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

The Trump administration’s decision to eliminate more than 90 percent of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) funding means “nothing’s safe right now,” a regional political analyst says.

President Donald Trump’s government has said it is slashing about US$60 billion in overall US development and humanitarian assistance around the world to further its America First policy.

Last September, the former Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said that Washington had “listened carefully” to Pacific Island nations and was making efforts to boost its diplomatic footprint in the region.

Campbell had announced that the US contributed US$25 million to the Pacific-owned and led Pacific Resilience Facility — a fund endorsed by leaders to make it easier for Forum members to access climate financing for adaptation, disaster preparedness and early disaster response projects.

However, Trump’s move has been said to have implications for the Pacific, which is one of the most aid-dependent regions in the world.

Research fellow at the Australian National University’s Development Policy Centre Dr Terence Wood told RNZ Pacific Waves that, in the Pacific, the biggest impacts of the aid cut are likley to be felt by the three island nations in a Compact of Free Association (COFA) with the US.

He said that while the compact “is safe” for three COFA states – Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, and Palau – “these are unprecedented times”.

“It would be unprecedented if the US just tore them up. But then again, the United States is showing very little regard for agreements that it has entered into in the past, so I would say that nothing’s safe right now.”

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

Dr Terence Wood speaking to RNZ Pacific Waves.   Video: RNZ Pacific

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Papua New Guinea government wants to have everyone on their National Identity (NID) card system by the country’s 50th anniversary on 16 September 2025.

While the government has been struggling to set up the NID programme for more than 10 years, in January the Prime Minister, James Marape, announced they aimed to have 100 percent of Papua New Guineans signed up by September 16.

However, an academic with the University of PNG, working in conjunction with the Australian National University, Andrew Anton Mako, said there was no chance the government could achieve this goal.

Anton Mako spoke with RNZ Pacific senior journalist Don Wiseman:

ANDREW ANTON MAKO: The NID programme was established in November 2014, so it’s 10 years now. I wouldn’t know the mechanics of the delay, why it has taken this long for the project to not deliver on the outcomes, but I can say a lot of money has been invested into the programme.

By the end of this year, the national government would have spent about 500 million kina (over NZ$211 million). That’s a lot of money to be spent on a particular project, and then it would have only registered about 30 to 40 percent of the total population. So there’s a serious issue there. The project has failed to deliver.

DON WISEMAN: Come back to that in a moment. But why does the government think that a national ID card is so important?

AAM: It’s got some usefulness to achieve. If it was well established and well implemented, it would address a number of issues. For example, on doing business and a form of identity that will help people to do business, to apply for jobs in Papua New Guinea or elsewhere, and all that. I believe it has got merit towards it, but I think just that it has not been implemented properly.

DW: Does the population like the idea?

AAM: I think generally when it started, people were on board. But when it got delayed, you see a lot of people venting frustration on the NID Facebook page. I think [it’s] popularity has actually fallen over the years.

DW: It’s money that could go into a whole lot of other, perhaps, more important things?

AAM: Exactly, there’s pressing issues for the country, in terms of law and order, health and education. Those important sectors have actually fallen over the years. So that 500 million kina would have been better spent.

DW: So now the government wants the entire country within this system by September 16, and they’re not going to get anywhere near it. They must have realised they wouldn’t get anywhere near it when the Prime Minister made that statement. Surely?

AAM: It’s not possible. The numbers do not add up. They’ve spent more than 460 million kina over the last 10 years or so, and they’ve only registered 36 percent of the total — 3.3 million people. And then of the 3.3 million people, they’ve only issued an ID card to about 30 to 40 perCent of them . . .

DW: 30 to 40 percent of those who have already signed up. So it’s what, 10 percent of the country?

AAM: That’s right, about 1.2 million people have been issued an ID card, including a duplicate card. It is not possible to register the entire country, the rest of the country, in just six, seven or eight months.

DW: It’s not the first time that the government has come out with what is effectively like a wish list without fully backing it, financially?

AAM: That’s right. The ambitions that the government and the Prime Minister, their intentions are good, but there is no effective strategy how to get there.

The resources that are needed to be allocated. It’s just not possible to realise the the end results. For example, the Prime Minister and his government promised that by this year, we would stop importing rice. That was a promise that was made in 2019, so the thing is that the government has not clearly laid out a plan as to how the country will realise that outcome by this year.

If you are going to promise something, then you have to deliver on it. You have to deliver on the ambitions. Then you have to set up a proper game plan and proper indicators and things like this.

I think that’s the issue, that you have promised something [and] you must deliver. But you must chart out a proper pathway to deliver that.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The media sector in the Pacific should be supported with an enabling environment to report “without fear” in the face of ongoing challenges brought about since the covid-19 pandemic, according to a new study.

The paper, titled Pacific media freedom since the pandemic, is published in the latest edition of the Pacific Journalism Review.

As part of the research, the authors hosted an online panel discussion with senior Pacific journalists and news editors from Palau, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Fiji in December 2021 and held a follow-up discussion with those journalists in March 2023.

Researchers from the Australian National University and the University of the South Pacific said there was a need for “ongoing vigilance with regards to media freedom in the Pacific Island countries” post-pandemic.

ANU’s Dr Amanda Watson and USP’s Dr Shailendra Singh, who are the paper’s co-authors, said covid-19 exposed the difficulties faced by media organisations and journalists in the region.

“Covid-19 has been a stark reminder about the link between media freedom and the financial viability of media organisations”, they said, adding “especially in the Pacific, where the advertising markets are relatively small and profit margins correspondingly limited”.

They said media companies “faced challenges during the height of the pandemic due to revenue downturns”.

‘Strives for impartial reporting’
However, the industry “continues to strive to conduct impartial reporting, for the benefit of citizens and the societies in which they live,” they said.

“Media professionals and businesses face various challenges and thus it is important to support their work and ensure that they are able to operate without fear of violence or any other forms of reprisal,” the researchers concluded.

A media study from 2021 found that Pacific journalists were among the youngest, most inexperienced and least qualified in the world.

Dr Singh has told RNZ Pacific in the past that capacity building of local journalists must become a priority for mainstream media to improve its standards and Pacific governments must also play a key role in investing in the industry’s development.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Timor-Leste independence hero Xanana Gusmao has won the parliamentary election, but the country’s first president may contest the count after his party fell short of an outright majority.

The result of Sunday’s election paves the way for a return to power for the 76-year-old, Timor-Leste’s first president, if he can form a coalition.

Fellow independence figure Dr Mari Alkatiri’s incumbent Fretilin party, formerly the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, won only 25.7 percent, according to the Electoral Commission.

Dr Andrea Fahey from the Australian National University said the results signalled a desire for political change from the people of Timor-Leste.

“The management of the covid pandemic and the fact the government closed down, it was a big punishment vote on the government for that,” she said.

“For Dr Alkatiri, maybe it’s time to pass the torch.”

If there is no outright winner from the election, the constitution gives the party with the most votes the opportunity to form a coalition.

The next government will need to decide on allowing the development of the Greater Sunrise project, which aims to tap trillions of cubic metres of natural gas.

Dr Fahey said Gusmao was expected to move forward with engaging the Australian government on the project.

There are also growing calls for Timor-Leste to join the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), which could owe to its cultural connections to the region.

“It’s kind of the bridge between both regions,” Dr Fahey said.

“Timor-Leste would be a positive addition to the Pacific Forum, and could bring a loud voice [since] Timor has a strong international presence.”

Republished from the ABC Pacific Beat with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Brij Vilash Lal, banished from the land of his birth by the Bainimarama government in November 2009 for championing democracy and barred from entering Fiji upon the orders of the Prime Minister, has died in Brisbane, 12 years after the draconian act of a heartless government.

The sudden and shocking death of Professor Brij Lal at the age of 69 should create a moment for all Fiji citizens to pause and reflect, even while we are distracted by our many personal challenges brought on by the pandemic and our other deep national problems.

Professor Lal was a giant on the international academic stage. But for the last 12 years of his life he was banned by the Bainimarama and FijiFirst governments from returning to the place of his birth.

Some of Fiji’s most outstanding people, with international reputations, are sporting figures, business people or international diplomats. But among historians and scholars, Professor Lal stood tall around the world.

From a poor farming family in Tabia, Vanua Levu, Professor Lal rose to be an emeritus professor of Pacific and Asian history at the Australian National University, one of the world’s highest-ranked places of learning.

He was an acknowledged expert on the Indian diaspora around the world. He was recognised as the pre-eminent historian on the history of indenture and Girmitiya.

Among his many books, he wrote authoritative biographies on A D Patel and Jai Ram Reddy, two of Fiji’s most influential political leaders.

1997 Fiji Constitution architect
Professor Lal will be remembered as one of the architects of the 1997 Fiji Constitution. His membership of the three-man Reeves Commission, with former Parliamentary Speaker Tomasi Vakatora, ushered in multiparty government and a national governing law strongly protective of good governance, human rights and multiracialism.

It is this constitution that current Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, as Army Commander, twice abrogated in May 2000, only for it to be restored by the Fiji Court of Appeal in March 2001, and again in April 2009, bringing in a new legal order.

However, Professor Lal may be best remembered in Fiji as the target of a small-minded two-man government of Voreqe Bainimarama and Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, which banned him and his wife Dr Padma Lal indefinitely from returning to Fiji.

This was because Professor Lal spoke up for democracy and rule of law at a time the Bainimarama government did not want to be criticised. Professor Lal remained excluded from Fiji to the day of his death because Fiji’s insecure political leaders could never say they were wrong.

And they repeatedly refused to reconsider their reprehensible act despite resumption of parliamentary democracy 7 years ago in October 2014.

Pettiness of Fiji leaders
The pettiness of Fiji’s leaders will not take away Professor Lal’s towering achievements and scholarship, for which he will one day be fully recognised in the place he was born. All of us in Fiji are the poorer for his irreplaceable loss.

The opposition National Federation Party will be organising a condolence gathering to remember Professor Lal and details on this will be announced soon.

The party offers its deepest sympathies and heartfelt condolences to Dr Padma Narsey Lal, children Yogi and Niraj and the Lal and Narsey families in Fiji and abroad.

“I do not know whether I will ever be able to understand the mystery that is Fiji, and whether I will ever be allowed to return to again embrace the land of my birth. But I know one unalterable truth whatever happens, the green undulating hills of Tabia will always be a special place for me. Home is where the heart is.”

– Professor Brij Vilash Lal, October 2020

Professor Biman Prasad is leader of the Fiji opposition National Federation Party (NFP) and a former colleague of Professor Brij Lal at the University of the South Pacific.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

An Australian criminologist who deemed the New Zealand shopping mall attacker “low risk” in 2018 believes there were missed opportunities to steer him away from violent extremism.

Ahamed Samsudeen was described as a high risk to the community when he was sentenced in July for possessing Islamic State propaganda — with the means and motivation to commit violent acts.

However, three years earlier, Australian National University criminologist Dr Clarke Jones told the High Court Ahamed did not appear to be violent and did not fit the profile of a young Muslim person who had been radicalised.

At the time Dr Jones suggested “a carefully designed, culturally sensitive and closely supervised intervention programme in the Auckland Muslim community”.

Now, he said, it was unclear how much rehabilitation actually took place.

“People can change, sometimes quickly, sometimes over a longer period of time. But back in 2018, we didn’t think that he was violent,” he explained.

At the time Samsudeen appeared to feel marginalised and disconnected, Dr Clarke said, like he couldn’t “get his foot up” in society.

‘Rigid life views’
“Some of the material he was reading was of concern and he had fairly rigid views around religion and around life in general. But he’d also had some experience in difficult times and was, I would argue, deeply depressed.”

On Friday, Samsudeen walked into a Countdown supermarket in LynnMall, picked up a knife and stabbed at least shoppers, leaving some of them critically injured, before he was shot dead by tactical force police tailing him.

In the High Court in July, Samsudeen had admitted two charges of using a document for pecuniary advantage, two charges of knowingly distributing restricted material and one charge of failing to assist the police in their exercise of a search power.

Another expert was consulted — forensic psychiatrist Dr Jeremy Skipworth — who echoed Dr Clarke’ concerns.

“Dr Skipworth said that any form of home detention would tend to further exacerbate your mental health concerns, and that your successful community reintegration is likely to be assisted by cornerstones, such as stable housing, personal support, appropriate employment and medical care,” reads Justice Wylie’s sentencing notes.

Justice Wylie imposed a sentence of supervision, with special conditions, including a psychological assessment and a rehabilitation programme with a service called Just Community.

Dr Jones said he really would like to know more about what support Samsudeen was actually given in Corrections.

‘Was he responsive?’
“Was he responsive to that treatment, if he was receiving any treatment at all, or was the focus more on on the security side and the monitoring and the surveillance?”

Asked if the terrorist had enough support to “get better”, Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson said there had been attempts to change the man’s mind — and none of them were successful.

But in a family statement released after the attack, Samsudeen’s brother said he sometimes listened.

“He would hang up the phone on us when we told him to forget about all of the issues he was obsessed with. Then he would call us back again himself when he realised he was wrong.

“Aathil was wrong again [on Friday]. Of course we feel very sad that he could not be saved. The prisons and the situation was hard on him and he did not have any support. He told us he was assaulted there.”

Dr Clarke said, “I would say that we haven’t got the balance right. In this case there was too much focus on the counter-terrorism or counter violent extremism narrative, rather than actually getting to the core of what was wrong with Mr Samsudeen.”

“We can always improve the way we do things to have have greater preventative sort of mechanisms within government, police and communities.”

Dr Clarke said what happened in LynnMall was a tragedy and a terrible situation.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz