AUST: Downer attacks leaders of Fiji and Solomons
Updated
Australia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer says Australia can't be weak or compliant in confronting leaders in the South Pacific. Mr Downer attacked the leaders of Fiji and Solomon Islands during a foreign policy debate in Canberra in the campaign for Australia's national election on November the 24th. The Labor Opposition Foreign spokesman, Robert McLelland, argued that Australia needs to build partnerships in the South Pacific, saying that the Arc of Instability must be seen as Australia's Arc of Responsibility.
Presenter: Graeme Dobell
Speakers: Alexander Downer, Australia's Foreign Minister; Robert McLelland, Opposition Foreign spokesman
DOBELL: Alexander Downer says that when the Labor Party left office nearly 12 years ago, it'd treated the South Pacific with benign neglect. By contrast, Austalia's longest serving Foreign Minister speaks of the need to be tough in dealing with the Pacific. His first example of this was the flight of Julian Moti from Papua New Guinea to Solomon Islands last year to avoid an Australian deportation order. Mr Downer says the Moti affair, involving the man who is now the Solomon's Attorney General, shows how Australia has to act.
DOWNER: We know we've had to deal with the Moti Affair, I can tell you by the way dealing with the Pacific you don't want to do so from a position of weakness, you don't want to look weak and you don't look - want to look compliant when somebody who is wanted by law enforcement authorities in this country for child sex - on child sex charges is whisked by a Papua New Guinea defence force plane across to the Solomon Islands and kept there and appointed by the - as the attorney general.I mean Robert may be critical of me for being upset about that and therefore upsetting these leaders. I can tell you I am not apologetic about that. They have to know what standards we have and talk about Australian values. That gets to the very heart of the issue of Australian values.
DOBELL: Mr Downer then turned his anger to the Solomon Islands Prime Minister, Manasseh Sogavare, and repeated the charge that Mr Sogavare wants to undermine RAMSI, the regional assistance mission to the Solomons.
DOWNER: With Solomon Islands we've had a very tough time with Prime Minister Sogavare. He's been extremely difficult to deal with and is hostile to RAMSI. Yet we've kept RAMSI there and the reason RAMSI stays is that it's supported massively by the people of Solomon Islands and it's supported by them because it works. $800 million that's cost us, it's been a great success for Solomon Islands and a great obstacle from Prime Minister Sogavare.So I don't have a problem having an argument with Prime Minister Sogavare if at the end of the day I'm going to help the people of the Solomon Islands.
DOBELL: The Labor Foreign Affairs spokesman, Robert McLelland, says Australia should be doing much better in the South Pacific...and he also points to problems in a series of bilateral relationships.
McCLELLAND: The rim around Australia as you described has often been described by commentators as an arch of instability. It's our arch of responsibility. It would be unfair of me to say that the Government hasn't put resources into our region, it has, but things still aren't happening. Something is going wrong. If you look at our relationship with Fiji, indeed at a personal level, and it's easy for me to be judgemental from the side line, I appreciate and recognise that but our relationship with Fiji, they ignored the presence of our battle ship and had a coup anyway.The Solomon Islands, the minister came to the point where he had to write a letter to Solomon Island newspapers. In terms of PNG, the relationships at ministerial letter are - level are very very poor. East Timor, despite the resources that we've put into there they go to Portugal for advice on the future structure of their defence forces. We could be doing much better
DOBELL: Mr Downer says that the whole of the South Pacific, not just Australia, is putting pressure on Fiji's military regime and the leader of last December's military coup, Commodore Frank Bainimarama.
DOWNER: With Fiji, they've got a coup culture. And it was a wonderful meeting we had recently in Tonga of the Pacific Island leaders. I represented the Prime Minister there just last month. We all agreed on a path forward for Fiji, put an enormous amount of pressure on Commodore Bainimarama, and I think as a Pacific group working under the auspices of what you - is known as the Biketawa Declaration I - we are going to work at - we're going to get democracy back in Fiji.I hope by march 2009, I hope so. But I think we will succeed.
DOBELL: Rather than getting tough, the Opposition spokesman says Australia needs to build new partnerships in the South Pacific, along with a range of new institutions to support the region.
Mr McLelland
McCLELLAND: And I think the answer is to not focus on a reactive approach where we've seen a revolving door in some instances of military deployments, but to genuinely sit down in partnership with them and to develop programs in partnership with our neighbours to work on those development issues that we can assist.And in that context, the minister gave me a whack before for not talking about the future, and Labor's policies but Labor's policies in this regard, for instance are the Asia Pacific Centre for Partnership and Development and the Asia Pacific Centre for Civil and Military Cooperation, we think will do a lot in drawing together expertise so that we can focus on long-term capacity building issues.
DOBELL: The Foreign Minister says Australia is entitled to argue with Pacific leaders who, Mr Downer says, are at fault.
DOWNER: It's tough work, you must be strong, not weak and you must be determined and have clear objectives and every time you have an argument with a foreign leader, Labor says it's Australia's fault. Actually Australia is a good, decent and strong country. Sometimes these people are at fault, not us.
