God save the
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God save the South Pacific Commission
It is a great pity that New Zealand and Australia could not resolve their differ ences over the selection of a new sec retary-general for the South Pacific Commission before it went to a vote.
It defied the normal consensus proce dure preferred in the Pacific, embarrassed a number of island states who did not want to have to choose between the rival candidates and created the impression of a division that the SPC, which has enough problems on its plate, did not need.
The division is not necessarily real.
New Zealand had given a guarantee that the Australian candidate, retired diplomat Bob Dun, would have its full support if he succeeded.
But it was tough campaign and there is every sign that the Australians, who are the SPC’s biggest donor, used some heavy tactics to overcome initial majority sup port for New Zealand’s Tia Barrett.
No doubt, some promises were made which will now have to be delivered upon.
Both countries thought they had the best candidate. Australia because Dun, who is 65, has had a lot of experience as former head of the overseas aid organisa tion now known as AusAid.
New Zealand because Barrett, its High Commissioner to the Solomon Islands, is a much younger man who knows the Pacific exceptionally well and has the added advantage of speaking French.
More importantly, he is a Maori and, as such, would have been an ideal compro mise if the SPC’s quarter-century tradition that the post be held by a Pacific Islander was to be breached.
It is clear that most of the SPC’s 22 island states thought neither outgoing sec
retary-general Ati George Sokomanu,
who sought re-election without the sup port of his Vanuatu Government, nor Fiji’s Jioji Kotobalavu was the man for the job.
They were out of the running before the two-day annual meeting in Noumea
opened.
But it was unedifying to see New Zealand and Australia facing off in a very non-Pacific way at a time the SPC needs all the unity it can muster to survive as the region’s premier aid and technical assis
tance organisation.
There is no doubt the body needs a
shake-up. Both New Zealand and Australia have long been concerned about its efficiency, budget-handling and leader ship.
Britain is virtually pulling out next year. The United States is ambivalent about continued membership. Approaches to other countries, like Japan, Germany, Canada, South Korea and Chile, to join and boost contributions to the SPC’s work programmes have been met with less than rabid enthusiasm.
Dun has nothing less than a major task on his hands to find new sources of finance, install strict financial manage ment and restore the organisation’s credi bility. * * * Meanwhile, back in New Zealand the government is having another go at doing something about the plight of unemployed Pacific Islands people.
Although there has been a downward trend in Pacific Islands unemployment in recent years, it remains unacceptably high at 17 per cent about four times the rate for pakeha and the highest of New Zealand’s three major ethnic groups.
Maori are nearly as badly off, but Pacific Islands people have the highest rate of long-term unemployment and, equally worrying, the highest rate of youths jobless.
The latest programme, dubbed Vaka Ou (New Canoe), is part of a new govern ment strategy embodying recommenda tions of an Employment Task Force and a multi-party group on unemployment.
Overall, the government is doubling the SNZ2SO million (SUSIS2 million) it
had previously announced for special employment measures over the next three years.
Vaka Ou, which the government calls a fresh approach to the Pacific Island com munities’ problem, will get only $6.2 mil lion of this or about two per cent of the
new spending.
But Pacific Island Affairs Minister Don McKinnon points out the islands’ jobless will get the benefit of spending on the 30 new initiatives designed to tackle the nation’s overall unemployment prob lem.
He estimates, for instance, that they will get an additional $5.7 million of the total amount budgeted over three years for two programmes called Job Action and Youth Action because of their concentra tion in the ranks of the long-term and
youth unemployed.
Whether it works remains to be seen, and Taito Phillip Field, the only Pacific Island member of parliament, for one says it does not go far enough.
But the government has to be given
credit for adopting the multi-party group’s
recommendation of a specific strategy to tackle the unique problems of the island communities.
Keys to the strategy are new initiatives to get at-risk youth, aged 15-18, who have a tendency to drop out of school and can not get jobs, and men, over 35, into the workforce.
The Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs’ operations division will be charged with tracking down the teenagers and making sure they go back to school or undertake job training under the Youth Action pro gramme.
Older Pacific Islands men are less like ly to have work qualifications and more likely to have language difficulties than European or Maori job seekers.
With this in mind, a new programme of seminars will be introduced next year, designed to give them information and advice on how to find work or training.
But these depend on the willingness of the youngsters and their elders to be helped. As always, in the long run it is up to the Pacific Island community itself to decide whether it wants to improve its lot in its adopted homeland.