The Pacific Dimensions of Relations between Australia and New Zealand
by
Nigel Moore (New
Zealand Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and former New Zealand
High Commissioner to PNG (1998 to April 2001), and former New
Zealand High Commissioner to Tonga)
Notes from an SSGM Seminar: 10 May 2001
·
Shortly before
travelling to Canberra I spoke to Phil Goff, the New Zealand
Foreign Minister, about Australia and New Zealand relations
in the Pacific. He
thought it was working pretty well.
There are many examples where Australia and New Zealand
have “added value” by working together.
Bougainville is one.
Policy coordination in the Solomon Islands and Fiji are
others. Although we
don’t hear about it quite as much, Australia and New Zealand
also work closely in the Forum family of organisations,
including the FFA, SOPAC, SPREP, ForSec, and in the Pacific
Community, previously known as the South Pacific Commission.
·
Also add that when
I’ve spoken to your Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, he has
gone out of his way to say how well trans-Tasman cooperation is
working in the Pacific.
·
I’m not trying to
suggest that we do not have differences of interpretation from
time to time. One
of the points Phil Goff said to me before coming to Canberra was
that New Zealand and Australia are separate countries and
that we each have our own perception of events in the region.
·
It’s interesting
to speculate why this might be:
·
In New Zealand we
have a large Pacific Island community - families who originally
migrated from Tonga, Western Samoa, Fiji, Cook Islands, Tokelau
and Niue. New Zealand Maori also has its unique perspective of the
Pacific. Both these
factors have had an impact on the way New Zealanders view the
Pacific.
·
At the same time
there is a broad community of interests between Australia and
New Zealand. We
share a common way of looking at the region’s problems, and by
and large we come up with similar policy responses.
And that to my way of thinking is exactly how it should
be. This similarity
of approach is not too surprising given the very close
relationship that exists across the Tasman, developed through
economic links, shared history, and family and sporting ties.
·
When I joined the
Ministry, over 25 years ago, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs at
that time, Frank Corner, when talking to new recruits,
emphasised that the Pacific was our front garden, not our back
garden. It’s a
phrase that has stayed with me.
·
The point Frank
Corner was making all those years ago is that the “back
garden” is where you hang up your washing, fix the lawn-mower,
and exercise the dog. It’s where you do your own thing. The front garden on the other hand is visible from the road,
and “other people” judge you by what they see there. For this reason you try to keep it neat and tidy.
(Well that’s how it seemed 25 years ago).
·
And what was true 25
years ago remains largely true today.
Countries in North America, Asia and Europe still look to
New Zealand and Australia for interpretation of what’s
happening in the region. And
when the Pacific goes through a tough patch - as it is now -
they have more than a passing interest in how we plan to
respond.
·
I believe New
Zealand’s and Australia’s long term record in the region has
been pretty good. We
took the lead on the decolonisation issue, helped set up key
regional organisations (Forum, FFA, SOPAC, SPREP); played an
important role in the South Pacific Commission (now the Pacific
Community); and through ODA continue to made a significant
difference to the lives of Pacific people.
The Pacific remains a key priority in the foreign
relations of both countries, as demonstrated in recent years by
our search for acceptable outcomes in Bougainville, Solomon
Islands and Fiji.
·
At the same time I
think it is important to acknowledge that over the years New
Zealand and Australia have not always called it right in the
Pacific;
· Twenty five years we believed that the larger countries in the region – Fiji, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea - were the ones most likely to succeed. They had resources, people and size - the necessary “critical mass” we all thought necessary for successful statehood. Smaller countries such as Samoa, Cooks, Tonga, might make it, but it was questionable. As for the low lying atolls and the micro-states, our expectation was that they would always be dependent on aid.
·
Well, clearly
neither of us got that one exactly right.
If you look at the crises in the region today, they are
focused on the larger Melanesian societies.
Countries such as Samoa, Cook Islands and Tonga seem to
be working quite well. Why is this? It
seems to me that one key consideration is that Polynesian
societies are homogeneous in a way that the Melanesian societies
are not. There is
also a question worth asking about a possible link between
“stability” and type of governments found in Polynesia –
you may want to explore that issue further during questions.
·
With hindsight we
probably made less than a perfect fist of it in other areas as
well;
·
Because most Pacific countries lacked anything
resembling an active private sector, development agencies NZ and
Australia invested considerable time and resources in the 1970s
and early 1980s in strengthen the public sector.
We built up public sector capacity and with that came
size – not just in “core areas” of policy advice, but also
in public works,
fisheries, agriculture etc.
Only later did we better understand the down side of an
inflated public sector - ie “crowding out” private sector
initiative, income distribution anomalies etc.
·
I guess the point
I’m trying to make here is that Foreign Ministries, like
academics and NGOs, are not infallible.
Looking back there were clearly worrying ”trends” in
Pacific communities which all of us might have picked up
earlier. Two of the
most important are ethnic differences and the impact of massive
population growth on traditional cultures, including land usage.
(Refer to details in Crocombe report).
·
There is another
point I want to make. I’ve
noticed in discussions at the ANU during the past week that some
of you at least believe that if capitals (Wellington and
Canberra) had got the policy framework “right” - if we’d
done things differently - then today’s crises in the region
might have been avoided.
·
I’m not at all
convinced by this argument.
It seems to me that there are developments afoot in the
Pacific which may be beyond the capacity of Australia and New Zealand
to greatly influence. We need to keep in mind that for the most part we are dealing
with independent countries in the Pacific, and that they will
“do what they will do” irrespective of what Wellington or
Canberra think. That
said, as we have seen in Bougainville and the Solomon Islands,
regional diplomacy, careful use of development assistance and
the impact of regional peace keeping forces can make a
difference. International
and regional pressure also had a huge impact on the outcome in
Fiji.
·
The theme of this
talk is New Zealand and Australia cooperation in the region. I won’t try to mention all the occasions where we have
worked together - there are simply too many.
But clearly Bougainville has been a special example of
trans-Tasman cooperation. During
my time in Port Moresby (1997-2001) the New Zealand and
Australian High Commissions worked closely together - including
joint calls on key officials, Ministers and Prime Ministers, as
well as Biugainville leaders.
A similar approach has been taken in relation to Solomon
Islands and Fiji. Australia
and New Zealand also coordinate policy in the Forum
Fisheries Association, SPREP (environmental issues), and the
South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (coastal environment
and protection). We
work together in the Forum Secretariat - issues such as
transnational crime, and trade policy arrangements for the
region - and at the annual Forum of Pacific leaders.
And the list goes on.....
·
It might be useful
to mention some of the mechanisms by which New Zealand and
Australia “compare notes” and coordinate policy.
There are six-monthly meetings between the New Zealand
and the Australian Foreign Ministers.
These are exceptionally valuable in talking over issues,
and making sure that where it counts we are moving broadly in
the same direction. There
are annual talks between AusAid and our equivalent organisation
in New Zealand. DFAT
and MFAT, our respective Foreign Ministries, meet regularly.
And of course there is very close cooperation at posts,
including work on joint development projects, such as community
policing on Bougainville. More
generally, there’s the Pacific Forum where leaders from the
region, including from Australia and New Zealand, meet to
talk about matters of importance in the Pacific and beyond.
·
None of this is to
suggest that we cannot do more.
I know that Phil Goff sees merit is tapping into the
knowledge base at universities such as the ANU.
The Minister was keen for me to visit Canberra.
He would also like other New Zealand diplomats working in
the field (Nick Hurley in the Solomon Islands for example) to
spend time at the University.
During my week at the ANU I have been very impressed by
the level of Pacific expertise.
There are resources here which New Zealand could usefully
tap into - academic expertise, courses and the extensive Pacific
Library.
·
Finally, if I could
just thank Anthony for arranging my week here.
I have found it very enjoyable.
Comment/Question From the Floor:
I agree with you absolutely on your
approach that there is a basic community of interest and that by
and large we always do work very closely together, especially in
the Pacific. But,
there are areas of sensitivity on both sides.
Looking back over it historically, our Prime Ministers on
both sides were always inclined to play the prima
donna and score off the other, and this didn’t help in the
Pacific. I also
think there was a tendency to self-righteousness in NZ
approaches and lectures - not just thinking of Mr Lange.
But, you know, it’s there, and it’s very irritating
for Australians, and they in there own way got the boots into
you on your nuclear policies and your lack of defence spending.
Again, which we see as justifiable, but causing more
friction than you can really present as not being there.
I think where there were differences, they are
interesting.
I don’t know whether my contemporary
colleagues in DFAT would agree with me, but looking over the
period of the last 15 years, Australia was more sensitive about
allowing the regional countries to have their head.
I remember going to Suva and seeing the way the Forum
report was written, and it talked about the role of the Forum
countries, talking over their differences, and focussing on
political problems. And
we came down like a tonne of bricks and said ‘oh, no you
can’t have the Forum interesting itself in political matters,
you’ve got to restrict everyone’s little right to do
everything their own way’.
And NZ had a much more positive view to encouraging
mechanisms within the South Pacific Forum to head off, or to
talk over problems and difficulties and to try and meet them.
I think we have actually moved quite a bit and probably
Mr Downer should be given quite a bit of credit for that.
That he’s moved into the notion that the only way to
solve South Pacific problems is to use South Pacific mechanisms,
and things like the multi-national force and involving Fijians
and Vanuatu people in problems like the Solomons and
Bougainville has been a big change of approach on our part, and
I think you guys get some credit for that too.
Some of your ideas are pretty grandiose, like we need a
South Pacific Parliament and our policies thrashed out at that
level, and given the unevenness of the size of the different
players, it would have been very difficult.
I’m just wondering whether you’re
re-visiting at all the notion of Chan’s - some kind of a
regional force. Now,
again, I completely identify it with our reservations about it
at the time. In the
way that Chan envisages a sort of play-thing that Australia and
NZ would pay for, and would then be pulled into perhaps getting
involved in internal differences, or to build roads in the
highlands, at minimal cost to the governments concerned.
There were obviously anxieties.
But I wonder given the fact that whether you like it or
not, these countries like Fiji and PNG are going to want to have
military of some kind, it wouldn’t make sense to re-visit the
notion of a peacekeeping battalion.
Maybe in NZ, maybe in Townsville.
Made up of elements from those militaries that will
always be there, and to get them used to doing these things, not
as an intervention force, but maybe to do some peacekeeping
outside, or to provide the kind of presence quickly, unarmed as
it worked out so well in Bougainville.
We did get caught in the Solomons, and I
appreciate the argument that we were asked to send in military
police to clobber everyone and to pull them into line.
That was unreal. I
mean, you couldn’t have expected either of our two governments
to respond to it. But
there is a hole there, and maybe we should think about it again
for all the problems that it raises.
We do believe in joint working; in helping each other and
encouraging the disciplines and the attitudes in the military
that we believe makes for a democratic relationship. Are you coming back to this at all?
Response: Nigel Moore
Yes, I remember. The idea goes back a long time.
I recall the PNG Prime Minister, Sir Julius Chan, raised
the concept of a regional force at the Medang Forum.
NZ’s position at the time (and this probably remains
the same today) was that the cost of having a standing force
would be prohibitive. Also,
as crises in Bougainville and the Solomon Islands demonstrated,
it is possible to get regional peace keeping efforts under way
in relative quick time. The
need for a permanent standing force is therefore reduced.
Question From the Floor:
On a slightly different non-conflict tack.
Picking up on what you said about joint aid projects;
because there’s both positive, and there are some problems.
My own experience working actually with the PNG police
was that the NZ police were far and away more sensitive, more
understanding, knew all the multi-cultural things, didn’t come
with all their State baggage, which happened with the other
police, and were more ready to give women - which was the thing
I was working with - a bit more of a go.
And it created all sorts of tensions, because you had a
joint kind of thing, and many of the PNG felt more comfortable
– this isn’t across the board of course, there are terrific
exceptions you think of immediately – but felt more
comfortable. It was
interesting over the years, there weren’t quite so many New
Zealanders in the project, almost as if it was more comfortable
for the Australians. So
the question I have is how, when NZ aid often works much better
in the multi-cultural, the small-scale, they’ve got more
experience, they know how to deal with these things at a more
grass-roots level – I mean once again I’m exaggerating –
that’s one sort of a problem.
And then ancillary to that, is that the so-called
beneficiary’s are smart, and they can see that by working two
sides they might get a better deal – seeing it as a sort of
competitive bid. So,
I just wondered, away from actual conflict-side, but on the
aid-side, how you see both the problems and the possibilities of
cooperation.
Response From Nigel Moore:
The activity I mentioned earlier was the
Bougainville community police project.
It was clear from the start that given the modest size of
the NZ aid program, we really couldn’t manage that particular
project on our own. So
it was very important to engage Australia, which we did.
The project has worked well.
It’s headed up by a New Zealander, but there are
Australians on the project team.
There may be some truth in what you say
about cultural differences.
This may be linked to the impact of Polynesian culture,
including Maori, on way New Zealanders interact with others.
Interestingly, a Samoan New Zealander, Tony Annandale,
heads the police project on Bougainville.
He has been very successful in his work on Bougainville,
and I’m sure Tony would agree that his Polynesian
background is part of the reason for this.
Question From the Floor:
I’d actually like to follow that thread
about the aid idea. Some
of those comments seem to be relevant to me too.
I can give you an example – I’ve been living in a
village in the Western Solomons for quite some time – and last
year there was a NZ project, small business development, which
went through the Western Solomons, and you literally had to pay
a fee, I think it was SI$100 to join.
A lot of fellows, mainly guys joined.
But they came back thinking this was great, because
apparently they learnt lots of things that they never knew
before about small business development.
And I believe there is meant to be some follow-up in
terms of establishing small businesses.
The coup came, and I guess that was never followed up.
One of the things that I could see was that NZ, being a
small funding force in the Solomon Islands, probably doesn’t
have the institutional clout to sustain that kind of scheme, and
sustenance is what’s necessary to actually make it work.
You can’t really make a one-off intervention and expect
that that’s going to work.
People get enthusiastic and don’t quite pick up all the
ideas, and then it fizzles out.
It just happens time and time again.
I’ve seen it happen over 10 years working in the same
place.
But on the other hand, Australia doesn’t
get involved in anything to do with rural areas very much.
I mean they do in terms of things like rural water
supply, but it’s always very stand-offish. And that seems to be a failing of the Australian Government
process, although apparently they want that to change; because
there have been problems in the Solomon Islands they want to get
more involved in rural areas.
But so far, it seems to me the strength of NZ is that
they are attuned to that small project idea that is perhaps
better suited to rural areas, but they haven’t got the
institutional strength to carry it through.
And yet Australia stands off and often does these big
government interventions in Honiara, but doesn’t get in there
where a lot of people would really like to see them change.
What do you think is the chance for trying
to develop some kind of collaboration there, some kind of
coordinated aid development, where you do take up the strengths
of both those positions … to get into small development
projects … those ideas of rural change schemes and so on.
I think maybe NZ has a better chance of being able to do
…
Response From Nigel Moore
Improving cooperative arrangements with
other donors is something we are always interested in.
There are, for example, talks under way with
Australia’s aid agency, AusAid, to “harmonise” several of
our activities. In
money terms the NZ aid program is quite modest, certainly a lot
smaller than the Australian ODA programme.
This means that News Zealand has an interest in
“smaller” projects, often rural based, through Head of
Mission or Small Project funds.
When you have substantial ODA to disburse - and I’m
thinking of the EU or Japan in the Pacific
- the tendency is to limit the size of individual
projects to, say, $250,000 or above. Small
rural based projects requiring up to $10-20,000 do not qualify. This is unfortunate.
Question From the Floor:
I’m not exactly sure how to put this.
Exactly 100 years ago when NZ politicians were explaining
why they had inexplicably failed to join the Federation they
came up with interesting rhetorical views for example, that NZ
was an island civilisation whose future lay with other islands
in the Pacific, and would be indeed the New Britain of the
Pacific. Whereas,
Australia was a continental civilisation, if indeed it was a
civilisation. And
in a sense that rhetoric has become increasingly true over the
past 100 years as more and more immigrants into NZ have come
from other islands, and more and more into Australia from other
continents.
Now it seems to me that it would be a pity
to lose that really. I
mean, for all your enthusiasm for coordination and even on
occasion for joint projects, if Pacific islanders or indeed
anybody else, begin to think that NZ is simply the other voice
of Australia, or conversely that Polynesians see Australia as
just another voice of NZ, both countries lose traction don’t
they, and credibility. It
seems to me that it might even be to both countries foreign
policies’ advantage to manufacture the impression of
differences of opinion and emphasis.
Response : Nigel Moore
That’s a interesting observation.
I think it’s true that NZ certainly sees the Pacific as
the front garden. That’s
not to suggest for a moment that
countries further afield
do not matter to us.
Nevertheless, the Pacific holds a very central place in
our foreign policy. Australia’s
perceptions of the region are somewhat different - shaped more
by its status as a “middle power”.
I would imagine, therefore,
that there is always going to be “constructive differences”
between New Zealand and Australia on Pacific policy.
As stressed earlier, there is a lot to be gained by
Australia and NZ working closely together, particularly when the
region is facing very real problems.
Question from the floor:
On an issue – widening the region as it
were, and again I’m not sure how to couch this - but both in
1975 and 1999 there was considerable confusion in PNG about how
to deal with something like Indonesia’s invasion and presence
in Timor and the violence and so on.
These are issues that are very important to Australia;
perhaps less central to NZ.
But I wonder whether there is in fact any concerted
effort to really engage Pacific island countries, and how
involved they are with anything beyond the West Papuan issue, in
looking towards south east Asia.
PNG rhetorically has had a so-called ‘look north’
policy, but it hasn’t gone much beyond the context between
politicians and businessmen, if you can make that distinction. So, I guess I’m interested in whether in fact there is any
sense of engagement of Pacific island countries with south east
Asia, or whether they regard it as useful to work in a sense
through Australia and NZ, separately or together.
Response : Nigel Moore
There may be something in that.
In the Forum context perhaps 80% of its time is focused
on regional issues, although it is important to remember that
many of the issues the organisation is dealing with - free trade
arrangements, environment - have a clearly identifiable
international component. That
said, at the last Forum Vanuatu
and Nauru pushed very hard on the question of West Papua, and
that was reflected in the Forum Communique issues by Leaders.
Nor should we lose sight of the fact that the Forum holds
annual “dialogues” with several key countries from outside
the immediate region, including the US, Japan, and EU.
So I think in a sense the Forum is steadily becoming more
international in its thinking.
Comment/Question From the Floor:
You’re presenting a very positive,
collegial, harmonious picture.
For somebody who doesn’t have any foreign affairs
background, it seems to me that it’s not quite as
rosy-a-picture as you present. There are a lot of irritants in the relationship.
Each side feels that the other is putting them down in
various ways. You
reminded me of Muldoon’s comment about the brain drain from NZ
to Australia, and said he wasn’t worried about it at all –
that it was raising the IQ of both countries.
In the PMG for example, there was a lot of irritation on
the Australian side at this.
NZ preening themselves about their cultural sensitivity
and so on; and a lot of irritation on the NZ side that the
Australians were technologically and financially superior, that
they were doing it better.
It seems to me that that, plus different perspectives –
NZ more focused on the Pacific and then perhaps coming into what
Australia has seen as its area of influence, the south west
Pacific - that’s worried Australia a little bit, Australia has
got a little bit concerned.
And it has. There
have been significant differences; the Australian putting 20
million dollars a year into Bougainville was to some extent
about Australia buying its way back into the process with its
deeper pockets – that happened in about August/September 1997,
after the Burnham process had just got under way.
But it seems to me that that may not be
such a bad thing. There’s
NZ sort of pushing Australia back to look at the region, and
that there are two different perspectives on what should be
happening often, and that that’s creative, each side is
pushing the other a bit in different ways. So it’s not just that harmonious things work well, but a
bit of tension is probably a good thing, both for Australia and
NZ and for the region. Each
helps to keep the other a bit more focused; a bit more honest;
and to see things in a different way.
Response:
Nigel Moore
Thanks.
Although I’ve spoken about close cooperation with
Australia on Pacific policy, I don’t mean that we
automatically see eye to eye on issues.
Discussions is often quite robust.
This is healthy because it introduces new perspectives
and ideas - both essential ingredients in the process of making
good policy. Certainly
in the case of Bougainville, there were from time to time some
heated exchanges about policy options.
A point worth stressing is that the consultative process
is not about Australia simply following our lead, or vice versa.
As for the other part of the question –
is close policy dialogue with Australia useful - the answer is
clearly yes. It’s
all to easy to become comfortable with your own perceptions of
the region. They
need to be challenged from time to time. What is what New Zealand did on Bougainville during the early
part of 1997. Some
elements in the Australian machinery were not too happy about
that. What was really encouraging, from the New Zealand point of
view, was that the Australian
system quickly acknowledged that we might be on to something,
and that within very short order Canberra put its considerable
resources behind the “Burnham” process.
Question:
Can I follow that up and perhaps take you
away from Bougainville, to talk a bit about a country I know a
little about, and that’s Fiji.
You talk about coordination, policies and approaches
between Australia and NZ. Was
there much coordination between Australia and NZ as far as Fiji
was concerned. Because
a sense I get, talking to people in DFAT here and people
generally, was that Phil Goff was very strident at times.
That in his criticisms of Fiji, he wasn’t sufficiently
sensitive to the complexities of events there; or maybe he was.
Maybe he knew more about Fiji than Australia did, I
don’t know. Because
one theory that was put to me was that one of the reasons why
Phil Goff was so vocal was that his constituency was infested
with very wealthy Fijian Indians.
Response:
Nigel Moore
Phil Goff has very firm views about what is
correct and what isn’t. He
feels strongly about human rights issues, for example. His commitment to democratic government is deep rooted as is
his rejection of illegal measurers as a means of removing
democratically elected governments.
He would have wanted to speak out about Fiji,
irrespective of whether there were wealthy Indians in his
constituency.
Question:
What was the reaction of Pacific islander
communities to this, in New Zealand?
Response : Nigel Moore
I was in PNG at the time, so it was pretty
hard for me to say. But
I think it was one of support for what Phil Goff was doing. I
think almost all New Zealanders felt the same way.
There are some New Zealand Maori - labelled extreme by
other Maori - who
are looking for independence within the NZ system.
A group of these activists went to Fiji and made
statements supporting the coup which were unacceptable to the
New Zealand government. Overall, however, the vast majority of
New Zealanders supported the Minister’s firm stand.
Question:
To pick up on what John expressed earlier
on. I’m from PNG,
this is in relation to cooperation in terms of aid projects.
While I think at the macro-Australia/NZ relationship
level, there should be consensus and cooperation, you also need
to take into account that you have a local constituency within
which you are going into. Say, if you put too much focus on linking donors to make sure
that the recipient isn’t going to fool either of you, then you
lose the opportunity of linking up more with the local
colleagues with whom you are going to be working with.
Secondly I think, within PNG, there is
quite a difference in perception towards Australian projects and
NZ projects. It’s
different. So we
see your projects coming from there, and New Zealanders coming
to PNG to be different in terms of how we receive them and how
they receive us in our communication - it’s quite a different
thing. So while you
want to cooperate, I think you need to be aware of the fact that
there are points of difference as far as the local recipients
are concerned.
Getting back to Bougainville.
My understanding is that it was NZ who proposed that the
TMG and subsequently the PMG be unarmed, and this was a major
cultural shift for the Australian military, and one that they
found hard to accept, even when the decision had been taken.
Was that one of the issues about which there was robust
discussion for a long time?
Response: Nigel Moore
There certainly was a bit of discussion
about that. It is
important to remember that the BRA and other Bougainvillean
factions wanted the TMG to be unarmed.
They undertook to protect the regional force - guns were
not needed therefore. New Zealand had mixed views about this. Officials in our Ministry, such as John Hayes, who had
previously been our High Commissioner in Port Moresby, was one
of those who believed the TMG should be unarmed.
Eventually those views won the day.
I don’t know exactly what the debate was like here in
Canberra, but I would imagine it was robust as it had been in
New Zealand.
Question:
Nigel, can I ask a very general question
related to the region. The
focus of much of this discussion has been on the NZ/Australia
angle, but just expanding on the point made by the person from
PNG earlier. In your opinion, are Pacific Island Governments - and here
I’m really focussing on the political elite, and the economic
elite - are they generally comfortable with the current level of
Australian and NZ engagement with the region in a general sense;
not only the development cooperation, but the political
interactions, defence cooperation, economic ties.
Are there particular areas where they would like NZ and
Australia to do more. Obviously
Pacific Island Governments are very aware that NZ and Australia
do talk on a very frequent basis, both in the metropolitan
capitals and in posts, and between posts in the island nations.
Are they particularly comfortable with that?
Are there any particular pressure points?
Response: Nigel Moore
I think if you ask Planning Minister in the
region what they would most like from donors, many would answer
‘budget support’. But
for our own reasons, and I think this is true for Australia as
well, we do not believe that budget support is a particularly
effective form of development assistance.
My guess is that NZ is going to become more specific
about where it spends its ODA - most probably in the areas of
rural development and governance.
It is possible too that greater use will be made of NGOs
as delivery mechanisms. We
need to think about how to get resources out to rural
communities. In the
case of PNG, government services continue to decline - there are
fewer schools and health posts, while the roading and
infrastructure system continues to deteriorate.
It seems to me inevitable that in PNG, more and more
people are going to have depend on traditional village life to
meet their needs.
Question:
I think we ought to make the point that the
region doesn’t always want us that much, and you get this talk
about a union, and Australia and NZ have to be kept on the
sidelines until these countries have worked it out.
And this other trend which you haven’t mentioned, that
many of the bigger players at times, and perhaps even now, would
like to see more external balance so that they’re not so
dependent on Australia and NZ - in Fiji the Malaysians with the
NEP; and the PNG trend of looking north.
How can we balance this predominant Aus/NZ relationship
by bringing in helpful outsiders?
Because it means we feel less directly responsible for
having to deal with their economic development.
Response: Nigel Moore
I know in NZ policy in the late 1970s-1980s
we spent a lot of time trying to encourage countries outside the
immediate region, Japan in particular, to take a development
assistance interest. Today
there are a lot of donors:
the EU being a crucial one, particularly through ACP
arrangements which now include almost all of the Pacific
countries. And that
is leading to a major shift in where aid volume comes from. And with greater aid volume comes greater influence, although
as we have seen today it is not always proportional!. I’m not
sure that this will lead to problems for Australia and New
Zealand.