The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) is not considering recruiting personnel from across the Pacific as talk continues of Australia doing so for its Defence Force (ADF).

In response to a question from The Australian at the National Press Club in Canberra about Australia’s plans to potentially recruit from the Pacific Islands into the ADF, Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka said he “would like to see it happen”.

“Whether Australia does it or not depends on your own policies. We will not push it.”

RNZ Pacific asked the NZDF under the Official Information Act (OIA) for all correspondence sent and received regarding any discussion on recruiting from the Pacific, along with other related questions.

The OIA request was declined as the information did not exist.

“Defence Recruiting has not and is not considering deliberate recruiting action from across the Pacific,” the response from the NZDF said.

Australia Defence Association executive director Neil James said citizenship needed to be a prerequisite to Pacific recruitment.

Australian citizen
“Even a New Zealander serving in the Australian military has to become an Australian citizen,” James said.

“They can start off being an Australian resident, but they’ve got to be on the path to citizenship.

”They’ve got to be capable of getting permanent residency in Australia and citizenship.

“And then you’ve got to tackle the moral problem — it’s pretty hard to ask foreigners to fight for your country when your own people won’t do it.”

James said he thought people might be “jumping at hairs” at Rabuka’s comments.

Unlike Samoa’s acting prime minister, who has voiced concern over a brain drain, both Papua New Guinea and Fiji have made it clear they have people to spare.

Ross Thompson, a managing director at People In, the largest approved employer in the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme, said if the recruitment drive does go ahead, PNG nationals would return home with a wider skill set.

‘Brain gain, not drain’
“This would be a brain gain, rather than be a drain on PNG.”

He’s spoken with people in PNG who welcome the proposal.

”PNG, its population is over 10 million . . . We’re proposing from PNG around 1000 could be recruited every year.”

Minister Rabuka joked Fiji could plug Australia’s personnel hole on its own.

“If it’s open [to recruiting Fijians] . . . [we will offer] the whole lot . . . 5000,” he said, while noting that Fiji was able to easily fill its quota under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme.

“The villages are emptying out into the cities. What we would like to do is to reduce those who are ending up in settlements in the cities and not working, giving way to crime and becoming first victims to the sale of drugs and AIDS and HIV from frequently used or commonly used needles.”

Thompson was also a captain in the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers of the British Army and said he was proud to have served alongside Fijians.

Honour serving
“I had the honour to serve with a number of Fijians while deployed overseas; they’re fantastic soldiers.

“This is something that’s been going on since the Second World War and it’s a big part of the British Army.”

From a recruitment perspective, he said PNG and Fiji would be a good starting point before extending to any other Pacific nations.

”PNG has a strong history with the Australian Defence Force. There’s a number of programmes that are currently ongoing, on shared military exercises, there’s PNG officers that are serving in the ADF now, or on secondment to the ADF.

“So I think those two countries are definitely good to look up from a pilot perspective.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Australia’s plan to recruit from Papua New Guinea for its Defence Force raises “major ethical concerns”, according to the Australia Defence Association, while another expert thinks it is broadly a good idea.

The two nations are set to begin negotiating a new defence treaty that is expected to see Papua New Guineans join the Australian Defence Force (ADF).

Australia Defence Association executive director Neil James believes “it’s an idiot idea” if there is no pathway to citizenship for Papua New Guineans who serve in the ADF

“You can’t expect other people to defend your country if you’re not willing to do it and until this scheme actually addresses this in any detail, we’re not going to know whether it’s an idiot idea or it’s something that might be workable in the long run.”

However, an expert associate at the Australian National University’s National Security College, Jennifer Parker, believes it is a good idea.

“Australia having a closer relationship with Papua New Guinea through that cross pollination of people going and working in each other’s defence forces, that’s incredibly positive.”

Parker said recruiting from the Pacific has been an ongoing conversation, but the exact nature of what the recruitment might look like is unknown, including whether there is a pathway to citizenship or if there would be a separate PNG unit within the ADF.

Extreme scenario
When asked whether it was ethical for people from PNG to fight Australia’s wars, Parker said that would be an extreme scenario.

“We’re not talking about conscripting people from other countries or anything like that. We’re talking about offering the opportunity for people, if they choose to join,” she said.

“There are many defence forces around the world where people choose, people who are born in other countries, choose to join.”

However, James disagrees.

“Whether they’re volunteers or whether they’re conscripted, you’re still expecting foreigners to defend your society and with no link to that society.”

Both Parker and James brought up concerns surrounding brain drain.

James said in Timor-Leste, in the early 2000s, many New Zealanders in the army infantry who were serving alongside Australia joined the Australian Army, attracted by the higher pay, which was not in the interest of New Zealand or Australia in the long run.

Care needed
“You’ve got to be real careful that you don’t ruin the Papua New Guinea Defence Force by making it too easy for Papua New Guineans to serve in the Australian Defence Force.”

Parker said the policy needed to be crafted very clearly in conjunction with Papua New Guinea to make sure it strengthened the two nations relationship, not undermined it.

Australia aims to grow the number of ADF uniformed personnel to 80,000 by 2040. However, it is not on track to meet that target.

Parker said she did not think Australia was trying to fill the shortfall.

“There are a couple of challenges in the recruitment issues for the Australian Defence Force.

“But I don’t think the scoping of recruiting people from Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands, if it indeed goes ahead, is about addressing recruitment for the Australian Defence Force.

“I think it’s about increasing closer security ties between Papua New Guinea, the Pacific Islands, and Australia.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

This week Cambodia marks the 50th anniversary of the fall of Phnom Penh to the murderous Khmer Rouge, and Vietnam celebrates the fall of Saigon to North Vietnamese forces in April 1975.

They are being commemorated very differently; after all, there’s nothing to celebrate in Cambodia. Its capital Phnom Penh was emptied, and its people had to then endure the “killing fields” and the darkest years of its modern existence under Khmer Rouge rule.

Over the border in Vietnam, however, there will be modest celebrations for their victory against US (and Australian) forces at the end of this month.

Yet, this week’s news of Indonesia considering a Russian request to base aircraft at the Biak airbase in West Papua throws in stark relief a troubling question I have long asked — did Australia back the wrong war 63 years ago? These different areas — and histories — of Southeast Asia may seem disconnected, but allow me to draw some links.

Through the 1950s until the early 1960s, it was official Australian policy under the Menzies government to support The Netherlands as it prepared West Papua for independence, knowing its people were ethnically and religiously different from the rest of Indonesia.

They are a Christian Melanesian people who look east to Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Pacific, not west to Muslim Asia. Australia at the time was administering and beginning to prepare PNG for self-rule.

The Second World War had shown the importance of West Papua (then part of Dutch New Guinea) to Australian security, as it had been a base for Japanese air raids over northern Australia.

Japanese beeline to Sorong
Early in the war, Japanese forces made a beeline to Sorong on the Bird’s Head Peninsula of West Papua for its abundance of high-quality oil. Former Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam served in a RAAF unit briefly stationed in Merauke in West Papua.

By 1962, the US wanted Indonesia to annex West Papua as a way of splitting Chinese and Russian influence in the region, as well as getting at the biggest gold deposit on earth at the Grasberg mine, something which US company Freeport continues to mine, controversially, today.

Following the so-called Bunker Agreement signed in New York in 1962, The Netherlands reluctantly agreed to relinquish West Papua to Indonesia under US pressure. Australia, too, folded in line with US interests.

That would also be the year when Australia sent its first group of 30 military advisers to Vietnam. Instead of backing West Papuan nationhood, Australia joined the US in suppressing Vietnam’s.

As a result of US arm-twisting, Australia ceded its own strategic interests in allowing Indonesia to expand eastwards into Pacific territories by swallowing West Papua. Instead, Australians trooped off to fight the unwinnable wars of Indochina.

To me, it remains one of the great what-ifs of Australian strategic history — if Australia had held the line with the Dutch against US moves, then West Papua today would be free, the East Timor invasion of 1975 was unlikely to have ever happened and Australia might not have been dragged into the Vietnam War.

Instead, as Cambodia and Vietnam mark their anniversaries this month, Australia continues to be reminded of the potential threat Indonesian-controlled West Papua has posed to Australia and the Pacific since it gave way to US interests in 1962.

Russian space agency plans
Nor is this the first time Russia has deployed assets to West Papua. Last year, Russian media reported plans under way for the Russian space agency Roscosmos to help Indonesia build a space base on Biak island.

In 2017, RAAF Tindal was scrambled just before Christmas to monitor Russian Tu95 nuclear “Bear” bombers doing their first-ever sorties in the South Pacific, flying between Australia and Papua New Guinea. I wrote not long afterwards how Australia was becoming “caught in a pincer” between Indonesian and Russian interests on Indonesia’s side and Chinese moves coming through the Pacific on the other.

All because we have abandoned the West Papuans to endure their own “slow-motion genocide” under Indonesian rule. Church groups and NGOs estimate up to 500,000 Papuans have perished under 60 years of Indonesian military rule, while Jakarta refuses to allow international media and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit.

Alex Sobel, an MP in the UK Parliament, last week called on Indonesia to allow the UN High Commissioner to visit but it is exceedingly rare to hear any Australian MPs ask questions about our neighbour West Papua in the Australian Parliament.

Canberra continues to enhance security relations with Indonesia in a naive belief that the nation is our ally against an assertive China. This ignores Jakarta’s deepening relations with both Russia and China, and avoids any mention of ongoing atrocities in West Papua or the fact that jihadi groups are operating close to Australia’s border.

Indonesia’s militarisation of West Papua, jihadi infiltration and now the potential for Russia to use airbases or space bases on Biak should all be “red lines” for Australia, yet successive governments remain desperate not to criticise Indonesia.

Ignoring actual ‘hot war’
Australia’s national security establishment remains focused on grand global strategy and acquiring over-priced gear, while ignoring the only actual “hot war” in our region.

Our geography has not changed; the most important line of defence for Australia remains the islands of Melanesia to our north and the co-operation and friendship of its peoples.

Strong independence movements in West Papua, Bougainville and New Caledonia all materially affect Australian security but Canberra can always be relied on to defer to Indonesian, American and French interests in these places, rather than what is ultimately in Australian — and Pacific Islander — interests.

Australia needs to develop a defence policy centred on a “Melanesia First” strategy from Timor to Fiji, radiating outwards. Yet Australia keeps deferring to external interests, to our cost, as history continues to remind us.

Ben Bohane is a Vanuatu-based photojournalist and policy analyst who has reported across Asia and the Pacific for the past 36 years. His website is benbohane.com  This article was first published by The Sydney Morning Herald and is republished with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand’s international relations are under new management. And Winston Peters, the new foreign minister, is already setting a change agenda.

As expected, this includes a more pro-US positioning when it comes to the Pacific – where Peters will be picking up where he left off. Peters sought to align New Zealand more closely with the United States under his ‘Pacific Reset’ policy that he launched while serving as foreign minister under Jacinda Ardern’s Labour-New Zealand First coalition government from 2017-2020.

Peters is wasting no time in getting back on the foreign affairs horse.

Just three days after being sworn in as a minster, he gave his first speech on foreign policy at the US Business Summit in Auckland last week.

Peters was lavish in his praise for the US in his address, arguing that Washington had been ‘instrumental in the Pacific’s success’. But he noted that ‘there is more to do and not a moment to lose. We will not achieve our shared ambitions if we allow time to drift.’ Adding that ‘speed and intensity’ would be needed, Peters said ‘the good news is that New Zealand stands ready to play its part.’

The early timing of the speech itself is a sign that New Zealand’s new, yet very familiar foreign affairs minister is unlikely to wait around when it comes to taking major decisions.

It was an important, agenda-setting address.

There were strong hints that New Zealand’s new Government wants to move swiftly when it comes to Wellington’s potential involvement in in ‘Pillar II’ of the AUKUS defence pact that currently involves Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Peters’ disclosed in the Q&A to the speech that he had already talked to Judith Collins, the new defence minister, about New Zealand’s AUKUS stance.

The previous Labour government’s position was that AUKUS remained a hypothetical question while no formal offer existed for New Zealand to join ‘Pillar II’ of the high-level defence pact that currently involves Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

But while playing for time in an election year, the then Prime Minister Chris Hipkins signalled in July that New Zealand was at least ‘open to conversations’ about joining the pact in some form. And Labour’s expedited release of three major defence strategy documents in August, just prior to the election campaign, laid the groundwork for at least formal consideration of involvement in AUKUS.

The reports also paved the way for New Zealand to spend vastly more on its military and to take a more security-focused approach to the Pacific – recommendations that Peters will probably be keen to implement.

Wellington and Washington have been becoming closer since at least November 2010, when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited New Zealand’s capital to sign the ‘Wellington Declaration’. The relatively short agreement served to clear the air after decades of chequered bilateral relations stemming from the Fourth Labour Government’s introduction of a nuclear-free policy in the 1980s.

Going nuclear-free (which prevented visits from US warships) saw New Zealand cast out as a US ally. Washington formally suspended its obligations to Wellington under the ANZUS defence treaty in 1986. But nearly 40 years on, US-NZ relations are rapidly deepening, a trend that has been accelerated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Western concerns over China’s rise in the Indo-Pacific.

Since February 2022, New Zealand has imposed sanctions on Russia, joined US-led groupings such as Partners in the Blue Pacific (PBP) and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) and sent its Prime Ministers to successive NATO summits. And in May 2022, Jacinda Ardern visited Joe Biden at the White House, where a 3000-word joint statement called for ‘new resolve and closer cooperation’.

Meanwhile, a string of senior US officials have visited New Zealand just this year, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Kritenbrink and the White House’s Indo-Pacific coordinator, Kurt Campbell (who Joe Biden recently nominated to become his new Deputy Secretary of State).

If New Zealand does join AUKUS, it could spell the effective end of the country’s ‘independent foreign policy’. The ANZUS break-up of the late 1980s, the end of the Cold War and the acceleration of globalisation had allowed New Zealand to free itself from blocs. Wellington talked to anyone and everyone, building solid, trade-focused relations with China and others in the Global South – while not neglecting Western partners, including the United States.

Peters may think the current geopolitical environment justifies a new approach.

If he does, he should prepare for significant pushback. Helen Clark, who was Prime Minister during Winston Peters’ first term as foreign minister from 2005-8, posted on Friday that New Zealand was now ‘veering towards signing up’ to AUKUS despite bipartisan support over decades for the independent foreign policy stance.

This added to criticism from Clark earlier in the year, including in August, when she argued the new defence blueprint showed New Zealand was ‘abandoning its capacity to think for itself & instead is cutting & pasting from 5 Eyes’ partners’.

It should also be remembered that Winston Peters, while undoubtedly powerful and highly experienced, is only one Government minister. The views of Judith Collins – the defence minister – remain unknown in any detail, while the foreign policy positions of Christopher Luxon seem more centrist than radical.

Moreover, with the US now firmly focused on the war between Hamas and Israel – and its own presidential election year fast approaching – it is far from guaranteed that the hypothetical AUKUS question will turn into a concrete one for New Zealand anytime soon.

Moreover, Peters’ initial ministerial comments on New Zealand’s own position towards the Middle East suggest there is plenty of room for nuance. Calling the death toll in Gaza ‘horrific’, Peters welcomed a short-lived extension to the ceasefire on Friday, but called for all parties to ‘work urgently towards a long-term ceasefire’.

And in a radio interview earlier last week, Peters said ‘the ceasefire is not good enough, we’re going to have find a way forward through this and a peaceful solution – that’s what New Zealand and the Western world has got to put its focus on’.  Peters added ‘internationally we need to be talking to people across the political divide who are making sense on this matter’.

Talking to all sides and playing a small role in facilitating a sustainable political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would very much be in keeping with New Zealand’s independent foreign policy approach – and Winston Peters is already speaking out strongly about the war.

With Christopher Luxon passing up on the opportunity to attend COP28 in Dubai at the weekend, Winston Peters will have the chance to make the Government’s first ministerial trip to the Middle East to begin this dialogue. The Gulf states would be a natural starting point for these discussions.

Meanwhile, on Ukraine – the war that helped to speed up New Zealand’s alignment with the US in 2022 – Peters was open to the idea of New Zealand upgrading its military support to Ukraine by sending Kyiv light armoured vehicles (LAVs). While noting that the decision was not up to him alone, he added ‘if we can help we should be doing the best we can’.

Labour had denied a request from Ukraine to provide the LAVs in 2022 and of late had preferred to make financial contributions to Kyiv’s war effort – the most recent being a $NZ4.7 million package announced by Chris Hipkins in July at the NATO leaders’ summit in Lithuania.

It all adds up to a complex picture.

Winston Peters has no shortage of global issues to address.

And there could be some major changes ahead for New Zealand foreign policy.

*******

Geoffrey Miller is the Democracy Project’s geopolitical analyst and writes on current New Zealand foreign policy and related geopolitical issues. He has lived in Germany and the Middle East and is a learner of Arabic and Russian. He is currently working on a PhD at the University of Otago on New Zealand’s relations with the Gulf states.

Former Papua New Guinean prime minister Peter O’Neill says the controversial US-PNG Defence Cooperation Agreement threatens the country’s sovereignty.

He said the agreement negotiation was started in 2016 by his government but it was different in content from the one signed with the US.

O’Neill said the agreement encroached into sovereignty of Papua New Guinea, particularly Article 3 of the Agreement that relates to giving immunity to US military personnel.

He said this section stated that PNG was conceding its jurisdiction over to the visiting forces and it further stated that the US forces would have exclusive rights over criminal jurisdictions against US military personnel.

“Bear in mind the Australian ECP that was challenged by the Morobe Governor Luther Wenge and the Supreme Court nullified the agreement and this agreement is similar in nature.

“By when we are adopting in this Parliament, we are conceding our jurisdiction over to the US government so we just need to be careful about what we are saying.

“Additionally [the] agreement says that the US government has exclusive rights to exercise civil and administrative jurisdiction over the US personnel for all their acts while on duty.

Notification of arrest
“Any act done outside of duty will come under PNG jurisdiction but PNG authorities will immediately notify the US authorities, and properly transfer the personnel over to the US authorities, that the US authorities will be notified of the detention or arrest and that their properties will be inviolable.

“This is not in line with the provisions of our Constitution. That was tested by the Wenge challenge so I think Parliament and government need to take heed of this,” he said.

O’Neill said Paragraph 4 stated that US personnel would have the authority to impose discipline measures in the territory of PNG in accordance with US laws and regulations.

He said Manus, Jackson International Airport, Nazab Airport, Lae Port, Lombrum, and Momote Airport were areas the US would have “unlimited access” to and control over these facilities and areas.

“This is what we have agreed to and they will not pay one single toea and, according to Article 5 Paragraph 2, these properties will be given access without rental and charges to the US.

“And further on Article 6, US forces can position their equipment, their personnel, supplies and materials at any of these places.”

O’Neill said that when talking about “ownership” of infrastructure, nothing would be fixed to the ground and they would remove them and go away with them.

Exempt from all fees
He said the agreement, according to Article 9 paragraph 2, said that all the people that would come to PNG (US military personnel and contractors) would be exempted from all other immigration requirements — including payment of fees, taxes and duties — for entry or exiting the country.

He said that under Article 12 Paragraph 4, the US personnel would be exempted from paying taxes, including on income, salary and emoluments.

“So there will be no revenues from salary and wages tax and in Paragraph 5 [it] states that includes their contractors [that] they engaged [who] will be also exempted,” O’Neill said.

“I can’t see any agreement about training of our personnel, I can’t see any of our personnel being engaged with the US Army and I can’t see any specific investment in the infrastructure in the country.

“So what are we doing this agreement for?

“There is no specifics of what benefit is coming as it is not mentioned in the agreement.

“In the Ship Rider Agreement, we are giving almost exclusive rights to our waters. Therefore we need to be careful.

“I know our lawyers are having a look at it, and probably see [if] that it is in compliance with our Constitution, but I think there needs to be further clarity into this agreement,” he said.

Jeffrey Elapa is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

ANALYSIS: By Graeme Dobell

Australia’s polity grapples with the need to remake and rebuild our media voice in the South Pacific.

Domestic political battles and budget cuts have degraded the central role Australia played in islands journalism in the 20th century. Australia’s media voice in the South Pacific is at its weakest since Robert Menzies launched the shortwave radio service in 1939.

Now we must reimagine that role and empower that voice for the 21st century — a new model of talking with, not to, the South Pacific.

The policy failure that has so weakened our voice in the past decade had one deeply familiar element — recurring Oz amnesia about our interests, influence and values in the islands.

See the amnesia lament offered by a Canberra wise owl, Nick Warner, in his Financial Review op-ed about “Australia’s long Pacific stupor’”: “For two generations, since the end of World War II, Australia has squandered the chance to build deep and enduring relations with our neighbours in the South Pacific. And now it’s almost too late.”

This is a candid view from the heart of the Canberra system. You don’t get much more plugged in and powerful than Warner, who served as our top diplomat in Papua New Guinea, led the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, and then headed the Department of Defence, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service and the Office of National Assessments.

‘Stupor’ history framing
Warner’s “stupor” history frames his diagnosis of how China could clinch a security treaty with Solomon Islands:

“China is now seemingly entrenched in Solomons and will also be looking for other opportunities for a base elsewhere in the Pacific. But, for better or worse, Pacific politics seldom provide certainty. It’s not too late for Australia to shore up its place in the South Pacific and to protect its strategic interests.”

The need to “shore up our place” that Warner points to brings us back to a specific example of the stupor/amnesia — the degrading of our media voice in the islands and the role of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

In the South Pacific, Radio Australia and the international television service, ABC Australia, still do great work. But they have only a third of the budget they enjoyed a decade ago. Underline that stupor/amnesia fact: spending on the ABC as our Indo-Pacific media voice has been cut by two- thirds.

In 2014, the Abbott government hacked into the ABC by killing funding for international television, a sad, bad and dumb decision that also decimated Radio Australia.

Political payback in Canberra produced a gang-that-couldn’t-shoot-straight tragedy in the South Pacific. The Abbott aim was to scratch the anti-Aunty itch, but he badly wounded a major instrument of Australian foreign policy. The damage was compounded when the ABC turned off shortwave in 2017; here again was a domestic focus that damaged our regional interests.

For an account of all this, see ASPI’s “Hard news and free media as the sharp edge of Australia’s soft power“.

Aunty as the villain
In this long-running melodrama with elements of dark comedy, a valiant ABC is also a victim — with foes instead seeing Aunty as villain. What a long run the drama has had: three generations of Murdochs have warred with Aunty, starting in the 1930s with Keith Murdoch’s bitter fight against the creation of an independent ABC news service.

A re-run of the domestic battle devaluing our international voice happened with Labor’s election campaign launch last month of its Indo-Pacific broadcasting strategy, promising the ABC an extra $8 million a year for international programmes, plus a review of whether shortwave should be restored.

Labor’s idea is a good first step to restart Australia’s conversation with the islands, Jemima Garrett writes, but it “seems to be simply pushing out more ‘Australian content’ and crowding the regional airwaves with ‘Australian voices’. This is ‘soft power’ in a crude form – a one-way monologue when what is needed is a dialogue — a 21st century conversation in which Australia and Australians talk ‘with’ and not ‘to’ our Pacific neighbours.”

Preferring hard power to soft power, Prime Minister Scott Morrison called Labor’s policy “farcical”, saying that in the South Pacific, “I sent in the AFP [Australian Federal Police]. The Labor Party wants to send in the ABC, when it comes to their Pacific solution.”

Australia, of course, needs it all—the AFP and the Australian Defence Force, but also the ABC.

In this argument, I declare my love of Aunty. I worked as a journalist for Radio Australia and the ABC (1975–2008) and had the huge privilege of spending much time as a correspondent in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.

I did break the habit of a lifetime by putting the boot into Aunty when it switched off shortwave. The ABC had damaged its international role, set by parliamentary charter, in favour of its domestic responsibilities.

Soft-power thinking
Labor’s soft-power thinking is work in the minor key compared to the recent effort of parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.

In the final sitting week before the start of the election campaign, the committee issued its report “Strengthening Australia’s relationships in the Pacific”. The media recommendations were the most ambitious to come out of Canberra in many a day:

“The Committee notes the media environment within the Pacific is becoming more contested, and recognises Australia has a national interest in maintaining a visible and active media and broadcasting presence there. The Committee recommends the Australian Government considers steps necessary to expand Australia’s media footprint in the Pacific, including through:

– expanding the provision of Australian public and commercial television and digital content across the Pacific, noting existing efforts by the PacificAus TV initiative and Pacific Australia;

– reinvigorating Radio Australia, which is well regarded in the region, to boost its digital appeal; and

– consider[ing] governance arrangements for an Australian International Media Corporation to formulate and oversee the strategic direction of Australia’s international media presence in the Pacific.’

I own up to the idea for the creation of an Australian international media corporation, contained in my submission [No 21] to the inquiry. The committee’s findings and the idea of a new international body, to build on the ABC foundations, will be the next column in these musings on the Oz media voice in the South Pacific.

This article was first published in The Strategist journal of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). Graeme Dobell is ASPI’s journalist fellow and this is republished with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A View from Afar – In this week’s podcast, Paul G. Buchanan and Selwyn Manning discuss: Geopolitics and how the global order is changing fast after the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan. And overnight the US and Australia announced the nuclearisation of Australia’s submarine fleet.

In particular, Paul G. Buchanan and Selwyn Manning examine how the United States’ military arm is now pivoting to the Indo-Pacific region, as the People’s Republic of China pivots its priorities westward to a land-based Silk Road orientation joining Pakistan, Russia, Iran to develop interests in the post-US Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

It appears both the USA and China are moving to fill a perceived vacuum left by the other side.

While the PRC focusses its attention to Silk Road interests, it also is preoccupied inwardly. China has issues at home. As does the USA where its President Joe Biden is struggling to stabilise intrenched divisions in this post-Trump period.

But back to China, where its leader Xi Jinping has ordered strict screen-time controls over young new generation Chinese; huge regulatory reforms designed to control its wealth generating business sector; and a command for China’s wealthy classes to share and to shift toward a state-wide goal of common prosperity.

What does all of this mean for the states and economies of the Asia Pacific/Indo-Pacific region?

WE INVITE YOU TO PARTICIPATE WHILE WE ARE LIVE WITH COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS IN THE RECORDING OF THIS PODCAST:

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A View from Afar: Selwyn Manning and Paul Buchanan present this week’s podcast, where they analyse the Australia-China-New Zealand relationship. Has this reached a tipping-point? Also, Israel. How stable will this cobbled together coalition of anti-Netanyahu parties be?

But first, Australia, China, and New Zealand:

• What are the main take-away points from the New Zealand-Australia leaders bilateral meeting this week?
• AU PM Scott Morrison referenced ANZUS while NZ PM Jacinda Ardern spoke of NZ’s defence requirements as an independent consideration.
• So who is correct here? Does Australia and New Zealand’s re-stated commitment to being a Trans-Tasman family drag NZ into supporting any future Australian conflict?

And then there’s China’s foreign ministry response, that states: “The leaders of Australia and New Zealand, with irresponsible remarks on China’s internal affairs relating to Hong Kong and Xinjiang as well as the South China Sea issue, have made groundless accusations against China…”

• Does AU and NZ governments’ renewed sense of self-identity indicate a rebalancing of a regional and global order? And has the PRC’s dominating influence in AU and NZ politics reached its zenith?
• And does the PRC’s increased authoritarianism at home and abroad reflect leadership weaknesses rather than strength?

*** Israel.

In the last quarter of this episode, Buchanan and Manning will discuss the latest from the Middle East.

• Will a cobbled-together coalition of anti-Netanyahu politicians succeed in creating a new Israel Government? How stable will it be, and, what does this mean for Palestinians in the West Bank of Gaza?

WE INVITE YOU TO PARTICIPATE WHILE WE ARE LIVE WITH COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS IN THE RECORDING OF THIS PODCAST:

You can comment on this debate by clicking on one of these social media channels and interacting in the social media’s comment area. Here are the links:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
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The Papua New Guinea government has announced a ninth covid-19 case in the country, and this has since been confirmed by the Australian Defence Force as being an officer posted to Port Moresby.

This news came on Friday as the country entered the fourth day of operating under the new Pandemic Act recently passed by Parliament after the implementation and enforcement of the State of Emergency (SoE), reports the PNG Post-Courier.

The case, a 44-year-old military officer had been in the country since January and he has been isolated.

READ MORE: Al Jazeera coronavirus live updates – Global death toll passes 450,000

He reported symptoms of covid-19 on June 9, almost two weeks ago.

When the announcement was made, there were no indications of restrictions being imposed.

Eight previous cases have been seven Papua New Guineans and a foreign national mine worker who was repatriated to Australia.

All previous cases have recovered from covid-19.

ADF confirmation
The Australian Defence Force confirmed that an officer had tested positive for coronavirus in Papua New Guinea, reports ABC Radio Australia.

In a statement, the ADF said that the member had tested positive for covid-19 on June 18.

“The member self-isolated on June 5 after reporting cold and flu-like symptoms and has been following medical directions since that time,” the ADF statement said.

Australia’s High Commission has conducted contact tracing and provided this information to the PNG government, and ADF says the officer is following the directions of PNG authorities.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz