Scott Morrison stepped up Australia’s engagement with the Pacific by visiting Vanuatu and Fiji last week and announcing a bilateral partnership with the latter. Here’s what he achieved.
Australia aims to counter China’s growing influence in the region.
DAN HIMBRECHTS
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s historic visit to Vanuatu is centred around security. This fits a pattern shifting the focus from development to militarisation in Australia’s Pacific foreign policy.
Applied games can help us to tackle problems like climate change by appealing to players’ hearts and minds.
Election winner, former coup leader, Josaia Voreq “Frank” Bainimarama, speaking at a climate change conference in Germany in November 2017.
Ronald Wittek/EPA
Fijians go to the polls this week in only the second general election since a 2006 coup in which the current prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, seized power. He won an election in 2014.
The Tanami desert in central Australia is haunted by beings called the jarnpa, which look like people but possess superhuman powers.
Shutterstock.com
A key question heading into the Pacific Islands Forum is whether Australia can negotiate a new regional security agreement that heeds Pacific leaders’ concerns.
COP 22 President Salaheddine Mezouar from Morocco, right, hands over a gavel to Fiji’s prime minister and president of COP 23 Frank Bainimarama, left, during the opening of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, Monday, Nov. 6, 2017.
AP Photo/Martin Meissner
Although climate change threatens the world’s small island nations, many can find ways to adapt and preserve their homes and cultures – especially if wealthy countries cut emissions and provide support.
Climate fight: a traditional Fijian warrior poses at the UN climate summit in Bonn.
Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters
To many people, island nations such as Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands are synonymous with climate catastrophe. But prophesies of doom aren’t all that helpful.
Church and climate: two issues that are close to many Pacific Islanders’ hearts.
Seaphotoart/Shutterstock.com
What does God have to do with climate change? A lot, if you want to engage with communities in the Pacific Islands, where almost everyone goes to church and religious leaders are hugely influential.
Melanesia’s oceans are worth at least US$5.4 billion, but are under increasing threat.
The site of the hillfort of Vugala, northern Viti Levu island (Fiji). This was one of many hillforts in the area – home to a few hundred people according to reports from the 1840s – that were probably established around AD 1400 in response to conflict resulting from a food crisis that had come about as a result of an enduring fall in sea level.
Patrick Nunn
Cyclone Winston produced wind speeds of around 300 km per hour, making it one of the strongest storms to make landfall.
A soldier votes in last year’s election restoring civilian rule in Fiji, where the media are still struggling to achieve freedom of the press.
Pacific Media Centre/Mads Anneberg
Almost eight months after the much-heralded election to usher Fiji back into democracy mode, the country will mark World Press Freedom Day facing serious questions about its claims to have a free and fair media.
A Fijian election officer shows a ballot to scrutineers at the 2006 election. Last month’s election resulted in a stronger vote for female MPs.
AP Image/Peter Williams
In a region that has long had the worst representation of women in politics in the world, Fiji’s recent election delivered some good news: one in seven Fijian MPs are women, while the parliament now has…
Frank Bainimarama has pulled off the unlikely feat of making the transition from military coup leader in 2006 (above) to Fiji’s democratically elected prime minister in Wednesday’s election.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
This was the way it was meant to be, at least in the eyes of Fiji’s self-appointed prime minister and self-styled rear-admiral, Frank Bainimarama. The 2014 election, the country’s first since his 2006…
Represent: Frank Bainimarama at the United Nations.
EPA/Mary Altaffer
Close your eyes and think of Fiji, and you’ll probably picture a luxurious South Pacific idyll set against a backdrop of honeymoon couples frolicking on white beaches and azure seas, being served by smiling…
Commodore Frank Bainimarama could learn a lot from China about quashing human rights.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
Yesterday’s rapprochement between Fiji, Australia and New Zealand, with the re-establishment of diplomatic ties at High Commissioner level, needs to be seen in the context of other recent events in Fiji’s…
When you’re complaining about the price at the bowser next time, consider this. Australia’s oil imports amount to a little over 1% of GDP. In Fiji, the oil import bill was around 14% in 2010. It’s probably…
Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University