Johnny H, The "Bush" Rangeroo

Australian should carry burden of Pacific: PM

Australian Prime Minister John Howard says the international community expects Australia to carry its share of the burden in the Pacific and the country should accept that.

His comments came after the government announced plans to boost the size of the Australian army by two and a half thousand soldiers.

Mr Howard said the AUD$10 billion (US$7.6 billion) plan was needed to help regional neighbours, like Solomons Islands and East Timor, as well as to contribute troops internationally in the fight against terrorism.

Radio Australia reports Mr Howard said most Australians support the move.

“We do live in an unstable region. And the rest of the world rightly says to Australia you are the biggest and wealthiest and most capable country in the region.

“We would like you carry the greatest share of the burden. And I accept that and I think most Australians do."

'Sheriff' Australia under fire

Australia says it is not the sheriff of the South Pacific, but complaints over a rebel jailbreak in East Timor and riots in the Solomon Islands are putting its new activist foreign policy to the test.

In both countries Australia has troops or police on the ground in a peacekeeping role, and in both cases it has been blamed for failures that plunged them deeper into crisis.

Prime Minister John Howard has reacted angrily to the charges, but analysts said on Wednesday he should expect increasing criticism as he follows through with the "Howard doctrine" of greater intervention in the region.

"This is part of growing up in foreign policy terms and you've got to cop the flak sometimes, that's just one of the costs," said University of Sydney security analyst Alan Dupont.

"One of the problems in taking a more active approach under the so-called Howard doctrine is we are going to suffer the consequences every time something goes wrong in one of these states and it's difficult to get any kudos," he told AFP.

Howard has made it clear that he believes Australia, as the most powerful country in a region of tiny and impoverished island nations, has a responsibility to help them maintain stability.

Neighbors Australia hardly knows

Seven years after a nervous Australian Prime minister John Howard surprised himself with an almost casualty-free intervention in East Timor a more confident Canberra is talking up a deeper role in “stabilizing” the Melanesian “arc of instability”.

The region’s troubles have been cited as reasons for Howard’s plans to expand the army and the Australian Federal Police. But the relapses in East Timor and the Solomon Islands this year should have raised some questions about Howard’s security-centered approach to problems that go far beyond law and order.

The region is racked with turmoil because of internal population movement, states that deliver nothing to their citizens, governments formed by bribery, and economies that can’t provide jobs for half-educated young people lured by consumerism from village subsistence.

To be sure, basic public security is desperately needed in some parts of the region, notably the bigger cities in Papua New Guinea. Rebuilding the demoralized and run-down PNG police is required.

And to be fair to the Australian Government, behind the uniforms that Howard likes to hail and farewell are scores of unsung civilians on deputation: auditors, tax experts, health specialists and technologists trying to get government agencies working again.

But indifference, arrogance or maybe just racial fear at the top in Australia undermines the effort. Our policies are aimed at excluding and containing the peoples of our region, and they can see it.

In two key issues of Pacific policy Howard has come across as inflexible and prejudiced. His insistence on legal indemnity for the 240 Australian police sent to PNG in 2004 as PNG leaders accepted core of the Enhanced Co-operation Program, against their better judgement.

Bart Philemon, then PNG’s treasurer, recalls the “muscles” and “big stick” Australia was showing off after inserting its police commissioners into Fiji and the Solomons.
But the program collapsed when PNG’s Supreme Court predictably ruled the immunity unconstitutional in May last year, and Howard proposed withdrawing all components of the program.

By pleading with his counterpart, Peter Costello, Philemon was able to retain Australian officials working in his finance and treasury departments.

But to question Howard's interventionist policies is not to disregard the fact that there are serious problems in the Pacific, e.g.:

PNG ‘must own its failure'

Papua New Guinea can't blame its former “colonial master,” Australia, for its failures since independence, former prime minister Mekere Morauta said yesterday, News.com.au reports.

The country must instead look to its “big man” culture and political leaders' use of state power and privilege for personal gain, he said.

PNG's leaders had failed to make difficult decisions, invest wisely for the future and rein in waste and corruption in the public sector, Mr Morauta said in a speech in Madang on Friday.

He said health standards were worse now than 25 years ago, the gap between the haves and have-nots wider, and population growth outstripping the government's capacity to provide services.

“Our country is rich in resources, rich in natural wealth. Why has the wealth not been used to promote real social and economic development?” he asked in his speech.

“A combination of lack of clear foresight and vision by leaders, and growing weakness in state institutions, are at the core of the answer to this question.

“We cannot blame our former colonial master or any other outsider for our failures. We alone are responsible.” Mr Morauta, who was prime minister from 1999 to 2002, said the “big man culture of politics” had a lot to answer for.

Waste and corruption in the public sector and the “use of state power and privilege for personal gain” were factors that had constrained PNG's development.

Mr Morauta said it was a major disappointment that the reform agenda he initiated as prime minister had been stopped, but it was not too late to start moving again towards good governance and development.

Key to that would be ethical, reform-minded leaders who pursue transparency in government and help build strong, accountable state institutions, bolster political stability and foster an active business sector.

Mr Morauta said the past four years had provided the most favourable economic circumstances PNG had ever experienced thanks to high commodity prices driven by booming demand for raw materials from China and India.

But the opportunity had not been taken to push ahead with reform, he said.

Former Treasurer Bart Philemon, who was sacked earlier this year by Prime Minister Michael Somare, had imposed commendable fiscal restraint but government services were not functioning properly, Mr Morauta said.

Recent disclosures of corruption within the Finance Department were examples of an institution destroying the principles of good governance despite the good intentions of Philemon, he said.

Mr Morauta urged the abolition of PNG's troubled provincial government system, and the privatisation of some government functions to ensure greater efficiency.

PM hits 'corrupt' Einfeld probe in Solomon Islands

JOHN Howard last night denounced a judicial inquiry headed by disgraced former Federal Court judge Marcus Einfeld as an attempt to subvert the legal process in Solomon Islands.

Mr Einfeld and a little-known Gold Coast lawyer nominated as the country's next attorney-general are at the centre of a deepening diplomatic row between Canberra and Honiara.

Mr Einfeld, who is facing a possible perjury charge for nominating a dead woman as the driver of his car to escape a speeding fine, is resisting calls to step down as the head of the controversial government inquiry into the destructive April riots in Honiara.

Australia will bar Solomon Islands MPs from automatic entry to Australia in a diplomatic retaliation over the Solomons Government seeking to expel Australian high commissioner Patrick Cole after declaring him persona non grata on Tuesday.

Senior Australian diplomat David Ritchie yesterday met Solomons Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare in Honiara and strongly protested against the treatment of Mr Cole on behalf of the Howard Government. Mr Ritchie also voiced concerns about the terms of reference of the Einfeld riot commission.

Mr Howard said he would not accept the formal expulsion of Mr Cole. He said that Mr Cole had expressed concern about the role of the commission which "will subvert the legal process and could work to the benefit, improperly, of people who have been charged under the legal system of the Solomon Islands".

Mr Downer yesterday said Mr Einfeld's appointment was a matter for the Solomons Government.

"The real motive of the commission of inquiry ... is to ease the pressure on two of Mr Sogavare's henchmen, Mr (Nelson) Ne'e and Mr (Charles) Dausabea, who have been arrested and are in jail, facing charges in relation to the riots in April, and their alleged role in those riots," Mr Downer said.

"Now, we think that the courts should hear these cases in ... the normal way."

Asked whether Mr Einfeld should step down as chairman of the riot commission, Mr Downer last night declined to comment.

Canberra believes that the commission could prejudice legal proceedings brought against two MPs, Mr Dausabea and Mr Ne'e, who were charged in connection with provoking the civil unrest. The pair, whom Mr Sogavare had appointed as ministers when he took over as Prime Minister in May, remain in jail.

Mr Einfeld, who was appointed to the multi-million-dollar inquiry by Mr Sogavare, was introduced to the Prime Minister by a little-known Australian-based legal academic, Julian Moti.

Mr Moti is an adjunct professor of law at Bond University and says he is a visiting fellow at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

Mr Moti, a Queen's counsel in the Solomons who has been nominated by Mr Sogavare to become that country's next attorney-general, once faced a charge of statutory rape involving a 13-year-old girl in Vanuatu.

Mr Moti denied the charge, which was thrown out of court. A civil case brought by the girl was settled under a deed of agreement. He said the court case in Vanuatu "didn't even stack up to a prima facie case on the evidence, despite the perseverance of my white prosecutors".

In Honiara, Mr Einfeld and Mr Moti have become the focus of increasingly bitter attacks.

Opposition leader Fred Fono told the Solomons Star newspaper that the appointments were inappropriate and background checks should have excluded them both from high office.

While Mr Einfeld is maintaining his silence over his involvement with the Solomons, Mr Moti provided a statement to The Australian in response to attacks on his nomination.

"I have had to pay the ultimate price for advocating causes that threaten the white supremacist and colonial agenda in Melanesia by resisting all kinds of attacks on my personal fame and character," he said.