Comments

Sir, I think your argument is misplaced. If you carefully peruse Fiji's national budget, you'll find glaring 'unwarranted allocations' which can be slashed to free-up resources for badly needed unemployment support and other social services (allowances) for the poor and underprivileged. Budgets for the military and infrastructure works (roads) are still exorbitantly high and not absolutely urgent. Furthermore, the PM has decided to construct a new office for himself in the midst of this crisis. This $7 million construction is not exactly meniscal as right now the country needs every cent it can fathom to weather the current economic downturn. The government budget in its entirety is riddled with non-priority programmes and policies which can be scaled-down and rechanneled to other priorities. Fiji still has spare capacity to effectively address the socio-economic fallout of COVID 19, and not necessary elevate its debt levels to such extremes. All the country needs right now is a strategy to prudently manage and re-prioritize its scarce resources, whilst balancing this with efforts to secure productive and sustainable borrowings. Unfortunately, the Fiji government has forged forward with a bloated budget (relative to its fragile revenue capacity), stuffed mainly with ambitious budget programmes/policies which are either misaligned or insufficient to resolve current socio-economic woes. Debt levels has spiraled to its highest in the country's history and a large part of this is being earmarked for recurrent spending such as salaries and wages; and not so much for livelihood support for affected families and households. Bearing this in mind, I believe the critique of Australia's limited intervention in Fiji as purported in this article is (to a large extent) miscalculated and misjudged. Getting a firm grip on real context is critical, otherwise, Australian taxpayers will be footing bills for a government that's reluctant to accept current COVID 19 realities and align its budget response accordingly. It's true that Fiji is absorbing a harsher blow in this crisis compared to Australia and other Pacific neighbors. However, one must also appreciate that Fiji's current predicament is partially the result of government's gross fiscal mismanagement in recent years, which has limited its financial capacity to deal with the crisis effectively. However, what's more perplexing though is that the government has shown in the 2020/2021 Budget that it will not budge and continue to travel down the same destructive path its been on in recent years, even in this unprecedented times. I don’t think its fair for Australian taxpayers to be churning out millions for such profound and blatant (financial) irresponsibly - don’t you think so too.

A good summary of the economic situation in Fiji Stephen - I would have been interested in some linkages between the development policy alignment with overall foreign affairs strategies for Australia. It's all about political will to offer integrated solutions that will benefit both Fiji and Australia. The Pacific JobKeeping proposal makes sense - to get a workforce from countries like Fiji with zero COVID-19, like Australia currently does with Vanuatu. These are workers from English-speaking countries with a genuine desire and passion for work - that's something you can't teach people, it has to be inherently within their psyche, and is clearly difficult in Australia for locals who are not willing to relocate from their urban homes to work in regional farms and rural industrial zones. Why should they, when on Job Seeker, it is just easier to look for 8 jobs a month and get paid for it, right? If Australia doesn't want to give more funds to Fiji, they can still help through areas like trade - Put an offer on the table to import vegetables or other agricultural goods from Fiji. The loss of many tourism jobs has driven thousands of hotel workers back to farming in their villages. Locals have taken on initiatives like the Barter Fiji facebook platform where goods are exchanged. The will to adapt and survive is there in the people, but the Fiji government needs external support to push for stronger agricultural empowerment among the Fijians. They have land going to waste because culturally, Fijians have only really done subsistence farming. A guarantee of export markets could be the change they need - like back into those pre-coup days when the port of Levuka thrived as the gateway for island copra exports, and even in the early 1990s when PAFCO worked to get European Union trade harmonisation for Fiji tuna access to EU markets. Australia can offer harmonisation / technical assistance to ensure agricultural exports are up to Australian standards, and include more agricultural goods in the bi-lateral trade agreement. This is Australia's second chance to make up for its foreign policy faux pas since the Rudd Government era, where they let their guard down with Fiji and the Pacific Islands in general - and in stepped China, offering to help the floundering Pacific Islands...at a huge price of course - we only have to see what China is doing in countries like Samoa to realise that Australian foreign affairs policies in the Pacific really need a revamp pronto! If Australia doesn't do more to help build the capabilities of their neighbours, they are leaving them wide open to be slaves of the big giant from far across the Orient...and that will be a bigger threat for Australia in future with serious implications for security and sovereignty in the Pacific region. Looking forward to your next article, Stephen.

Last time Australia gave 12 million. What's the break down of it, and where it was used? Poor people left begging, no aid reaches people in villages due to corruption.

A lot of help is coming from Australia in the form of hampers to the staff of a lot of the resorts on the island that goes a long way at least.

Yes. Truly a sad situation. People are as it is, poor. No other source of income. However, the entire world community is in the same doldrum. What is the solution. There needs to be an international fund that these countries can draw from in these trying times. The UN should have set this up long time ago.

Thanks for a beautiful tribute Gordon, it captures well the James I knew. I worked at the Australian Embassy in Timor-Leste from 2015-18 and always looked forward to my chats with James. He was humble, interested, passionate, and knew the country and it's people better than most other Malae I met. I'm sad to hear today of his passing.

I just read that article and it is a sad situation for the people of Fiji especially the elderly and the unemployed with no available funds just to purchase the basic needs of food and services.

A lovely tribute, I only met James once but cited his work often. He was one of those persons that many of us aspired to emulate. Rest In Peace.

Mr. Pundu, I highly appreciated your wealth of knowledge that you shared with us. I'm glad to read such an relevant information which my own Lecturer wrote.

Thanks Andrew. The second spike was in 2018. APEC could have been one cause, but I also think there are a lot of salary arrears and whenever there is more revenue those arrears are more likely to be paid, and that is why we see spikes in both 2014 and 2018. Regards, Stephen

What a lovely and beautifully written tribute.

Thank you, Michael. I concur. Very valid points on the public's right to access information on how tax money is spent. However, accessing up-to-date information on the exact amount of SIP fund allocation to each province and district in the country is very difficult. Your Freedom of Information Act suggestion is a good idea.