Open secrets

Special Report

Australian report on

Pacific may be too

close to the bone

A secret document report edly prepared by Australia’s foreign affairs and treasury staff to brief finance minister Peter Costello on the South Pacific may have left Australia with a lot more than it bargained for. Australia’s inter national reputation has already been damaged by its recent stance on reducing Greenhouse gas emissions (see Page 58) and Pauline Hanson’s racist remarks {PIM Feb, 1997). The 93-page document - labelled AUS TEO (Australian Eyes Only) - risks

further alienating Australia, with its frank commentaries on the economic status of island countries, personal habits of leaders and by accusing Malaysian logging companies of cor ruption and New Zealand of undercut ting Australia in the region. The report, left lunattended on a table at the June Pacific economic ministers’

meeting in Cairns, was picked up by a Reuters journalist.

The paper divides

island states into six groups - with headlines such as “Melanesian may hem”, “Imprudent Micronesians” and “Bottom of the heap”.

“Mismanagament is hurting, with the Solomon Islands, Nauru and the Cook Islands on the brink of insolvency,” the report says. “Pacific leaders will continue

to flirt with easy solutions...especially quick-fix, easy-money schemes and over exploitation of natural resources,” the report says. “[Sir Geoffrey] Henry has taken the Cook Islands to the brink of eco nomic catastrophe but his position as prime minister is secure for the time being.

“Henry is articulate and hard working, but he is boastful and vain - heaving spent

heavily on grandiose monuments.”

It alleges corrupt dealings between Malaysian logging companies and certain members of the Solomon Islands parlia ment. One politician, it says, is known in the business community as “Mister Ten Percent”. The government, it claims, is

"Henry is articulate and hard working but boastful and vain"

preoccupied with

averting a financial collapse rather than embarking on a

reform programme, laying the blame on prime minister Solomon Mamaloni, who is seen as an obstacle to change.

PNG is criticised for government cor ruption and dragging its feet on abuses in the forest industry because of politicians’

personal interests.

Interestingly, the yardstick most com monly used in analyses is island leaders’ attitudes towards Australia and colonial ism. For example, the paper says former finance minister Chris Haiveta is “combat ive towards Australia and may prove diffi cult to deal with at the FEMM [Forum Economic Ministers’ Meeting]”.

“He has gone along with [Sir Julius] Chan’s efforts to cultivate the Malaysians in trying to reduce PNG’s dependence on Australia.”

Haiveta is "combative towards Australia and may prove difficult...at the FEMM"

Vanuatu’s commerce minister Barak Sope is assessed on the basis of his “unhappy school days in Australia and uni versity Marxism in Suva [which] drew Sope to the anti-colonial cause”. Part of the financial “mess” the country is in is attributed to Sope, who is remembered for his role in the 1996 SUS 100-million letters of guarantee scam which nearly brought down the government (see PIM September, 1996). And the report is cyni cal of Vanuatu’s commitment to the Asian Development Bank-crafted reform pro gramme because of “ingrained bad habits”. Sope is married to “a poet with anti-colonialist views”, the paper contin ues, observing that “despite his resent ments, he visits Sydney often for business

reasons”. Fiji’s finance minister Berenado Vunibobo is similarly accused of not wholeheartedly embracing Australian pres ence in the region. “In spite of his good understanding of Australia (he was educat

ed in Queensland), Vunibobo can react sharply if he senses he is being patron

ised.

“Temperamentally volatile, he is still given to Third World posturing against Western colonialism,” the paper observes.

“He has supported Fiji’s moves for closer ties with Malaysia as a counter to Australia.”

One of the personalities to emerge rela tively unscathed is Aokuso Pavihi, Niue’s minister for national planning and econom

ic development. He is seen as hard-work ing, competent with a reputation for hon esty. The report notes that Pavihi “will probably follow Australia’s lead and the majority view” at the economic ministers’ meeting, perhaps one of his more endear

ing qualities.

The paper is perhaps less contentious for the bleak economic picture it paints of the region and the self-serving interests at the heart of Australia’s concerns in the Pacific as it is for the untempered remarks

on politicians’ personal lives. It describes, quite unabashedly, their drinking habits

(whether they become belligerent or mel low when drunk), personal traits, family crises and even religious habits. As far as Australia’s ‘self-serving’ policies go, it would be unrealistic to expect Australia to work from purely altruistic motives.

And, in much of its assessment of the region’s economic state, the report, it must be admitted, only reiterates what is already known. Vanuatu’s ombudswoman has

repeatedly spoken of corruption and mis

management in the island nation. It is no surprise to read that Vunibobo “is strug gling to bail out the stricken National Bank of Fiji”, the country’s biggest financial scandal.

“Nauru has never denied that it is going through a period of economic difficulty like any number of other countries,” a press statement issued by the Nauru consulate general in Melbourne, Australia, said.

Some of the allegations might be true, was the response from a spokesman for Mamaloni. The Solomons’ grievance is that Australia didn’t addressed the criti cisms through diplomatic channels, an AAP report said.

While the document is able to sum up most island countries on their economic status, New Zealand proves to be more

Sope is married to " a poet with anti-colonialist views"

complex with its “mix of cooperation

and competition

with Australia”. The

paper speaks of NZ being increasingly

dependent on Australia in both economic relations and defence, adding that NZ politicians were content to let Australia take the lead in Pacific affairs rather than risk their own popularity in the region.

“On occasion they have even undercut Australia, especially in the Solomons where they have been reluctant to take on Mamaloni over forestry,” the report says.

“Old habits die hard and many politicians and officials...like to believe that New Zealand, because of its smaller size, links to Polynesia and Maori and islander popu lation, is part of the Pacific in a way that Australia is not.”

But, according to the report, the finan cial crisis in the Cook Islands has seen NZ “moderating its tendency to indulge islanders”.

The other stumbling block is Deputy PM Winston Peters, whom it describes as

Vunibobo " has supported...closer ties with Malaysia"

an “opportunist”

and “loose canon” yet to shake off his reputation for lazi

ness, inattention to detail and erratic behaviour. The paper Iclaims that, while

Methodist by upbringing, Peters “enjoys

late hours in nightclubs”. Perhaps his sav ing grace is that he “has lived in and is well disposed to Australia” and that he “wel comes Australian investment, especially to balance Asian capital”.

There has been speculation that the paper will be the talk of the South Pacific Forum meeting in the Cook Islands and that Australian PM John Howard will have quite a bit of explaining to do - that is, of course, if he attends. (Word had it, until now at least, that Deputy PM Tim Fischer would be attending the September meet

ing.)

While most island leaders have been openly critical of the report, both NZ PM Jim Bolger and Peters, who bore the brunt of the report’s criticism of NZ, have tended to downplay the matter. Peters dismissed the comments as merely the opinion of an “ignorant bureaucrat”.

“They reflect a personal judgment that

sometimes demonstrates complete igno

rance of political facts and contain extraor dinary assertions which would be of embarrassment to a host nation.”

Strong criticism has come from Australia’s opposition party and the same can probably be expected from Malaysia, which Australia views as a direct threat to its interests in the Pacific.

According to acting opposition leader

Gareth Evans, there were suggestions that, contrary to earlier reports, the document was not the work of a junior official in for eign affairs but that of some fairly senior officials in the prime minister’s depart ment.

“And I can assure you that this will take a very long time to be forgiven, if at all, right round the region,” he said. ■