As we gather in the lead up to the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) Forum, it is important to extend our analysis and action to the Pacific islands, which are often ignored in discussions of regional trade liberalisation, structural adjustment and "economic reform."

Just as the peoples of Asia are suffering adverse economic, social and environmental effects from current APEC policies, these policies are also affecting the populations of small island developing states in the Pacific. APEC's decisions this weekend on trade, climate change and security will have significant effects on indigenous communities in the region, even though from the 16-member Pacific Islands Forum, only Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea are full members of APEC.[1]

The development priorities of island nations are under challenge from trade and security agendas being driven by Australia and New Zealand. In recent years, the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat has increasingly focussed on trade liberalisation, in compliance with World Trade Organisation (WTO) principles and trade rules. As with APEC, WTO policies affect the whole region, even though few island states are members - only Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands are full members of the WTO, while Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu have applied to join.[2]

The regional trade agenda is being played out through negotiations over free trade agreements (FTAs): the Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA); the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) and the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) currently being negotiated between the European Union and Pacific members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific grouping (EU-PACP). The adverse effects of these FTAs been critiqued by community groups such as the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG), the South Pacific and Oceanic Council of Trade Unions (SPOCTU) and activists like Jane Kelsey from Auckland University in New Zealand.[3]

As Professor Kelsey has noted: "Binding treaties for free trade and investment, more commonly referred to as  ¢â‚¬Ëœregional economic integration', close the policy space and regulatory options available to parliamentarians at a regional level, and the potential for national governments to adopt a divergent development agenda. Fiji, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, and potentially Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu, are also governed by World Trade Organisation rules that impose considerable additional constraints."

Key allies see Australia and New Zealand playing a central role in the Pacific. The 1997 white paper In the National Interest noted: "Australia's international standing, especially in East Asia and North America and Europe, is influenced by perceptions of how well Australia fulfils a leadership role in the islands region."[4]

But as the largest economic powers in the Pacific Islands Forum, Australia and New Zealand often clash with their island neighbours on key issues of security and development. The Australian government's failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, and ongoing refusal to set mandatory targets and timetables for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, symbolise the gap over issues of vital importance to small island developing states.

In the first five years after its election in 1996, the conservative government of Prime Minister John Howard was largely focussed on relations with Asia rather than the Pacific. Even today, Asia retains this central focus - China, India and Japan are crucial markets for Australian energy, minerals and agricultural products and the government's current push to expand the export of uranium. But the 1998 crisis in Solomon Islands, the 1999 intervention in Timor and the 2000 Fiji coup helped spark renewed engagement by the Australian government in the islands region - amplified by September 11, the 2002 Bali bombing and the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

The rhetoric of "failed" or "fragile" states in the Pacific is used to justify greater intervention in the region. Much of the debate has highlighted potential threats to Australia: the concern that Pacific Island nations will become a base for drug-smuggling, gun running or al-Qaida terror attacks on Australia. Politicians and commentators have spoken of the so-called "arc of instability" to the north and east of Australia and the potential "Balkanisation" of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.[5] As Australia and New Zealand deployed troops and police under the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) in July 2003, Prime Minister John Howard stressed: "What I want people to understand is that this is very much our patch."[6]

In Aotearoa / New Zealand, under the Labor government led by Prime Minister Helen Clark, there is a stronger orientation to the islands region, influenced by longstanding economic and security ties and the country's large Polynesian population. But while there are significant policy differences between the two countries on some issues, on core policies of trade and security there is a commonality of interest.

A central response from Australia and New Zealand to recent crises has been to support programs of "good governance" and "economic reform" in the region. There has also been a focus on increased regional integration, highlighted by the signing of a "Pacific Plan for Strengthening Regional Co-operation and Integration" in 2005.[7]

Corporations based in Australia and New Zealand have significant investments in the region, especially in finance and banking, tourism and mining. These deserve further research by APRN, but this paper will focus on state policies on trade, security and regional integration.

Trade liberalisation and Free Trade Agreements in the Pacific

From the early 1990s, the "good governance" and "trade liberalisation" agenda being promoted by multilateral agencies such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) was adopted enthusiastically by AusAID and NZAID. Around the Pacific, the ADB has financed reform programs in a process co-ordinated through donors' meetings and the Forum Economic Ministers' Meetings (FEMM). The FEMM Action Plan has been used to promote these policies to Pacific elites: liberalisation of trade and removal of tariffs; reduction of staffing in the public sector; flexible labour markets; corporatisation and privatisation of public utilities in transport, communications, energy, water and other sectors; introduction of "Value Added" consumption taxes; and removal of some controls on the finance sector.[8]

The ADB has long been advocating cuts in public sector employment throughout the Pacific, with structural reform programs leading to massive job losses in the late 1990s, ranging from 33 per cent (Marshall Islands) to 57 per cent (Cook Islands).[9] There has been significant debate over the social impacts of these cuts, as public sector employment is one of the few sources of income for people in small island states.

Key donor governments are also beginning to push for land reform or "land mobilisation" in the region, seeking changes to customary land tenure to promote growth, open the way for new resource or tourism projects and guarantee security of investment for overseas corporations.

The concept of regional trade integration was first discussed at the inaugural South Pacific Forum (now Pacific Islands Forum) in August 1971. But the need for an actual agreement was taken up more recently as part of the region's response to global trends, including preparation for the launch in December 1999 of a new round of WTO trade negotiations. In 1999, Forum Leaders endorsed in principle a free trade area among Forum members, noting that this would be implemented in stages over a period of up to 2009 for developing Forum Island Countries and 2011 for the Smaller Island States and Least Developed Countries.

In coming months, Pacific governments will make key decisions on regional trade agreements with Europe, Australia and New Zealand. There are three main strands to the trade negotiations involving Pacific Island states:

1. the Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA) covers trade in goods for the fourteen Forum island countries excluding Australia and New Zealand. PICTA was endorsed at the Forum Heads of Government meeting in Nauru in August 2001 and provides for the phased elimination of tariffs between island countries. The larger island economies should have abolished most tariffs by 2009 and the smaller ones by 2011. The phasing in of the agreement over this period is to be accompanied by strategies to help governments adopt alternative taxes and economic reform measures to compensate for the revenue they will lose from tariff reductions.[10]
2. the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) was also endorsed at the Forum meeting in Nauru in 2001. It sets out a broader umbrella agreement for all Forum members including Australia and New Zealand.
3. an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) is being negotiated between the European Union and Pacific members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific grouping (EU-ACP), under the Cotonou Agreement. A deal is scheduled to be finalised by December 2007, but recent disagreements have indicated that the agreement may not be forged by that date.

These three trade negotiations are interlinked. For example, PACER requires that Australia and New Zealand be treated at least on the same negotiating basis as the European Union. Hence, any provisions agreed to by Pacific Island nations under the EPA will have a flow on effect on trade agreements with their more immediate neighbours.

PICTA currently covers trade in goods, but the Forum leaders' meeting in 2005 agreed on the need for "integration of trades in services, including temporary movement of labour", although this is occurring without sufficient study of possible social, cultural and environmental impacts. There is growing debate over the economic and social impacts of labour mobility, and the potential to further exacerbate the current  ¢â‚¬Ëœbrain drain' from the Pacific which takes professionals to jobs offshore that offer better pay or career advancement, while low or semi-skilled workers, who also need cash, are left behind with limited employment opportunities.

Agreement on issues like labour mobility and services in the EPA have important implications for PACER, which is a more important agreement for Pacific island governments (given the much greater significance of Australia and New Zealand as sources of investment and markets for future employment of Pacific Islanders)

Labour mobility and labour rights

Globally, the amount of remittances sent home by overseas workers now doubles the level of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) to developing countries.[11] As part of the debate on trade, the issue of labour mobility is firmly on the regional agenda.

Pacific island governments see access to the labour markets of Australia and New Zealand as a crucial element in long-term job creation and development. Island community and government leaders have long argued that increased access to the Australian and New Zealand labour markets, especially for unskilled workers, should be a central component of regional economic integration. At the October 2005 Forum meeting which adopted the Pacific Plan, PNG Foreign Minister Sir Rabbie Namaliu stated:

"We believe that permitting increased labour mobility should be part of Australia's and New Zealand's commitment to implementing the Pacific Plan. It is one way to demonstrate to our leaders that they are serious about assisting island countries to develop their capacity and their economies."[12]

The World Bank has also been actively promoting increased labour mobility as an element of trade liberalisation in the region, as most Pacific island countries (PICs) are experiencing relatively low growth rates, at the same time they face significant population growth. A 2006 World Bank report states that the projected population growth between 2004 and 2029 will be 25.5 per cent in Fiji but much higher in other countries: Papua New Guinea (72.2 per cent), Solomon Islands (75.3 per cent), Vanuatu (89.7 per cent), Kiribati (72.7 per cent), Marshall Islands (82.4 per cent).[13]

In Australia, Prime Minister Howard and Foreign Minister Downer have rejected proposals for seasonal worker schemes. New Zealand's October 2006 decision to begin a Recognised Seasonal Employer policy - to open a new window for unskilled workers - won significant support from island governments, and there is ongoing pressure for Australia to follow suit by creating a seasonal labour program. However labour schemes in the Pacific will only work if the community sector and trade unions act to protect labour rights and address the social impacts of regional labour mobility.[14]

Pacific men are travelling overseas to take up employment opportunities, seeking the three E's (education, employment and enjoyment) but often ending up with the three D's & jobs that are dirty, difficult and dangerous (for example, there are hundreds of Fijians currently working in Iraq as security guards, truck drivers and labourers & more than twenty have been killed.[15]) In turn, women must deal with the consequences of the three Ms - mobile men with money & and the burden on those who remain at home and are responsible for family care and upkeep.

Around the region, women's labour is central to food security, health and care within the family. But Pacific women are facing many challenges to improving livelihoods and their lack of economic empowerment means that they may remain stuck in situations of violence. The focus on trade liberalisation and public sector cutbacks are doubly discriminatory against women - not only does the loss of jobs in the public sector affect women in particular (especially in areas like health and education which have a high proportion of female employees), but at the same time cutbacks to or privatisation of basic services place a disproportionate burden on women by impacting on their role in family life (childcare, care for the elderly and sick etc).

Changing patterns of international trade also impact women by affecting the few areas of private sector employment that provide significant numbers of job opportunities in the Pacific (e.g. garment factories and fish canning plants which have a high rate of female employees).[16] Today, there is increasing evidence of women moving offshore, seeking employment as health workers, domestic carers or in other trades. These women are often engaged in precarious work (part-time, casual or temporary jobs) that does not provide secure employment, union membership, or provident funds.

For the labour movements in Australia and New Zealand, there is a need for increased analysis and debate on these new trends in labour mobility (which will only be exacerbated as food security and land tenure in Asia and the Pacific are affected by global warming and extreme weather events).

Nauru & a case study on aid conditionality and public sector reform

For over a decade, Australia has used its overseas aid budget to promote "Policy Management and Reform" in the Pacific. To highlight the ways that aid funds are used to support policy change, it's worth looking at one recent example - the small Micronesian island state of Nauru.

Until independence in 1968, Nauru was administered by Australia under a UN Trusteeship, and the centre of the island was ravaged by phosphate mining.[17] The Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust was established in 1968 to invest royalties from this key export commodity. However Nauru's economy has been faltering since the early 1990s, due to the decline of the export price of phosphate, reduced production by the Nauru Phosphate Corporation and mismanagement of the country's invested assets.

In spite of Nauru's relative wealth during the 1970s and 1980s, the capital and assets managed through the Phosphate Royalties Trust (including property investments in Australia and the Pacific and the resources of Air Nauru) were squandered by successive governments. Business deals went bad and politicians agreed to a host of uninformed investment decisions.[18] The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has estimated that per capita income in the island state of just 10,000 people has dropped from US$2000 in 2004 to US$500 in 2005.[19]

Given the poor economic circumstances of its former trust territory, Australia has used the opportunity to intervene in Nauru's politics and economy. Since 2001, the Howard government has detained nearly 1700 asylum seekers and refugees in camps on Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, through a program known as the "Pacific Solution".[20] This policy of offshore processing of applications for refugee protection has been widely criticised for the human and financial costs. But less widely publicised are the ways that this scheme has been used to promote Australia's "economic reform" agenda.

As part of the Pacific Solution since 2001, Australia has increased its aid to Nauru fivefold in comparison to the 1990s. However the aid to Nauru is tied to strict conditions requiring reform of economic and governance structures. The Australia-Nauru Memorandum of Understanding governing the program states that ongoing aid is conditional on "implementation of the public sector reform strategy, resulting in implementation of an affordable scale of salary payments and design of a strategy for a substantial reduction in the size of the Nauru public service." The MOU states that "should Nauru fail to meet these reform commitments, then the level of development assistance provided by Australia may be reduced."[21]

Nauru has 12 state owned enterprises that employed some 2,000 people when the government led by President Ludwig Scotty came to power in October 2004 & the largest is the Nauru Phosphate Corporation with 1,500 staff, which is involved in mining, power, water and port management.

Australia has funded the ADB research into the future of the Phosphate Corporation and other public utilities.[22] The fourth MOU between Australia and Nauru sets out requirements that must be met, including a study on the privatisation of the RONTEL telecommunications authority and "agreement to implement the preferred option identified through the ADB Technical Assistance on reforming power and water services." This includes the "phased introduction of a broader user pays system for power services." (Schedule C, MOU).

The decision to promote private sector control over public utilities across the Pacific is controversial, especially in small states where there is limited opportunity for competition between providers. Privatisation will mean the shift from public monopoly to private monopoly. Like other Pacific Island Countries, Nauru does not have the regulatory capacity to control the behaviour of private sector operators - in most PICs, Ombudsman's offices and leadership codes are directed at public service and government operations, not the private sector, and there is limited capacity for the regulation provided by bodies like the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

The privatisation of public services will place significant burdens on the community, through loss of employment affecting wider family groups, and increased "user pays" policies hurting the poorest sector of the community. Even the ADB has acknowledged the difficulties of promoting private sector investment in these areas:

"Given the size of the economy of Nauru and the history of poor governance, potential private investors are likely to view the country as high risk. Options for privatising water and electricity services may be meagre, short term and require high returns to cover risk. The country also lacks the capacity to regulate and monitor a private sector monopoly."[23]

There are fundamental questions of accountability in this process - it's uncertain that public sector reform will achieve the stated aims of efficiency and ending corruption. In the Fiji context, academic Satendra Prasad has argued that "public sector reforms increase, rather than reduce the potential for corruption", due to the reduction of government oversight and the lack of corporate accountability through the use of "commercial in confidence" secrecy.[24]

Land and conflict

As well as reforms to public utilities, Australia and New Zealand are promoting new programs for land registration, land titling and land mobilisation:

• AusAID's Regional Aid Strategy for the Pacific 2004-2009 commits to "continue and expand programs to introduce modern land titling and improved land management systems." The strategy argues that "traditional communal systems of land ownership have led to a low level of security of tenure for investors which impacts on the development of the private sector and economic growth."[25]
• NZAID's draft Pacific Regional Strategy 2006-2015 says New Zealand will be "supporting appropriate land tenure reform."
• The European Union has included a call for greater foreign ownership of land in its requests to Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands under WTO GATS negotiations
• A Ministerial White Paper on Overseas Aid, launched by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer in April 2006, notes: "The aid program will encourage growth by improving the policy environment for private sector growth. Initiatives include a collaborative and demand-driven Pacific Land Mobilisation Program to explore the major land tenure constraints to growth in the region."[26]

However for indigenous peoples in the Pacific, land is at the centre of life: as a source of livelihood through subsistence activities; a source of power, authority and status through ownership; and above all as a source of security and identity. Around the region, there are significant variations in land tenure systems, but issues of land ownership, usage or degradation are at the heart of many conflicts in the Pacific. There are fundamental conflicts between land and resource owners, governments and transnational corporations over who controls the vast wealth of the Pacific. There are extensive reserves of timber and strategic metals such as copper, gold, nickel and cobalt throughout Melanesia. The island nations' 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) give sovereignty and control over fisheries and marine resources around every islet, reef and archipelago. The ocean seabed also harbours wealth such as polymetallic nodules and oil and gas reserves.

The pressure to rapidly develop domestic economies and the apparently ready returns to be gained from the exploitation of the region's natural resources has led Melanesian governments to base their development strategies on natural resources exploitation (timber, minerals, fisheries). However these policies often bring little real benefit to most communities and come with high environmental and social costs.

The ways in which natural resources are extracted can devastate ecosystems and destroy indigenous cultures and livelihoods, as was shown with major projects such as Ok Tedi (PNG), Panguna (Bougainville) and Freeport (West Papua). Clear fell logging and the disposal of mining tailings have caused serious environmental damage and local landowners have fought back against this despoliation. In turn, governments have relied on police and military forces to control these enclave resource developments, sparking a cycle of repression, conflict and further militarisation.

This tendency towards large scale natural resources developments has been exacerbated by a buoyant natural resources market, fed by growing demand from China. There is a need for further research on the role of Asian investment in the Pacific islands, as there are many sectors where there are significant capital investments (for example, the Malaysian logging firm Rimbunan Hijau in Papua New Guinea, China's new investments in the Ramu nickel project; growing tourism from China, Korea and South East Asia etc.)

Militarisation and Conflict

Media commentators often present conflicts in the Pacific as "ethnic" clashes & between Fijians and Indians, Kanaks and French settlers, Guadalcanal islanders and Malaitans & suggesting that conflict arises from the failure of island communities to adapt to modern Western models of democracy, governance and economic development. But debates over identity and ethnicity take place in a broader context of economic change, affected by the failure of a development model promoted by former colonial powers and overseas aid donors.

The major source of crisis in the islands is not "ethnic violence", but the militarisation of political and social disputes, arising from the interaction of local struggles for power and resources - particularly land, paid employment and services & and global economic trends that disadvantage small island developing states. With no credible external military threats, security doctrines have now turned inwards to deal with threats to the security of the State from resource and landowners, indigenous groups and movements for democratic rights.

Although internal repression has not reached the level of many other Asian states, a worrying feature of some Pacific island nations is the militarisation of their police forces and engagement of military forces in political life (such as the four coups d'etat in Fiji, or the PNGDF intervention in Bougainville during the 1990s). The blurring of roles and responsibilities between military and unarmed constabulary is a major concern. In Papua New Guinea, PNGDF military troops have been used in the policing of industrial disputes; clashes with land and resource owners over mineral and timber projects; and crackdowns on criminal raskol gangs and unemployed youths.[27]

Perceptions of conflict in neighbouring island states have driven new interventions by Australia and New Zealand. Australia, with New Zealand and PIC support, has intervened in Solomon Islands since July 2003 under the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), with the deployment of a large military and police contingent. Although this is supposed to be a regional initiative, Australia is the dominant player in RAMSI - by mid 2006, 152 out of 173 civilian advisors were Australians, while only five were Pacific islanders.[28]

With Australian operations in Solomon Islands, Timor and Papua New Guinea, there is an increased role for the Australian Federal Police (AFP) as well as the Australian Defence Force (ADF). Since 2004, AFP officers have been posted as police commissioners to Solomon Islands, Fiji and Nauru.[29] AFP officers are currently based in many Pacific capitals for liaison and training operations. The has been extended through the Law Enforcement Co-operation Program (LECP) which has supported the development of the Pacific Transnational Crime Co-ordination Centre in Fiji, with teams in transnational crime centres in Suva, Port Vila, Honiara, Port Moresby, Nuku'alofa, and Apia. The 2004 budget allocated $21.4 million over 4 years for the extension of this network throughout Melanesia.

In September 2004, the first of 200 Australian police were deployed to Papua New Guinea under the Extended Co-operation (ECP). However the size of the planned deployment has now been sharply reduced in scale after questions of immunity and jurisdiction were raised.[30]

Since October 2004, the AFP provision has seconded a Police Commissioner, a Protection Unit Advisor and a Senior Training Advisor to Nauru, under an agreement signed on 10 May 2004 with the previous government of President Rene Harris.[31] This agreement makes clear that Australian police are governed by Australian, rather than Nauruan law:

• Under Article 3, the head of the Assisting Australian Police shall be responsible to the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police (AFP).
• Under Article 4, "any tasks or orders carried out by Assisting Australian Police Personnel shall be consistent with the laws, procedures and standards of conduct applicable to them in Australia. Assisting Australian Police Personnel will be subject to Australian disciplinary laws and procedures."
• Under Article 5, Assisting Australian Police Personnel shall not be subject to "the jurisdiction of any Nauruan disciplinary authority, court or tribunal."
• Under Article 11.2 of the Agreement, the Australian Government is responsible for the salary, allowances, removal expenses, costs of transport to Nauru, and medical and dental expenses of Australian officials deployed to Nauru. Australia is also responsible for personnel accommodation and transport costs within Nauru.

The International Deployment Group (IDG) was formed in February 2004 to manage the deployment of Australian police overseas. In 2006, Prime Minister Howard announced the IDG will increase from 800 to 1200 people, including the creation of a 150-strong Operational Response Group (ORG) "who can deploy at short notice in response to law and order issues and undertake stabilisation operations."

In August 2006, the government announced that the AFP would receive additional funding of $493 million - the biggest funding boost since the agencies inception in 1979.

There are now a range of police, security and intelligence bodies working at inter- governmental level on regional security issues: the Oceania Customs Organisation (OCO), the South Pacific Chiefs of Police Conference (SPCPC), the Combined Law Agency Group (CLAG). There has been an extension of support for regional security programs (customs and immigration training, police training, diplomacy training, intelligence sharing etc). There is also the International Training Complex in Canberra, which is used for training of AFP and Pacific island police forces, with training in counter-terrorism, search and rescue, protection and forensics.

As part of the war on terror, there has been increased focus on intelligence and counter-terrorism operations. Between 2004 - 2008, $29.6 million was budgeted for the Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Co-operation "to strengthen regional co-operation and skills in combating terrorism." Officers from Pacific police forces, including Papua New Guinea and Fiji, have attended JCLEC courses.

The Australian Secret Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) got $1.2 million in the 2004-05 budget over four years to provide counter-terrorism training to Melanesian countries. The Attorney General's Department (AGO) Protective Security Co-ordination Centre has also been active in regional counter-terrorism training exercises, including a discussion exercise at the Pacific Islands Forum in November 2005 and the New Zealand Guardian CT exercise in May 2006. Visitors from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Indonesia observed Mercury 05, the largest counter-terrorism exercise ever conducted in Australia.

The Pacific Islands Forum has created a Forum Working Group on Counter-Terrorism, with New Zealand hosting Exercise Ready Pasifika in Auckland in April 2006. New Zealand's MFAT has also established a Pacific Security Fund, and in January 2007 announced a grant to the UN Terrorism Prevention Branch to assist with the development of counter-terrorism legislation in Pacific island countries.

An alternative vision for the Pacific

There has been growing concern about the social and cultural impacts arising from the neo-liberal orthodoxy that underlies these trade and security programs.[32] Churches and NGOs have established a Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG). A regional Gender and Trade Network is analysing the impact of WTO policies on Pacific women and young people, and feminist scholars and activists have been documenting the particular impacts of debt, trade and reform policies on women and poverty.[33]

Indigenous landowners have tried to resist the alienation of their land for tourism and mining projects.[34] Public sector employees, farmers groups and university students have resisted government cutbacks, while in Fiji and Papua New Guinea there have been protests against the privatisation of public utilities like water and electricity. Some protests have led to conflict with the authorities - in June 2001, several thousand students and their supporters marched to Parliament House, shouting "Rausim [kick out] World Bank, Rausim IMF, Rausim Australia." The aftermath of the protest led to a mobile police assault against the University of Papua New Guinea, with four shot dead and many more wounded.

But civil society groups and trade unions are relatively weak in the Pacific. They face pressure from governments (such as travel bans on NGO activists by the post-coup interim administration in Fiji) or co-option by donors who are funding civil society programs but refuse to allow advocacy and lobbying.[35] It's important that groups in Australia, New Zealand and Asia extend solidarity to the people of the islands. Trade unions, community groups, churches and other non-government organisations are slowly beginning to organise regionally to develop a coherent critique of the new free trade agenda, as shown by the statement from a 2006 regional meeting:

"As civil society groups meeting in Nadi, Fiji, we believe that trade agreements must have just and equitable development at their heart. Genuine sustainable development & including economic, social, cultural, gender and environmental dimensions - must be the central pillar of these agreements. We are concerned that the proposed EPA in its current form will not fulfil these development objectives ¢â‚¬Â¦.

"Particular provisions in the EPA negotiations which could cause dangers to Pacific societies include the local impacts of foreign fishing operations, unregulated tourism, lack of control and regulation of foreign companies, lack of government capacity to regulate in the public interest, threats to essential public services such as water and energy, and pressures for alienation and foreign control of our land, especially customary land ¢â‚¬Â¦.

"Strong regulatory frameworks should be in place before any liberalisation of investment and services. We are concerned that without such frameworks, there is potential for foreign investment in areas such as logging, mining and fisheries to create tensions and disputes within the community, which can lead to conflict and violence ¢â‚¬Â¦.

"There are areas which should not be liberalised as part of trade deals, including our land, ownership and use of customary land, cultural heritage, key public services, food security and farmers' livelihoods."[36]

New Zealand and Australia have long been linked through a policy of Closer Economic Relations (CER). Now the two regional powers are gearing up for the extension of CER into PACER, and the further integration of the Pacific islands.

But as corporations and governments meet at APEC, we must outline our vision for an alternative community.

APEC is a forum of economies, and regional bodies like the Pacific Islands Forum are a community of states. We must build a community of peoples. We must redraw the boundaries of our region, recognising the right to self-determination for colonised and indigenous peoples in Kanaky (New Caledonia), Bougainville, West Papua, French Polynesia and other Pacific territories. Our community must be one that respects peoples' rights, extends the rights of workers, farmers and indigenous communities, protects the environment, and offers hope for future generations.

Footnotes

[1] The Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat also has APEC observer status. The Forum links Australia, New Zealand and the independent island states of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Cook Islands, Tonga, Samoa, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Niue, and Nauru. Tokelau and Timor Leste have observer status with the Forum, while New Caledonia and French Polynesia are associate members. The other US and French colonies in the region are not Forum members.

[2] At a time when the WTO's Doha "development" round is in crisis, this accession process has been contested by civil society groups, due to the onerous conditions being placed on small island states. Oxfam: Proposed WTO Accession: Key issues for Tonga (Oxfam New Zealand, November 2005) http://www.oxfam.org.nz/imgs/pdf/wto%20key%20issues%20for%20tonga.pdf.
For discussion see Jane Kelsey: "Acceding Countries As Pawns In A Power Play: A Case Study Of The Pacific Islands", Focus on the Global South, August 23, 2004, http://www.focusweb.org/content/view/442/36/

[3] Jane Kelsey: A People's Guide to PACER – The Implications for the Pacific Islands of the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) (PANG, Suva, 2004); Jane Kelsey: A People's Guide To The Pacific's Economic Partnership Agreement, Negotiations between the Pacific Islands and the European Union pursuant to the Cotonou Agreement 2000 (World Council of Churches Office in the Pacific, Suva, 2005). http://www.arena.org.nz/REPA.pdf

[4] Commonwealth White Paper: In the National Interest & Australia's Foreign and trade policy (Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 1997).

[5] See for example Greg Sheridan: "Breaking up brings no benefit: we are witnessing the Balkanisation of the region" The Australian, 9 June 2000 and "Danger on the doorstep", Weekend Australian, 24-25 March 2001.

[6] "PM & we're responsible for the region" The Age 26 July 2003.

[7] For details of the Pacific Plan and its implementation, see the Plan website at http://www.pacificplan.org/tiki-page.php?pageName=HomePage

[8] See Forum Economic Ministers' Meeting (FEMM) Action Plan adopted by the Pacific Islands Forum, Nauru 2001

[9] ADB: Reforms in the Pacific & an assessment of the ADB's assistance reform programs in the Pacific, Pacific Studies series No.17 (ADB, Manila, 1999).

[10] PICTA came into force on 13 April 2003 but only four countries are already trading under the FTA (Cook Islands, Fiji, Samoa and Niue). Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu are in the process of completing their domestic requirements prior to announcing trading under PICTA. FSM and Tuvalu are yet to ratify PICTA while Palau and the Republic of Marshall Islands are yet to make a decision on their accession to PICTA. The French territory of New Caledonia is investigating joining the regional agreement.

[11] In 2005, remittances to developing countries amounted to US$167 billion, while ODA was only US$79 billion.

[12] Australian Financial Review, 26 October 2005, p8

[13] M. Luthria et al: At Home and Away & expanding job opportunities for Pacific Islanders through labour mobility (World Bank, 2006), p36.

[14] For discussion, see Nic Maclellan and Peter Mares: "Remittances and Labour Mobility in the Pacific", Working Paper, Pacific Labour and Australian Horticulture project, Swinburne University, April 2006 [http://www.sisr.net/cag/projects/pacific.htm]

[15] Nic Maclellan: "From Fiji to Fallujah - the war in Iraq and the privatisation of Pacific security", Pacific Journalism Review, Vol.12, No.2, September 2006.

[16] See The Fiji Garment Industry, http://www.oxfam.org.nz/resources/Oxfam%20Fiji%20Garment%20Study.pdf

[17] For discussion of the British Phosphate Corporation and Australia's role in the mining of Nauru, see C.G. Weeramantry: Nauru - Environmental Damage Under International Trusteeship (Oxford University Press, Australia, 1992).

[18] For details of the loss of key Nauru's assets, see the ABC TV Four Corners' program "Island Raiders", broadcast 27 September 2004 http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2004/s1206183.htm

[19] Asian Development Bank: Technical Assistance to Nauru for the reform of the Nauru Phosphate Corporation (finance by the Government of Australia), May 2005 TAR: Nau 39072

[20] For details, see N. Maclellan, et al: A Price Too High & the cost of Australia's approach to asylum seekers (Oxfam Australia and A Just Australia, August 2007).

[21] Memorandum of Understanding between Australia and Nauru for Australian development assistance to Nauru and cooperation in the management of asylum seekers 2005-2007, Schedule C

[22] See for example Asian Development Bank: Technical Assistance to Nauru for the reform of the Nauru Phosphate Corporation (finance by the Government of Australia), May 2005 TAR: Nau 39072

[23] Asian Development Bank: Technical Assistance to Nauru for the reform of the Nauru Phosphate Corporation (finance by the Government of Australia), May 2005 TAR: Nau 39072, p2.

[24] Satendra Prasad, University of the South Pacific: "Tensions between economic reform and good governance in Fiji", Lecture at SSGM workshop on corruption and accountability in the Pacific. http://rspas.anu.edu.au/papers/melanesia/conference_papers/1998/prasad.html

[25] AusAID: Pacific Regional Aid Strategy 2004-2009 (AusAID, Canberra, 2003).

[26] AusAID: Australian Aid: Promoting Growth and Stability - A White Paper on the Australian Government's Overseas Aid Program (AusAID, Canberra, April 2006). p.xii and p.37.

[27] Sinclair Dinnen: Law and Order in a Weak State & crime and politics in Papua New Guinea (Crawford House, Adelaide, 2001); Glenn Banks: "Razor wire and riots & violence and the mining industry in Papua New Guinea" in Sinclair Dinnen and Allison Ley (eds.): Reflections on Violence in Melanesia (Federation Press, Leichhardt, 2000).

[28] Oxfam: Bridging the gap between state and society & new directions for Solomon Islands (Oxfam Australia and Oxfam New Zealand, July 2006).

[29] The AFP officers who served as Police Commissioner in Fiji (Andrew Hughes) and Solomon Islands (Shane Castles) both lost their posts due to political disputes between Australia and the host government in late 2006. Another Federal Police officer is continuing as Commissioner in Nauru.

[30] Morobe Governor Luther Wenge won a Supreme Court victory over the constitutionality of the ECP. A full bench of the PNG Supreme Court bench ruled that several provisions of the ECP Act were invalid under the PNG Constitution, and that certain provisions undermined the authority of PNG's Police Commissioner and Public Prosecutor, and the rights of PNG citizens to redress under the law.

[31] Agreement between Australia and Nauru concerning additional police and other assistance to Nauru (Melbourne, 10 May 2004) [2004] ATNIA 14

[32] ECREA: Regional consultation on Globalisation, trade, investment and debt, Nadave, Fiji, 30 April & 4 May 2001 (ECREA, Suva, 2001).

[33] See for example Clare Slatter: "Banking on the growth model? The World Bank and market policies in the Pacific" in  ¢â‚¬ËœAtu Emberson-Bain (ed): Sustainable development or malignant growth - perspectives of Pacific island women (Marama, Suva, 1994). Clare Slatter: "Economic agendas, internal impacts and growing dissent & economic restructuring in the Pacific", and Vaine Wichman: "A general discussion on the social impacts of the economic reform program in the Cook Islands", both in "Making a difference & women and globalisation", Tok Blong Pasifik, Vol.53, No.2.

[34] For a study of land and Vanuatu's tourist industry, The Con/Dominium of Vanuatu? (Oxfam New Zealand, 2006) http://www.oxfam.org.nz/imgs/whatwedo/mtf/onz_vantourism_final.pdf

[35] For example, the Australian government cut AusAID funding to Timorese NGOs that signed a petition in 2004 calling for an equitable sharing of oil and gas revenues from the Timor Gap between the two countries. For details, see Markus Mannheim: "Diplomat claims he was told to lie" Canberra Times, 19 May 2007.

[36] Final Communiq ©, Pacific civil society meeting on trade negotiations, Nadi, Fiji, 13-16 June 2006.

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