(o) Wherefore Art Thou Romeo? The Non-Specific Mr Smith

I wasn't going to report this item. In terms of substance it contained nothing new. But I changed my mind when I reflected on the lack of substance, the choice of words, and learnt more about the speaker.

ABC Online reports that Australia's Foreign Minister Stephen Smith (photo) says Australia is prepared for the "long, hard, tough battle" to restore Fiji to democratic rule. "We will do everything we can to return Fiji to democracy and we'll do that in conjunction in the Pacific. We'll also do it in conjunction with our friends in the Commonwealth."

Curious to know more of the Minister's background, I visited his ministry's website to learn what he knew about foreign affairs, the Pacific and Fiji. Mr Smith, a lawyer from Perth, Western Australia, has at various times been the Australian Labor Party's shadow minister of Trade, Resources and Energy, Communications, Health, Immigration, Industry and Infrastructure, Industrial Relations, and Education and Training! A long, varied list but he appears to have no expertise in foreign affairs. [This reminds me of many years ago when a NZ PM, struggling to establish the credentials of his pakeha (European) Minister of Maori Affairs, could only drum up: "He went to school with Maoris!" Sorry. I couldn't resist that.] In fairness to Australia, NZ Foreign Minister Murray McCully, also a lawyer, is no better qualified.

In both countries there seems to be be an unfortunate gap between the hands-on ("been there; done that") knowledge of the Ministers and their presumably better informed advisers.

Australian Aid to Fiji 2009-10

Australia, whose policy continue to cause severe economic damage to Fiji, paradoxically is offsetting some of this damage with its ongoing aid programme, although it accepts no responsibility for Fiji's plight and passes blame (in rugby it's called a hospital pass) totally onto the 2006 Coup and the global recession.

RealFijiNews (a pro-Government blog) reports:

"Australia’s aid to Fiji for the 2009-10 year is increasingly focused on mitigating the economic and social impacts of the 2006 coup and the global economic recession on the ordinary people of Fiji, according to Australia’s Counsellor for Pacific Development Co-operation, Judith Robinson, speaking in Labasa. The aid ... estimated at $48 million in 2009-10 ... will be directed at maintaining essential health and education services, and small and medium enterprise development, including contributing to efforts to make financial services available to the wider population, in particular poorer rural areas."

Australia previously gave $3million in flood relief, and "$A895,000 has been allocated to the agriculture sector for the procurement of vegetable seedlings, provision of veterinary antibiotics to prevent disease outbreaks amongst livestock herd, clearing debris from farms, improvement to on-farm infrastructure such as farm sheds and repair of farm access roads and irrigation ... As much as possible, Australia’s aid to Fiji seeks to make a practical difference to people’s lives. For example, through the National Centre for Small and Micro Enterprise Development, 20 new small businesses were started as a result of income generation training” said Ms Robinson.

The aid, of course, does nothing for Fiji's two largest industries, tourism and sugar production, the two industries that Australian political policies have helped undermine. This is not to denigrate aid, but bitsy, piecemeal, micro aid policies "tread water": they never resolve the bigger problems caused by rich-poor nation inequalities.