Papua New Guinea’s government has appointed retired judge Justice Warwick Andrew as Chair of the Commission of Inquiry established to investigate recent violence at state-run university campuses around the nation.
Justice Andrew will be supported by a team of technical and legal experts that will soon be appointed.
This follows the killing of an engineering student at the University of Technology at Lae by off-campus attackers last weekend, the burning of buildings and cars at the University of Papua New Guinea and clashes at the University of Goroka last week, and the police opening fire on peacefully protesting students at UPNG on June 8 with some 23 people wounded.
Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said in a statement the commission was essential in helping to better understand what transpired in recent weeks, as well as preventing a repeat in the future.
“We all need answers, right around the country, to understand the factors leading to the escalation of student protests and the acts of violence that we have seen in recent weeks,” O’Neill said.
“This Commission of Inquiry will be independent and thorough and seek to get to the bottom of this issues identified in its terms of reference.
“I call on all relevant parties to work with the Commission of Inquiry as members go about their tasks.”
The Commission of Inquiry will look into the following matters leading to protests and violence of recent weeks:
The role of the Student Representative Councils
The role of the management of the affected universities
The role of police
Whether there was outside influence and whether students were incited to encourage unrest at the universities.
The full terms of reference for the investigation will be published in the coming weeks after being finalised, the statement said.
Meanwhile, in other developments yesterday after six weeks of anti-government student protests and class boycotts:
National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop earlier called on Prime Minister O’Neill to make a bold decision to find a solution to the ongoing destruction of properties and students’ fight at state-run universities. “I call upon the Prime Minister to take immediate and decisive action to arrest the situation,” Parkop said, while he also challenged students to take responsibility of their future and not destroy university property.
A group of men broke into two rooms at the Luavi hall of residence for female students at the University of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby around 1am yesterday morning. Only six female students were at Luavi 3 and were located a few floors above the site of robbery.”I heard a loud hammering below me then I heard men walking up and down the stairs,” a final year student said. “I woke up and used my bed to block the door. There were no guards … It’s very unsafe on campus.”
Vanuatu’s Public Service Commission is forbidding government workers from accessing social media, Radio Vanuatu News reports today.
This was decided in a meeting April 29.
The Vanuatu Public Service Commission letter yesterday banning social media for government workers. Image: Vanuatu Daily Digest
In an advisory note, the Acting Secretary of the PSC, Jacques Gedeon, says public servants will no longer have access to unspecified social media sites, and all requests must have the approval of the PSC Secretariat before the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) enables access.
Vanuatu Daily Digest objects strongly to this position of the PSC — social media are an important public sphere for debate in the country.
The memo is also vaguely worded, and does not specify how “social media” is defined nor what sites are to be banned.
Many civil servants in Vanuatu lack the means to purchase newspapers, others find it difficult to have radio coverage at appropriate times.
Furthermore, as we have discovered in recent years, both the broadcasting corporation and governments have at times decided to terminate transmissions at certain levels to save costs.
A Right to Information Bill is before Parliament and a blanket censorship of this kind should not be allowed by either the Public Service Commission or the Office of the Chief Information Officer, the more so because of the Prime Minister’s stated commitment to provide information to all and wherever they may live.
Indonesia’s Minister of Land and Spatial Planning Ferry Mursyidan Baldan has declared the government’s recognition of communal rights of nine indigenous communities in Papua.
The declaration was held at the closing of the 9th Sentani Lake Festival at the province’s Khalkhote region in East Sentani last week.
“We want to affirm how Jayapura becomes the living space for indigenous communities. No more actions against the living and cultural spaces of indigenous communities,” Ferry said.
The state had supported available space for Papua’s indigenous communities so no more people are evicted or forced from their native land, Ferry said.
“On behalf of the country, we affirm that in all Papuan regions, the entire space, mountain, beaches and others are owned by Papua’s indigenous communities. Whoever wishes to take benefits, to develop, should recognise the presence of indigenous communities within.”
“There should no longer be the elimination of indigenous communities’ rights,” Ferry said.
Daniel Toto, head of Jayapura’s indigenous communities, has called on the central government to strengthen the practical presence of indigenous communities.
Strained relations between the President-elect of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, and much of the news media before he even takes office this week pose challenging times for the nation.
A journalist, broadcaster and media educator visiting New Zealand for the World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) next month warns that the news media will need to be “more enterprising” to get a good story.
Jose Maria Carlos, a former secretary-general of the Asia Media Communication and Information Centre (AMIC), which has now moved to Manila from its previous location of Singapore, says journalists in the Philippines must be extra vigilant in protecting press freedom and challenging the culture of impunity that exists in the country.
President-elect Duterte will be sworn in on Thursday as the 16th chief executive of the Philippines in a simpler ceremony than usual having declared that he would strip away “lavish inauguration rites that will inconvenience Filipinos with cost and heavy traffic”.
But the controversial incoming president has come under international fire from media freedom groups for his threats against journalists, saying that those killed in the Philippines were often corrupt and that he would shun press briefings.
“The Philippines news media will need to be more enterprising to get a good story,” says Carlos.
“As the new president declared, he would not hold any press briefings for the duration of his term, practitioners need to find credible sources to examine and report on new policies, directions, progress and gaps of project implementation.”
‘Biased reporting’ President-elect Duterte had complained of “erroneous and biased” reporting by some journalists and media, says Carlos.
“The media needs to be extra mindful of their ethical responsibility to be accurate and fair, providing background and context so that the public can better understand stories, participate in public discourse and help them make decisions on matters that affect them,” he says.
Carlos is being brought to New Zealand for the WJEC conference being hosted by the Pacific Media Centre along with two colleagues, Professor Crispin Maslog, current chairman and a founder of AMIC, and Dr Hermin Indah Wahyuni, of Yogyakarta’s Gadja Mada University in Indonesia, who are being supported for the conference by the Asia NZ Foundation.
They will be speaking on a panel about climate change and journalism education in the Asia-Pacific region.
The conference is being hosted by Auckland University of Technology from July 14-16 with an Australian and New Zealand Preconference on July 13.
The media must continue to be vigilant over press freedom, but much more is needed than words, says Carlos.
“Articulating its stand versus attempts to curtail press freedom isn’t enough,” he says.
“We need to promote press freedom through action and campaign. We must vigorously support the proposed Freedom of Information Act, which the last Philippines Congress failed to pass.”
‘Culture of impunity’ The media also needs to press the police and the judiciary to act on those journalists wounded or killed in the line of their journalistic duty.
“Perpetrators must be arrested, tried and convicted if guilty. Press freedom continues to be violated because of the culture of impunity that exists in the country.”
In November 2009, 34 journalists were murdered in the Ampatuan massacre, the world’s largest killing of media people, on President-elect Duterte’s home island of Mindanao.
The Philippines regularly features in world media freedom surveys for its high death rate of journalists, many of them reported to be investigating corruption.
Le Va, in partnership with Pasifika media, has launched the “Pasifika media guidelines for reporting suicide”. This whiteboard video provides an overview.
OPINION: By Kalafi Moala in Nuku’alofa
A brother has made a terrible mistake. He has, however, taken responsibility for it and has apologised. Those of us who are offended need to offer forgiveness in the spirit of Pacific compassion, and move on.
Gatoa’itele Savea Sano Malifa, founder and editor-in-chief of the incredibly successful Samoa Observer, admitted it was a mistake for the Sunday Samoan edition of his newspaper to have reported on the suicide of a 20-year-old transgender woman, Jeanine Tuivaiki; and especially to publish a photo of the lifeless body of the deceased.
I have known Savea for almost 30 years, and he is one of the most professional and enduring journalists in our region. He has also been very successful in building a news organisation, and a daily publication that has made all of us Pacific people proud.
The Samoa Observer group.
The Samoa Observer has a code of ethics, and Savea is one whom I know to advocate passionately for the need for media organisations to have a code of ethics.There is no excuse for mistakes so blatant as this suicide report, and I would be the last one to offer any justification for what the Samoa Observer did.
Reactions to the Sunday Samoan report has been largely fair, and reasonable. Media is often the harshest critic of itself, but criticism is usually left with a close-ended condemnation without any solutions.
We also need to be reasonable, compassionate, and be balanced in our judgments.
Balanced criticism The Prime Minister of Samoa, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi has given a very balanced criticism of the Observer. He is a wise friend of media to have done so without resorting to a “ban the media” mentality.
I found Sandra Kailahi’s offer of using a guideline she has written on suicide reporting very helpful indeed. But that’s what we need to do, to help each other when mistakes are made, and then move on to do what we have been called to do in each of our countries and societies.
Part of the controversial Sunday Samoan front page article on June 19.
There is really no time to get vicious and to use this occasion as an opportunity to exact retribution on Savea and his organisation, for it is not really helpful, even in this situation.
I have read most of the criticism and attacks made on Savea and his organisation. I have also been invited to join the condemnation. But before I consider doing so, I need to look back also at my own news organisation, and publication, and ask what mistakes we’ve made in our 28 years of operation. I am ashamed to say that we made quite a few mistakes ourselves over the years.
The key however is to recover, correct course, and move on with the business of providing information for our people.
This is not the time to pick up stones and throw at Savea and the Samoa Observer. Let us not forget the incredible contribution he has made to Samoa and Pacific media for over 30 years. He has not only been inspirational to many of us, he has also helped in providing employment, training youth in journalism, and also speaking out without fear in his watchdog role.
Journalism is a profession that often walks the edge of risky engagement, and is demanding of every ounce of professionalism from us. We are bound to make mistakes now and then. But, can we also learn, make corrections and move on?
Not helpful It is not helpful to get on an “anti-Sano, anti-Samoa Observer” bandwagon. I believe we are mature enough in our Pacific media roles to criticise Savea and the Samoa Observer fairly, but at the same time be embracing and helpful.
The Observer will still be going on strong tomorrow, next week, and in the future. We need to support our brother, even after we’ve expressed our disappointment. He is one of us. If he has failed, let us encourage him to “fail forward” so that we can all learn and continue to do what we need to do, in a spirit of co-operation and loving partnership.
Kalafi Moala is the chief executive and publisher of the Taimi ‘O Tonga group and vice-chair of the Pasifika Media Association (PasiMA). He is also on the editorial board of Pacific Journalism Review.
Papua New Guinea’s long standing university student unrest is costing the country’s higher education sector financially, and is also damaging its international reputation.
Higher Education Secretary Prof David Kavanamur gave this verdict at the second departmental heads meeting today after students have been locked in an up to six-week protest over national politics, demanding that Prime Minister Peter O’Neill resign.
However, Kavanamur said the situation was not all bad.
He said the University of Natural Resource and Environment at Vudal “has been running academic programmes for two months now,” while both the Divine Word University and Pacific Adventist University “are intact”.
At the University of Goroka, Secretary Kavanamur said the students had been home for two weeks and the administration aimed to sort our their issues within that time.
Speaking about the situation at the University of Technology — before the latest attack last night killing a student and setting fire to several buildings in an unrelated issue — Kavanamur said “full credit” to the vice-chancellor, Professor Albert Schram, for “holding the place together” despite tensions being high.
The government’s main concern now was the University of Papua New Guinea’s main campus of Waigani.
‘Running full swing’ However, Dr Schram said, the School of Medicine at the UPNG’s Taurama campus was “running full swing” along with the postgraduate programmes.
Kavanamur told the meeting that, for medical students, the unrest had meant those scheduled to graduate in 2017, would now be graduating in 2019 instead.
Another unfortunate consequence of the unrest is damage done on plans to attract more international students to the country, which Kavanamur described as a “major reputational risk” that needed to be addressed.
Apart from international reputation, the unrest had also put a financial drain on the higher education sector.
“Possibly K15 [NZ$6.6 million] to K20 million [NZ$8.9 million) already, that’s money that we could be spending on prioritised areas.”
He indicated that academically, drastic decisions might be made soon.
“We are coming to the end of that period whereby the academic senate will meet to decide on the tenability of the academic programme.”
“We regret to inform that the student passed away a few hours later as a result of his wounds,” said Unitech vice-chancellor Dr Albert Schram in a statement.
“The management was on the ground immediately, and has been dealing with the situation as it developed,” reported Loop PNG.
“They were assisted by the university police and security guards, plus a few dozen men from the Lae police, who had been called in earlier last week to protect students and university property.
“Subsequently, a group of marauders proceeded to set fire to various academic buildings. The power supply was cut off, and the telephone network went down,” said Dr Schram.
Loop PNG reported the initial attack was about 10pm.
Substantial damage About 1am today, the Student Representative Council president’s residence, other buildings, and finally the mess were set on fire. These buildings suffered substantial damage.
The chief security officer sounded the campus alarm siren about 2pm, and the police force’s Metropolitan Superintendent sent in extra security forces as reinforcements.
“Regrettably, for some time the forces were outnumbered by the marauders, who constantly moved about campus,” said Dr Schram
“Finally, in a joint effort, the forces deployed on campus were able to disperse the marauders using tear gas.”
The university management is dealing with the evacuation of all students from campus, since the mess will be out of operation for several months to come.
“The evacuation of most students will be completed during the morning, since the university can no longer provide food,” said Dr Schram.
“The campus gates are closed in order to prevent any outsiders from coming on campus.”
Already the university’s academic semester had been disrupted by six weeks of unrelated student protests over national politics, calling for Priume Minister Peter O’Neill to resign.
A two-week journalism stint in Fiji, dubbed “Bearing Witness”, has lent new perspectives on the effects of climate change on AUT journalism student Ami Dhabuwala and honours graduate TJ Aumua.
The project, sponsored by AUT’s Research and Innovation Office (RIO) through a grant to the Pacific Media Centre, gave the two aspiring journalists a chance to meet Pacific climate change experts, and experience first-hand themselves the impact of climate change on everyday lives in Daku, a small village in Fiji.
Aumua, who is also Pacific Media Watch project editor for the PMC, says witnessing climate change’s impact on Daku village was heart-breaking.
“I was aware that climate change was happening before but I didn’t realise it’s devastating impacts,” she says.
Dhabuwala believes that climate change is a human rights issue that demands urgent action today.
“It’s not just about rising sea levels or other environmental effects, it’s also a physical and mental health issue,” she says.
“For many Pacific countries, climate change is a way of life. When we were there, somebody said something that struck me – you can’t stop climate change, you can only adapt to it.”
Multimedia stories Both students researched and reported for multimedia stories focusing on what Pacific youth are doing to stem effects of climate change, published on the Pacific Media Centre’s new current affairs website Asia Pacific Report.
University of the South Pacific’s Pacific Centre for Environment-Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD) communications officer Sarika Chand praised Aumua and Dhabuwala as a delight to work with.
“There are so many different issues that need media attention – the Pacific Media Centre team was more than willing to oblige,” says Chand.
“Especially with the Daku village trip. A big vinaka to TK and Ami for following traditional protocol and being respectful of the local culture.”
Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie thanked RIO for providing a funding grant to enable the PMC team to go to Fiji.
“This is the start of a regular Pacific ‘Bearing Witness’ project linking in with USP’s climate change and media research and local Pacific publisher Little Island Press. It is an enterprising awareness and communication programme about the impacts of climate change and how Pacific communities are adapting.”
The trip has also changed the trajectory of TJ and Ami’s careers. Both girls says that not enough is being done in New Zealand to highlight these issues, and hope to do their part.
Climate change journalist Dhabuwala says she plans to be a climate change journalist.
“This is what is happening to our neighbours. New Zealand is not immune, it will affect us too.”
Aumua says: “The topic of climate change in the Pacific will always be close to my heart wherever my journalist endeavours take me.”
Migrants from Gujarat who are living in Auckland have set up a theatre and literature group to celebrate their mother tongue.
The group’s treasurer, Rupesh Parikh, says it was formed to provide a formal structure to make things happen.
Gujarati Sahitya Mandal (Gujarati Literature Group) consists of 15 core members who enjoy Gujarati literature. They launched the mandal or group on April 30.
The president of the group is Shailesh Prajapati.
“It is essential for our next generation to know their mother tongue. Therefore, we decided to start the Mandal to spread, promote and teach Gujarati language,” he says.
“We are also planning to teach Gujarati to the younger kids so they know the importance of the mother tongue and can feel proud of that.”
The group plans to organise workshops, readings, festivals and literary events, seminars, exhibition, symposiums, community and various social events alongside encouraging aspiring contemporary and new writers with a prize.
Hosting overseas artists Brijesh Oza, Gujarati Sahitya Mandal’s secretary, says there are also plans to invite and host overseas artists and visitors.
Prajapati has been working in the media, arts and entertainment industries for 35 years. He is a part of Auckland-based Rangmanch of NZ, an organisation for Gujarati drama.
“We are also planning to present stage-plays, musical functions and recitations of Gujarati culture and tradition,” he says.
“We want Gujarati people to come forward and help us to keep alive our language. We want them to become a member of this mandal and support us so that we can pursue our goal together.”
The group plans to invite Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is Gujarati and was a Chief Minister of Gujarat for more than 10 years.
Oza says that such activities play important role when people are living in another country.
“Such mandal keeps you connected to your roots, culture and values. It helps you to establish your own identity.”
The group has annual membership fees and wants support from the Indian community of New Zealand. The group may also needsome additional funding from the government or private companies as well.
“Don’t be embarrassed to speak your language and be proud of being Gujarati,” says Prajapati.
Ami Dhabuwala writes for Asia Pacific Report and this article was first published by Te Waha Nui, both journalism publications at AUT.
Gujarati Sahitya Mandal community theatre and literature group in Auckland … stage plays, musical functions and recitations all part of the plan. Image: Ami Dhabuwala/TWN
Members of Sydney’s Pacific Islander community and supporters are kayaking down Sydney Harbour to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s harbourside residence today to protest against the Australian government’s support for fossil fuels and inaction on climate change.
Many Pacific Islands are facing the loss of their homes as climate change drives rising sea levels ever higher. Despite Australia signing the Paris Agreement to limit dangerous global warming, the Turnbull government has made no steps to combat the causes of climate change.
“Rising sea levels caused by the mining and burning of fossil fuels are threatening the very existence of many Pacific Islands,” Joseph Sikulu said.
“By refusing to take serious action, Australia is abdicating its responsibility as good neighbours to stop the Pacific Islands from facing more severe impacts of climate change.”
Fifty kayakers will set off from Blues Beach Reserve, North Sydney, past Kirribilli House, and across the harbour to Lady Martin Beach Point Piper, where they will deliver their protest message to Turnbull’s house.
“By traveling down Sydney Harbour to Lady Martin Beach outside Malcolm Turnbull’s house, we want to show the Pacific that we are standing in this fight alongside them, and we wanted to show Turnbull that that as a community we are fighting for this issue to stay at the top of his agenda,” Sikulu said.
“Climate change poses a serious threat to the Island homes of many Pacific communities. If we want to protect these islands into the future, the Australian government must act now to keep fossil fuels in the ground.
“This election is the perfect time for Prime Minister Turnbull to show he understands the dangers posed by climate change and take real action to protect our Island homes.”
Despite climate action repteadly receiving high levels of support from voters, the Coalition has consistently refused to act.
The government gave no mention of climate change in the Federal Budget, lobbied the United Nations to censor a report on the damage caused by climate change to the Great Barrier Reef, and approved coal mines even after signing the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to under 2 degrees and slashed funding for renewable energy.
A student leader told Loop PNG that students were still frustrated following the shooting of their colleagues on June 8.
“In the history of UPNG, we successfully held the most non-violent protest for the last eight weeks,” said the student leader, who declined to be named.
He said the students had displayed maturity, professionalism, diplomacy and most importantly, and patriotism in their long-running protest.
“Instead of working with the students and bringing peace after allowing the police to come in and shoot unarmed students, they send the Uniforce to harass them.”
Chewing betelnut According to the student leader, yesterday a group of male students were chewing betelnut and discussing Wednesday’s State of Origin second game when Uniforce stopped there and allegedly swore at the crowd.
They tried to dismiss the crowd that they believed was a group that was stopping a few science students from attending classes.
The students did not take kindly to being sworn at, which resulted in the altercation yesterday that left behind five burnt vehicles and a couple of damaged buildings.
“The UPNG SRC and provincial leaders engaged the Catholic Bishops Conference, Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare, Sir Rabbie Namaliu, the UN and the UPNG Chaplin Service to negotiate between the students and administration to bring normalcy and peace,” the student leader said.
No reconciliation However, the reconciliation, which was supposed to happen yesterday, did not eventuate due to the fight.
“The UPNG administration needs to come down and address this issue,” he said.
Students will only go to class after the administration makes peace with them, he explained.
Let there be no mistake about this. Since his proclamation by Congress as President-elect, Rodrigo Duterte has engaged the media in a relentless campaign of coercion and harassment to browbeat journalists into submission before he takes office on June 30.
The interregnum marked an unprecedented test of wills between the presidency and the media, a ferocity not experienced by any incoming administration in the history of the adversarial relationship between the two social institutions.
The conflict has entered an impasse from which none of the protagonists appears to be backing off.
No incoming President has mounted such a dangerous challenge to the media since the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos.
In that conflict, journalists critical of the abuses of power by Marcos survived 14 years of the martial law regime, which jailed a number of its critics.
None of the critics was threatened with summary executions by squads sponsored by nonstate law enforcement actors.
Under siege In this running conflict, freedom of the press has come under siege and has in fact suffered erosion without the formal declaration of emergency powers of a burgeoning, aspiring dictatorship, as Duterte awaits his inauguration.
Are we indeed entering a twilight zone in the transition of our electoral democracy?
This impasse leaves little room for complacency in the light of Duterte’s campaign to eradicate crime and bureaucratic corruption in six months from his inauguration on June 30.
Media reports abound about this struggle of the press to defend its freedom from the creeping erosion posed by a supposed campaign against criminals, drug lords and corrupt officials demonised by partisan propaganda as enemies of the state.
One of the recent media reports comes from the Associated Press (AP). In this story, Duterte is reported to have blasted media groups for condemning his earlier comments that appeared to justify the killings of journalists because they were corrupt or overly critical.
The journalists were depicted as allies of the criminal suspects tagged by Duterte. He refused to apologise and dared reporters to carry out a threat to boycott his news conferences.
‘Don’t threaten me’ The AP reported that Duterte, in an outburst at a late night news conference in Davao City, lambasted journalists, saying, “Don’t threaten me. Boycott, boycott … go ahead, damn you!”
The outburst came after international and local news groups expressed outrage over Duterte’s remarks about the media killings.
Reporters Without Borders urged local media to boycott his news conferences until he issues a public apology.
Duterte replied that he would survive even if journalists boycotted him because he could ask state-run TV network to cover his activities.
“I’m telling the networks I do not need you,” he said. He threatened to order his Cabinet members not to speak to journalists who are not from the state-run network.
According to the International Federation of Journalists, the Philippines has been the second deadliest country for journalists since 1990, behind only war-torn Iraq.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Duterte’s remarks “apparently excusing extrajudicial killings threaten to make the Philippines into a killing field for journalists.”
It said the country ranks fourth on its impunity index, which spotlights the countries where the killers of journalists go unpunished.
Duterte’s crass pronouncements not only sully the memories of journalists who have been murdered since 1986, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said.
Open season Asked to comment on the unsolved killings of journalists, Duterte, in effect, declared open season to silence the media.
He made the sweeping accusation that many of those slain were paid to take sides on issues or had overly criticised people who could not tolerate personal attacks.
“Just because you’re a journalist (doesn’t mean) you’re exempted from assassination if you’re a son of a bitch,” Duterte said.
“Your freedom of expression cannot help you if you have done something with the guy.”
The Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have condemned the “unresolved” human rights violations in West Papua by Indonesian security forces, saying they have continued in spite of President Joko Widodo’s greater attention to the region.
Both countries say the agreed future visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression to Indonesia should also include West Papua.
The Vanuatu statement expressed its “deepest concerns on the deteriorating human rights situation” in the region.
“We continue to receive increasing reports of gross human rights violations in West Papua,” the statement said.
The Solomon Islands strongly endorsed the International Parliamentarians for West Papua (IPWP) Forum in London on May 3 which called for an internationally supervised vote on the independence of West Papua.
The declaration had been endorsed by cross regional parliamentarians coming from 15 UN member states.
“Whilst we welcome the increased attention given by President Joko Widodo to West Papua, the violation of human rights against West Papuan remains unresolved,” said the Solomon Islands statement.
“The Solomon Islands government receives regular reports of cases of arbitrary arrests, summary execution, torture, ill-treatment, restriction of freedom of expression, assembly and association, committed mainly by the Indonesian police.”
Statement by the Permanent Mission of Solomon Islands to the 32nd session of the UN Human Rights Council. 22 June 2016
Thank you Mr President,
The delegation of Solomon Islands would like to draw the attention of the Council on the human right situation in West Papua, Indonesia. We express our deep concerns on the eroding human rights situation of the indigenous Melanesian Papuans, who are the indigenous population of West Papua. As a Melanesian state, the incumbent chair of the Melanesian Spearhead Group, and designated chair of the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) would extend its solidarity to our fellow Melanesians in West Papua. We would encourage the Government of Indonesia to find peaceful and sustainable solution of the on-going conflict in West Papua through constructive engagement with the representatives of the West Papuans and respect their right as a people.
Whilst we welcome the increased attention given by President Joko Widodo to West Papua, the violation of human rights against West Papuan remains unresolved. The Solomon Islands government receives regular reports of cases of arbitrary arrests, summary execution, torture, ill-treatment, restriction of freedom of expression, assembly and association, committed mainly by the Indonesian police.
On 2 May 2016 alone, 2,109 people were arrested mainly indigenous Melanesian Papuans, while participating in peaceful demonstrations in several cities in West Papua and some Indonesian cities. The demonstrations were held in support of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) to be recognized as a full member of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), the commemoration of 1 May 1963 as Indonesia’s annexation of West Papua and to support the International Parliamentarians for West Papua (IPWP) meeting. During the arrest, some of them experienced torture and ill treatment from the Indonesian security forces.
The Solomon Islands notes the recent outcomes of the Foreign Ministers Meeting of the Melanesian Spearhead group that was held last week in Fiji (14-17TH June 2016) where both Representatives of Indonesia and the ULMWP sat as MSG members during the deliberation.
This outcome envisages to establish a safe space for constructive engagement with all parties with a view to addressing the concerns of the MSG members about the recent developments in West Papua. In this regard, the Foreign Ministers further agreed to establish a Committee of High Level Representatives of the MSG members to accompany and facilitate this constructive engagement.
We also welcome the initiative of the MSG to work closely with the Indonesian government to visit the Melanesian Provinces of Indonesia at a later date. This important visit would allow for a clear, objective and independent view by the members of the MSG leaders and ministers.
We strongly endorsed the final declaration of this International Parliamentarians for West Papua (IPWP) Forum which took place in London on 3 May which calls for an internationally supervised vote on the independence of West Papua. The declaration has been endorsed by cross regional parliamentarians coming from 15 UN member States.
Journalists working on human rights are still prevented to have free and full access to do their work in West Papua. Our delegation is convinced that access of international community to West Papua, particularly to the UN Special Procedure, will provide an opportunity to improve the human rights situation. We reassure the Government of Indonesia to cooperate with the Human Rights Council by allowing the agreed visit of the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression to Indonesia which should include to West Papua.
Finally, we encourage the Indonesian Government to facilitate the human rights fact-finding mission to West Papua that the members of the Pacific Island Forum have decided to conduct.
Thank you Mr President
Statement by the Republic of Vanuatu 22 June 2016
Thank you Mr President,
My delegation associates itself with the statement made by Solomon Islands.
Vanuatu wishes to express to the Council our deepest concerns on the deteriorating human right situation in West Papua. We continue to receive increasing reports of gross human rights violations in West Papua.
In the recent months more than a thousand of West Papuans were arrested by Indonesia police for participating in peaceful demonstrations. This contradicts the responsibility to protect and facilitate protests that advocate for political and cultural views that differ from, and even oppose, those espoused by the Government.
Whilst we acknowledge and welcome the Report by the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom and of association, which gave example of West Papuans whose rights to freedom of assembly and of associations are restricted by the Indonesian Government, Vanuatu would like to call upon the Human Rights Council to do more.
We call on the Council to work with Indonesia Government to allow the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression to visit West Papua to get objective and independent views of the situation on the ground in that region.
West also call on the Government of Indonesia to allow free and full access of international journalist to West Papua and allow the human rights fact-finding mission by the Pacific Islands Forum.
Thank you Mr President
Right of Reply of the Indonesian Republic 22 June 2016
Mr Vice President,
This right of reply is to respond to the statements made by the delegations of Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and one NGO on the matter of Papua.
My delegation reject categorically the Statements made by those Delegations today. Those statements represent an unfortunate lack of understanding of the current state and development in Indonesia, including in the provinces of Papua and West Papua.
Those statements lacks good faith and are politically motivated that can be construed as supporting the separatist group in those provinces who have been engaged in inciting public disorder and in armed terrorist attacks toward civilians and security personnel.
Such support clearly violates the purposes and objectives of the UN Charter and principles of international law on friendly relations among states and on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states.
Let me be clear, Indonesia, as a democratic country, is committed to promoting and protecting human rights, including by taking necessary steps to address the allegations of human rights violations and abuses in Papua. As no one is perfect, we are always open to have dialogue on human rights issues. But we reject politicization of those issues. We deplore the way Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have abused this Council and the universal principles of the promotion and protection of human rights by supporting the cause of separatism.
Mr Vice President,
President Widodo has personally instructed relevant government agencies to take steps to settle past human rights issues, including those related to Papua, and to put in place measures to prevent future incidences.
In this regard, the government is addressing a number of cases of alleged human rights violations in Papua. To expedite the process of addressing those cases, the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs has set up an integrated team that includes the National Human Rights Commission.
Provinces of Papua and West Papua enjoy wide-ranging autonomy, and democracy, as guaranteed by the national laws. Provincial and local governments are directly elected by, and headed as well as administered by the Papuans. Moreover, it should be noted that the budget per capita in the two provinces are among the highest in Indonesia.
Mr Vice President,
It needs to be underscored here that Solomon Islands and Vanuatu are far from being perfect in their implementation and protection of human rights. They are still facing serious human rights problems.
Corruption is rampant in all segments in the society and government.
Trafficking in persons continues to take place. Children are facing continued harsh punishment, and violence against women sadly is a daily routine. It will be for the betterment of their population if the government of Solomon Island and Vanuatu give attention and priority to seriously address their respective domestic human rights shortcomings.
Students from the University of Papua New Guinea reportedly clashed with Uniforce Security Service guards today, leading to three cars being torched and the Michael Somare Library being stoned.
Several security officers were injured in the clash on the Waigani campus that students blamed on provocation.
The clash was sparked when security officers tried to stop the students having a meeting in front the UPNG Clinic and Toa Hall residence.
The students met to discuss an official apology they were seeking from the university administration on the June 8 incident when police opened fire on peaceful demonstrators.
The Students Representative Council wants the university to cover the medical expenses of the students who were injured during the shooting incident and an immediate investigation separate from the one sanctioned by the government.
After discussing these issues, the students expected to have a reconciliation meeting this afternoon with the university administration and were hoping to return to class next week.
‘Students not to blame’ However, senior Post-Courier journalist Gorethy Kenneth warned fellow PNG journalists on her Facebook page today to write “sensitively” about this clash.
“The incident at UPNG is not protest connected…A group of boys were selling betelnut around the clinic area there… A Uniforce car came in to stop and disperse the sellers who were with some drunkards too and because of this a fight broke out as stones were thrown and this caused [the] setting alight of 2 vehicles parked in the security yard belonging to UPNG staff.”
Police have been called to the campus and the situation is now calm.
There has been unrest at the nation’s universities for six weeks with students calling on Prime Minister Peter O’Neill to resign and face an investigation into corruption allegations.
Meanwhile, University of Technology (Unitech) students are ready to resume classes next Monday.
A student from Unitech said there was a police presence on the campus and most students were ready to resume classes next week.
Black smoke was billowing from the University of Papua New Guinea Uniforce security base at Waigani today after cars were set ablaze.
A UPNG staff person said that at least three vehicles at the security base had been set on fire, while the base itself was allegedly ransacked by angry students.
The staff claimed that some students tried to prevent their colleagues from the School of Natural and Physical Sciences from attending classes.
Uniforce stepped in to prevent that from happening when the group of students retaliated.
However, a UPNG student leader said that Uniforce tried to force some male students to attend classes. The students were at the buai market at the clinic area when the guards ordered them to stop whatever they were doing and get to class. – Carmella Gware of Loop PNG | Photographs by Citizen Journalist
Across the Ditch: Australian radio FiveAA.com.au‘s Peter Godfrey and EveningReport.nz‘s Selwyn Manning deliver this week’s bulletin and discuss:
First up: Weather comparison + Headlines round up.
ITEM ONE
Defence/Security:
New Zealand Government commits to extend defence deployment to Iraq for another two years.
Announced a week after revealing a $20 billion defence spend up over the next two decades.
ITEM TWO
New Tech Plan for Road Tolls
The government and Auckland Council are considering applying a toll for drivers on Auckland’s motorways.
It’s a bid to help pay for the city’s huge infrastructure upgrades, including an underground rail loop in the inner city and interconnecting the city’s numerous motorways and arterial routes.
The burden of paying for the construction is something the government is loathed to meet, and the city’s ratepayers have already faced significant rate increases since the region amalgamated into a fairly expansive single city.
SPORT
All Blacks V Wales:
Thankfully Selwyn does not have to eat his hat on air as the All Blacks did beat Wales last Saturday night. The third and final test is played this weekend in the cold deep south of the South Island in the city of Dunedin. Julian Savea is back in the side and there’s been some tweaking by the coach Steve Hansen.
West Papuans who have been living in Papua New Guinea for many decades will be granted citizenship soon.
The PNG Immigration and Citizenship Authority will also embark on registering all West Papuan refugees who have crossed over from Indonesia to seek refugee status in Papua New Guinea.
“So far we have over 10,000 refugees from West Papua who have lived with us for a very long time, and we have commenced registration of them with the view to finally granting them legal status,” said Deputy Chief Migration officer for Refugee Division, Esther Gaegaming.
“We’re pleased to announce that for more than 1000 of them, their applications have been finalised and they will be going before the Citizenship Advisory Committee very soon for issuance of their citizenships.
“This Friday, a team from our office will commence registration in Vanimo, another one of the biggest refugee settlement areas for West Papuan refugees. We will follow onto Wewak after that and then to Lae.
“So by the end of this year, we hope to have over 85 percent of West Papuans registered.
“I am proud to say that PNG is fulfilling its obligations as a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention on the status of refugees. PNG now has a vibrant legal and procedural framework for the processing of refugee claims under the Migration Act and Regulations,” Gaegaming said.
“We also have a system in place for the registration and naturalisation of refugees from West Papua who have lived in Papua New Guinea for decades.
“We also have a national refugee policy that is clear on refugee matters, including guidance on the resettlement of refugees in Papua New Guinea and most of all, we have a dedicated team in the PNG Immigration and Citizenship Authority that is set up especially to manage this,” she said.
Senior police officers have been given a week’s refresher training in the use of firearms following an uproar over the force opening fire on peacefully protesting University of Papua New Guinea students on June 8, wounding 23 people.
The officers were in training at the Bomana Police Training College on the outskirts of Port Moresby.
“Firearms are one of the dangerous equipment that police use,” said Commander Perou N’Dranou. “It’s there for a purpose to make sure that we do our job properly to protect life and property.”
The police have faced widespread criticism over the use of firearms with critics claiming that they are using firearms illegally.
Bradley Gregory reports for the state-run National Broadcasting Corporation TV News.
Two digital journalists based in Makassar, in the region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, have been attacked while attending an event held by Makassar branch of Islamic Students Alumni (KAHMI Makassar) at Makassar mayor’s house.
Global Voices author Arpan Rachman and his wife Icha Lamboge, who is also a journalist, told Global Voices that on June 5 two men in black uniforms – not the standard uniform of city security guards – stopped them and asked for their journalist ID cards.
The men then took them into a small room behind the house where Arpan asked them to identify themselves, which they refused to do. One of the men then snatched Lamboge’s mobile phone, which is her main reporting tool.
When Rachman intervened and tried to get her phone back, the man grabbed and punched him in the chest while the other man strangled him.
The couple reported the incident to police, and Rachman was examined by a doctor. While he is recovering from the incident, both he and his wife are fearing for their safety.
The Alliance for Independent Journalists in Makassar has documented 12 cases of journalist abuse so far in 2016, including harassment while reporting, destruction of reporting tools, intimidation, and physical assault. Neither KAHMI, AJI, nor Makassar officials have issued any statement regarding the attack on Rachman and Lamboge.
Shortly afterwards, Lamboge expressed concern that the incident would be “dismissed and forgotten or the evidence record doctored”.
Fearing for safety They have since obtained legal representation from Legal Aid Foundation Makassar, but much remains uncertain about their case. They continue to fear for their physical safety.
Both work actively as journalists, with Lamboge working chiefly with SINDO Trijaya FM, a radio station based in Jakarta, and Rachman working as investigative journalist with multiple local news outlets including BaKTINews, inspiratifnews, Membunuh Indonesia and Media Lingkungan.
The couple has worked together on stories that they suspect could have provoked the incident. For a recent print edition of the human rights magazine Torture: Asian and Global Perspectives, they wrote about controversial mass evictions taking place in the Bulogading zone at the center of Makassar.
More than one online story about the evictions has been taken down as tensions have risen.
In Indonesia, violence against journalists happens regularly. Attacks like these often go unreported in the media, and perpetrators often go without punishment.
The case involving Arpan and Icha was covered by one local news website, but the story was subsequently removed for unknown reasons.
Global Voices community condemns all forms of violence against journalists in Indonesia and elsewhere in the world. As a community, we stand by our colleague Arpan and his family’s appeal for truth and justice.
Media experts say journalism institutions lack the resources needed to raise the quality and awareness of environmental reportage in the Asia-Pacific region.
Widely published writer and chairman of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC), Professor Crispin Maslog says that because of this he rarely sees climate change being reported in Asia-Pacific media.
Professor Maslog … climate change under-reported.
“Based on my experience in the Philippines and Southeast Asia, the problem has been the lack of science courses in the curricula, the lack of teachers to teach the basics of science and the environment,” he said.“There are no textbooks and no teachers.”
Dr Maslog writes an analysis blog on science and development at the SciDev.net website with his latest column on Asia’s “invisible women farmers”.
The Indonesian country representative of AMIC and a researcher of indigenous and environmental issues, Dr Hermin Indah Wahyuni, says a key challenge such as climate change is often overlooked by the media because it is not emphasised in many journalism schools.
“Journalism lecturers in most Indonesian communication departments don’t offer specific attention to this issue [climate change],” she said.
This results in a “fallback effect” when students leave to join major media organisations.
“This condition impacts on the media structure in general,” Dr Hermin says. “Media education has a big role to offer perspectives for a better society, however not many media and communication departments can do this.”
She says a factor contributing to the quality of climate change reportage is that it is seen as an unpopular topic because it is competing with other issues that are having immediate effects on people.
Corruption priority “Topics like corruption, political conflict, and economic issues,” she says are examples that are given priority over climate change.
Dr Hermin Indah Wahyuni and Dr Maslog will be presenting on a panel about the challenges of climate changel reporting and journalism education at the World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) held in Auckland next month.
They are both sponsored by the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s media programme, which supports media professionals to take up placements or projects in New Zealand or Asia.
Dr Hermin Indah Wahyuni … speaker at WJEC next month.
Foundation media adviser Rebecca Palmer says events like the WJEC are a great way for journalism educators around the world to interact and share knowledge with their counterparts.“We hope they have the opportunity to shed light into current affairs and media issues in their home countries and that they build networks with New Zealand-based journalism educators, who will then be able to pass their knowledge on to their students,” she says.
In addition a former secretary-general of AMIC and investigative journalist, Jose Maria Carlos, will also present at the conference.
Currently a desk editor with CNN Philippines, Carlos has been busy preparing news coverage for the inauguration of the Philippines President-elect, Rodrigo Duterte.
The Pacific Media Centre is sponsoring Carlos to attend the WJEC.
The World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) will be held at AUT University’s city campus in the Sir Paul Reeves Building. It will run from the July 14-16 and follow an Australia-NZ-Pacific preconference on July 13 jointly staged by the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA), Media Educators Pacific and the Pacific Media Centre.
TJ Aumua is contributing editor of the Pacific Media Watch Project.
Fiji’s Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama used what would normally have been a bland official speech in Suva earlier this month to bluntly air continuing grievances over the policies of the region’s key powers, directing his remarks to his visiting New Zealand counterpart John Key.
The diplomatic strains are a sign of unresolved and deepening geostrategic tensions in the Pacific.
Australia and New Zealand are determined to ensure their continued regional dominance as part of the US-led drive to counter growing Chinese influence and prepare for war.
Key’s 24-hour visit on June 9, the first by a New Zealand prime minister to the impoverished South Pacific country since Bainimarama’s 2006 military coup, was intended to advance New Zealand’s foreign policy interests.
Australia and New Zealand both regard Fiji, the South Pacific island state at the crossroads of Polynesia and Melanesia, as critical to their influence.
Following the coup, Canberra and Wellington imposed diplomatic and economic sanctions. These had nothing to do with defending democratic rights in Fiji but were driven by concerns that the coup could destabilise the region and open the way for Chinese influence.
Sanctions backfired The sanctions, however, backfired. Bainimarama responded with a “Look North” policy, seeking and receiving economic, diplomatic and military aid from China, Russia and elsewhere.
In 2007, New Zealand’s High Commissioner to Fiji, Michael Green, was accused of interfering in the country’s affairs and was expelled.
In January this year a consignment of gifted weapons arrived from Russia for the Fiji army, followed by a 10-member team of Russian military instructors. The response by the Australian and New Zealand governments was muted, at least publicly, but Murdoch’s TheAustralian declared that Bainimarama was “making a bad mistake” if he believed that the consignment was “a good idea for his nation.”
Canberra and Wellington are determined to counteract the growing presence of “outside” powers in what they regard as their own backyard. In March, the two governments exploited the devastation caused by Cyclone Winston to send warships, aircraft and hundreds of military personnel to Fiji.
It was New Zealand’s biggest military deployment since World War II. While the intervention was characterised as a “humanitarian and disaster aid” mission, it was consistent with the intensifying militarisation of the Pacific.
Following the cyclone, China provided aid of US$100,000 to the Fiji Red Cross Society, the first country to do so. Beijing later increased its disaster relief package to US$10 million. Key derided the contribution, telling reporters that “when the need was great for Fiji … it was Australia and New Zealand that turned up.”
New Zealand Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee visited Fiji in March to reinforce Wellington’s “help” in the disaster relief. It followed a visit by Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.
‘Big opportunity’ The Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based think tank, noted that Bishop’s visit presented “a big opportunity for Fiji” to put behind it “all the bad blood between the two countries since the 2006 coup” and “normalise relations.”
Key’s visit this month had a similar agenda. Before leaving Wellington, Key told reporters that following the 2014 elections in Fiji, the military coup was now “ancient history.”
Although democratic rule was still not “absolutely perfect,” the time was “right” for the highest-level diplomatic relations to resume.
No sooner had Key arrived in Suva than it became clear the trip would not go according to script. At the welcoming banquet, Bainimarama reminded Key that he won Fiji’s 2014 election with an overwhelming majority.
“It is on that basis I stand before you tonight. Not as a coup maker or dictator, as some in your country would still have it, but as a properly elected, freely chosen leader of Fiji,” he declared.
During Key’s visit, Bainimarama refused to give way on two central matters. Firstly, he refused to rescind a ban on New Zealand journalists identified as being critical of the regime.
Bainimarama claimed there was “a substantial body of opinion” in New Zealand, led by “your generally hostile media,” that “what is happening in Fiji somehow lacks legitimacy. That somehow I lack legitimacy. And my government lacks legitimacy.”
Such claims, Bainimarama stated, were “not borne out by the facts.”
Military still key In reality, the government still rests directly on the military. The election in which Bainimarama’s Fiji FirstParty purportedly won 60 percent of the ballot was held under conditions of press censorship, military provocations and severe restrictions on opposition political parties.
The government remains anti-working class and authoritarian, ruling largely through fear and intimidation.
A week before Key arrived, Bainimarama’s government used its numbers in Parliament to suspend an opposition MP, the National Federation Party’s Roko Tupou Draunidalo, for more than two years after alleging she called a minister a “fool.”
Secondly, Bainimarama again refused to return to meetings of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), from which Fiji was earlier suspended.
The Australian and New Zealand-dominated PIF rescinded the suspension after the 2014 elections. Bainimarama declined Key’s invitation to re-join the PIF.
In return, Key said New Zealand would not quit the regional organisation, as Bainimarama previously sought.
Fiji has encouraged other Pacific nations to take a more “independent” stance, setting up the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) in 2012, from which Australia and New Zealand were excluded.
Greenhouse gases In the lead-up to the COP21 environmental summit in Paris last year, Pacific leaders were highly critical of Australia and New Zealand for refusing to support their call to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to keep global temperature increases below 1.5 degrees centigrade.
The PIDF declared the target was required to protect their tiny island states from rising sea levels.
Tensions between the official parties following Bainimarama’s outburst in Suva were reportedly palpable. Fairfax Media columnist Tracy Watkins described Wellington’s delegation as “seething over the Fijian prime minister’s extraordinary diplomatic slapdown.”
Nor did it go unnoticed that Bainimarama was “hardly effusive” in his low-key acknowledgement of New Zealand’s assistance during Cyclone Winston. Watkins declared that, by the time it finished, Key’s trip had been stripped of any “diplomatic wins.”
New Zealand Labour Party foreign affairs spokesperson David Shearer described Key’s trip as a “disaster,” writing: “He [Bainimarama] didn’t step back from the restrictions on media [or] the heavy-handedness within Parliament.”
Key’s government needed to keep pushing Fijian officials “for a better democracy,” he declared.
Labour’s position is completely hypocritical. It was the previous Labour government that imposed New Zealand’s sanctions regime on Fiji after the 2006 coup.
In 2014, Labour endorsed the “democratic” election of Bainimarama and the rehabilitation of his regime.
The proceedings came before Justice David Cannings today who refused to hear the application as respondents UPNG in the application had not been served a notice of motion.
This is a fresh proceeding and the motion was filed on June 17.
Justice Cannings described the “non-service” on the part of the lawyer representing the students as an “ambush” on the respondents.
UPNG registrar Jennifer Popat is the first respondent, the UPNG Senate is the second respondent and the state is the third respondent.
Justice Cannings said he could not see why the lawyer representing the students, (Laken Lepatu Aigilo) could not serve the respondents, ordering that they be served by 10am tomorrow.
The application will be heard at 4pm.
Two orders sought In the application, the students are seeking two main orders:
A declaration of the court to nullify the purported Students Reaffirmation form that the UPNG administration issued to students to sign when the suspension of semester one was lifted.
An order seeking to restrain registrar Popat and the university from forcing students’ to sign the reaffirmation form.
Aigilo explained that if students signed the reaffirmation form, they would basically shut down their rights to raise concerns and views the students had been fighting for in terms of national concerns.
On June 8, the UPNG administration succeeded in obtaining a National Court order to restrain the members of the SRC from boycotting classes.
The National Court issued restraining orders against members of the SRC, including president Kenneth Rapa and the student body, from putting up barricades to block classrooms and lecture theatres, threatening and assaulting enrolled students and university staff.
This interim injunction also restrained members of the SRC and students from carrying out activities which are contrary to their enrolment as students.
The matter will return to court on June 22 for the court to hear the judicial review filed by the students.
On June 1, the National Court granted leave for the students’ application for a judicial review to be conducted into the University Council’s decision on May 24, ordering students to vacate the campus within 48 hours.
Students and staff at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences forum discussing UPNG academic and national issues today. Image: Citizen Journalist
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The Otago Foreign Policy School next month will explore the complex and evolving interaction between government policy making and “old” and “new” forms of news media.
Academics working in the field of media and politics as well as veteran journalist Mike McRoberts, Maramena Roderick (head of news, Māori Television), independent investigative journalist Nicky Hager, senior foreign corespondent Luke Harding (The Guardian), and professor David Robie, editor of the Pacific Media Centre’s Asia Pacific Report, will engage with a very diversified and active audience that includes students, policymakers, diplomats and members of the public.
The school will be held at St Margaret’s College on the university’s Dunedin campus from the evening of Friday July 1 until Sunday July 3.
Topics to be explored range from broader overarching issues such as:
what is communication today,
the role played by “old” and “new” media in international strategic narratives,
public diplomacy,
the effects of foreign news on international affairs,
how new media technology have empowered non-state actors (digital activism).
The school will also feature a roundtable discussion on the Panama Papers and whistleblower journalism.
“Shoot me!” The voices of Sri Lankan refugees – a heartbreaking video. Indonesian authorities refuse to allow the 44 Sri Lankans leave a boat which has been stranded off the coast of Aceh for almost one week. Video: Nakkheeranwebtv
By Saifulbahri Ismail in Jakarta
On June 11, a boat of 44 Sri Lankans was discovered in the waters of Aceh, a northern province of Indonesia. They were en route to Australia when the boat encountered engine problems.
It is a situation that Indonesian officials are all too familiar with. It is a reminder of the 2015 migrant crisis when thousands of Rohingya from Myanmar and Bangladesh left their homes in rickety smuggler’s boats and travelled to Southeast Asia.
“The Indonesian authorities are quite well prepared to deal with these boat arrivals,” said Paul Dillon, media officer at the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). “When matters unfolded last May there were roughly 1800 individuals who arrived from Bangladesh and Myanmar.
“The Indonesian government has a lot of experience, sadly, from many years of emerging as a transit country for migrants who are trying to establish themselves for a better life in other countries.”
The crisis prompted countries to reinvigorate coordinated efforts to better tackle the regional challenge of irregular migration.
“Indonesia’s position is still the same in tackling irregular migrants,” said the spokesperson of its foreign ministry, Arrmanatha Nasir. “It should be resolved not only by the country of transit, but also the countries of destination and origin – just like a year ago when we managed to work together with the country of origin, IOM and UNHCR until (the migrants) are able to go back to their place of origin.”
300 still in camps Out of the more than 1000 Rohingya migrants who reached Indonesia’s shores last year, about 300 of them still reside in various camps in Aceh.
Many have left the camps on their own to go to Malaysia with the help of people smugglers.
Most of them still in the camps have already been verified by UNHCR as refugees.
Altogether there are nearly 14,000 asylum seekers and refugees in Indonesia. A number of them have been resettled to other countries, but many are still stuck in transit for many years.
Indonesia is not a signatory to the UN refugee convention and refugees cannot legally work here while waiting for resettlement in a third country.
‘Spirit of humanitarianism’ “Even though Indonesia is not a signatory – they’ve not signed the refugee convention – they live up to their humanitarian responsibilities and the spirit of humanitarianism that I think most Indonesians have,” said Thomas Vargas, a representative at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
“It’s very important that that spirit continues and by signing the refugee convention, I think the government could move even further in showing solidarity with the international community, with other countries around the world,” he added.
For the refugees who are in transit, it could be a long wait for them before they can be resettled or even reunited with other family members in another country.
Until that happens, government, agencies and local communities have a shared responsibility to make their stay a little more bearable in the name of humanity.
Report by David Robie. This article was first published on Café Pacific
AN EXCLUSIVE video created by the University of Papua New Guinea’s
Student Representative Council about the events on
8 June 2016 involving the shooting of at least 8 UPNG students by police officers outside of their Waigani campus in Port Moresby.
Hospital authorities denied news reports of deaths, but confirmed at least 23 people had been treated for gunshot wounds, four with critical injuries
The students were assembling at the campus for a peaceful march to Parliament to call for the resignation of Prime Minister Peter O’Neill to face an investigation into corruption allegations.
The narrator is Kenneth Rapa, president of the SRC, and he explains the sequence of events leading up the police opening fire on the students with gunshots and tear gas.
The Magic Flute – Performed by New Zealand Opera. Accompanied by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. AUCKLAND: ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre Thursday June 16, Saturday June 18, Wednesday June 22, Friday June 24 2016 performances at 7.30pm. Then Sunday June 26, at 2.30pm.
IF YOU GET A CHANCE do treat yourself to New Zealand Opera’s performance of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, which continues this week at Auckland’s ASB Theatre. The music alone is sublime, and, most importantly in honour of Mozart, the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra delivers under the baton of conductor Wynn Davies.
[caption id="attachment_10598" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Queen of the Night’s three ladies – Amelia Berry, Catrin Johnsson and Kristin Darragh – Image by Marty Melville – New Zealand Opera’s performance of The Magic Flute. [/caption]
The director of New Zealand Opera’s performance of The Magic Flute is Sara Brodie. She has nurtured something special from this opera. She has brought into balance the essential elements of the original while giving opportunity for today’s audience to consider interpretation. There’s conflicting layers to this story, a plot with threads that come together to weave a fairy tale fabric of 21st century life. It transports with relevance. There’s puppetry (a controversy according to one critique) that drew hilarity from the audience. I thought it marvellous. It’s so Mozart.
And of course, there’s the music. At times during the Auckland performance, I shut my eyes and simply listened – to the music, to the singing. The orchestra was like the fabled flute and a delight in itself.
Under Brodie’s guidance, Kit Hesketh-Harvey’s English translation of The Magic Flute connects with its Auckland audience. Brodie speaks of softening the accents to accommodate her international cast. It works.
[caption id="attachment_10579" align="alignright" width="200"] Tamino (Randall Bills) gets his girl Pamina (Emma Fraser) – Image by Marty Melville – New Zealand Opera’s performance of The Magic Flute.[/caption]USA tenor Randall Bills balances wonderfully the initial frailties and eventual conquering dualism of the vulnerable Tamilo’s character.
And Sydney-based New Zealand soprano Emma Fraser (who is New Zealand Opera’s 2016 Dame Malvina Major Young Artist) is the perfect balance as Tamino’s infatuation-become-love, Pamina. Emma Fraser’s stage presence wonderfully supports her soprano performance. She is a testament to the quality of this country’s performing artists. And in this role, she is an absolute delight.
The UK’s Ruth Jenkins-Robertsson certainly brings alive the dark depths of brooding intent from her character the Queen of the Night when she reveals her malcontent to her supposed beloved daughter Pamina. It’s powerful opera that would lead to tragedy, but for the strength of Pamina and that magical flute.
And there was a moment of pure magic at the opening night of the Auckland performance, when a member of the audience called out from his seat somewhere amid the theatre’s front-left stalls. The calling to Papageno would no doubt have had Mozart chuckling from his lofty pew. Immediately, on hearing the call, as if on cue, Papageno, in the hands of Australia’s Samuel Dundas (a graduate of Melbourne’s Melba Conservatorium of Music) interacted and traded banter with the improvising theatre-goer. Then, with the entire audience sharing hilarity, Dundas continued seamlessly with Papageno’s journey. It was comic timing at its best and perfectly in character connecting to the somewhat bawdy, fairy tale, ambience of the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden where the opera was first performed in 1791.
[caption id="attachment_10583" align="alignleft" width="640"] Papageno (Samuel Dundas) and Papagena (Madison Nonoa) triumphant in love – Image by Marty Melville – New Zealand Opera’s performance of The Magic Flute.[/caption]
Oh, and watch out too for Hamilton’s Madison Nonoa, who is New Zealand Opera’s Dame Malvina Major Emerging Artist. She is fabulous in the latter part of Act two in bringing to life a vivacious Papagena (kitted out with an arty leg tattoo). Oh, and Wellington’s Bonaventure Allan-Moetaua, honestly this guy is absolute class, and, an audience pleaser as the conflicted and brooding Monostatos.
Of course, The Magic Flute carries perhaps Mozart’s most poignant message. As Sara Brodie said, it isn’t simply a story of good being triumphant over evil. It’s much more than that.
It came to me when I closed my eyes to see. At that moment when Papageno sensed hope and broke free from fear and doubt. It was as if Mozart was there in the theatre, his voice clear and speaking as music as his genius fluttered and danced about – speaking from his past to our future, with his cheeky wit, his shock humour, poking fun at the male chauvinists of his time and ours, exposing how dippy in character they were and are, how easily manipulated, how dangerous is the circumstance when envy, jealousy, difference and indifference intersect, when belief and reason, conceit and control align to compel the meek to become the tools of powerful fools.
New Zealand Opera created the opportunity for Mozart’s message to be heard. This review isn’t a critique. It’s my celebration of one night at the opera, and my hope that you too will become a witness to a world-class performance of a musical genius’ enduring gift to us all.
Cast To Watch:
TAMINO Randall Bills
FIRST LADY Amelia Berry
SECOND LADY Catrin Johnsson
THIRD LADY Kristin Darragh
PAPAGENO Samuel Dundas
PAPAGENA Madison Nonoa
QUEEN OF NIGHT Ruth Jenkins-Róbertsson
MONOSTATOS Bonaventure Allan-Moetaua
PAMINA Emma Fraser.
The Backstage Backstory:
Of course there’s always a huge team of talent that doesn’t make it to the stage, that all play their part to make a performance, to create the opportunity for magic to happen.
https://youtu.be/TBU7W3SWUp0
The Director:
This performance of The Magic Flute is directed by Sara Brodie.
The opera was first performed at Freihaustheater auf der Wieden in Vienna, Austria, on 30 September 1791 only 10 weeks before Mozart’s death.
It is said that The Magic Flute is open to interpretation. That its message is varied, is layered within the structure of plot and music.
When interviewed for New Zealand Opera’s programme, Director Sara Brodie says: “It is certainly a red herring to think of it as a tale of good versus evil, but its themes are universal. Like a good fairytale it seems to include a lesson, a hidden mystery or meaning to be revealed.
“I tend to think of it in layers. There is a conglomerate of theatrical layering, which includes: musical theatre, pantomime, comedy, opera and magical effects. The layers of plot; a quest, lovers who need to prove they are worthy before achieving the sacred marriage, battling leaders, trails in an underworld, and the sub-plot of an everyman. And then the thematic tension of: superstition versus the enlightenment, anima versus animus, and night versus day.
“It is most certainly a comedy but one which is subliminal and sublime,” Sara Brodie says.
The Set:
https://youtu.be/vQnaLHvJnGs
NZ Opera’s David Larsen profiled set designer John Verryt for the performance’s programme. He describes how the design concept always begins with the script. Verryt says: “‘It is impossible to read the script too often. With an opera, you want to marinate yourself in the music as well as the story. But this is a matter of listening, not of watching recordings of other productions.’ The great classic operas have design histories stretching back centuries; he does not want those legacies cluttering his head as he starts work… After the opera has soaked into his brain, Verryt starts to draw. Sketches, scribbles, rough ideas.”
The final set design became rather a challenge for the performers and choreography team. The raked stage is significantly higher at the rear than the front. That means the cast must perform on a slope which is challenging on feet, ankles, knees.
The upside is the sloping stage delivers clearer sound to the audience, the vocals are more accentuated, more balanced.
But it doesn’t end there. The set design is simple. Oblique. Giving structure to the stage. But as the performance ticks along, the set transforms, giving added dimension to scenes, aiding interpretation as the plot progresses, as the story unfolds.
And along with The Magic Flute come host of strange and larger than life creatures, like the Spider that looms from above and behind. It’s quite a menacing critter, that’s subdued when the Magic Flute is played.
The Costumes:
https://youtu.be/XXA04HiUn_c
The costume designers for The Magic Flute are Elizabeth Whiting and Lisa Holmes and they speak about how a clever tattoo design was created for Papageno’s love, Papagena that trailed down the performer’s thigh. The costumes were also made unique for each chorus singer, which is a feat in itself.
The Conductor and the Score:
https://youtu.be/vGAnhrUEiAg
Auckland Philharmonia’s much loved and celebrated Wyn Davies conducts the Auckland performances. Director Sara Brodie says she “adores” working alongside Davies.
The Cast:
TAMINO Randall Bills
FIRST LADY Amelia Berry
SECOND LADY Catrin Johnsson
THIRD LADY Kristin Darragh
PAPAGENO Samuel Dundas
QUEEN OF NIGHT Ruth Jenkins-Róbertsson
MONOSTATOS Bonaventure Allan-Moetaua
PAMINA Emma Fraser
GENIE 1 Barbara Graham
GENIE 2 Katherine McIndoe
GENIE 3 Kayla Collingwood
ARMED MAN/PRIEST Derek Hill åˆ
SARASTRO Wade Kernot
THE SPEAKER/ARMED MAN/PRIEST James Clayton
PAPAGENA Madison Nonoa.
After monitoring 20 months of the human rights situation in Papua and West Papua provinces under Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s administration, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is dismayed at the utter lack of progress in the protection and realisation of people’s rights.
Since President Widodo’s inauguration on 20 October 2014, there were considerable expectations for improvement in Indonesia’s human rights situation, particularly in Papua and West Papua.
President Widodo was believed to have a strong commitment to addressing the various human rights violations in Papua, providing remedies for victims and families, and evaluating the presence of security forces in the province.
Over a year of his presidency however, has neither resolved any of the past human rights violations, nor seen any adequate remedy and guarantee for non recurrence given to the victims.
Law No. 21 of 2001 on special autonomy for Papua and West Papua province has yet to bring benefits to local indigenous Papuans. Similarly, government development of public infrastructure has an economic and business orientation rather than benefits for the local community.
The government’s attempts to boost international investment to Papua and West Papua will likely see an increase in migration to the provinces from elsewhere in Indonesia, further fuelling local discontent.
Police involved Furthermore, criminal justice institutions in the provinces do not function to address human rights problems.
The police are frequently involved in various human rights violations in the two provinces, and the accountability mechanism has failed to address this problem.
The Paniai case of 8 December 2014, where four indigenous Papuan children were shot to death, two adults seriously injured, and 17 others injured (AHRC-UAC-089-2015) is an indicative example of the brutality faced by Papuans, as well as the lack of any effective investigation or remedies.
Other cases that have also not been investigated and prosecuted under President Widodo’s administration include the case of a member of the Air Force heavily maltreating 22-year-old Amsal Marandof (AHRC-UAC-143-2015), the case of arbitrary arrest and torture of three indigenous Papuans on 27 August 2015 (AHRC-UAC-003-2016), and the case of the shooting and brutal attack on 10 indigenous Papuan youth conducted by police officers of Tigi Police Sector (AHRC-UAC-090-2015).
The AHRC has also observed the Indonesian government’s lack of willingness to deal with past human rights abuses in Papua and West Papua provinces.
The investigation report of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) on the gross violations in Wasior Wamena Papua (2001 and 2003), for instance, has been sitting with the Attorney General for the past eight years, without any action taken by that office.
In the allegations of genocide in the Central High Lands of Papua from 1977-1978 as well, although the AHRC submitted a report to Komnas HAM, as of yet there is no progress in the investigation.
While Komnas HAM initiated establishing a team in November 2015 to audit human rights violations beginning from the integration of Papua to the Republic of Indonesia until the case of Tolikara (AHRC-UAC-106-2015, AHRC-UAU-002-2016), since then there has been no clear information on the team’s existence or work.
Recently, a government initiative under the Coordinator Minister of Politic and Security (Menkopolhukam), Luhut Binsar Panjaitan, was announced, to establish a special team dealing with human rights violations in Papua and West Papua provinces.
Initiative rejected Local human rights groups however, have largely rejected the initiative, saying that representative indigenous Papuans in the team are not genuinely representing indigenous Papuans on the ground.
In fact, the initiative is typical of the government process to suddenly establish a team without proper consultation and discussion with Papuans on the ground.
The government tends to simplify the problems in Papua, and its economic and infrastructure perspective on Papua does not seriously take into consideration the history of human rights violations occurring from the time of integration to the present.
The AHRC therefore calls for President Joko Widodo and his administration to take serious and comprehensive steps to deal with the various human rights problems facing Papua and West Papua provinces.
The government should stop seeking political benefits in dealing with the provinces, and focus on improving the situation of the local communities.
In particular, the government must guarantee protection of local indigenous Papuans, local human rights defenders and journalists, and consistently open Papua and West Papua to international monitors to ensure the progress of resolution.
Mounting anger over the weekend reporting of the death of a Samoan transwoman in Apia has spilling over into New Zealand with prominent transrights campaigner Phylesha Brown-Acton saying the Samoa Observer’s coverage has left her “absolutely disgusted”, reports Gay NZ.
On the front page of its Sunday Samoa edition the Samoa Observer showed a full-length image of Jeanine Tuivaiki’s body hanging from the rafters of a central Apia Catholic church hall. In the accompanying news story, the newspaper referred to Tuivaiki as “a man”, and used the words “he” and “his.”
“I am absolutely disgusted by the Samoa Observer and their front page photo of a young fa’afafine woman,” said Brown-Acton, who described the reporting as “completely inappropriate and disrespectful”.
“Where is the respect for this young person and her family? The use of such an image to sell newspapers is the lowest form of sales tactics and the editor and the reporter should be held accountable for such degrading journalism”.
The Samoa Observer followed up with an apology that is closer to a justification, which in turn has faced criticism on social media.
Headed “And if you’re offended by it still, we apologise,” chief editor Gatoaitele Savea Sano Malifa said the publication of the photo was “never meant to demean,vilify or denigrate”.
He wrote that over the recent past, a proposal by Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi to “change Samoa’s constitution to make Christianity the country’s sole religion has drawn much opposition from other religions to the point that there is growing division in Samoa today”.
The photo had been in circulation on social media for a week and “if you’re offended by it still, all we can do is apologise”
The “apology” from the Samoa Observer.
Brown-Acton said the newspaper, the biggest circulation newspaper in Samoa, had a “track record of misgendering, misclassifying and misrepresenting Fa’afafine and continuing to portray and promote fear among community about Fa’afafine”.
Postings on the Samoa Observer Facebook page and a #BeautifulJeanine hashtag have been hugely critical of the reporting.
The Cook Islands-based media monitoring group Pacific Freedom Forum said in a statement the “shameful” publication of the unedited photo of the dead woman “breaches common decency, not just ethics”.
Le Va says Pasifika media can play a key role in leading safe messaging in reporting suicide to Pasifika communities.
In partnership with Pasifika media, Le Va has launched “Pasifika media guidelines for reporting suicide in New Zealand”.
With Beijing and Shanghai experiencing a decline in air pollution, is China finally starting to win the battle for its clean energy revolution? Jihee Junn reports for Asia-Pacific Report.
Yu Hua, one of China’s most acclaimed writers, wrote in his 2012 book China in Ten Words: “We had no concept of expressways or advertisements; we had very few stores, and very little to buy in the stores we did have. We seemed to have nothing then, but we did have a blue sky.”
Twenty-first century China, however, is a different story. The once insulated and agrarian-based nation has been transformed into a petrie dish of modern technological and economic advancement. Manufacturing has boomed and exports have skyrocketed, but so have their unsightly results.
Smog-filled skies now blanket the country’s metropolitan centres, along with polluted waterways and excess waste. Last year, Beijing issued its first ever “red alert” on the city’s air quality, closing schools and factories, and forcing thousands of private vehicles off the road.
Dire as China’s environmental situation may seem, recent studies have noted some improvements. The World Health Organisation’s latest data shows that air pollution is no doubt rising in the world’s poorest cities, and that Chinese cities are still some of the most polluted. But at the same time, air quality throughout much of the country has also improved.
“Airpocalypse” in Shanghai. Image: Greenpeace East Asia via Twitter
Similarly, Greenpeace East Asia’s air quality rankings found worsening conditions for almost 70 cities in central and Western China. But in major cities in the East such as Beijing and Shanghai, the average concentration of pollution in both cities fell by double digits.
In a media release, Greenpeace East Asia’s climate and energy campaigner Dong Liansai says that the implementation of anti-pollution measures five years ago has had a drastic effect in cutting down on toxic emissions
“The findings show that the government’s measures to curb air pollution in eastern China’s key regions work,” says Dong.
“But now is not the time to selectively implement these policies. They must be introduced across the country to ensure clean air for all.”
Declaring change For the government, curbing pollution has been a serious matter for some years now, and it now seems to make a routine of declaring war on the country’s atmosphere.
China’s Premier Li Keqiang … a promise to “declare war” on air pollution. Image: Wikimedia Commons
Speaking at the opening session of the country’s parliament last year, China’s Premier Li Keqiang announced that an “unrelenting” effort was needed to clear the country’s smoggy skies and toxic rivers. A year before that, Li promised to “declare war” on pollution.
Dr Jason Young at the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre, says that the government realises the model that brought modernisation to China can no longer be sustained.
“There is a realisation that energy security cannot follow the traditional uses. They have come to the realisation that China’s urbanisation and industrialisation has come about at a period of world history where it’s just no longer an option to industrialise in the same way.”
Environmentalist Ma Jun says he has been encouraged by the government’s commitment to punish not just the companies causing pollution, but also local officials who have often ignored environmental crimes.
Despite having environmental protection laws, Jun says “the cost of violation remains low and serial polluters just pay fines year after year without solving their problem”.
Dr Young says that part of the problem stems from the fact that many polluters are often local and beyond central government control.
‘Abject failure’ “A lot of efforts have been made at the central government level on new environmental standards. But you have this disjuncture between the interests of central government, the interests of local government, and the interests of local businesses and state enterprises.”
“I’d say they’re making more of an improvement lately…but at the moment it’s still quite an abject failure.”
Following Li Keqiang’s speech, the Finance Ministry announced that it would spend more than 11 billion yuan (more than NZ$2 billion) in combatting air pollution. A further 47 billion yuan (NZ$10 billion) has been ear-marked to subsidise work such as energy conservation and emission reduction.
With both figures outpacing China’s GDP growth target, it highlights a key balancing act for the government.
“On one hand you want to keep a certain level of economic growth, while on the other hand, you want to restructure and rebalance, and environmental issues are part of that,” says Professor Xiaoming Huang, a specialist in East Asian political economy at Victoria University
Premier Li also announced that the money would be partially spent upgrading coal-fired power stations to help them achieve “ultra-low emissions,” as well as introducing “zero-growth in the consumption of coal in key areas of the country”.
But with traditional forms of energy still embedded into the livelihoods of thousands of Chinese, many workers will be forced to pay the steep price of the ‘clean energy revolution’.
‘Unfair distribution’ “There’s a groundswell of opinion that the environment is a really significant issue, but the implications of doing that often have very unfair distributions on people’s livelihoods. So people who work in the fuel sector or coal sector are the ones that get made redundant,” says Dr Young.
“They want to ensure their kids don’t get lead poisoning from water or that their school isn’t next to a polluting factory. But on the other hand, there’s a general belief that China needs to push on through development so that it can become an advanced.”
“China is still a middle income country. It’s not an advanced economy, so you have this strong push, almost like a social desire for the country to develop.”
In China, coal accounts for almost two-thirds of all energy produced, but is also one of the biggest pollutants into China’s atmosphere.
In an effort to curb its coal dependency, it was announced that not only would the world’s largest energy consumer continue to trim production capacity, but that it would halt the building of all new coal mines for the next three years—the first time the government has ever done so.
With coal consumption currently around 64.4 per cent, the National Energy Administration is aiming to cut this number down to 62.6 per cent by the end of 2016, as well as closing down more than a 1000 existing coal mines.
To compensate, China plans to increase its wind and solar power capacity by more than 20 per cent, continuing its path onto a renewable energy-based future.
Renewable technology Professor Huang says China is becoming one of the international leaders on renewable technology.
“The predominant form of energy in China is burning fossil fuels. So the government is spending quite a lot of money in solar, wind, and water-based energy and it works with quite a lot of American and German companies.”
“Internationally, in terms of technology, China is doing very well. Over time they want to reduce fossil-based energy forms, although I don’t think they’re there yet.”
Coal use in China is slowing. Source: US Energy Information Administration / China National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)
Yuan Ying, an energy campaigner for Greenpeace East Asia, says the reality of China’s efforts to become a high-tech, innovative economy is much more complicated.
“China’s grid is in urgent need of an upgrade if it is to fully utilise the potential of wind and solar power…Coal is doing its utmost to dig itself in, despite the headwinds of falling coal consumption, declining heavy industry, government policies limiting coal and promoting renewables.”
Social consciousness Since the making of former United States Vice-President Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, the film has been credited with raising international awareness on global warming and reenergising the environmental movement.
Almost a decade on from its release in 2006, Chinese audiences were treated with their own cinematic examination when Under the Dome was released online last year. The feature length documentary went viral, attracting more than 200 million viewers before internet censors removed the film for sparking intense criticism of the government online.
Created by celebrity journalist Chai Jing, Under the Dome looks at the human faces behind China’s perennial smog problem, with some observers calling the film “a tipping a point”.
As viewers faced up to the facts of their ‘inconvenient truth’, the government vowed to tackle the “unprecedented” environmental issue of mass pollution.
Ying says there has been a massive upsurge in public awareness around the safety hazards of pollution and waste.
“For many people, it is now a daily routine to check air pollution apps and make the decision whether or not to wear a protective mask.”
“Awareness in other areas is starting to grow too. Many safety concerns over food, for example, have given rise to an awareness of environmental standards in the agricultural industry.”
Rest of Asia still faltering Despite China’s steady improvements, the rest of Asia—containing some of the most populous developing countries—are still falling behind on the air quality radar.
In the same WHO report which found China’s air pollution rates to be falling, it says the most polluted cities are in India, while Hanoi is the most polluted city in Southeast Asia.
With one of the worst air quality levels in the entire continent, Vietnam’s environmental monitoring agency says that road traffic is to blame for 70 per cent of Hanoi’s stifling air pollution.
As was the case in China, rapid economic growth in the post-Cold War period has seen the use of cars and motorbikes skyrocket in Vietnam, a significant departure from days when cycling was the primary form of transport.
Even in advanced economies such as Japan, activists warn that it is at serious risk of damaging its air quality. As the country continues to suffer from the radioactive fallout from the 2011 Fukushima disaster, Japan plans to build dozens of new coal-fired power plants over the next 12 years instead.
Low carbon plan In March, China announced its 13th Five-Year plan that will lead one of the largest economies into the next phase of development. The plan, which was announced at the National People’s Congress, announced that it would promote a cleaner, greener industry.
According to Chinese state media, the plan will focus on the “energy revolution” which will establish a modern system that is clean, low-carbon, and efficient”.
Dr Young remains realistic, and says that China will suffer “a lot of environmental degradation, a lot of pollution, and a lot of pain in the medium term”.
“But in the long term, I’m quite positive that’s how China will pull through.”
Jihee Junn compiled this report as part of the Pacific Media Centre’s Asia Pacific Journalism Studies course.
“Warm Waters’” a photo essay on climate change by photojournalist Vlad Sokhin, is the best piece of reporting on climate change in the Pacific. It is a must-see collection!
Sokhin’s images and text capture the grave threat climate change poses to the Pacific islands from sea level rise, hotter weather, changes to rainfall and stronger cyclones.
Browse the photoessay here, and encourage your colleagues and friends to read it too!
Newly endorsed Director-General Amena Yauvoli said the request for membership was on the agenda, along with endorsements from the MSG senior officials and foreign ministers meetings in Lautoka this week.
“The foreign ministers’ meeting (yesterday) is to deliberate on the issues put forward and recommended by senior officials,” he said.
“Today, the decisions they take will go up to the leaders during a special summit in Honiara, Solomon Islands, on July 14.”
According to Yauvoli, the key decisions made by foreign ministers were in relation to strengthening the MSG and its secretariat based in Port Vila, Vanuatu.
One of these was the appointment of the MSG director-general, which was endorsed by the foreign ministers yesterday.
“Now that the senior officials have agreed and have recommended to the foreign ministers, they have endorsed it and now, they will take it up to the leaders for the formal endorsement, which completes the formalisation of the appointment.”
The adoption of the newly-established MSG trade agreement will also be at the forefront of next month’s meet.
Yauvoli said a meeting of senior trade officials and ministers in Port Vila endorsed the MSG Free Trade Agreement and this would be submitted to leaders for their endorsement and approval. If all goes to plan, the new agreement could come into effect by January 1 next year.
Melanesian Spearhead Group Director-General Amena Yauvoli (left) with foreign affairs ministers meeting chair Milner Tozaka (Solomon Islands) in Lautoka, Fiji, this week. Image: Reinal Chand/The Fiji Times
“The deliberations [for the agreement] so far have been really good and it will trigger further opportunities and benefits not only for MSG member countries but the Pacific as a whole.”
Yauvoli said they were also working and trying to strengthen and improve the financial status of the MSG secretariat.
Meanwhile, United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) delegate Amatus Douw said the process of becoming a full member was quite complicated.
“I believe the MSG Secretariat has been working hard to formalise a criteria of membership from observer to full member,” he said.
“We also really appreciate all the delegates and members of the MSG themselves, they are really working hard to help West Papuan people.”
Last year West Papua’s bid to join the group was knocked back by the MSG — but they were given observer status while Indonesia is an associate members.
This month, Timor-Leste signed a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) agreement with the French company Bolloré to build and operate a major new container port at Tibar, 15km west of the capital of Dili.
La’o Hamutuk has analysed the project in depth, identifying some social and environmental impacts, raising concerns about economic viability and pondering implications for Timor-Leste’s sustainability.
This blog summarises points from our longer article, which is in both English and Tetum.
The contract promises to pay $129 million to Bolloré up front, but the 2016 State Budget only allocates $94 million over the next five years, and neither figure includes additional spending for roads, project management or unanticipated cost overruns.
PPPs all over the world underestimate costs in the planning stages, as promoters often bias their research to justify viability.
Just this week, Timor-Leste’s leaders suggested a mid-year increase to the 2016 State Budget to cover some Tibar port costs, notwithstanding that officials knew about them long before the budget was enacted.
The Private Partner – Bolloré Africa Logistics in consortium with Bolloré subsidiary SDV – will initially invest $278 million for construction and will operate the port for 30 years, collecting revenues to recover their investment, costs and profit. However, La’o Hamutuk is concerned that the final concession contract (which we have not been shown) may obligate Timor-Leste to guarantee Bolloré’s return if the port does not generate as much income as expected, due to lower traffic or shipping being diverted to other ports.
When this project was conceived four years ago, many thought that Timor-Leste’s non-oil GDP would continue to grow at ‘double-digit’ rates, and that our oil and gas wealth was more valuable than it has turned out to be.
However, ‘non-oil’ GDP – which is largely driven by government spending of oil money – has not grown as much as expected; the latest government figures report growth of 2.8 percent and 5.9 percent in 2013 and 2014 respectively.
With rapidly falling oil revenues, the government will have to reduce spending, which is likely slow the growth of non-oil GDP even more.
Lower state spending means fewer imports by the government, as well as less money circulating to enable citizens to buy things from overseas.
For the last several years, Timor-Leste has imported 30 times as many goods as we exported, so that most containers shipped out are empty and will be so for decades to come. Without other economic activity, this trade deficit cannot continue.
The Tibar port design was based on overly optimistic economic projections, and more recent data cast doubt on its rationale. In addition, its traffic will be shared with other new ports planned for Suai, Oecusse, and Baucau.
Current evidence La’o Hamutuk hopes that current evidence and realistic forecasts will underpin decisions about the Tibar project. We believe that longer hours and more efficient operation of Dili port may provide for Timor-Leste’s needs for decades to come.
In addition to the impact on State finances, Tibar port subsidises imported products relative to locally produced ones. Although this may make imports less expensive, local producers – especially farmers – will have to struggle even harder to compete against cheap food products from overseas.
Reduced demand for locally-grown produce could discourage Timorese farmers from growing food, hurting productivity, the economy, food sovereignty and nutrition.
By the time Timor-Leste’s Petroleum Fund runs out (which could be as soon as 2025), many fields may be unused. Without money to purchase imported food, people will starve.
Therefore, the port will make Timor-Leste even more dependent on overseas products, at a time when we should be increasing local production to ensure non-oil economic sustainability.
It will also take over local people’s land, destroy their livelihoods, and divert government resources away from basic services for ordinary people.
Instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on this new port, La’o Hamutuk urges policy-makers to seriously analyse Timor-Leste’s long-term shipping requirements to see if they can be met by operating the existing port in Dili 24/7 while controlling corruption, improving its management, and enhancing its workers’ skills and numbers.
In that way, Timor-Leste would save money, protect vulnerable people and address public needs, allowing us to focus on building the domestic economy to provide a sustainable future for all of Timor-Leste’s people. La’o Hamutuk is theTimor-Leste Institute for Development Monitoring and Analysis. Alonger article, which will be updated as the project evolves, includes many graphics, links, documents and articles from a wide variety of sources.
There are as many ways to control the media as there are styles of government. The continuing ban on TVNZ reporter Barbara Dreaver by the Fiji government is part of an ongoing slip in freedom of expression worldwide, writes Dana Wensley.
OPINION: There’s many ways to silence the media. Governments such as those of Fiji and the Ukraine (where President Petro Poroshenko placed dozens of journalists on a blacklist last year) favour the ban. Nauru prefers setting prohibitive visas – visiting journalists are required to pay $8000 to enter the country.
The Philippines’ President-elect, Rodrigo Duterte, allegedly said, “Just because you’re a journalist, you’re not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch”, although his spokesperson has since said his comments were a case of “incorrect news reporting” when he was challenged by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.
Most overt is Isis’ preferred method – the beheading of members of the foreign press. In September 2014 American journalist Steven Sotloff was killed, two weeks after James Foley was beheaded in similar circumstances.
There are as many ways to control the media as there are styles of government. Canada is just emerging from a haze of media shutdown after the departure of Steven Harper’s government. Harper, a leader who tended to control journalists in a style not unlike military dictatorships, was famous for his press conferences.
Famous, not because he welcomed open and honest questions from the press but because he issued invitations with the tag “photo opportunity only”. Hardly an invitation to hard journalism.
The continuing ban on TVNZ reporter Barbara Dreaver by the Fijian government is part of an ongoing slip in freedom of expression worldwide. Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama has stated he will not be lifting the ban which he sees as necessary to prevent the “wilful propagation of false information”.
Pacific censorship Censorship in the Pacific continues to be a problem. Not just overt forms like this, but what is called “silent censorship”, the self-monitoring by journalists afraid to speak out for fear of persecution. While “hard” censorship gets reported, often “soft” censorship is ignored.
Each year PEN International produces a case list of persecuted writers. From January 2015 to December 2015 there were 1054 writers brought to PEN’s attention. Methods of “persecution” range from killing, missing in action, imprisoned, to presumed dead. Last year’s statistics show that journalists, bloggers, and those involved in digital media feature prominently on the list.
Reporters Without Borders also keeps current watch on a chilling list of figures. Since January 2016 there have been 17 journalists killed, 7 media assistants murdered, and 3 journalists imprisoned.
New Zealand is currently the leader in freedom of press statistics in the Pacific. We rank 5th in the world in the latest World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders. This is well ahead of Australia, which ranks 25th of 180 countries.
New Zealand should take its place as leader in the Pacific in freedom of the press, to make a clear stance in favour of Barbara Dreaver and the other journalists currently banned from Fiji. By not raising this subject with a forceful voice, Prime Minister John Key let down not only Barbara Dreaver and journalism in this country, he failed to defend freedom of speech in the Pacific.
If he’s not going to do it, who is?
A human right Freedom of expression is a right guaranteed under the European Convention of Human Rights. Article 19 of the convention states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression”. PEN NZ notes that this right includes the freedom to “seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.
A right is only worth something if we are prepared to enforce it.
Foreign media and journalists play a critical role in reporting on human rights abuses and conditions in countries without a strong record of press freedom. It takes courage to stand up and defend something in the face of criticism. But without that courage we are on a slippery slope to a media blackout.
Dana Wensley, PhD, is spokeswoman on freedom of speech for PEN (NZ), which promotes literature and freedom of expression and is governed by the PEN Charter and the principles it embodies: unhampered transmission of thought within each nation and between all nations. Republished by the Pacific Media Centre with the permission of both the author and The New Zealand Herald.
The West Papua press freedom micosite … embargoed until 28 March 2019
Karen Abplanalp
Saturday, June 18, 2016
Abstract
Indonesia has restricted access for journalists seeking to visit West Papua for more than 50 years. On May 10, 2015, shortly after this thesis was submitted, Indonesia’s President, Joko Widodo, announced the media restrictions on Papua were to be lifted. The apparent change in policy is yet to be tested. According to Papuan journalist Victor Mambor, no foreign journalist has tried to visit Papua since Widodo’s statement (Mambor, personal communication, June 19, 2015). Using the concepts of Peace Journalism, this research exegesis and microsite artefact seeks to examine the impact the media restrictions have had on the quality and type of journalism produced about West Papua, and also on the public’s opinion of Indonesia. The research is largely drawn from a case study involving 10 journalists from West Papua, Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia – all of whom report about West Papua. The author is also a participant in this study. The thesis includes a web-based artefact incorporating a series of video interviews with the 10 journalists. This thesis finds that media restrictions directly impact on the quality of journalism produced about West Papua and create serious risks for journalists and their sources, and impact negatively on Indonesia’s international image. If the aim of the restrictions is to control and limit negative reportage about West Papua, then this study finds that they do the opposite. The media constraints severely limit the possibility of positive and unbiased reportage. The study provides suggestions on how to mitigate these risks.
Supervisors: Professor David Robie, Dr Allison Oosterman
[caption id="attachment_1450" align="alignleft" width="150"] Keith Rankin.[/caption]
In a series of recent articles, a book-chapter, and a presentation to the New Zealand Fabian Society, I have discussed how, practically, a Universal Basic Income – as a core component of a conceptual reform of income taxes – can be implemented in New Zealand, and can open the door to reveal a future that does not require there to be poverty in the midst of plenty.
I suggest a move away from the name Universal Basic Income; a name that I adopted in 1991 through the following construct: “a universal tax credit available to every adult – the universal basic income (UBI) – and a moderately high flat tax rate” (from my The Universal Welfare State; incorporating proposals for a Universal Basic Income, most easily accessed here).
In the present debate, Universal Basic Income has come to too many to mean a rigid and politically unsaleable something‑for‑nothing proposal, funded implicitly through levels of taxation much higher than New Zealanders are familiar with. The name for the universal payment that I now advocate – noting that language is very important – is Public Equity Dividend (PED). A PED is an unconditional payment from public revenue that may be small or large, and that is seen as a complement to rather than as a substitute for other forms of social assistance. A ‘public equity dividend’ represents a distribution from a capitalist fund that reflects public property rights, somewhat analogous to distributions from private equity funds.
The central concept that can take us forward is that of ‘public equity’; a concept of public income that finds common ground between the philosophies of the liberal capitalist right and the liberal egalitarian left. The presumption is that the public is an equity partner to market production. As such, public equity offers a new way to clearly demark the division between publicly‑sourced and privately‑sourced incomes, and can facilitate the regrowth of a genuinely liberal economic order. Public equity can become a way of distributing some income equally, enabling gains from past and future productivity increases to be available to all, and making it easier for people to make more sustainable and less pressured life choices.
We note that the historical sources of productivity gains are essentially public (eg the application of public knowledge and other public domain resources to productive processes). The PED, more than ever, needs to be understood as a productivity dividend, which adjusts sufficiently to ensure that productivity gains do not become causes of increased inequality or exploitation.
The underlying concepts are not usefully injected into the party-political environment of a general election campaign, where sound-bites, bumper stickers and pledge-cards reign. Rather the ideas presented here, which are essentially apolitical – all political parties represented in the New Zealand parliament advocate liberal capitalism – may be incorporated into public finance reform in New Zealand from as soon as 2018, regardless of who becomes government after the 2017 election.
Distributional Challenges of Liberal Capitalism
Reforms informed by the concept of public equity are essential if liberal capitalist societies are to meet the distributional challenges of rising economic productivity. Such societies require adequate – indeed more than adequate – spending capacity on the part of the ordinary (especially middle‑decile) people who constitute the markets for the ‘wage goods’ whose production is the hallmark of liberal capitalism. If the system cannot distribute income to those for whom these goods and services are designated, then the whole capitalist edifice eventually fails; such failure is delayed only by a spiralling indebtedness that compensates to some extent – and only temporarily – for present failures of income distribution.
In the process of meeting the distributional challenges that can sustain liberal capitalism, ordinary people are able to make labour supply choices – work‑leisure trade‑offs – that cannot be made when systemically‑inadequate wages and consumer debt are their sources of purchasing power. Maintaining a more elastic labour supply – with people working shorter hours in normal times – is the key to the sustainability of the natural environment as well as the sustainability of capitalism itself.
Income security in high productivity societies is neither unaffordable nor a luxury. Rather, income security extends the core liberal capitalist concept of ‘consumer sovereignty’ to sovereignty over household time as well as over consumer choices. A mature liberal capitalist society that acknowledges and values public equity has a mechanism to recycle income to all its equity‑holder households in such a way that they can make genuine choices about spending and sustainable living. Their governments could easily adjust the core fiscal parameters (especially the income tax rate and the size of the ‘public equity dividend’) to ensure that nobody is left behind, and that nobody is forced to enter into exploitative labour contracts or degrading self‑employment in the informal economy.
Public Equity Dividends are our best means to keep in circulation the money that represents our disposable incomes, and that atrophies when concentrated in private hoards. Public Equity Dividends represent capitalism’s option of economic freedom; of a happy liberal future. Capitalism begets other illiberal futures if we do not have the imagination, or if we are too cynical, to acknowledge and enforce our public property rights.
Public Equity and Social Assistance
Please refer to my longer essay Public Equity and Social Assistance (PDF) for a practical step‑by‑step guide to integrated tax-benefit reform in New Zealand, based on liberal equity principles.
A Vanuatu government team left for Port Moresby today to conduct an on-the-ground assessment of the crisis at various universities in Papua New Guinea, where ni-Vanuatu students are studying.
The Council of Ministers met on Wednesday and decided to urgently send an assessment team to PNG to carry out assessment on the current situation, meet PNG officials and the Vanuatu students at the universities where they are studying, and return to Vanuatu with findings and recommendations.
Their report would be for the Vanuatu government to act upon for the safety and future education of the Vanuatu students, according to the Acting Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Yvon Basil.
This follows unrest at several universities this week, including rioting at the University of Goroka, and police opening fire on students at the University of Papua New Guinea last week.
Basil confirmed that an assessment team of two or three officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Education would depart from Vanuatu for Port Moresby.
Basil said the government would make a final decision based on the findings and recommendations as soon as the assessment team returned to Port Vila.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the government have assured the parents of all students studying in all universities and institutions in Papua New Guinea that all Vanuatu students are safe.
Social media plea Earlier this week, a Vanuatu student studying in Goroka in appealed on social media to the Vanuatu government to repatriate Vanuatu students back home as reports of fresh clashes between students began escalating again.
This public appeal was made through the popular Facebook pages Yumi Toktok Stret and Yu Save Seh.
The Daily Post understands that there are 41 students from Vanuatu currently in PNG – 5 students studying at the University of Papua New Guinea, 9 at Unitech Lae, 6 at the Medical Faculty of UPNG and 21 at the University of Goroka.
The incident led to 46 students being treated in hospital on Tuesday as universities across PNG faced another week of disruption and uncertainty.
This followed five weeks of protest calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Peter O’Neill which ended with a shooting incident at the University of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby earlier this month when police opened fire. Some 23 students were wounded, four critically.
More than 300 students who arrived in the Enga capital of Wabag on Wednesday night in three hired buses said students from Enga, Hela, Jiwaka, Southern Highlands and Western Highlands were attacked without reason by their Eastern Highlands and Chimbu colleagues.
The students alleged the attackers were assisted by locals with dangerous weapons, including firearms, bush knives, spears and arrows.
Their spokesman, Lawrence Anton, who is also the Student Representative Council (SRC) delegate to the University of Goroka Council, said a minor incident involving a handful of students from WHP and EHP on Tuesday morning had been resolved amicably after breakfast.
‘Attacking spree’ However, the students were shocked to see locals coming 30 minutes later into the campus and going on “an attacking spree”.
Anton said that incident had nothing to do with the ongoing boycott of classes spearheaded by fellow students, mainly from the University of Papua New Guinea.
“What happened at UOG was an isolated issue. It was started by a handful of drunken students who did not agree on some personal issues. It had nothing to do with the ongoing boycotting of classes,” he said.
Lawrence said it was fair that an investigation was carried out to establish why outsiders crossed over the university boundary to attack students over a trivial matter.
The 300-plus students from Enga had to leave without going back to their living quarters to get their personal effects in fear of their lives.
“We want an investigation into the sudden attack and bring those involved to justice,” he said.
Anton said they will return to class anytime when the university council calls them after restoring normalcy on campus.
The controversial UPNG “pledge’” for students to sign declaring that they face expulsion if they become involved in further “illegal boycotts”.
‘Pledge’ protest Meanwhile, at UPNG there have been ongoing issues preventing some students from returning to class.
The “pledge” required by the university registrar to be signed by students stating that they understood “any involvement in unrests [sic], illegal boycott of classes or related activities” would result in their expulsion from their programme of study had caused some resentment.
In an incident at one UPNG academic school today, a group of students were reported to have gone into the faculty office and torn up a pile of the affirmation notes.
Economic Analysis by BNZ economist Tony Alexander.
This week I am at Fieldays so start the Overview with a few observations on the mood at Australasia’s biggest agricultural gathering. I also take a look again at the housing market, focussing in on two things. Firstly a list of structural changes helping to explain the apparent downward trend in home ownership. Second the data suggesting near 40% of house sales in our three biggest cities are to investors.
We are invited to adopt a view that investors are snatching up everything. Not so. Given the tendency to flick properties on quickly there is an upward bias to the investment proportion of house sales. The same goes for mortgage lending. Quickly sold properties have their debt repaid quickly and new borrowing massively biases upward the proportion of a year’s lending counted as being for investment purchases.
It pays to note that while total new mortgage lending since September 2014 has totalled $118bn, the actual stock of debt as at March 2016 was only 12.4% or $24bn higher than in September 2014. Debt repayments during the period totalled $115bn! The difference is largely interest charges. The Reserve Bank in fact has no published data showing changes in the proportion of the mortgage debt owed by investors. None. That is very disappointing because it prevents informed debate and provides space for the same old incorrect housing collapse stories which bad forecasters have been peddling for years now. Pity those who listened to them.
For the full analysis, continue reading below or Download document (pdf).
Fieldays
As is usual for this time of the year I’m spending Wednesday through Friday this week in the BNZ tent at National Farm Fieldays in Mystery Creek, Hamilton. The number of people attending the event seems to be in line with previous years but by all accounts willingness to spend is mildly down – obviously because of the weakness in the dairying sector.
Having said that there is a noticeable absence of pessimism. Most operators in the dairy sector have seen downturns before and know what to do, and there is anticipation of payouts slowly improving over the next couple of years. That seems like a reasonable expectation on the basis of some eventual rebuilding of stocks in China and reduced growth in European production along with NZ supply being curtailed as marginal land reverts back to something else (manuka bush for honey perhaps), and farmers pull away from costly supplementary feeding systems.
Few farmers have expressed concern about the NZ dollar which at US 70 cents sits below the ten year average of 74 cents, and no-one has moaned about the level of interest rates facing borrowers. Some are concerned about low interest rates being offered to savers. Everyone seems to be wondering what it will mean for the world economy if the UK referendum on June 23 results in a decision to leave the EU – which it probably will – and Donald Trump becomes US President in the November US Presidential election, which seems like a 50:50 call given the quality of his opponent.
Fewer people are moaning about Auckland now that house prices in their local towns are rising at a faster pace than those in our biggest city.
All up sentiment seems good here and it will be interesting to see the spending figures when they eventually emerge.
Housing
CoreLogic this week released some analysis showing that in Auckland an estimated 42% of property sales are to investors, same in Christchurch (thus slamming any notion that Auckland is “special”) and Wellington 38% (ditto). The media invite us to adopt the view that such proportions are too high and this is bad for first home buyers.
But it pays to note the other anti-investor commentary which runs along the lines that properties are being bought then on sold quickly for rapid profit. CoreLogic note an average investment property holding time in Auckland of less than one year.
There is an upward bias in the proportion of sales classified as to investors because of this turnover tendency which does not occur for first home buyers or owner-occupiers moving between houses after a few years. This means some 40% of the housing stock is not suddenly shifting to investor ownership.
Table C35 produced by the Reserve Bank on their website since September 2014 shows that between then and the end of March this year total mortgage debt grew by $24bn or 12.4%. But total drawdowns added up to $118bn. Drawdowns, from which data on the proportion of loans going to investors are derived, are over five times the size of debt growth. Loan repayments totalled $115bn. Interest charges largely account for the difference.
New lending data focussing on the proportion undertaken by investors is meaningless.
For the record, in the 12 months to April 34% of gross new lending was to investors.
But what if the new lending is higher risk than the old lending? It isn’t. The proportion of the mortgage stock where lending exceeds 80% of the value of the property has fallen from 18% in September 2014 to 13% in March. The Reserve Bank is being very successful at reducing the threat to financial stability from high risk bank lending.
What really matters is the proportion of the housing stock owned by investors if home ownership is the thing you are interested in. The Reserve Bank provides zero information on that breakdown. They do not know what proportion of household debt represents lending to investors.
The Reserve Bank’s Table C22 does include a line entitled “Housing loans (including rental properties)” which we can compare with another line “Housing loans (long-term)” and on the face of it see that 37.3% of the loans outstanding are for rental purchases. But do this percentage calculation for all periods from the start of the table in December 1998 and you get a 37.3% answer every single time. That is because the 37.3% is a Statistics NZ estimate which has nothing to do with the Reserve Bank. Statistics NZ has far less information on the nature of bank lending and borrowing than the Reserve Bank so this 37.3% is a number thrown in there and not derived from any up to date statistical survey. It might derive from some adjustment to home ownership rate numbers.
We do not know what proportion of household debt is held for the purpose of buying an investment property.
We only get a measure of home ownership in the census and that measure itself is imperfect. Last census in 2013 Statistics NZ was unable to specify ownership of just over 20% of the housing stock. The home ownership rate nonetheless was 73.5% in 1991, 66.9% in 2006, and 64.8% in 2013. It has been falling these past few years though perhaps less than shown because of problems with houses going into trusts. One would struggle to realistically challenge the notion that a rising proportion of our housing stock is owned by investors. But you cannot use debt data to determine the current speed of that increase.
Why Falling Home Ownership?
Regarding the downward trend in home ownership, little analysis exists on why this is happening. Here are a few suggestions. The biggest cause is probably the structural decline in low risk investment returns such as term deposits which has encouraged savers to raise the proportion of housing in their asset base built up these past few decades. After all, you can’t easily get residential property exposure through managed funds.
Another is the aging population. More older people own investment properties to fund retirement than young people, the proportion of the population which is old is rising, therefore the proportion of the housing stock in the hands of young people will naturally fall.
Life expectancy is also rising seemingly rapidly and young people are choosing to delay home purchasing – especially as it locks them into a location and occupation. In this modern world we are repeatedly told that people entering the workforce should expect to hold multiple roles if not careers during their lengthening lifespan. Flexibility is to be valued and that is hard to achieve when you are locked into home ownership.
Bank lending standards are also rising. Central banks are requiring banks to reduce the level of risk in their portfolios and that means people offering the highest security, such as a mortgage secured over two properties, are better deals than those borrowing to the hilt to get into their first home with minimal equity. First home buyers are high risk and we banks are being explicitly steered by the Reserve Bank toward avoiding such risks.
Additionally, few entry level houses get built these days. The proportion of the housing stock which is affordable/accessible to first home buyers is structurally declining as developers build big houses on small expensive sections. With nothing else changing, this tendency in the past three to four decades will naturally lower home ownership for first home buyers.
But Houses Can Fall In Price!
Ignoring the structural factors driving the rate of home ownership down is not the most dishonest ploy to generate headlines which grab reader attention. The killer is this one. Apparently there are times when house prices fall and people need to be wary of that when they contemplate their housing investment. Oh how shocking.
Anyone buying any investment product will be aware that prices are not fixed and they go up and down. Were we to however back off massively from buying investment properties because of the occasional period when house prices fall then all arguments for buying other assets like shares go completely out the window.
Share prices go up and down on a daily basis and there will be hundreds of thousands more people who have seen their wealth decline for a while and worried about being wiped out because of a rout in share prices in New Zealand than have ever worried about going down the gurgler because their house price has gone down.
The following graph shows annual changes in the REINZ measure of Auckland house prices since 2004 and annual changes in the NZX 50 share index calculated as three month averages versus a year earlier. The red line showing share index changes is far more volatile than the line showing house price changes. Share prices dipped over 30% come late-2008, house prices 10%.
Note that this graph is just presented to show volatility, not total annual returns and not longterm returns. But as an aside, in the Reserve Bank’s Financial Stability report Excel data file sheet 4.2 you will find a time series of Auckland rental yields. They decline from 5.1% in March quarter 2000 to 2.8% March quarter 2016 with a 16 year average of 4.1%. But the average bank six month term deposit rate has declined from 5.5% to 3.2% with an average of 5.3%. Rental yields are less below average than term deposits.
Plus, the average mortgage rate has fallen from 7.6% to 5.6% with an average of 7.5%.
Any argument that one should avoid houses because they can sometimes fall in price needs to be put in context.
Challengers to this angle will note that house purchases are invariably financed with debt whereas hardly anyone borrows money to invest in shares. True. And the reason why? Because banks with hundreds of analysts consider houses to be much safer than shares as security against a debt. It should hardly be any surprise then that the average person feels the same way and so is choosing to purchase houses rather than shares as they try to boost their returns where those returns are calculated as potential for capital gain and income.
But there is another angle to consider. House prices do sometimes fall. But trends have been strongly upward. If you buy fully acknowledging prices will probably fall for a while one day your perceived incentive is to buy sooner rather than later in the cycle. That is because you will expect to build up a buffer to handle the price pullback – three steps forward, one step back. Not bad progress.
This next graph shows the levels of the NZX 50 and Auckland house price index in three month rolling average terms since 2004.
As shown in commentaries here in recent weeks and in fact years, it is not hard to find fundamental economic factors which explain the strong rises in house prices and declining home ownership. But the main question people have asked us for many years is not about what is causing house prices to move, but whether it is a better idea to buy now or to wait for a price correction before buying.
So, would I still buy now? Yes. Why? Because the Auckland shortage is getting worse, all efforts to stop prices rising have failed, the chances of a stringent regime of debt to income rules being applied and proving effective are low, people are still decreasing their expectations for interest rates over the long-term, population growth looks set to stay above the 1.1% per annum norm for a while longer, and because in the regions the sight of Aucklanders buying properties has spurred local investors to storm into their markets in force.
But when is it likely I will analyse the balance of factors and probabilities and err on the side of caution?
First, there is essentially no chance any of us will correctly forecast a rout should one come along so no-one should try to base their decisions on forecasts of one happening. We can’t do it.
However, there will come a time when vulnerability to small shocks will be great enough that any tiny shock will throw up some opportunities for those actively looking for them. When? This is where it gets interesting and you’ll need to pause before moving beyond the next paragraph to truly grasp an understanding.
The higher prices go the greater the risks. Right? Not necessarily. Note our comment above and comments in fact from the Reserve Bank that risky bank lending has decreased. Prices can rise while fewer borrowers and less bank capital becomes exposed to a price pullback if lending standards are improved.
Those standards are improving courtesy of efforts by our central bank and as seen this past week our own decisions on risk management. Only 13% of outstanding mortgage debt is now above an 80% LVR versus 18% one and a half years ago. The Financial Stability report released in May showed just 4% of top 5 bank lending as at the end of 2015 was at an LVR of 90% or above compared with 7.8% at the end of 2012.
The way things are going there will soon come a time when in spite of Auckland house prices still rising in a 10% – 15% range the Reserve Bank will be so happy with the low level of risky bank lending that when asked about the pace of price rises their comment can only realistically be “meh”. Issues of affordability, homelessness, home ownership, etc. are outside their purview.
At this stage I anticipate continuing to say I would be happy to be a buyer until some point in 2018.
The risk is I become neutral in the second half of next year.
Lending to Foreigners
Almost all major NZ banks have this past week changed rules regarding lending to people who are not Kiwis or Aussies or do not have permanent residency. There are slight variations so just focussing on our BNZ changes, from now on we will not count the income foreigners earn overseas when calculating their ability to service a mortgage. This is being done because it is extremely difficult to verify the accuracy of information volunteered regarding that foreign income and this raises the risk of incurring losses or lending to someone who cannot really afford the mortgage.
So this is an internal and customer risk management-driven change rather than a reaction to worries about the role of foreigners in driving house prices higher in New Zealand. Will there be much impact? At the margin some people will not be able to borrow funds from us lenders in order to buy a property. If they still want to make a purchase they can go to another lender in New Zealand, or pay cash using funds from offshore. Or if they already have assets in New Zealand they might gear them up further.
The actual market impact is likely to be small so this will join the list of things which have changed in the past five years making it harder for investors to buy a property but which ultimately don’t much alter market dynamics. Included here are the two year bright line test, need for an IRD number, loan to value rules, removal of easy depreciation claims, removal of ease of using LAQCs to offset losses against other income, higher bank capital requirements for investor financing.
Tinkering with little policy changes which attract big headlines is worthless if main players in the regulatory environment don’t even understand the fundamentals causing a market to move, as has been the case in the NZ and especially Auckland housing market since at least 2008.
NZ Dollar
The NZD has ended this afternoon unchanged from last week against the USD just below 70 cents. But against the Aussie dollar we have jumped to just under 96 cents from 94.5 cents on the back of stronger than expected NZ GDP data this morning (economy ahead 0.7% in the March quarter rather than the expected 0.5%, 2.8% annual growth now).
Against the British Pound the NZD has risen to almost 50 pence from 49 last week as more polls have shown voters will almost certainly opt to leave the dysfunctional European Union next week. The likelihood of this happening was one reason behind the US Federal Reserve last night deciding not to raise their funds rate, along with the recent poor employment report. The chances are good that the Fed. will not raise rates again this year.
In fact around the world bond yields are rallying to new lows on the back of this building expectation, a flight to safety on expectations of Brexit, and weak growth and inflation numbers coming out of Japan and Europe. The US ten year government bond yield has fallen to only 1.55% from 1.72% last week. This is the lowest yield since late 2012. The low was just below 1.5% that year and before that somewhere before 1970.
If the world were looking good this would not be happening – hence money coming down our way.
The chances are that the NZD will see US 75 cents before it sees 65 cents, and if you believe dairy prices are rising (they were flat at the auction last night) then you best start thinking of when we get back to 80 cents because relying on rising US interest rates to push the NZD lower has long been a sucker bet.
Just for your guide, at US 70 cents the NZD is four cents below the ten year average. But at near 95 Aussie cents we are well above the 84 cent average, at almost 50 pence well above the 45 pence average, at 63 Euro well above the 56 centime average, and at 74 Yen right on the 74 Yen average.
If I Were A Borrower What Would I Do?
Nothing new. I would fix most of my debt at a two or three year period. Strong NZ growth data mean we will at best see one further rate cut here. But falling foreign yields suggest fixed rates might come down again soon though this is not guaranteed. Could be worth holding off for that to happen if you like a punt.
The Weekly Overview is written by Tony Alexander, Chief Economist at the Bank of New Zealand. The views expressed are my own and do not purport to represent the views of the BNZ. To receive the Weekly Overview each Thursday night please sign up at www.tonyalexander.co.nz To change your address or unsubscribe please click the link at the bottom of your email. Tony.alexander@bnz.co.nz
The West Papua National Committee claimed that more than 1000 of its members have were detained by Indonesian police during a rally on Wednesday to oppose a Human Rights Investigation Team set up by the Ministry of Political, Legal and Security Affairs.
“All were detained. We are now at the Jayapura Police Station. There are 1004 activists. They are still being questioned at the police station,” chairman of KNPB Sentani Region Alan Halitopo told Jubi.
He said the police had arrested them because they did not have a permit for the rally.
But KNPB said they were likely to be released after being questioned.
Bazoka Logo, Central KNPB spokesperson said the police broke its record of arrests against Papuans.
“The colonial government made a record for the highest number of detentions,” he said. These mass arrests detention proved Indonesia was no longer a democratic State.
Separately, Jayapura police spokesperson Imam Rubianto said they had questioned 600 people and released them shortly after.
“They have been released this afternoon, at five o’clock. Cellphones that were seized by the police have been returned as well,” he said.
Papua police spokesman Patridge Renwarin said police localised the demonstrators to limit their movements. He added no one was arrested.
The police action was backed by Atmadji Sumarkdijo, an aide of Chief Security Minister Luhut Pandjaitan, who is visiting the province today.
Spanish student arrested
Solomon Islanders in Honiara on Wednesday protesting for West Papuan membership of the Melanesian Spearhead Group. Image: Free West Papua Campaign FB
Edo Karensa of the Jakarta Post reports that a Spanish national was among the “hundreds of people” detained for attempting to stage a rally in Jayapura to support West Papua’s independence and reject a reconciliation plan prepared by the Indonesian government.
Thousands of protesters from pro-independence group West Papua National Committee, or KNPB, had descended from neighboring districts into Jayapura but were intercepted by the police before they could reach the Papua Provincial Council office in Jayapura.
The KNPB has rejected a reconciliation plan prepared by Chief Security Minister Luhut Panjaitan, arguing that the Indonesian government is still pursuing repressive tactics toward pro-independence Papuans.
Among the detained protesters was Andreu Arino I Prats, a Spanish national and a student at Fisica University in Barcelona.
Political Roundup by Dr Bryce Edwards. Increasing the refugee quota to 60,000
Is New Zealand willing to save more lives in the global refugee crisis? Yes, but not very many more.
[caption id="attachment_4808" align="alignleft" width="150"] Dr Bryce Edwards.[/caption]
New Zealand could increase the refugee quota from 750 per year to about 60,000. That would put us in line with Sweden’s efforts. We could even just increase it to about 56,000 to put us in line with how many refugees Germany took last year. But as Murdoch Stephens, spokesperson for the Doing Our Bit campaign, says “No-one argues we should match the Swedes and increase our quota 80-fold”, and he just wants the quota doubled to 1500 – see his opinion piece, Refugee quota boost ‘less than bare minimum.
Instead of an increase to 60,000, or even just 1500, the Government has decided this week on a figure of 1000 per year. Why not more? In Stephens’ article, he suggests that National Government politicians are too removed from the realities of the refugee crisis, and he challenges them to visit a refugee camp where they would see the lives that could be saved and improved if New Zealand increased the quota.
Stephens argues that National politicians aren’t willing to save more refugees because they “have the luxury of never having to meet any of the people we could have offered protection to but chose not to. I hope the thought passes through their minds, just once, over the coming months when they see more drowned children wash up on Europe’s shores, that perhaps one person, on one of those boats, would have been referred to resettle to our small country in the South Pacific.”
Similarly, refugee advocate Tracey Barnett sarcastically asks, “What’s a few more years watching more children dying in Aleppo or drowning on their way to Lampedusa? As long as they don’t start washing up in Wellington harbour, we’re sweet” – see her hard-hitting opinion piece, How to pretend to care.
The reality of more lives being saved by New Zealand accepting more refugees is batted away by many politicians, who claim the problem is just too big, and New Zealand is simply too small to make enough of a difference. The Minister of Immigration Michael Woodhouse uses the metaphor of our efforts being a drop in the ocean, saying: “The question is, should we put one drop in the ocean, or two? …We’ll take one drop at a time” – you can watch his five-minute interview/interrogation with Paul Henry – see: Woodhouse on refugees: One drop at a time enough.
Henry is not the only one. In fact it’s hard to find any commentators, newspaper editorials or politicians willing to endorse the Government’s choice of just 1000 refugees.
Two newspaper editorials have strongly condemned it. The Dominion Post is particularly hard-hitting, labelling National’s refugee policy “ a stain on our reputation” and “mean-spirited” – see: National’s decision on refugees is mean-spirited and callous. The newspaper suggests that the Government had a duty and option to do much more, but it simply didn’t want to do so: “The other political parties have outbid him – even ACT wants to do the decent thing. Meanwhile the world’s greatest refugee crisis since World War II continues to explode all around us. In this hour of desperate need, the Government responds by doing the minimum.”
Likewise, the New Zealand Herald says the current quota is “disgracefully low” on top of which National has delivered a “miserable increase” – see: Pathetic lift in refugee quota needs rethink.
New Zealand Amnesty International is also disheartened by the tiny increase. Its chief executive Grant Bayldon said: “This is a shameful and inhumane response and a stain on our country’s reputation as a good global citizen” – see Stacey Kirk’s New Zealand refugee quota upped to 1000 – ‘stinks of a Government that doesn’t care’, say advocates.
A majority in favour of change
The above news article also quotes other party leaders condemning the decision, including United Future’s Peter Dunne saying the new quota was “miserly”.
The fact that so many other political parties are in favour of a much greater increase is emphasised by Amnesty’s Grant Bayldon: “I struggle to think of another time when this has happened – every other political party, from ACT to NZ First to the Greens and everyone in between, has firmly supported an increase. The political path was clear in a way that it wouldn’t have been for any other government. It didn’t need to spend any political capital on this one; heck, even the young Nats publically called the Government out on it” – see: Refugee crisis requires stronger NZ response.
Bayldon says that the quota decision puts to rest the notion of New Zealand as “a principled country which punches above its weight internationally.” Instead, the country’s “international profile starts to look like nothing more than a cynical branding exercise.”
And Duncan Garner has also pondered New Zealand’s real role in the world: “We like to think we are the caring nation, don’t we? We are the good guys of the world – the honest broker. We care for human rights more than others, right? That’s a nonsense actually. So I’m just going to come out and say it – I’m embarrassed that we don’t take more refugees” – see: We must take more refugees.
National’s calculated pragmatic decision
While there seems to be a consensus amongst commentators and political activists in favour of increasing the refugee quota, could the same be said for the wider public? The debate has become highly polarised, and as pointed out in a column one year ago – Why won’t New Zealand accept more refugees? – there’s a more populist and reactionary mood amongst the general public that sees refugees as a problem – or at least, someone else’s problem.
The National Government has clearly been caught between the two sides of this polarised debate, and has gone for a decision that it hopes will cause only limited negative reaction from both sides. As Winston Peters says, it’s a decision that “will end up pleasing no one” and that’s because, as Isaac Davison reports, the Government choose the middle option: “Mr Woodhouse said raising the quota from 750 to 1500 places was one of three options presented to Cabinet as part of its regular review of the quota. The other options were raising it to 1000 places – which the Cabinet supported – or not changing it at all. “We’ve landed in the right place in my view,” Mr Woodhouse said” – see: Govt considered doubling quota.
Newshub political editor Patrick Gower is candid about the extreme cynicism involved in National’s decision: “Yes it was tokenism, yes it was miserly, yes it was quite meagre, and deliberately so. But it’s smart politics as well. They’ve given that symbolic gesture essentially of taking it to that nice round number of 1000… and that’s just enough to satiate middle New Zealand”
Sceptics can clearly see the influence of public opinion polling in the National’s decision. Giovanni Tiso blogs: “as always you can see the calculation made by National. Not increasing the quota would have been scarcely thinkable. A modest increase plays both to the prevailing, soft anti-immigration rhetoric – which the opposition in other areas cheerfully goes along with – and to the government’s attempts to portray itself above all as pragmatic. We cannot afford to be too compassionate” – see: National values.
Likewise, Michael Timmins emphasises the amount of market research that would have occurred behind the scenes and says, “It is a token gesture designed to mollify proponents for more resettlement and to be able to tell the general population that the government is ‘doing something’.” – see: The Refugee Quota Compromise.
And campaigner Murdoch Stephens complains that the number of 1000 lacks robust justification: “Where’s the justification for this round number? There is no justification because this is not a government that works on justifications. It is a government that works on opinion polls and a “prudence” that too often amounts in reality to callousness” – see: NZ’s response to the humanitarian crisis of the century puts shallow prudence above people and principle. He argues that the quota decision “reeks of a government bereft of ideas and ambition, and more willing to see refugees as a problem than as people.”
Then again, is a figure of 1500 any less of a round number? And perhaps the ambitions for a quota increase have been so modest that people’s horizons have been lowered. Instead of battling for 60,000 refugees, or whatever, the debate has been very conservative in its demand for an increase. After all, even the Greens have only been campaigning for an increase in the quota to 1000, with a private members bill to achieve this. Therefore the National Government has simply met the demands of critics on this issue.
Finally, why are New Zealanders against saving more lives during this time of a global refugee crisis? Could it be that many believe some of the misinformation about refugees? They might benefit from Murdoch Stephens’ article, Five biggest myths about the refugee quota debate. Or is it that the country doesn’t care much about others anymore? – see Guy Williams’ When did New Zealand become selfish?
