Dan McGarry - "The government refused my application to renew my work visa to silence me and warn other journalists in the country not to speak out”

GRAEME DOBELL
| The Strategist | Australian Strategic Policy Institute

CANBERRA - Journalism has always been a tough trade in the South Pacific. Living and working in island communities exposes editors and reporters to unusual political, personal and professional pressures.

A statement warning about ‘growing threats to media freedom’ from the Melanesia Media Freedom Forum, representing journalists from Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and West Papua, has been underlined by Vanuatu’s expulsion of a long-serving editor.

Solomons prime minister Manasseh Sogavare and Chinese premier Li Keqiang (AP)

ALEXANDRE DAYANT
| Nikkei Asian Review

SYDNEY - In October, the New York Times reported that China had leased the island of Tulagi, prized for its deep-water harbor, from the Solomon Islands, which lie northeast of Australia.

While the Solomon Islands government has said such a lease is illegal, it set alarm bells ringing internationally, coming less than a week after the country severed relations with Taipei and turned to Beijing.

Dan McGarry - "“It’s just plain cruel to make innocent children suffer merely because we printed an uncomfortable truth”

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - The government of Vanuatu, having previously blocked Vanuatu Daily Post senior journalist Dan McGarry from working in the country, has now doubled down on that decision by preventing him from returning home to Port Vila.

Mr McGarry had, of all things, been attending a media freedom conference in Brisbane when the Vanuatu government denied his right to return to Vanuatu to be with his family.

Dan McGarry (left) outside the offices of Vanuatu’s Daily Post in Port Vila

DAN McGARRY
| Guardian Australia

PORT VILA - Vanuatu’s Daily Post has always held the government to account and will continue to do so, with or without me as editor

Last Thursday, the Vanuatu government issued instructions that after 16 years living here and, despite having a Ni Vanuatu spouse and children, I will have to leave the country.

Pacific journalists Dan McGarry, Kora Nonu and Sean Dorney at a media conference in Brisbane this week

TESS NEWTON CAIN
| Facebook

BRISBANE - I’m going to start with the disclosures. Dan McGarry is my friend.

We have worked together as colleagues in the past and my contributions to the Vanuatu Daily Post and Buzz FM in recent years have been at his invitation and with his encouragement.

So the recent news that the government is trying to force his departure from Vanuatu for what they feel is negative reporting makes me sad.

Dan McGarry -  After 16 years in Vanuatu, the highly respected Pacific islands journalist was harangued by the prime minister for “negative reporting” then had his work permit revoked

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – If a government is ever involved in something, anything, and it looks like a stitch-up, then you’re right to assume it is indeed a stitch-up.

And here at PNG Attitude we assume that the Vanuatu government is guilty of trying to remove Daily Post newspaper director Dan McGarry from his job and from the country on a pretext.

Why? Because the government knows his journalism is  telling the truth.

For the last decade Rize of the Morning Star has been spreading the message ‘Sorong Samarai - One people, one soul, one destiny’ (illustration by Moale James)

MOALE JAMES
| Pacific Media Watch | Edited extracts

BRISBANE - “West Papuans are being denied their basic human rights. Human beings have a right to freedom,” says Richard Mogu.

“Freedom to be treated fairly like a human being. Freedom to be respected. To have your own dignity and pride. This is being taken away from West Papuans.”

Professor David Robie - It takes "serious guts" to report on West Papua issues in the South Pacific

NEWS DESK
| Asia Pacific Report/Melanesia Media Freedom Forum/Pacific Media Watch | Extract

BRISBANE - Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie has condemned the Australian and New Zealand governments and mainstream media for their “deafening silence” over the West Papua crisis.

Speaking before next month’s Melanesian Media Freedom Forum at Griffith in Brisbane, Dr Robie said Canberra and Wellington needed to get behind the Vanuatu-led Pacific initiatives on West Papuan self-determination or face growing insecurity in the region.

ELOUISE FOWLER
| Australian Financial Review

SYDNEY - The claim that China has engaged in ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ by offering loans worth hundreds of billions of dollars to strategically located Pacific island nations, leaving them vulnerable to China’s influence, has been hosed down in a new Lowy Institute report.

"The evidence to date suggests China has not been engaged in deliberate ‘debt-trap’ diplomacy in the Pacific," researchers at the foreign policy think tank concluded.

MARIE-ROSE SAU

Half a century of madness
Abused and shattered and torn

Half a century of chaos
Of living in the shadows

Half a century of sadness
And rivers of tears for precious lives lost

When will the morning star fly free?

SIDNEY JONES
| The Interpreter | Lowy Institute | Extract

Link here to Sidney Jones’ complete article

SYDNEY - Violence has swept across Indonesian Papua in the last six weeks, starting with racist taunts against Papuan students in East Java, and moving back to Papua where protests against racism turned into larger pro-independence demonstrations.

On 28 August, police opened fire on demonstrators in Deiyai, a remote district in the central highlands, after an Indonesian soldier was killed by an arrow. Eight Papuans died from gunfire.

China makes another significant inroad into the Pacific as the Solomons abandons Taiwan despite strenuous efforts by the USA to persuade it not to

KATE LYONS
| The Guardian

SYDNEY - The Solomon Islands’ government has voted to sever its longstanding ties with Taiwan and take up diplomatic relations with Beijing.

The move is a huge blow to self-ruled Taiwan, which has lost six allies since 2016, and to Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, who is seeking re-election in January amid rising tension with China.

The Solomon Islands, with about 600,000 people, is the latest country to switch allegiance to China since Tsai came to office in 2016, following Burkina Faso, the Dominican Republic, São Tomé and Príncipe, Panama and El Salvador.

Governors Gary Juffa and Powes Parkop lead the West Papua freedom march on Monday

GOVERNOR POWES PARKOP

PORT MORESBY - The right to self-determination is not just a universal declaration provided in Article 1 of the United Nation Charter, it’s also a right promulgated by God when he got Moses to tell Pharaoh, ‘Let my people go!’

Thank you Governor  Gary Juffa for your continuous support for our people of West Papua. You have never withered and I salute you. You are a champion of our people.

I thank prime minister James Marape for the brave stand he has taken. We are a manifestation of that stand that we won’t stand by and allow our people to be killed and oppressed.

DENNIS KIKIRA BELAS

Hey, l bet you look to the West
Beyond that mountain crest
And see far beyond that ridge
Do you see across that valley?
Smoke and flames rising?
Raging upon the western skies?

Hey, I bet you stop by and think
About what lies far beyond
Our shared mountain ridges,
Reflect upon the bond we share
And you shall feel yet for sure
They pain they cannot bear

Fr Giorgio Licini - "“Arrogance and a refusal to listen will isolate the big south island, leaving the smaller ones in the vast ocean with no choice but to turn to Asia"

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – A prominent Catholic priest in Papua New Guinea says Australia, as the region’s richest and biggest nation, should “lead through kindness” in the south-west Pacific and show “solidarity and inclusiveness”.

Writing in the PNG Catholic Reporter, Fr Giorgio Licini said the PNG government and civil society also have a responsibility because of their “central position among the family of nations in the Pacific [to] raise their voice regarding the current most pressing issues”.

Fr Giorgio enumerated these as Australia’s attitudes to offshore detention, refusing to acknowledge the negative environmental impact of coal burning and making “access and work difficult for other members of the Pacific family”.

Raymond Sigimet - "West Papuans are not Indonesians. West Papuans are not Asians. They are Melanesians"

RAYMOND SIGIMET

DAGUA - When I was doing my third year at teachers’ college, during a course in post-colonial literature our lecturer gave an assignment on the topic of nationalism.

The task was to select two nations in our immediate region that were once colonised. The assignment was to look into their history and literature in the forms of poems, stories or quotes expressing nationalist or anti-colonial sentiments.

I decided to read about Indonesia and East Timor (a new nation at the time). Indonesia a former Dutch colony and East Timor a former Portuguese colony.

I decided on Indonesia because of its occupation of East Timor (as it was before independence in 1999) and the ongoing Papua Merdeka [freedom] movement in West Papua.

So I set out on my quest to read and discover the post-colonial and nationalist literature of these countries.

I searched the bookshelves and catalogues in the library and found little existing literature that would provide the information I needed. At that time, there was no internet and the books were irrelevant to my assigned task.

A West Papua rally in Samoa - Pacific islands are moving from a weak stance on West Papua to an action-oriented approach

MEAGHAN TOBIN | South China Morning Post | Extract

HONG KONG - Indonesia’s restive province of West Papua was gripped by violence last week as protesters clashed with police, leading Jakarta to cut internet access and send almost 1,000 additional officers to quell the unrest.

The latest demonstrations were against racist abuse suffered by West Papuan students, but a separatist movement in the region has also been simmering since 1969.

In recent years, Jakarta’s Pacific Island neighbours have become bolder in their disapproval of the [Indonesian] government’s handling of calls for independence, recently welcoming a United Nations investigation into human rights abuses in West Papua.

West Papua and the neighbouring Indonesian province of Papua share the same island as independent Papua New Guinea, which is one of 18 nations – including Australia and New Zealand – that make up the Pacific Islands Forum.

In their joint communique after the forum, the leaders called for the UN visit to be finalised and a report on the situation to be provided next year.

Andreas Harsono - Many journalists work for military or intelligence agencies and write to a specific agenda

MICHAEL ANDREW | Asia Pacific Report/Pacific Media Watch

AUCKLAND - The Indonesian media is contributing to resentment and racism toward Papuans, according to a human rights researcher and former journalist.

Andreas Harsono of Human Rights Watch Jakarta told Pacific Media Watch many Indonesian journalists either view Papuans as enemy "separatists" or deviants and their reporting tends to convey these stereotypes.

Papuan anger has erupted in widespread riots and rallies across Indonesia over the last week, after a militia attacked West Papuan students in Surabaya, pelting them with stones and calling them “monkeys”.

Harsono, who is in New Zealand promoting his latest book ‘Race, Islam and Power’, says the manner in which the media reported the attacks has created further anti-Papuan resentment which in turn sparked a backlash from the West Papuans themselves.

“The attack was reported by the media, videoed by the media, but it raised anger back home, now almost 30 cities are having rallies protesting against the use of the word ‘monkey’ for this Papuan people."

Rioting in Manokwari, West Papua, on Monday as local people protested against the racial abuse of Papuan students in East Java (Antara/Toyiban)

YAMIN KOGOYA

CANBERRA - Escalating violence and attacks on Papuan students saw thousands of young people march on the streets and set fire to the parliament building in West Papua on Monday.

This was in response to Papuan students being attacked in a dormitory in Surabaya last week after they had allegedly bent a flagpole during Indonesian Independence Day celebrations last Saturday.

Surabaya police chief senior commissioner Sandi Nugroho said the attack on the dormitory was carried out by Indonesian nationalist community groups angered by the treatment of their national flag.

In an effort to restore calm, Papua Governor Lukas Enembe called on all Indonesian citizens to respect their national value of ‘unity in diversity’ (Bhineka Tunggal Ika) and asked security forces to act professionally and in accordance with Indonesian laws and to not let activist groups take the law in their own hands.

Mungo MacCallum - "Australia is not an innocent bystander at the mercy of the polluting giants: we are a major player"

MUNGO MacCALLUM | John Menadue: Pearls and Irritations

BYRON BAY - The Great White Father has arrived in the far flung atolls of the Pacific. And, like the missionaries before him Scott Morrison is delivering the bringing of the light — a gospel of hope and salvation.

Well, up to a point. Boiled down, his message is that if they are worried about the rising waters, they should sandbag the foreshores and move to higher ground if there is any, because he is not going to do anything substantial to help.

He will, of course, offer money, which his host at the Pacific Islands Forum, Tuvalu prime minister Enele Sopoaga, said was not really the point:

“No matter how much money you put on the table it does not give you the excuse not to do the right thing, which is to cut down on your emissions, including not opening your coalmines. This is the thing we want to see.”

Tuvalu PM and Forum chair Enele Sopoaga and Australian PM Scott Morrison (Stefan Armbruster)

STEFAN ARMBRUSTER & TESS NEWTON CAIN | DevPolicy Blog

CANBERRA - “Save Tuvalu, save the world” sang school children as they greeted the Pacific’s leaders on arrival to what became a showdown pitting the region against Australia.

This was no ambush, but had been building for years.

At the capital Funafuti’s airport the school children sat in a moat of water surrounding a diorama of a climate change devastated island.

If it wasn’t obvious, the significance was explained to them by Tuvalu’s foreign minister. The symbolism was potent, and the ritual well established by the time Australian prime minister Scott Morrison was the last of the 18 Forum leaders to stride across the tarmac.

Well briefed on what to do, he crouched to chat, showing up for the ‘Step Up’, but one major detail escaped advisers that marked out the Australian delegation.

Corney Alone - "It was crystal clear that Australia’s attempted bullying was sponsored  from the pouch of the coal and fossil fuel industry"

CORNEY KOROKAN ALONE

PORT MORESBY – They were very strong words from the Fijian prime minister, Frank Bainimarama: the sentiments of the rest of the Pacific Islands leaders captured in his views.

“China never insults the Pacific," Bainimarama said. "They don’t go down and tell the world that we’ve given this much money to the Pacific islands. They don’t do that.

"They’re good people, definitely better than Morrison, I can tell you that. The [Australian] prime minister was very insulting, very condescending, not good for the relationship….”

My own prime minister, James Marape, upon returning from Tuvalu acknowledged that "there is a climate change crisis in the region".

He further stated that he "will be vocal about it when he attends the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September this year".

Australia, or any other so-called leader of the free world, must know that Pacific Islands people value relationships.

Enele Sopoaga - "We are already crossing the red lines to keep, to save, the small island countries"

EMAIL | The Australia Institute

CANBERRA - Last week the Pacific Island Forum made clear that new coal mines were a 'red line' issue.

Its final communique made clear to the world what the Pacific nations require of its neighbours, including Australia: the survival of Pacific Island nations requires no new coal mines.

While Pacific Island leaders deserve congratulation for their vocal call for no new coal mines, it is a disappointment that Australia has bullied any language of a ban or limitation of new coal out of this week's 50th Pacific Islands Forum communique.

Australians cannot underestimate the importance of taking climate action, particularly in the Pacific. As the UN Secretary-General has said, “if you can save Tuvalu, you can save the world”.

New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern with Frank Bainimarama (Mick Tsikas)

KATE LYONS | Guardian Australia | Extract

FUNAFUTI - Scott Morrison has been accused of causing an extraordinary rift between Australia and Pacific countries by the prime minister of Fiji, who said the Australian prime minister’s insulting behaviour while at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu would push nations closer to China.

In an exclusive interview with Guardian Australia after the conclusion of the forum, Frank Bainimarama, the prime minister of Fiji and a political heavyweight in the region, said Morrison’s approach during the leaders’ retreat on Thursday was “very insulting and condescending”.

“Yesterday was probably one of the most frustrating days I have ever had,” he said of the leaders’ retreat, which lasted for nearly 12 hours and almost broke down over Australia’s red lines on the climate crisis.

Scott Morrison and Tuvalu prime minister Enele Sopoaga (Mick Tsikas)

KATHARINE MURPHY | Guardian Australia | Extract

Link here to Katharine Murphy’s full commentary

CANBERRA - Pacific leaders are fully aware that things are not under control when it comes to Australia’s climate change efforts.

You can understand their impatience. They are standing on the frontline of a climate crisis, and trying to prod laggards around the world.

The Pacific needs the big emitters, and countries that can influence them, like Australia, to stop obfuscating and start acting while we’ve got a chance of averting the worst scenarios.

So, this past week, entering the global arena, Morrison found himself wedged between the campaign calm down offensive at home, and Australia’s demonstrable absence of climate leadership.

Fitzpatrick - "For Morrison and many of his cohorts empirical science is something they view with scepticism"

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings but if the people of the Pacific believe that the Australian government will do anything meaningful about climate change they are sadly mistaken.

Australia currently has a conservative government with an undeclared core of climate change deniers in its ranks.

If that isn’t discouraging enough it is also led by a prime minister who is a committed Pentecostal Christian who believes in miracles and God’s will.

One of those miracles enacted by God was letting him win the last unwinnable federal election. He is now prime minister because God put him there.

Roughly translated this means that he believes that climate change has been imposed on the world by God for unexplained reasons that should not be questioned.

For Morrison and many of his cohorts empirical science is something they view with scepticism.

LISA MURRAY | Australian Financial Review | Extracts

SYDNEY - The Australian government has announced the next leg of its Pacific step-up ahead of Scott Morrison’s visit to Tuvalu this week, spending $19 million on establishing a new security college to train officials from the region.

The latest security initiative comes as Mr Morrison is set to face strong criticism at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting this week over Australia’s climate change policies and its support for the Adani coal mine.

The college, being set up in partnership with the Australian National University, is aimed at boosting links between security and police officials across the Pacific amid concern about China’s expanding investment and influence.

Jonathan Pryke, director of the Pacific Islands program at the Lowy Institute, said Mr Morrison would be bracing himself ahead of this week's forum.

PAUL OATES

GOLD COAST, QLD - One part of the answer to the big problems of the Pacific – like climate change, Chinese expansionism or greater prosperity - would be better co-operation between residents of our region.

Anyone like Australia trying to be ‘Big Brother’ will only enhance feelings of subdued resentment.

A better approach is be to have the Pacific Islands Forum consider climate change as part of the whole Pacific picture. ‘Together we stand, divided we fall’ seems to have morphed into ‘divide and conquer’.

While ever climate change is hived off from the other important issues affecting the lives of Pacific peoples, it will always provide leverage against Australia, due to its reserves of energy and export revenues based on extracted resources.

ROY RATUMAKIN | Tabloid Jubi/Pacific Media Watch | Extract

JAYAPURA - The Indonesian government plans to bring foreign journalists to Papua for 2020 National Press Day, but an independent journalists group has warned against "politicising" the visit.

Lucky Ireeuw, chair of the Jayapura City branch of the Independent Journalist Alliance (AJI), said his group strongly supported the move of the Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs, Wiranto, to bring the foreign journalists to Papua.

"This is what AJI has been fighting for. We have urged the central government to open as much access as possible to foreign journalists to come and cover Papua without any pressure from various parties.

"However, the arrival of foreign journalists should not be politicised," he told Tabloid Jubi this week.

NEWS DESK | Agence France-Presse

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Pacific island leaders insist climate change, not China, will top the agenda when they meet in Tuvalu this month as western-aligned nations push to curb Beijing's growing influence in the region.

Once regarded as a sleepy backwater of the diplomatic world, the islands are now a hotbed of aid projects and charm offensives as anxiety over China's presence grows.

Australia has labelled its campaign the Pacific Step-Up, New Zealand has the Pacific Reset, and Britain the Pacific Uplift, while the United States, Japan, and France have also intensified their efforts to court the region.

But local leaders attending the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in Tuvalu from August 13 to 16 are wary their concerns will be sidelined if they become pawns in a wider power struggle.

Dr Jale Samuwai (left) - "Pacific Island countries are at the frontline of the impact of climate change" (Wansolwara)

JUNIOR OIOFA | Wansolwara / Pacific Media Watch

SUVA - Climate change is real and many Pacific Island countries are experiencing this “destructive reality”, says climate researcher Dr Jale Samuwai.

Dr Samuwai became the first graduate to be awarded a PhD in climate change at the University of the South Pacific this year and his analysis of an “equitable Green Climate Fund allocation policy” has been published in the latest Pacific Journalism Review.

Speaking at the recent USP graduation ceremony, he said Pacific Island countries were at the frontline of the impact of climate change.

“Many low-lying atolls in the Pacific region like Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu among others are experiencing the same threat of global warming and sea level rise, which is very destructive to their lives,” he said.

JARRYD DE HAAN | Indian Ocean Research Program

PERTH - Indonesia, in collaboration with New Zealand and Australia, recently hosted the 2019 Pacific Exposition in Auckland.

The event was aimed at boosting Indonesia’s engagement with the South Pacific region in trade, investment and diplomacy. It was attended by delegations from 19 Pacific countries and territories.

On the opening day of the event, Indonesian foreign minister Retno Marsudi said her country will seek to establish diplomatic relations with Niue and the Cook Islands and pursue trade deals with Fiji and Papua New Guinea.

Following the expo, Indonesia’s potential for new exports to the South Pacific reached approximately US$70 million.

While that figure is relatively small, among the smaller Pacific countries it could be seen as a significant step towards opening Indonesian trade with the region.

Indonesian exports to Pacific countries, other than Australia and New Zealand, have grown marginally from US$261 million in 2013, to US$299 million in 2018.

The vast majority of those exports were to PNG, which received approximately 71% of Indonesian exports to the region.

BUSA JEREMIAH WENOGO I PNG Informal Economist

PORT MORESBY - The Pacific Islands region has long been highly regarded for its hospitality and spectacular scenery.

The friendly smiles and the necklaces of majestic islands and atolls spread across a mighty ocean have long fascinated visitors since the arrival of the first explorers.

While the world has gone through dramatic shifts and turns over many centuries, the Pacific seemed to retain its beauty and its values.

From the big island of New Guinea across to Hawaii, the people of this region have shared history, culture and traditions.

Maritime drug trafficking poses huge policing challenges for South Pacific countries, monitoring ocean making up one-third of the world’s surface.

KATE LYONS | Guardian Australia

SYDNEY - It’s been dubbed the ‘crystal road’: cocaine and methamphetamines are packed into the hulls of sailing boats in the US and Latin America and transported, in increasing amounts and with increasing frequency, to Australia via Pacific countries.

As part of Guardian Australia’s international reporting team, I investigated what was causing this explosion in the use of this maritime drug highway and what impact the trade was having on the local communities the drugs passed through, for the Guardian's High Seas series.

What I found was that the trade is being driven by Australia and New Zealand's growing and very lucrative appetite for drugs - people in the two countries were consuming more cocaine per capita and paying more per gram for the drug than anywhere in the world.

The use of this drug route has led to some wild stories.

Australian photojournalist Ben Bohane currently based in Port Vila,  Vanuatu (Johnny Blades)

NEWS DESK | Pacific Mornings | Radio Australia

Link here to listen here to Ben Bohane speaking with Tahlea Aualiitia on Pacific Mornings

MELBOURNE - Ben Bohane has been announced as the winner of the Sean Dorney Grant for Pacific Journalism.

The $10,000 grant was available to an Australian journalist wanting to do a project on a story that was under-reported in the Pacific.

Mr Bohane is an Australian photojournalist, author and TV producer who has been covering the Pacific for decades.

When accepting the grant Mr Bohane said that under-reporting in the Pacific with Australian media is a real issue.

"Honestly, our news editors are failing the Australian people by not prioritising more reporting from the Pacific," Mr Bohane said.

Fiame Mata’afa -  'Australia and New Zealand keep telling us that we’re not old enough, not capable enough'

JACK BANISTER | The Citizen

MELBOURNE - Samoa’s Deputy Prime Minister, Ms Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, has urged Australia and her own country to “become adults” in their relations, which she said have been marred by “petulance” in the past.

“I think we need to have a more mature relationship. Because quite frankly, it’s been one of patronage, in a way,” said Ms Mata’afa, delivering a keynote address last week to a development conference hosted by La Trobe University in Melbourne.

She illustrated her concerns in the context of increasing diplomatic competition between China and Australia within the Pacific region.

Ms Mata’afa, who is the daughter of Samoa’s first prime minister and has served as the country’s deputy prime minister since 2016, said “people keep on telling us, including Australia and New Zealand, that we’re not old enough, we’re not capable enough, to run our own relationships with China.

“When it comes to us, they say, ‘you really need to be, you should remember that we are your older brothers, or sisters, here in the Pacific, and you have to be careful of those Chinese people’ ”.

Wesley Morgan - "To avoid catastrophic impacts, the world cannot expand coal production"

WESLEY MORGAN | Twitter

SUVA - News has broken that the controversial Adani coal mine in Australia has been given the green light for work to start.

So how will this news be greeted by other countries in Australia's Pacific neighbourhood?

Coal is the single greatest driver of climate change. In 2018 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) explained that coal-fired power must be phased out to avoid dangerous climate change.

To avoid catastrophic impacts, the world cannot expand coal production. Last year, 12 Pacific island countries issued a joint statement at United Nations climate talks explaining "there must be no expansion of existing coal mines or the creation of new mines."

At last year's annual Pacific Islands Forum meeting, 16 countries (including Australia) issued a regional security declaration explaining climate change is the "single greatest threat" facing the region.

One of the Chinese ships in Sydney Harbour last week (Bianca De Marchi)

JAMIE TARABAY | New York Times

SYDNEY — For years, the graduating classes of Australia’s military training programs studied Dari and Pashto, the languages of distant war-torn lands, eschewing the Bahasa and the Pidgin of Asia-Pacific nations close to home.

But as Australian forces wind down their presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, where they have served alongside American troops since the early 2000s, they are renewing their focus on Australia’s island neighbours, which have become a different kind of battleground as China seeks to expand its influence in the region.

Australia has always tried to maintain military forces near home strong enough to deter any potentially hostile power from moving into the South Pacific.

But in recent decades, it has not faced such a challenge in the region, and instead has sent its troops again and again to support the United States in faraway conflicts.

Patrick Kaiku

PATRICK KAIKU

PORT MORESBY - The Australian step-up in the Pacific Islands is premised on the argument that the sovereignty of Pacific states needs safeguarding, from Chinese strategic designs.

But how should sovereignty be conceived? In State Failure, Sovereignty and Effectiveness, Gerard Kreijen traces the historical usage of the concept, concluding that “external sovereignty or independence rests on internal sovereignty – the latter being a condition sine qua non for the former”.

Internal definitions of sovereignty matter in the Pacific Islands. They aid the process of identifying threats worth prioritising and practical measures in addressing such threats.

Pacific states are concerned with the internal aspects of sovereignty, that is, “the supreme power of the state to formulate and uphold the laws in respect of its population”.

Tess Newton Cain - new Australian government should have something new to say to the Pacific on climate change

TESS NEWTON CAIN | Vanuatu Daily Post

BRISBANE - Not content with watching Vanuatu’s elections and those of our Pacific island neighbours, I also kept a fairly close eye on the Australian federal elections that took place last weekend.

Given that Pacific policy was one area where there were some key differences between the two major parties, there was good reason to take an interest in what transpired.

So now that we know that the Morrison government has been returned, what do leaders and commentators in the region and the Australian diaspora think this result means for the Pacific?

What are they hoping to see from the Morrison government when it comes to sustaining the ‘Pacific step up’?

Climate change is essentially where these conversations start and end. On Facebook, Fiji’s prime minister Bainimarama was quite effusive in his congratulations referring to Scott Morrison as his ‘friend’.

Israel Folau "has not sought to persecute; all he has done is issue a heartfelt, albeit misdirected, warning"

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - The appalling decision by the politically correct pedants at Rugby Australia to terminate Israel Folau’s contract for the apparently heinous offence of posting a comment on his religious beliefs has set a very dangerous precedent.

I’m not particularly inclined to get excited about grown men chasing a leather ball around a paddock nor am I inclined to believe in supreme beings but I am inclined to believe that people like Israel Folau have a perfect right to say what they believe without fear of persecution.

What he said is what he believes. He was born in New South Wales of Tongan parents. As a Pacific Islander his profound religious beliefs come as no surprise.

That he felt the need to warn people who are different to him of the imputed biblical consequences of those differences, irrelevant as that may be, is also not particularly unusual.

Malasiga village, Finschhafen

PATRICK KAIKU

PORT MORESBY - The commentary in PNG Attitude by Martyn Namorong, ‘PNG is not Pasifika – we are not so much of the ocean’, needs rebuttal.

Namorong’s critique is not new. Solomon Islands scholar Tarcisius Kabutaulaka made similar observations in relation to Epeli Hau’ofa..

Kabutaulaka states: “We need to recognise that focusing on the ocean as the element that connects us immediately marginalises the millions of people who live inland, in places like the highlands of Papua New Guinea, for whom the ocean has little significance”.

Kabutaulaka concedes however, that Hau’ofa “challenges us to think in ways that empower us, rather than marginalise and weaken us.”

This terrestrial orientation of Papua New Guineans is natural.

Insulated as we are from others by the perceived vastness of our land expanse, Papua New Guinean exceptionalism can restrict a more holistic, and wholesome, knowledge of our Pacific neighbourhood.

Peter O'Neill and Xi Xinping - "China highly appreciates PNG for prioritising relations with China in its diplomacy"

NEWS EDITOR | Xinhua

BEIJING - Chinese president Xi Jinping has met with Papua New Guinea prime minister Peter O'Neill at the second belt and road forum for international cooperation.

Recalling his state visit to PNG in November 2018, Xi said the relationship between China and PNG is at the best period in history.

He said China highly appreciates PNG for prioritising relations with China in its diplomacy and giving solid support to China on issues concerning China's core interests.

“China supports PNG in choosing a development path on its own that is in line with its national conditions.

“China is willing to work with PNG to strengthen coordination and cooperation under the multilateral framework, so as to enhance the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries.”

Tess Newton Cain - "Now, more than for some time, the attention of the Australian media and policy community is focused on what is happening in the Pacific islands"

TESS NEWTON CAIN

BRISBANE - Last year, when I interviewed Sean Dorney for the Pacific Conversations series, I asked him what the elements were that contributed to whether or not Pacific issues got adequate coverage in the Australian mainstream media.

He told me that there were two deciding factors: the journalists and editors had to care, and there has to be some money. Covering the Pacific is expensive and budgets are tight.

I’ve been working for a long time on getting the Australian media to care about the Pacific, and I think that will be a work in progress for some time to come.

There have been some small wins and some notable losses on that front. But I hadn’t really thought about the money side of things.

At least not until late last year when I managed to pin Sean down and suggest that I should speak to the Walkley Foundation about setting up something that would promote the value of Pacific journalism by the Australian media and that it should be established in his name.

Writer and polemicist Martyn Namorong at Goroka Airport in his prize-winning sulu

MARTYN NAMORONG

PORT MORESBY - Last year in Goroka I attended a party at a hotel. Although hundreds of kilometres from the sea and high in the clouds of the Papua New Guinea highlands, it was a Pasifika themed party.

Luckily I had taken along my sulu on that work trip and so, wearing my sulu and a bula shirt, I was pretty much 100% Pasifika for the night.

(It also turned out I was the only Pasifika-dressed party goer, so by default won the prize that was on offer.)

My Goroka experience provided a glimpse into how PNG wants to be Pasifika but doesn’t behave as such. Not just in fashion, of course, but in terms of common values and more importantly the customs (kastom) that define this region and its people.

My first observation of why I think PNG is not a Pasifika nation is that of how we perceive our physical environment.

One really gets a sense of Pasifika as the ‘liquid continent’ when taking off from Honiara, Nadi or Nuku'alofa and noting how tiny are the islands and how vast the ocean. From Port Moresby, you can look to the horizon and see land stretching to the peaks of the highlands.

PNG foreign minister Rimbink Pato and Indonesian foreign minister Retno LP Marsudi - really one family?

YAMIN KOGOYA

GOLD COAST - On Thursday 21 March, The Jakarta Post published an opinion article by Indonesian foreign Retno LP Marsudi that highlighted a plan for diplomatic engagement with Pacific island countries.

According to the article, Indonesians and the people of the Pacific belong to “one family” and call the Pacific Ocean “our home.”

Marsudi emphasised the importance of developing physical connections and enhancing the connectivity of “hearts and minds” and said cooperation is needed to develop the South Pacific and define the future for the next generation.

‘Family’ and ‘home’ are powerful words that represent a place where human dignity and quality are nurtured and valued: this should be a priority for the future generations of the Pacific families. Strong communities are built upon such intrinsic human values.

Wansolwara student journalists on publication day at the University of the South Pacific

SHAILENDRA SINGH | Pacific Media Centre | University of the South Pacific | Edited

SUVA - The University of the South Pacific’s recent 50th anniversary also marked 30 years of existence for its regional journalism program.

In an eventful journey, the program has weathered military coups, overcome financial hardships and shrugged off academic snobbery.

Funded by the Commonwealth, the program started in Suva in 1988 with a handful of students. Since then it has produced more than 200 graduates serving the Pacific and beyond in various media and communication roles.

USP journalism graduates have won awards, started their own media companies and taken over positions once reserved for expatriates in regional organisations.

ANDREW BEATTY | Agence France-Presse | Extracts

SYDNEY - Australia has admitted it had not focused enough attention on its Pacific backyard but vows to make "long overdue" amends amid growing Chinese influence in the region.

"I think we would have to accept some criticism," Australia's minister for international development and the Pacific, Anne Ruston, told AFP on Friday.

"We have perhaps not put as much attention and effort into our own region as we should of."

In recent months, Ruston has been at the sharp end of trying to fix that - jetting to-and-fro between Australia and far-flung Pacific Islands, as part of prime minister Scott Morrison's "step-up" in the region.

Governor Lukas Enembe - Indonesia is ignorant of the significant role of Papuan tribal leaders

YAMIN KOGOYA

CANBERRA - In the days leading up to Christmas, 16 Indonesian construction workers were killed in Nduga by the West Papuan National Liberation Army.

Then Lukas Enembe, Governor of Papua, told local media: "I am asking President Jokowi to withdraw all the troops in Nduga.”

In response, Colonel Muhammad Aidi, the military spokesman in Papua, said: “If the governor Lukas Enembe supports the Free Papua Movement struggle and rejects the national strategic program policy, he has violated state law and should be prosecuted.”

December is a sacred month for Papuans. The first day of the month is when Papuans throughout Indonesia commemorate their national day – the day when the banned independence flag was freely flown alongside the Dutch flag. And on 25 December, the majority Christian Papuans celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Unfortunately, December is also full of tragedy.

Patrick Kaiku - ni-Vanuatu citizens are very sensitive to the plight of Melanesians in West Papua

PATRICK KAIKU

PORT MORESBY - Recently, in Vanuatu’s lobbying efforts at the United Nations, foreign affairs minister Ralph Regenvanu reaffirmed his country’s support for West Papua. So what is the basis of Vanuatu’s position?

Vanuatu’s staunch support for West Papuan independence is based on core principles of self-determination and non-alignment. These have been consistent values guiding Vanuatu’s conduct of its foreign relations since independence.

Its commitment to self-determination is not limited to West Papua. Since independence, Vanuatu leaders have affirmed support for an independent New Caledonia, advocated the creation of a Palestinian state and were influential in the creation of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) as a vehicle to support decolonisation in Melanesia and denuclearisation in the Pacific.

The country has a strong and consistent record in supporting decolonisation efforts around the world through multilateral forums such as the UN and it was the first Pacific Island state to join the non-aligned movement, signalling its independence from global power struggles.