‘Will Gillard set a new agenda for the islands? Her just ousted predecessor (Kevin Rudd) began with great promise toward the islands…he wanted to stem the deterioration in the relationships with Pacific Islands states that had set in during the Howard regime. But suddenly down the line, the Rudd regime lost its Pacific focus’

Who says coups don’t happen in Australia? They most certainly do, and that too with the same stealth, speed and ruthlessness associated with coups since times immemorial. Not unlike one of the most celebrated ones in the ancient western world: the one that put paid to the over vaulting ambitions of the authoritarian Julius Caesar, perpetrated by his own caucus.
When former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s deputy Julia Gillard walked into his office and coolly asked him to step down in the face of the widespread revolt that had been brewing these past few weeks in the ruling Labor Party, she could well have been playing a modern day version of Brutus and her cold words the equivalent of Brutus’ famous dagger.
Within just a matter of a day, a Prime Minister only second in the popularity stakes to Bob Hawke just about a year ago, was relegated to the back benches as a stunned country and an equally shocked world looked on in a week in which other upsets of the FIFA World Cup variety seemed all too pale in comparison.
The Mandarin speaking, famously China friendly Rudd had only days before welcomed a visiting top tier Chinese leader and further cemented the growing relationship between the two countries.
But none of that was going to wash with his powerful faction ridden party, which already seemed to have made up its mind to stand him down for his very style of functioning that increasingly was redolent of the style of the Middle Kingdom.
Over and above his authoritarian and reputedly non-collegial, even abrasive style of functioning, what broke the proverbial camel’s back was his espousing the mining super tax that was seen as draconian in all circles, not least within his own party.
One of the subtexts of the saga of the swiftly unfolding events that rid Rudd of his office only goes to show the extremely powerful clout the mining industry has come to wield in Australia and the Pacific Islands region.
The people of Papua New Guinea also painfully felt the fallout of that clout recently when their government rammed through amendments to an environment act in a single sitting of Parliament that puts its executive out of the purview of the judiciary, giving free rein to the overseas mining industry to exploit resources with no mandatory consultations with community stakeholders.
Australia and Papua New Guinea have a growing relationship by virtue of the shared interests of powerful global companies in their natural resources and an increasingly shared engagement with Chinese interests.
The change in the power structure in Australia therefore has implications for both countries as far as mineral and mining interests go—though all this may be at a level not evident in the hurly burly of every day politics. There is no doubt the new Gillard administration will have a different and more conducive approach towards the natural resources sector.
The other major policy shift is likely to be in the approach to asylum seekers who are turning up in greater number of boats off Australia’s shores. This too has implications for the Pacific Islands both for geographic and geopolitical reasons.
Weeks before she became Prime Minister in last month’s bloodless coup, she had criticised Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s plans to resurrect the “Pacific Solution” as being merely a slogan and not a solution.
All versions of the “turn back the boats” policy have come a cropper especially with Indonesia dragging its feet to co-operate in any process. It will be interesting to see what Gillard comes up with.
The old powerful satraps in Labor seem to have taken an intelligent punt by rolling over Rudd. The forthcoming election was clearly unwinnable for the party under his leadership. His plummeting popularity was beginning to translate into higher ratings for Abbott despite his off colour comments that clearly had sexist overtones.
Gillard was therefore a perfect foil from the point of view of the run-up to the election. Needless to say all her policies in the early days will be aimed at maximising Labor’s chances at the polls.
There is bound to be a tinge of populism meant to build on whatever feel good factor that has been achieved because of her being the first female Prime Minister of Australia. Which is something that will also have an echo of celebration at least amongst women’s rights advocacy groups in the Pacific Islands region where women are notoriously under represented in all pillars of government—legislative, executive and judiciary (not that the number of women who hold office in Australia is anywhere near the proportion of the 50 percent of the country’s population that they makeup).
Will Gillard set a new agenda for the islands? Her just ousted predecessor began with great promise toward the islands. One of his earliest appointments was Duncan Kerr as the Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Islands Affairs. A former dean of the law faculty at the University of Papua New Guinea and a minister in a previous Labor government, was largely welcomed around the Pacific.
Rudd had said he wanted to stem the deterioration in the relationships with Pacific Islands states that had set in during the Howard regime. The early initiatives were positive—one of them being the Port Moresby Declaration, which acknowledged that each island had its own set of unique problems while identifying common ones that link them to one another and the larger region, and even the world.
But suddenly down the line, the Rudd regime lost its Pacific focus. Even months after the resignation of Kerr in October last year, the government did not think it fit to appoint a parliamentary secretary for Pacific Islands Affairs in his place.
What is more, another long-time Pacific Islands acolyte, Bob McMullan, Australia’s Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance has also retired. This has left a huge hole in the country’s relationship with the islands.
Despite the repeated pleas of Pacific Islands leaders and diplomats in Canberra, there have been no signs of any further positive developments in Pacific policy nor any new policy initiatives.
Gillard has now inherited the position of the chair of the Pacific Island Forum from Rudd. That leaves something for the Pacific leaders to look forward to at next month’s annual leaders’ meeting in Port Vila.
Top most on the agenda would still be meaningful steps ahead in the slow start and meandering progress on the labour mobility front and better economic engagement with the islands, not to mention a host of other contentious issues, Fiji included.