Comments

Interesting data Vola, thanks for the article. Publicly available court data shows that applications for protection orders has increased by 18% with 1,167 filed in 2025. It would be good to understand whether access to the formal justice system has improved at the same pace as we previously estimated that approximately 98% of cases never reach the system and that rural women remain largely excluded from protection orders. It is very concerning that the prevalence of sexual violence against children remains largely unchanged from earlier surveys. A review of 2023 Court decisions (criminal jurisdiction) shows 1/3 involved sexual offences, with nearly seven in 10 decisions involving sexual offences against children. It further indicated that courts continue to rely on flawed medical examinations, police/prosecution practice remains inconsistent; child protection remains severely under-resourced; and that almost half of the prison population were serving sentences for sexual offences, consistent since 2012. I hope that we can see greater investment in services for children in Vanuatu.

The only reason Bush and Blair invaded Iraq was so they could take focus and attention away from Afghanistan because they did not want the Taliban to be eliminated (the Taliban had unconditionally surrendered in Dec 2001 but Bush and Rumsfeld wouldn’t accept their surrender, and the Bush admin had OBL cornered in Tora Bora but they allowed the Pakistanis to safely evacuate OBL to Pakistan instead of the Bush admin killing or capturing OBL). The defeat/elimination of the Taliban would have meant the end of Pakistan (the Afghan part of Pakistan re-joining Afghanistan, and the Indian part of Pakistan re-joining India with the support of the international community), which Bush and Blair opposed. Within a month and a half of the Iraq invasion, the US and UK had achieved total victory, but Bush deliberately did things which led to an insurgency in Iraq, an insurgency he could have easily crushed anytime he wanted to within the first 2 and a half years of that war, but he deliberately allowed to fester. For this reason, in people’s heart of hearts, people think the invasion of Iraq was the right thing to do, even though they may pretend otherwise. When they pretend otherwise, they are simply being disingenuous. Regarding the first 4 years of the war of terror, journalists were totally complicit and they did not do their job of holding Bush to account by asking why America had not and is not crushing the terrorists already and why America is giving them breathing space to fester instead.

Keep up the good, important work Vola, Sharon, Juliet and team - the Vanuatu Women’s Centre has been tirelessly supporting women and children across the country, its network for Committees Against Violence Against Women and its Male Advocacy program a major part of its effectiveness. Reducing violence is slow, hard work as this article shows, but it remains fundamentally important if we are to build a healthy, safe society together. Tankyu tumas for all you do.

Congratulations to the team on achieving better outcomes for women and bringing positive growth to the people Vanuatu. This has been a long journey 🙏

Congratulations Professor Howes on securing another four years of funding for this valuable initiative. I feel fortunate to have been part of it for a few years. My sincere thanks to all those who are continuing to work on and support this important partnership.

Thank you for your response. PALM is based on a series of bilateral agreements between two sovereign states, each state has a set of obligations to meet as part of that agreement. As I stated, it is not an aid program where the recipient country has few if any obligations. PALM workers are more expensive to employ because they are entitled to the higher casual rate of pay but also have a fixed term work contract with minimum pay guaranteed. So employers are employing them for other reasons such as reliability and not because they are paid less than other workers. The role of CLOs is be a trusted intermediary for their country's workers to provide advice in a way they can understand and act on. This is particularly important for Timorese workers who are likely to have little or no English. Timorese government officials residing in Darwin and expected to be CLOs are not meeting an important part of making a complex system of welfare support work as it should.

Let's put this in perspective: 1) The Australian Government owns the program, as part of their regional foreign relations strategy 2) Australian companies get international workers via the scheme, at a effective lower cost 3) In some cases these, these companies treat their international employees under conditions that can be compared to modern slavery, as reported multiple times in the media 4) There is a clear unbalance of power and foreign workers usually don't complain about these conditions Yet you argue the responsibility to ensure Australian working standards and protections reside on a foreign government auditing work conditions on Australian soil? Neither can't I see a valid argument in your article on how or why Ramos-Horta is using this for "political purposes" (what purpose apparently?), neither that the Timorese see the program as "aid", this is a very paternalistic and westernized view. President Ramos-Horta requested Australia to take ownership on the problem. We created the program. It benefits Australian foreign relationships as well as Australian farmers, it is done on our soil, under our jurisdiction. I failed to see how the blame can be passed to Timor-Leste. This is not an isolated event and it also is worth also noticing that similar issues to what happened to Timorese workers have been reported for other nationalities in the PALM scheme.

Being an integral part of the process of customary landowner consolidation for resource project development forums, I have witnessed that there is intentional suppression of landowner verification (social mapping, validation (IPA) and legitimization (ILG) in what seems like a divide and conquer schema by MRA, DPE and the SNT. I believe the same government approach applies for any customary land ownership scenario, depending on economic potential. Parliament has failed to make further relevant effective legislation or policy to reflect the national Goals and Principles on "Equity, participation, and the PNG Way," and so national government and provincial governments' processes become obstacles rather than systems to empower and facilitate. To compound this chaos for the Customary Land Owners, the National Civil Registry, National Statistics Office, and the Electoral Commission are failing to fulfill their mandated roles and responsibilities to be resourceful institutions for reliable updated data on demographics. The Office of Rural Development has not decentralized its capacity to be visible on the ground in provinces and districts to provide capture of the demographics also, for its critical assessments of DSIP and PSIP aquittals. The relevant systems are in place, and I feel the current ILG process is relevant but requires more stringent social mapping on the ground for determination, especially for resource projects and potential big-scale project discussions. Hela, Porgera, and Wafi Goplu landowner issues are relevant to any customary land ownership agenda but have been suppressed, reflecting Go PNG's similar approach to landowners. One other minor point is that voluntary land registration by customary landowners should not trigger monthly or yearly administration fees/arrears from the state to put landowners in a position of debt. The constitution should be the landowner's "equity" for proactive governance, facilitating and positioning customary landowners to realize their assets/wealth.

Pita, Happy to talk with you about what the two of you are doing in your role as country liaison officers (CLOs) for the PALM program.

Thank you very much for some vital encouragement.

Hi Richard. Keen for you to see what the Vanuatu CLO space is doing.

Many thanks Brett for your comment. It is important to note that the analysis of the comparative economic benefits to Australia vs Timor-Leste you refer to is one made by the President in his Op Ed of 20 May.