Independence Under Question

Self-determination for small states may not be the answer. By Helen Fraser.

A prominent member of the Aus tralian Labor Government, Mr Gordon Bilney, has suggested that independence may not be the best course for the small states of the Pacific if they want development and a satisfactory standard of living for their peoples. Mr Bilney’s point was made in a debate on re gional development issues organised in Canberra by the Australian Development Assistance Bureau (ADAB).

Mr Bilney was chairman of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Def ence in the last Australian Parliament a statutory committee representing all parties and both houses of the parliament.

He is expected to retain the chairmanship in the new parliament, which meets for the first time this month (September 14). The committee will be authorised to resume an inquiry on the South Pacific, which was part-heard when parliament was dis solved for the election on July 11. More than 100 submissions had been received.

Mr Bilney also is a member of ALP committees dealing with foreign policy and defence. He was a career diplomat be fore entering parliament, with experience in many parts of the world. His last major posting was as Australian High Commis sioner in Barbados.

At ADAB’s development debate, Mr Bilney said that it was difficult to find a success story in the development of small island states anywhere in the world “an unfortunate fact for those of us who be lieve in independence and freedom of de termination”. Those with the closest association with a metropolitan power had the highest standards of living.

Mr Bilney said in the Pacific, the is lands most closely associated with France enjoyed higher living standards than those that had become independent. “The ques tion has to be asked, whether independ ence is compatible with a satisfactory standard of development and a satisfac tory standard of living for the inhabit ants,” he said.

“Perhaps the best thing that countries like Australia really should be doing in the South Pacific is encouraging moves to wards closer satrapy towards closer as sociation and, indeed, even eventual incorporation of these policies into the major powers such as Australia.” Mr Bil ney said that the “cult of independence for these tiny states” had developed only in the past 100 years and mostly in the past 60 years. It would be foolish, he said, to rule out the emergence of the opposite view.

He said it was easy to claim that a small island state had a strong card to play in terms of its strategic significance when it came to dealing with the major aid donor countries of the West, but in reality it was a difficult card to play. Despite the fact that some of the South Pacific countries have had a pretty successful run with playing the ‘Soviet card’ or the ‘Libyan card’, I’m not sure that it works in the long term,” he said.

Mr Bilney said that the strategic card may not succeed in the shorter term, either.

“If you are Grenada, for example, you may not get a lot of aid, but you may get a cou ple of divisions of United Slates Marines.”

He said he believed that the objectives of Australia’s policies in the region should be to help the economies of countries that wanted to develop, so that their viability improved in the longer term and they be came more independent of such assist ance. A good deal had been done in this direction already, especially in terms of providing access to the Australian market.

However, he said, it was argued for some of the countries of the region that their only possible export was their labour force, to countries such as Australia.

It also was argued that such emigration provided an escape valve on high popu lation growth rates, a social escape for the young and better educated who faced lim ited job opportunities, and that returning migrants brought back skills and capital that assisted economic development.

Mr Bilney said that there were serious potential disadvantages as well. An exo dus from a small population often meant the departure of the more skilled and bet ter educated, leading to social and eco nomic imbalances. The migrants faced adjustment problems in the country they went to, and re-integration problems when they returned.

Economic journalist and commentator Maximilian Walsh entered the debate to caution against an assumption in Aus tralia that “the South Pacific is our back yard, therefore we have a responsibility”.

He said that past experience, present ex perience with Fiji and Papua New Guinea, and potential experience with New Cale donia and Vanuatu, “should breed in us a large dose of caution” towards those who argued that the Pacific was an Australian sphere of influence, whether in terms of trade, defence or foreign affairs.

“I am not suggesting entirely a policy of benign neglect,” said Walsh, “but I would recoil very quickly from the prop osition that we have some paternalistic in volvement in this area. At the most, it

should be avuncular by which I mean that we should not seek to impose our ways, our policies or our aid upon these people except in special circumstances such as natural catastrophe or where projects are demonstrably helpful to them.” Walsh said that discussion in the ADAB debate had tended to focus on trade and aid “because we have just passed through the experi ence of Fiji a very uncomfortable ex perience for us”. It was important to keep in mind the reality that trade, aid, foreign relations and defence were all inseparable.

He said that within the Australian Cab inet there had been considerable debate about the appropriate response to the coup in Fiji, which finally over-ruled the “mil itaristic” view put forward by the Defence Minister, Kim Beazley. Walsh said he be lieved that the right decision had been made and that any other course would have been disastrous.

Shortly before the Fiji debate, he said.

Cabinet had had an equally vigorous de bate about the expulsion from Australia of the remaining diplomatic representatives of Libya. This, too, had been related to Pa cific relations because of the need to be seen to be doing what others were being urged to do.

Walsh said that the expulsions were supported by the Prime Minister, Mr Bob Hawke, and opposed by the Foreign Min ister, Mr Bill Hayden. In the course of the discussion, some rather “bloodthirsty” scenarios had been put forward. What would, or could, happen for instance if the people in Vanuatu who were reported to have landed guns from Libya transferred them to New Caledonia and the Free Kanak movement? “These are fairly scary scenarios for Australia, which has never had to think about such things before,” he said. “As soon as we see ourselves as hav ing some larger obligation to deliver to the economic goodwill and future of the en tire Pacific, we take on a whole host of re sponsibilities which are very different from those we have had to handle in the past.

“Pm inclined to say that the whole sphere of influence argument is extremely dangerous, often put forward on the as sumption that it represents the natural or der of things. People say, ‘Here we are, the biggest economy in the region, shouldn’t we have some responsibility for these poor people?’ “In point of fact, half the time they don’t even want us nor should they, given our record in Papua New Guinea, which demonstrates that we have very poor skills in handling developing nations.” o