted to bring that back to go and plant in Fiji and the people were so embarrassed to tell him that this thing was a result of research carried out in Fiji.
KH: Another big issue is education. We have heard a lot about student loans. You have talked about converting student loans to scholarships and forgiving student debt. Can you maybe speak a little bit more about that that promise? What exactly is that?
Rabuka: We would like to go back to the scholarships concept, enhance the education opportunities for those that are that are capable of furthering the education and also branching out or branching back into what has been dormant for some time now that TVET, technical and vocational education and training. Those are the things that we really need to be doing. Lately, there have been labour movement from Fiji to Australia, New Zealand, for basic agricultural processes of just picking up nuts and fruit and routes.
Those people who are coming out are capable of moving on in education to being engineers and carpenters and block layers and if they had the opportunity to further to go along those streams in in the education system. There is no need for them to be paying. The government really should be taking over those things that we did in the past. We cannot all be lawyers and accountants and auditors and doctors and pilots and so on. But there is so many, the bigger portion of the workforce goes into the practical work that is done daily.
KH: Just going back to the current student debt that is there. Would your policy be to forgive that debt? Or would you still be working out a way to recover it?
Rabuka: That would be part of our manifesto and we are not allowed to announce those areas of our manifesto without giving the financial and budgetary impacts of those.
KH: If you did become prime minister, you would be inheriting a country with the highest debt to GDP ratio that Fiji has ever seen is what the experts are saying. What would be your thoughts coming into that kind of a problematic situation?
Rabuka: We would have to find out how much is owed at the moment and if we were to forgive that, what does forgiving that mean? It means you forego your revenue that you are going to get from these students who are already qualified to do work and for them it means getting reduced salaries when they start working so that they can pay off loans. We have to look at all the combinations and find out which is the most, or the least painful way, of doing it.
It is not their fault. It is what the new government will inherit from the predecessors. Everybody will have to be called upon to tighten their belt, understand the situation, everybody getting a very high per capita burden of the national debt and tell them just how it is. [This is] where we are, this is how we have to get out of it and everybody needs to work together. That is why we need a very popular government. And that is why all the political parties are working very hard to get that support from the people.
KH: Turning to the politics. In 2018, you came within a millimetre of that finish line. Since then, a lot has changed. You ran with the Social Democratic Liberal Party (Sodelpa) at the time. You have now formed your own party, the People’s Alliance. How confident are you about this election race given all those changes?
Rabuka: I think I am confident because there is a universal cry in Fiji for change. The people are looking for their best options on who is to bring the change, what sort of combinations, who are the people behind the brand, people with records in the private sector, also in politics and in the public sector, people who are who are determined to stay on Fiji and do what needs to be done.
There are so many overseas now who love Fiji so much. So many other people who could have been there in Fiji with us running the campaign in order to create a better Fiji, who are overseas. They have not been able to come freely back and with those in mind, we are determined to be the change and bring the change.
KH: One of the things you have talked about is reforming the Fiji Police Force. There has been documented history of problems within the police force. How would you plan to achieve that?
Rabuka: Just bring back the police in Fiji to be the professional body of law enforcement agencies that they had been in the past. We have the capacity, we have the people, we have the natural attributes to be good policemen and women. Get them back to that and avoid the influence of policing in non-democratic societies or the baton charge in every situation, putting it in an extreme term. But that is the sort of thing that we are beginning to see.
We have to reconsider where we send our police officers for training. They must be trained in regimes, in cities, and in countries and governments where we share the same values about law and order, about respecting the rights of citizens, having freedoms. Nobody is punished until they have been through the whole judicial system. You cannot punish somebody when you are arresting them.
KH: There has been a lot of work to try and improve things in policing in the Pacific. But there is a culture that persists, that this history of sort of brutality and “us and them” kind of mentality. How would we get past that in our policing?
Rabuka: We are still coming out of that culture. That was our native culture. We still have to get away from it into modern policing. You look at the way the tribal rules were carried out from that. Somebody’s offended the tribal laws, tribal chiefs, one solution: club them. We have to get away from that. And when we don’t concentrate on moving forward, we very easily fall back.
KH: What [would] a coalition with the National Federation Party look like?
Rabuka: We are going to form a coalition. It will be a two-party government. The Prime Minister is free to pick his ministers from both parties and the best qualified will be picked.
KH: Looking at your own political journey. It started very strongly pro-indigenous Fijian focus. Even with your evolution to your current standing, there are some non-indigenous Fijian voters who are unsure what the future would look like with you as prime minister. What is your message to these people about what Fiji will be like for them and under your prime ministership?
Rabuka: Well, it is like you see the cover of the book and now you are reading the book. I have a dream of what the Pope [John Paul II] saw when he came to Fiji; the way the world should be, a multiracial, vibrant society, where everybody is welcome, where everybody is contributing, everybody is going by their own thing and even unknowingly contributing to a very vibrant economy that will grow and grow and grow so that we are equal partners in the region with Australia, New Zealand, and a very significant part of the global economy.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Last week the Victorian government demonstrated its commitment to build an equal relationship with First Peoples. A new bill has been tabled in the Victorian parliament to advance the Victorian treaty processes.
The new bill further affirms the Assembly and the Victorian government’s agreement and commitment to establish a Treaty Authority and support its operations.
The new Treaty Authority will be the first of its kind in Australia, placing First Peoples’ culture at the heart of its practices.
What is the Treaty Authority and how will it work?
The significant power difference between the government and First Nations people means there needs to be a way to establish equal footing for treaty negotiations.
The Treaty Authority serves that role as an institution independent of parliament and government.
Negotiations may well be long and complex. The authority will oversee treaty negotiations and if the parties cannot agree on particular matters or the appropriate process, it will act as an independent umpire to help resolve the issue.
The new authority will respect First Peoples’ culture with a focus on dialogue. Talking through problems to achieve agreement, rather using than a combative approach, is at the core of the treaty process.
Assembly co-chair and Nira illim bulluk man Marcus Stewartsaid the Treaty Authority
will be guided by Aboriginal lore, law and cultural authority that has been practised on these lands for countless generations.
This is a significant development in Australian legal institutions and processes. It addresses well known problems with the adversarial nature of native title determinations, where traditional owners must sue the government to prove their title.
This new public law process appropriately recognises the standing of Indigenous cultural approaches.
In another important development, the Treaty Authority will have guaranteed government funding, which it controls and manages. This will ensure the authority can perform its functions long-term.
In the past when governments set up bodies to assist First Nations, there were problems with sustainability, because the body did not have the resources to function. It is encouraging to see the commitment at this early stage, to continuous funding and First Nations’ control.
The Treaty Authority will be comprised of independent members who are all First Peoples, who will be selected after a public call for nominations.
The Treaty Authority recognises the right to self-determination
Indigenous rights expert Professor Megan Davis explained
before Indigenous Australia can participate in the Australian democratic project on just and equal terms, the unresolved issues of the colonial project and the psychological terra nullius of Australia’s public institutions must be finally dealt with.
The Treaty Authority will be a public institution that grapples with this problem of “psychological terra nullius” – the exclusion of First Nations peoples in politics and law.
It forms part of the broader work to provide just and equal participation by First Peoples in our democratic institutions. It complements the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, and the Yoorrook Justice Commission, which address voice and truth respectively.
All of these institutions are part of the overarching treaty process in Victoria.
Treaty is one important way of realising Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination.
Self-determination means the right of a people to make decisions about their own governance and way of life.
By drawing on First Nations’ “law, lore, and cultural authority” in order to support the treaty process, the Victorian Treaty Authority is demonstrating an innovative approach to realising First Peoples’ right to self-determination.
And the new Albanese government is working to deliver on its commitment to the Uluru Statement from the Heart’s call for Voice, Treaty, and Truth at the federal level.
Each of these processes should properly be informed by respective First Peoples in each area.
For all jurisdictions, the Victorian approach demonstrates the potential for transformative institutional reform, in and beyond government.
Self-determination must be led by sovereign First Nations people and grounded in Indigenous culture and law. International human rights law requires it. And justice alone demands the state, in all its guises, enters into proper relations with the First Nations of this land.
Dr Melissa Castan is an Associate Professor and Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, at Monash University Faculty of Law. She teaches, researches and writes on Australian public law, Indigenous legal issues, human rights law, and legal education.
Dr Kate Galloway is an Associate Professor at Griffith Law School. Kate researches in property law and legal education, with particular interest in legal issues affecting women, Indigenous Australians, and environmental justice.
Scott Walker is a Researcher at the Castan Centre for Human Rights law, a Researcher and Fellow at Eleos Justice and a Research Assistant within the Faculty of Law, Monash University. Scott’s research interests span international human rights law, health law, and disability rights.
They are contesting alongside 3357 men for the 118 seats in Parliament.
A number of them are in seats with more than three dozen male rivals.
For years there’s been talk of reserving seats for women, but this has so far come to nothing.
Through it, all the women have remained indomitable — people like Julie Soso, who first stood in the Eastern Highlands regional seat in 1997 and has contested every election since.
She won in 2012 and wants back in to complete unfinished business.
Pushed for hospital upgrade
As the governor of Eastern Highlands, in that period 2012 to 2017, Soso had pushed for a hospital upgrade in Goroka, giving it diagnostic capability.
This went ahead but she said since the change of government in 2017, nothing has happened — the machines paid for by foreign donors lie idle and no staff have been hired to operate them.
Soso wants the machinery in use and helping detect diseases like cancer.
“We need to have specialist doctors to diagnose them and if surgeries need to be done upon them it’s got to be within our own hospital,” she said.
“So there was a dream, there was a vision, and then, after the Eastern Highlands changed government the project stood still.”
Matilda Koma is standing against 37 men in the Goilala Open seat in Central Province.
Koma has stood four times before in the Goilala seat but feels this time she has the support to get her over the line.
Deteriorating infrastructure
If she got elected she has a clear idea of what she wants to do, starting with the rehabilitation of the deteriorating infrastructure in the district.
“Like bridges, roads and even all those building structures at every mission and government station, kind of running down,” Koma said.
The PNG Parliament … only men are currently the MPs: Image: RNZ/AFP
“The basic services are also missing. Health and education are suffering because there are hardly any aid posts. The hospitals are not in running condition, and the drugs — supply of medicines — is just not consistent.”
Oro Province in Papua New Guinea has high-quality soils and can produce great organic food but people cannot get it to market because the infrastructure is lacking.
That is the view of Jean Eparo, who is standing in next month’s election for the Oro regional seat.
Eparo, who is married to the governor of PNG’s National Capital District, Powes Parkop, said that if she got the job her immediate focus would be on improving transport infrastructure.
“Not only roads but all the other transportation. Bridges — they’re not very well maintained, and then you have people who travel by small outboard motors, and that is very risky, so we have got to make that safe and a bit less risky for people. And then of course our road connections, they are also very bad,” she said.
Enough backing
As a veteran of two earlier campaigns, Eparo believes she now has enough backing to topple Gary Juffa who has held the seat for 10 years.
Sohe Open candidate Delilah Gore in Oro Province … she won the seat in 2012, became a cabinet minister, then lost the seat in 2017. Image: PNG Treasury
Delilah Gore, who is running in the Sohe Open in Oro Province, won the seat in 2012, became a cabinet minister, then lost the seat in 2017.
She said that loss still hurts, “that shouldn’t have happened because I did my best, the very best I could. But right now I can have reactions from people. A lot of people are telling me I have done well in the last five years – the voters still couldn’t believe I lost the seat, so I am having a lot of support right now. I am confident of coming back again.”
Along with another profile candidate we heard from in an earlier programme, Dulciana Somare Brash, the daughter of PNG’s first prime minister, who is standing in the Angoram Open, these women are confident they will do well.
Hopefully, for at least some of them, that will be the case.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
She is brave — no other word can describe this Papua New Guinean woman.
Ruth Undi Siwinu isn’t only challenging the norms and a huge field of male candidates in Southern Highlands, but knows the task ahead and she is prepared to take them head on.
In a province where leadership is regarded as “men’s business”, Siwinu takes on everyone –– including the sitting MP and Pangu strongman William Powi.
“Let’s make history and vote a woman candidate into Parliament,” Siwini told hundreds of supporters at her rally in Mendi, Southern Highlands Province.
An independent candidate, Siwinu told the huge group that poverty was real in this province and a country that were blessed with vast resources that were bringing in billions of kina every year.
“I have travelled to the length and breadth of this province. I have been to all the five districts in the province and I saw that my people are still struggling to live,” she said.
“Why are my people struggling when Southern Highlands is blessed with all resources and the country is sitting on the resources Southern Highlands produce.
‘A mistake somewhere’
“There is a mistake somewhere and we have to find out. We want a women leader to lead the province, we have given enough time to the men to lead the province but they have failed us big time,” she said.
Siwinu said male leaders in the province were not providing services that the people deserved.
“They are playing too much politics and did not serve the people for many years. We have to stop this,” she added.
She said that the national election has provided the opportunity for the people to change the leadership and vote in a women leader to drive Southern Highlands forward into the future.
She urged all mothers, girls, aunties and youths to vote in a women candidate in this election to effect change in the province. She called on all women to rally behind her for a better Southern Highlands.
‘Representing the marginalised’
“I am standing here representing you women, the marginalised. Women are the people who suffer most in this province and I want you all women to make a strong stand and make your vote count in Ruth Undi,” she said.
She said she had spent K1 million (NZ$446,000) investing in Southern Highlands, helping women through her Mama Helpim Mama Charity organisation.
“I have Mama Helpim Mama charity organisation, though this organisation I spent K1 million helping Southern Highlands mothers.
“I have seen the real struggle in the villages, I serve the people already, I am only need the political power to continue what I am doing,” she said.
Eighty six of the 2351 candidates registered for next month’s general election are women.
Kolopu Waimais a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.
New Caledonia’s first round of the French National Assembly election has seen surprise advances of the pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) whose two candidates both made it to next Sunday’s run-off round.
Wali Wahetra came second in the constituency made up of the anti-independence stronghold Noumea plus the mainly Kanak Loyalty Islands and the Isle of Pines.
Her success marks the first time in 15 years that an FLNKS candidate has qualified for the second round there.
“The goal was attained for the first round”, she said and thanked “those who think our struggle is legitimate and noble”.
Sunday’s voting was the first since the referendum on independence from France in December when the FLNKS boycotted the event, which then saw 96 percent vote against independence.
The election was open to all French citizens in New Caledonia, in contrast to the referendum, for which the roll was restricted to indigenous people and long-term residents.
Turnout was 33 percent, which was a one-percent drop over the previous National Assembly election in 2017.
Lift in independence vote
However, there was a slight lift in areas traditionally voting for independence because last time a key FLNKS party, the Caledonian Union, had called for abstaining.
With the joint FLNKS call to go out and vote, Wahetra secured 22 percent of the vote while the winner in the constituency Philippe Dunoyer got 41 percent.
Seeking re-election for another five-year term, Dunoyer stood for a newly formed Ensemble, which is a four-party coalition linked for the purpose of this election to French President Emmanuel Macron.
In the other constituency, encompassing the main island minus Noumea, the anti-independence candidate Nicolas Metzdorf won 34 percent of the vote, a narrow advantage over the FLNKS candidate Gerard Reignier with 33 percent.
Reignier said: “We gave us a goal of making it to the second round and we made it to the second round”.
Seventeen candidates contested Sunday’s election, including a former president Thierry Santa of the Rassemblement, which had historically been the key anti-independence party.
He won, however, just 22 percent, clearly distanced by Metzdorf and Reignier.
The Rassemblement’s other candidate, Virginie Ruffenach, also came third in her southern constituency, winning 14 percent of the vote.
Reacting to her defeat, Ruffenach urged her supporters to back Dunoyer in the run-off to ensure the anti-independence parties keep being represented in Paris.
Single candidate tactic
The success of the FLNKS has in part been explained by its member parties agreeing to run a single candidate in each of the two constituencies.
After shunning the referendum in December, it campaigned for the two seats in the hope of getting a representative elected to the French Assembly to have its quest for sovereignty heard.
The result also confirmed the political divide entrenched for years and largely along geographical and ethnic lines.
The polarisation is such that Reignier won more than 90 percent of votes in the northern electorates known for their pro-independence stance.
The anti-independence camp has been riven for years by varying rivalries but for the National Assembly election, four parties formed the Ensemble group, which Metzdorf considered to be a success.
Metzdorf, who is mayor of La Foa and the leader of Generations NC, joined as did Dunoyer of Caledonia Together Party, which had won both seats in 2017.
In the 2018 provincial election, Caledonia Together was weakened and the party leader, Philippe Gomes, who had held one of the two Paris seats for a decade, did not seek re-election this year.
First round victories hailed
Sonia Backes, who is the president of the Southern Province and the anti-independence politician representing the French president in New Caledonia, hailed the first-round victories of the Ensemble candidates.
She welcomed the support immediately expressed by the defeated Rassemblement politicians, saying there must be a united “loyalist” camp.
Backes added that perhaps the new French overseas minister might visit next week while the law commission of the French Senate will conduct a fact-finding mission in preparation of a new statute for New Caledonia.
Many candidates expressed concern about the low turnout, saying some thought has to be given to finding ways of engaging the public.
With campaigning resuming for next Sunday’s run-off, the two camps are aware that a large pool of voters could be mobilised on both sides.
The anti-independence side is however poised to bolster the support for its two candidates as the losing contenders in its ranks can add their backing for Dunoyer and Metzdorf.
This leaves scant hope for the FLNKS to win a seat in Paris — one of 577 on offer.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
A Gisborne councillor has called into question the mayor’s ability to lead the region forward, saying her background makes it hard to understand issues affecting Māori.
Third-term councillor Meredith Akuhata-Brown made the comments about Mayor Rehette Stoltz following questions about her intention to stand for the top position at the next election.
Akuhata-Brown, who unsuccessfully contested the mayoralty in 2019, said she was not sure if she would run against Stoltz in October.
Part of the reason was she felt her chances were impacted on by not fitting the stereotype of what power looked like.
“When Rehette first ran for council, she was elected duly based on ‘that’s what councils look like across the nation’,” Akuhata-Brown said.
“She’s the deputy mayor within a couple of terms … she’s formidable … she’s young. There’s no fight for the position, it’s handed to her.”
First elected to council in 2010, Stoltz was appointed deputy mayor by Meng Foon in 2013.
Made interim mayor
When Foon left his position to become the Race Relations Commissioner in 2019, she was made mayor in the interim.
Stoltz then cruised to mayoral victory later that year with 10,589 votes, ahead of second-placed Akuhata-Brown who secured 3845 votes.
Gisborne councillor Meredith Akuhata-Brown … taking shots at Mayor Rehette Stoltz, saying she was handed the mayoralty. Image: Liam Clayton/Gisborne Herald
Akuhata-Brown believes the mayor had an easy run because she fit the bill of what people were used to in the make-up of councils around the country.
“We go through an election campaign when the position has already been filled.”
On her website, South African-born Stoltz shares her journey to the top elected position at Gisborne District Council.
Arriving in New Zealand in 2001 for her OE, she took a “holiday job” as the laboratory manager for a wine business before deciding to commit to Tairāwhiti long term with partner Deon.
It wasn’t until a conversation with former councillor Kathy Sheldrake in 2009 that she decided to run for council the following year.
Little debate over mayoralty
Her background is in cardiovascular physiology and she also ran a recruitment business.
Akuhata-Brown argues Stoltz was handed the mayoral chains without much debate among councillors when Foon left prematurely.
“It’s really easy for people from overseas. They come to our place highly qualified, and they are looked upon favourably, and they get the position without fighting for it.
“If you are a certain look, that is particularly not Māori, you are highly probable to get that position.”
Akuhata-Brown said she was being a “vocal local” because she was invested in the region and wanted to highlight the issues that came with integrating governance styles from overseas.
Tairāwhiti was still fraught with racial inequalities and relationships were key for connecting with those who were still trying to eek out a living in the middle and lower classes, she said.
“Those who have money and wealth and governance roles, they can just get on with their lives and not be bothered by any of that because they can just put up higher fences.
No voice for Māori and Pasifika
“For Māori and Pasifika, the voice hasn’t been there for centuries.”
Akuhata-Brown’s final criticism of Stoltz’s leadership was she had been left alone with no extra jobs and it felt like there were low expectations.
Hoping to be made a committee chair in her third term, Akuhata-Brown said positions had instead gone to people who supported the mayor 100 percent.
“There’s a real sense that to get position and acknowledgement you have to be very much on side.
“We don’t even talk, it’s just a non-relationship.”
South African-born Mayor Rehette Stoltz … confirms she will run for a second term as Gisborne mayor in October. Image: Rebecca Grunwel
Mayor Rehette Stoltz responded to the criticisms, saying Gisborne had been her home for 21 years and she had made a concerted effort to get a deeper understanding of the multicultural community.
Tikanga Māori course
That included completing a year-long Tikanga Māori course and becoming a member of the council’s waiata group.
She said that under her leadership, Māori wards had been unanimously voted in and memorandums of understanding signed with hapū.
“I have good working relationships with our iwi leaders and regularly meet to discuss and make decisions in regard to issues that are important to us as a region.”
Appointment to committees and chair positions were made on interest expressed by councillors, experience and merit, she said.
“I won the mayoralty with more than a 7000-vote majority. Mayoralties are not handed down, they are voted on by the community.”
The upcoming local body election is set for October 8.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Migrants and overseas Filipinos in Aotearoa New Zealand today called on the governments of both Australia and New Zealand to halt all military and security aid to the Philippines in protest over last month’s “fraudulent” general election.
At simultaneous meetings in Auckland and Wellington, a new broad coalition of social justice and community campaigners endorsed a statement pledging: “Never forget, never again martial law!”
“Bongbong” Marcos Jr, the son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr, was elected President in a landslide ballot on May 9 and will take office at the end of this month.
Philippine President-elect Bongbong Marcos Jr wooing voters at a campaign rally in Borongan, Eastern Samar. Image: Rappler/Bongbong FB
His father ruled the Philippines with draconian leadership — including 14 years of martial law — between 1965 and 1986 until he was ousted by a People Power uprising.
Marcos Jr – along with his mother Imelda – has long tried to thwart efforts to recover billions of dollars plundered during his father’s autocratic rule.
“Police and military forces should be investigated for their participation in red-tagging, illegal arrests on trumped up charges, extrajudicial killings, and all forms of human rights abuses,” the statement said.
“We call on the International Criminal Court to pursue investigation and trial of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte for massive human rights breaches in its drug war and systematic attacks against political activists, human rights advocates and anti-corruption crusaders.”
Call for ‘transparent government’
The statement called for “transparent government” and for all public funds to be accounted for.
“We specifically call for realignment of the national budget in favour of covid aid, public health and social services instead of wasting billions for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) and other government machineries that aim to suppress critics of its corruption and human rights abuses.”
The statement urged the “dismantling” of NTF-ELCAC.
Philippines Senate candidate Luke Espiritu … technology advances mean martial law by stealth. Image: David Robie/APR
The Supreme Court of the Philippines was called on to “act on the petitions lodged by various persons and groups regarding the disqualification of Ferdinand Marcos Jr to run for office due to his conviction” for tax evasion.
The statement called on the Department of Justice and Supreme Court to provide for immediate and unconditional release of the unjustly jailed Senator Leila de Lima — an outspoken critic of Duterte — “following the recantation of the testimonies of three key witnesses”, and also freedom for more than 700 political prisoners “languishing in jail on trumped-up charges”.
The gathered Filipino community also sought an official Day of Remembrance and Tribute for all the victims of Marcos dictatorship to mark the 50th year commemoration of the declaration of martial law on 21 September 2022.
‘Truth army’ to monitor social media
“We call on all Filipinos to remain vigilant as a truth army, to tirelessly monitor and report social media platforms in serious breach of community standards, and to push for stronger laws in place for disinformation to be punished,” the statement said.
Filipinos in the two cities — Auckland and Wellington — pledged support for the Angat Buhay cause of defending Philippines “history, truth and democracy”.
Outgoing Vice-President and unsuccessful presidential candidate Leni Robredo – the only woman to contest the president’s office last month – on screen at today’s Auckland meeting. Image: David Robie/APR
Speakers included Filipino trade unionist Dennis Maga; Mikee Santos of Migrante Aotearoa; an unsuccessful Filipino Labour candidate in the 2020 NZ elections, Romy Udanga; and speaking by Zoom from Manila, Senate candidate Luke Espiritu, who said the new Marcos regime would be able to achieve virtual “martial law” without declaring it.
“All Marcos needs to do is suppress dissent, and he has all the sophisticated technology available to do this that his father never had,” Espiritu said.
Northland Kakampink coordinator Faye Bañares said the new Angat Buhay NGO should not take over the responsibility of providing for the poor in the community, although the aim is to help them.
“The NGO should push the Philippine government to face their responsibility and be transparent about what they do,” she said.
Many speakers told how shocked they were in the general election over a “massive breakdown of vote counting machines and voter disenfranchisement” and the “incredibly rapid count of COMELEC transparency servers” to award the “unbelievable final tally” of 31 million votes in favour of Ferdinand Marcos Jr as president and Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter Sara as vice-president.
Social media troll farms
Denouncing the social media troll farms, the meeting critics said “all the worst lies, disinformation and red-tagging were committed against [outgoing vice-president] Leni Robredo, opposition candidates and parties who stood up against [Rodrigo] Duterte and the Marcos-Duterte tandem.”
In November 2021, the Philippines and New Zealand agreed to boost maritime security cooperation during the 6th Philippines-New Zealand Foreign Ministry Consultations hosted by the Philippines.
Both sides acknowledged the growing breadth and depth of Philippines-New Zealand bilateral cooperation, particularly in the areas of defence and security, health, trade and investments, development cooperation, people-to-people and cultural engagements.
The Philippines “defending democracy” public meeting in Glenfield, Auckland, today. Image: David Robie/APRFilipinos in the Wellington meeting make their pledge simultaneously with the Auckland group for “history, truth and democracy” in the Philippines. Image: Del Abcede/APRNorthland Kakampink coordinator Fe Bañares speaking at the Auckland meeting. Image: Del Abcede/APR
An indigenous legal challenge in a bid to annul the result of last December’s referendum on New Caledonia’s independence from France has failed.
The highest administrative court in Paris has rejected a claim by the Kanak customary Senate that the impact of the covid-19 pandemic was such that the referendum outcome was illegitimate.
More than 96 percent voted against independence in the third and last referendum under the Noumea Accord, but more than 56 percent of voters abstained.
The pro-independence parties had called for a boycott of the referendum after France had rejected pleas for the vote to be postponed until this year.
When the first community outbreak of the pandemic was recorded in September, a lockdown was imposed, which was extended into October, as thousands contracted the virus and hundreds needed hospital care.
The court in Paris found that the epidemiological situation had improved in October and November and that by the time of the referendum on December 12, more than 77 percent of the population had been vaccinated.
It also said the year-long mourning declared by the Kanak customary Senate in September was not such as to affect the sincerity of the vote.
No minimum turnout
The court added that neither constitutional provisions nor the organic law make the validity of the vote conditional on a minimum turnout.
In the week before the referendum, 146 voters and three organisations filed an urgent submission to the same court, seeking to postpone the vote.
They said given the impact of the pandemic, it was “unthinkable” to proceed with such an important plebiscite.
They said because of the lockdown, campaigning had been unduly hampered as basic freedoms impinged.
However, the court rejected the challenge and voting went ahead as intended by the French government.
Rejecting the referendum outcome, the pro-independence side said apart from court action, it would seek to win the support for its position from the Pacific Islands Forum and the United Nations.
A pro-independence delegate to last month’s UN decolonisation meeting said French President Emmanuel Macron had declared after the referendum that New Caledonia showed it wanted to stay French although it was known that 90 percent of Kanaks wanted independence.
French Senate mission planned The French Senate is hearing experts this week as its law commission prepares work on a new statute for New Caledonia following last year’s rejection of independence.
The commission, which is chaired by François-Noel Buffet, has also formed a team that will travel to New Caledonia in two weeks for talks with all stakeholders.
The team is expected to stay for a week and complete its work by the end of July.
In December, more than 96 percent voted against independence in the third and last referendum under the Noumea Accord, which had been the decolonisation roadmap since 1998.
However, the pro-independence parties refuse to recognise the result, saying their abstention had rendered the outcome of the process illegitimate.
Paris plans to hold a referendum next June on a new statute for a New Caledonia within the French republic.
Buffet said his mission to Noumea was to consider the institutional situation by consolidating the dialogue initiated by the Matignon and Noumea Accords between France and New Caledonia.
Electoral rolls issue
A key issue will be the fate of the electoral rolls.
The Noumea Accord, whose provisions have been enshrined in the French constitution, restricts voting rights to indigenous people and long-term residents.
Migration this century has added about 40,000 French citizens who remain excluded from referendums and from provincial elections.
The anti-independence parties want the rolls to be unfrozen, but the pro-independence side is strongly opposed to this.
It told the UN Decolonisation Committee that France’s intention to open the electoral rolls to French people who arrived after 1998 was the ultimate weapon to “drown” the Kanak people and “recolonise” New Caledonia.
It warned the Kanaks would be made to disappear, which would not be accepted but inevitably lead to conflict.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
A flurry of peaceful rallies and protests erupted in West Papua and Indonesia on Friday, June 3.
Papuan People’s Petition (PRP), the National Committee for West Papua (Komite Nasional Papua Barat-KNPB) and civil society groups and youth from West Papua marched in protest of Jakarta’s plan to create more provinces.
Thousands of protesters marched through the major cities and towns in each of West Papua’s seven regions, including Jayapura, Wamena, Paniai, Sorong, Timika/Mimika, Yahukimo, Lanny Jaya, Nabire, and Merauke.
As part of the massive demonstration, protests were organised in Indonesia’s major cities of West Java, Central Jakarta, Jogjakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Surabaya, and Bali.
Demonstrators said Papuans wanted an independence referendum, not new provinces or special autonomy.
3/6/22 Wamena, West Papua
“Papua: freedom!”
“Referendum: yes!”
Thousands of protestors are rejecting Jakarta’s arbitrary plan to create new provinces and Special Autonomy status. They are demanding an independence referendum. pic.twitter.com/QnxBu8egHp
— Veronica Koman 許愛茜 (@VeronicaKoman) June 3, 2022
According to Markus Haluk, one of the key coordinators of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), almost all Papuans took to the streets to show Jakarta and those who want to wipe out the Papuan people that they do not need special autonomy or new provinces.
[CW: blood]
This student protestor is the embodiment of West Papuan spirit. Indonesian forces beat him bloody but he will not be silenced.
— Veronica Koman 許愛茜 (@VeronicaKoman) June 3, 2022
Above is a text image that captures the spirit of the demonstrators. A young man is shown being beaten on the head and blood running down his face during a demonstration in Jayapura city of Papua on Friday.
The text urges Indonesia’s president Jokowi to be tagged on social media networks and calls for solidarity action.
Numerous protesters were arrested and beaten by Indonesian police during the demonstration.
Security forces brutalised demonstrators in the cities of Sorong, Jayapura, Yahukimo, Merauke, and elsewhere where demonstrations were held.
Hi Prof. Dr. MAHFUD….. where you get 82% people of West Papua supporting your government’s DOB and Otsus Jilid Il?
Even in these pictures can tell you the real fact that 99, 99% of indigenous West Papuans REJECTED your DOB and the Otonomi Jilid Il. pic.twitter.com/e9SS1QTi71
An elderly mother is seen been beaten on the head during the demonstration in Sorong. Tweet: West Papua Sun
People who are beaten and arrested are treated inhumanely and are not followed up with proper care, nor justice, in one of Asia-Pacific’s most heavily militarised areas.
Among those injured in Sorong, these people have been named Aves Susim (25), Sriyani Wanene (30), Mama Rita Tenau (50), Betty Kosamah (22), Agus Edoway (25), Kamat (27), Subi Taplo (23), Amanda Yumte (23), Jack Asmuru (20), and Sonya Korain (22).
Root of the protests in the 1960s
The protests and rallies are not merely random riots, or protests against government corruption or even pay raises. The campaign is part of decades-old protests that have been carried out against what the Papuans consider to be an Indonesian invasion since the 1960s.
The Indonesian government claims West Papua’s fate was sealed with Indonesia after a United Nations-organised 1969 referendum, known as the Pepera or Act of Free Choice, something Papuans consider a sham and an Act of No Choice.
In spite of Indonesia’s claim, the Indonesian invasion of West Papua began in 1963, long before the so-called Act of Free Choice in 1969.
It was well documented that the 1025 Papuan elders who voted for Indonesian occupancy in 1969 were handpicked at gunpoint.
In the six years between 1963 and 1969, Indonesian security forces tortured and beat these elders into submission before the vote in 1969 began.
Friday’s protesters were not merely protesting against Jakarta’s draconian policy of drawing yet another arbitrary line through Papuan ancestral territory, but also against Indonesia’s illegal occupation.
The Papuans accuse Jakarta of imposing laws, policies, and programmes that affect Papuans living in West Papua, while it is illegally occupying the territory.
Papuans will protest indefinitely until the root cause is addressed. On the other hand, the Indonesian government seems to care little about what the Papuans actually want or think.
Markus Haluk said Indonesia did not view Papuans as human beings equal to that of Indonesians, and this mades them believe that what Papuans want and think, or how Jakarta’s policy may affect Papuans, had no value.
Jakarta, he continued, will do whatever it wants, however, it wishes, and whenever it wishes in regard to West Papua.
In light of this sharp perceptual contrast, the relationship between Papuans and the Indonesian government has almost reached a dead end.
Fatal disconnect
The Lowy Institute, Australia’s leading think-tank, published an article entitled What is at stake with new provinces in West Papua? on 28 April 2022 that identifies some of the most critical terminology regarding this dead-end protracted conflict — one of which is “fatal disconnect”.
The conclusion of the article stated, “On a general level, this means that there is a fatal disconnect between how the Indonesian government view their treatment of the region, and how the people actually affected by such treatment see the arrangement.”
It is this fatal disconnect that has brought these two states — Papua and Indonesia — to a point of no return. Two states are engaged in a relationship that has been disconnected since the very beginning, which has led to so many fatalities.
The author of the article, Eduard Lazarus, a Jakarta-based journalist and editor covering media and social movements, wrote:
That so many indigenous West Papuans expressed their disdain against renewing the Special Autonomy status … is a sign that something has gone horribly wrong.
The tragedy of this irreconcilable relationship is that Jakarta does not reflect on its actions and is willfully ignorant of how its rhetoric and behaviour in dealing with West Papua has caused such human tragedy and devastation spanning generations.
The way that Jakarta’s leaders talk about their “rescue” plans for West Papua displays this fatal disconnect.
KOMPAS.com reported on June 2 that Vice-President Ma’ruf Amin had asked Indonesian security forces to use a “humanist approach” in Papua rather than violence.
Ma’ruf expressed this view also in a virtual speech made at the Declaration of Papua Peace event organised by the Papuan Indigenous Peoples Institute on June 6.
In a press release, Ma’ruf said he had instructed the combined military and police officials to use a humanist approach, prioritise dialogical efforts, and refrain from violence.
Ma’ruf believes that conducive security conditions are essential to Papua’s development, and that the government aims to promote peace and unity in Papua through various policies and regulations.
The Papua Special Autonomy Law, he continued, regulates the transfer of power from provinces to regencies and cities, as well as increasing the percentage of Papua Special Autonomy Funds transferred to 2.25 percent of the National General Allocation Fund.
Additionally, according to the Vice-President, the government is drafting a presidential regulation regarding a Papuan Development Acceleration Master Plan (RIPPP) and establishing the Papuan Special Autonomy Development Acceleration Steering Agency (BP3OKP) directly headed by Ma’ruf himself.
He also underscored the importance of a collaboration between all parties, including indigenous Papuans. Ma’ruf believes that Papua’s development will speed up soon since the traditional leaders and all members of the Indigenous Papuan Council are willing to work together and actively participate in building the Land of Papua.
Indonesia’s new military commander
General Andika Perkasa. Image: File
Recently, Indonesia’s newly appointed Commander of Armed Forces, General Andika Perkasa, proposed a novel, humanistic approach to handling political conflict in West Papua.
Instead of removing armed combatants with gunfire, he has vowed to use “territorial development operations” to resolve the conflict. In these operations, personnel will conduct medical, educational, and infrastructure-building missions to establish a rapport with Papuan communities in an effort to steer them away from the independence movement.
In order to accomplish Perkasa’s plans, the military will have to station a large number of troops in West Papua in addition to the troops currently present.
When listening to these two countries’ top leaders, they appear full of optimism in the words and new plans they describe.
But the reality behind these words is something else entirely. There is, as concluded by Eduard Lazarus, a fatal disconnect between West Papuan and Jakarta’s policymakers, but Jakarta is unable to recognise it.
Jakarta seems to suffer from cognitive dissonance or cognitive disconnect when dealing with West Papua — a lack of harmony between its heart, words, and actions.
Cognitive dissonance is, by definition, a behavioural dysfunction with inconsistency in which the personal beliefs held, what has been said, and what has been done contradict each other.
Vice-chair of Papuan People’s Representative Council Yunus Wonda. Image: File
This contradiction, according to Yunus Wonda, deputy chair of the Papuan People’s Representative Council, occurs when the government changes the law and modifies and amends it as they see fit.
What is written, what is practised, and what is in the heart do not match. Papuans suffer greatly because of this, according to Yunus Wonda.
Mismanagement of a fatalistic nature
Jakarta continues to mismanage West Papua with fatalistic inconsistent policies, which, according to the article, “might already have soured” to an irreparable degree.
The humanist approach now appears to be another code in Indonesia’s gift package, delivered to the Papuans as a Trojan horse.
The words of Indonesia’s Vice-President and the head of its Armed Forces are like a band aid with a different colour trying to cover an old wound that has barely healed.
According to Wonda, the creation of new provinces is like trying to put the smoke out while the fire is still burning.
Jakarta had already tried to bandage those old wounds with the so-called “Special Autonomy” 20 years ago. The Autonomy gift was granted not out of goodwill, but out of fear of Papuan demands for independence.
However, Jakarta ended up making a big mess of it.
The same rhetoric is also seen here in the statement of the Vice-President. Even though the semantic choices and construction themselves seem so appealing, this language does not translate into reality in the field.
This is the problem — something has gone very wrong, and Jakarta isn’t willing to find out what it is. Instead, it keeps imposing its will on West Papua.
Jakarta keeps preaching the gospel of development, prosperity, peace, and security but does not ask what Papuans want.
The 2001 Special Autonomy Law was supposed to allow Papuans to have greater power over their fate, which included 79 articles designed to protect their land and culture.
Furthermore, under this law, one important institution, the Papuan People’s Assembly (Majelis Rakyat Papua-MRP), together with provincial governments and the Papuan People’s Representative Council (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Papua-DPRP), was given the authority to deal with matters that are most important to them, such as land, population control, cultural identity, and symbols.
Section B of the introduction part of the Special Autonomy law contains the following significant provisions:
That the Papua community is God’s creation and is a part of a civilised people, who hold high human rights, religious values, democracy, law and cultural values in the adat (customary) law community and who have the right to fairly enjoy the results of development.
Three weeks after these words were written into law, popular independence leader Theys H. Eluay was killed by Indonesian special forces (Kopassus). Ryamizard Ryacudu, then-army chief-of-staff, who in 2014 became Jokowi’s first Defence Minister, later called the killers “heroes” (Tempo.co, August 19, 2003).
In 2003, the Megawati Soekarnoputri government divided the province into two, violating a provision of the Special Autonomy Law, which was based on the idea that Papua remains a single territory. As prescribed by law, any division would need to be approved by the Papuan provincial legislature and MRP.
Over the 20 years since the Autonomy gift was granted, Jakarta has violated and undermined any legal and political framework it agreed to or established to engage with Papuans.
Governor Lukas Enembe … not enough resources to run the five new provinces being created in West Papua. Image: West Papua Today
Papuan Indigenous leaders reject Jakarta’s band aid
On May 27, Governor Lukas Enembe of the settler province of Papua, told Reuters there were not enough resources to run new provinces and that Papuans were not properly consulted.
As the governor, direct representative of the central government, Enembe was not even consulted about the creation of new provinces.
Yunus Wonda and Timotius Murid, two Indigenous Papuan leaders entrusted to safeguard the Papuan people and their culture and customary land under two important institutions — the Papuan People’s Assembly (Majelis Rakyat Papua-MRP) and People’s Representative Council (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Papua-DPRP) — were not consulted about the plans.
Making matters worse, Jakarta stripped them of any powers they had under the previous autonomous status, which set the precedent for Jakarta to amend the previous autonomous status law in 2021.
This amendment enables Jakarta to create new provinces.
The aspirations and wishes of the Papuan people were supposed to be channelled through these two institutions and the provincial government, but Jakarta promptly shut down all avenues that would enable Papuans to have their voices heard.
Governor Enembe faces constant threats, terrorism Governor Enembe has also been terrorised and intimidated by unknown parties over the past couple of years. He said, “I am an elected governor of Indonesia, but I am facing these constant threats and terror. What about my people? They are not safe.”
This is an existential war between the state of Papua and the state of Indonesia. We need to ask not only what is at stake with the new provinces in West Papua, but also, what is at stake in West Papua under Indonesia’s settler-colonial rule?
Four critical existential issues facing West Papua
There are four main components of Papuan culture at stake in West Papua under Indonesia’s settler-colonial rule:
1. Papuan humans
2. Papuan languages
3. Papuan oral cultural knowledge system
4. Papuan ancestral land and ecology
Papua’s identity was supposed to be protected by the Special Autonomy Law 2001.
However, Jakarta has shown no interest or intention in protecting these four existential components. Indonesia continues to amend, create, and pass laws to create more settler-colonial provincial spaces that threaten Papuans.
The end goal isn’t to provide welfare to Papuans or protect them, but to create settlers’ colonial areas so that new settlers — whether it be soldiers, criminal thugs, opportunists, poor improvised Indonesian immigrants, or colonial administrators — can fill those new spaces.
Jakarta is, unfortunately, turning these newly created spaces into new battlegrounds between clans, tribes, highlanders, coastal people, Papua province, West Papua province, families, and friends, as well as between Papuans and immigrants.
Media outlets in Indonesia are manipulating public opinion by portraying one leader as a proponent of Jakarta’s plan and the other as its opponent, further fuelling tension between leaders in Papua.
Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
