Dr Roman Grynberg




Two important developments have occurred in the last few months in trade in the Pacific that will change the future of the region.
Probably the worst and most damaging has been the refusal by the Fiji Government to grant a work permit exemption to my successor at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Chakriya Bowman, as Director of Economic Governance i.e. trade and economic policy.
Bowman is part of the new Australian management team that is pointing the Forum in the direction that will make sure that Australia and New Zealand’s interests as key members and financiers of the Forum are front and centre of its concerns and actions.
While many in the region may be uncomfortable with the direction the Forum’s executive may be taking the Forum Secretariat as an unashamed instrument of Australian and New Zealand policy in the islands, the decision by Fiji to block its work simply adds fuel to those who want to remove the Forum Secretariat from Fiji.
This would be a terrible development for Fiji and certainly one that would greatly benefit a country like Samoa, which would be the most likely alternative venue.
For whatever the Forum Secretariat sins may be, its place in Fiji, along with large parts of the work programme of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and other international organisations  are part of what makes Fiji the centre of the Pacific.
Centre of the Pacific: If the Forum Secretariat is moved away from Fiji, it would be a great loss to not only the many fine Fijian support staff who work there but to Fiji’s very self-definition as the centre of the Pacific.
But 20 years of coups and political instability have undermined Fiji’s central place and Commander Bainimarama is falling right into Canberra’s lap by blocking the head of trade from working in Fiji. 
In any case, she is doing her job of delivering the islands on a silver platter to Australia and New Zealand by auto-pilot from Sydney and the Fiji authorities can do nothing to stop her except by further harming Fiji’s long-term interests by facilitating the move to Samoa.
A counter point to the very sad saga of Bowman’s visa has been the appointment of Professor Chris Noonan as Pacific Islands Chief Trade Advisor.
At this point in my ‘career’, it is probably the ‘baccio della morte’ (kiss of death) for me to speak well of anyone professionally. But for once I can say unreservedly that our trade ministers have chosen very wisely in selecting Professor Noonan as the region’s chief trade advisor.
There will be lawyers at the University of Auckland where Dr Noonan teaches who will disagree, but given his experience, there is simply no-one better for so impossible a job.
I have seen him in action in negotiations with the Europeans in the EPA negotiations. He is an extremely able negotiator who has a very detailed knowledge of trade issues.
Many of the European negotiators hated him because he simply knew their area of expertise better than they did and they knew it.
Like my grade six teacher, Noonan also possesses that uniquely Anglo-Saxon way of looking down at those who clearly do not know their subject as well as he does.
It doesn’t work in the islands but this is a skill he will need when he has to help our officials and ministers negotiate with his own country men.
Australian and New Zealand negotiators are very skilful though they have had little to show that has benefitted Australia from their previous Free Trade Area Agreements.
One thing that Pacific islanders can be sure of is that Professor Noonan is a man that will go to the wall for them. And indeed based on past experience, the wall will be a very good and safe place for Noonan to stand because if his back is not against the wall, he will almost certainly find a knife or two in it.
Trade negotiations where one is representing 14 countries are incredibly treacherous and just as the trade ministers and leaders will say one thing to leaders one day and then do the opposite the next, they will show no compunction about stabbing other islands ministers in the back if it is in their interest, and back stabbing a Kiwi-academic cum-trade negotiator in the process will be considered only minor collateral damage.
The problem that Dr Noonan will face is the mandate for negotiations. First, no-one can be sure the islands will negotiate as a group.
Their past experience has not been good and they may choose to negotiate individually or as sub-regions.
If they do negotiate individually, a route which both past experience and their natural ministerial hubris will steer them towards, it will make Australia’s job much easier. Rather than hang together, the ministers will likely be hung individually. 
Second, they will have to agree to the scope of the negotiations. When we started the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA)  negotiations with Europe, we started with a very broad mandate that we thought would generate benefits for all 14 islands states.
Negotiations: The Europeans never accepted so broad a range of negotiating issues and as a result, the negotiations did not make progress. But, on the other hand, simple trade issues will not benefit a country like Niue which has almost no trade.
Eventually before the negotiations with Australia and New Zealand commence, islands officials and ministers will meet to give the negotiating group a mandate if they want to work together. If it is too broad, Australia and New Zealand will not accept it because it will cover development and aid issues that they will consider unacceptable.
If it just covers narrow trade issues, it will be of interest to the ‘big six’—the Melanesians plus Tonga and Samoa. Will this pass the Niue test? i.e. will it benefit the smallest countries in the Forum? The answer is obvious!
Based on past experience, it will almost certainly be the instinct of Professor  Noonan and the islands officials to not go for a broad negotiating mandate, sticking to narrow trade issues and avoiding the mistakes of the EPA negotiations.
This will make their jobs much, much easier but much less relevant to the peoples of the South Pacific. If they are clever, they will seek a broad negotiating mandate and then have Australia and New Zealand play bad boy by refusing. That way, they will have the ultimate negotiator cop-out—‘I tried my best for you but the other side wouldn’t wear it’.
In the end though, Professor  Noonan can only be as strong as the people he is representing. The trade ministers could have chosen Jesus, Moses and Mohammed to represent them and it would not help if they do not actually stick together and stick to their mandate as they so miserably failed to do during the EPA negotiations with Europe.
But Professor Noonan knows this—the question of why anyone would want to twice is for another day.

• Dr Roman Grynberg was the Director of Economic Governance at the Forum Secretariat until April 2009. His contract was not renewed for obvious reasons. He is now working in a non-lucrative research post in Botswana and says he greatly misses being a six-figure sycophant at the Forum Secretariat.