Speed and lack of controversy mark PNG Forum

Robert Keith-Reid

Melanesian brotherhood...Fiji's PM Laisenia Qarase (to the far left) signs the revised MSG trade agreement with the PNG's Sir Michael Somare, Solomon Islands' Sir Allan Kemakeza and Vanuatu's Ham Lini. Picture: Fiji Information Ministry

Robert Keith-Reid

Pacific Islands countries have deferred their campaign for short-term fruit picking and other jobs for their people in Australia and New Zealand and accepted without amendment a plan for their closer political and economic integration.

A so-called 10-year Pacific Plan for strengthening weak Pacific Islands economies and government systems was approved at an informal meeting of the 36th Pacific Islands Forum held on October 26 at Madang, a resort town on the north Papua New Guinea coast.

It was confirmed the next day without comment at the Forum's plenary session back at Port Moresby.

Led by the Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare, strongly supported by Fiji, the islands states used a reference in the plan to a need for "labour mobility" to press Australia and New Zealand to accept temporary workers from islands states where unemployment is mounting alarmingly.

Australia's Prime Minster, John Howard, bluntly rejected the idea outright.

The New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clark, said her country would think about it but was anxious to avoid courting trouble from illegal overstayers.

Howard's alternative offer of a regional technical college at an undecided location to train islanders as skilled tradesmen was accepted by Somare.

He warned however, that the issue would be raised again at the 2006 Forum meeting to be held in Tonga.

Apart from the temporary worker issue, the Forum ran through its agenda with unprecedented speed and lack of controversy.

For the first time it issued its communiqué after the so-called retreat at Madang before the Thursday's plenary session. This was devoted entirely to formal speeches. The Pacific Plan outlines the Forum's adopted strategies for economic growth, sustainable growth, honest and effective government and security.

The communiqué said 24 topics would be implemented in the next three years. The islands states intend to move steadily towards a common market for goods and services, eventually leading to economic integration with the Forum's two dominant powers, Australia and New Zealand.

The 'labour mobility' issue will continue to be discussed "in the contest of member countries' immigration policies," the communiqué states. It expressed alarm about the potential catastrophic impact on small islands states should an avian influenza pandemic happen and said Australia would provide A$8 million to help the islands prepare to defend themselves from the avian virus.

New Zealand will supply an additional NZ$12 million to fight a mounting grip on islands states by HIV/AIDS. A Pacific health fund will be established to deal with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, SARS and avian flu.

The communiqué said islands countries would be urged to enact anti-terrorism laws.

A proposal from Palau to safeguard fish stocks from overfishing by a freeze on deep-sea bottom trawling in the 35 million square kilometres ocean region controlled by Forum States was approved, subject to a regulatory regime to be presented for approval by the 2006 Forum meeting.

Papua New Guinea's proposal for a regional carbon credit trading pool will be developed by the Forum.

The communiqué said islands governments want the concept to be broadened from covering forest areas to winning international acceptance of the Forum's 35 million square kilometres of ocean area as a carbon sink.

The Forum will write to the United States urging it to be more generous in paying compensation to the Marshal Islands, its former colony, for radiation sickness, loss of land and other losses caused by heavy radioactive fallout from hydrogen bomb tests conducted in the country by the United States during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

The Forum agreed to upgrade the status of two of its "observer" members, French Polynesia and New Caledonia, to "associate" member status, at French Polynesia's request.

In the past, full Forum membership was restricted to fully independent states while allowing for such arrangements as "associate" status that the Cook Islands and Niue and from mid-2006 Tokelau have with New Zealand, and the political and military ties that the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau have to accept as a condition of receiving continuing aid from the United States after their independence.

The two French colonies won observer status-French Polynesia only in 2004-after the Forum agreed that they were on the road to eventual full independence, or practically so, from France.

French Polynesia's President, Oscar Temaru, told the plenary session he hoped the day would soon arrive when Tahiti Nui, as he prefers to call the French territory, would attain full Forum membership as an independent state.

Some degree of Forum membership will be made open to such other remaining Pacific colonies as Guam and American Samoa.