All Comments

Thanks Paul for a very fitting and well summised tribute to a humble and wise man. He managed well the pressing political expectations and expenditure appetites during his tenure and it was an absolute priveleged to have worked with him and you at the Treasury

This is an excellent initiative. Are there more examples, other CSO and NGO communities in the Pacific Islands that are coordinating their responses to COVID? Could they? Could governments with the support of current donor COVID relief programs help, because formal welfare programs and responses to COVID do not reach the greater communities that the CSOs and NGOs can reach?

Thanks Dr. Ann for this amazing report regarding Timorese migrant workers working overseas, especially in the UK. I finally found this site as I am going to report on the same topic as well. Nevertheless, I am super excited because that Timorese man is my uncle. This is such an extremely important report for us as the young generation to do research based on Timorese migrant workers overseas. Keep up the good job Dr. Ann. God Bless you🙏.

Thanks Stephen. Very interesting. Does this now mean that Australia intends to reduce its use of sub-contracted service providers like PHD and instead make greater use of national systems? Is there any mention of how the multilateral system will be used in future?

Thanks Stephen for a nice account of what it was and what it would be for post COVID-19 recovery in the Pacific.

Australia’s COVID-19 response strategy is looking into the Pacific from the outside and based on Canberra’s recent experience on the pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic.

From the inside looking out, Pacific nations would experience pre- and post-COVID-19 from a much different angle, which may not hold the same view that of Canberra.

One matter of fact is this: many assumed that once COVID-19 hit the shores of the Pacific, it would wipe out the entire population. This assumption has proven to hold no water. If Pacific nations could contain COVID-19 and even HIV/AIDS, what more better would Canberra expects.

Therefore, Canberra’s COVID-19 response strategy may not include essential details of recovery that should otherwise be included if it looks from the inside.

It needs more work along with the Pacific Step-up policy, COVID-19 is a good opportunity.

In the end, its all about numbers: (i) how many people in poor countries seek for a better life, (ii) how many years can they wait for the situation to improve, (iii) what reasonable immigration capacity could the rich countries offer? I do not claim that the following numbers are hard facts, but probably they show the order of magnitude: As for (i), I would assume 1-2 billion people today, with another 1-2 billion coming from population growth mainly in Africa over the next 40 years. As for (ii), not many… and as for (iii), don’t forget that North America, Australia/NZ and Western Europe host only in the range of 0.8 billion people. If we assume that they want to preserve the social structures, they may not accept more than 20% – 40% immigration from poor countries within 10 years. This would already stretch the political acceptance quite strongly I would assume. So the maximum short term immigration capacity may be in the range of 10% or less only. This is the reason why we definitly need other approaches to the justified need of the many poor poeple. Waiting for immigration into rich countries is just an illussion and can not meet the need.

This is truly an informative post Stephen especially that Pacific countries should not be opening in a hurry since there are still a number of countries with a lot of cases. The sooner the vaccine is made the faster the economies will recover.

Yes, I agree with you

Great job Joseph. A related article by NRI few weeks back suggested that some schools in PNG may not complete the units, and have to repeat next year if they have to follow physical distancing like how you describe here.

Thanks for this interesting piece Mr Pundu. It is valuable to have a sense of what is happening in schools in Port Moresby and other parts of the country.

Thank you again,

Dr Amanda H A Watson