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Article is written with a short term focus with not enough balance on how the economy needs to diversify. One only needs to drive through the previous farm lands to see it over grown or rather a bushland with trees ready to be milled. The current state of the country is the same as it is for most small tourism dependent countries. Yes I agree there is a need for the western countries that have exploited the colonial countries they managed to give back. Be it the banana import or the pineapple or sugar or gold or the intellectual capital and lastly not to mention the capital flight with every skilled migration. 12k people migrate every year with roughly $40k cash in hand or roughly 580 million dollars ... 580 MILLION DOLLARS. What the country really needs to do is, reduce expenditure, re-establish farming, free trade agreement like the sugar cane EU scheme, establish an agreement of the Pacific nations on fishing rights, grant scheme that is a percentage of capital flight targeted purely for infrastructure with acquittal to say the least.

Well said.

Australia may need a Pacific compact, but I’m not sure that the Pacific does. Luke Gosling suggests “These ideas for a new Pacific compact should be handled respectfully, seriously and urgently.” This echoes John Blaxland’s concerns that the issue should be debated with an open mind, and should not be perceived as neo-colonial or paternalistic. In an exchange in Australian Foreign Affairs, I’ve argued that John Blaxland’s proposal for Compacts of Free Association with Kiribati, Nauru, Tuvalu and (!) Tonga, has fundamental flaws. https://www.australianforeignaffairs.com/articles/correspondence/2020/09/response-to-john-blaxlands-developing-a-grand-compact-for-the Solomon Islands’ scholar Tarcisius Kabautalaka also writes: “John Blaxland’s proposal for a ‘grand compact for the Pacific’ is Australia-centric and marginalises Pacific islander voices. It highlights Australia’s continuing struggle to define its relationship with the region as well as its concerns about the changing geopolitical order as China’s influence grows.” https://www.australianforeignaffairs.com/articles/correspondence/2020/09/response-to-john-blaxlands-developing-a-grand-compact-for-the-0 Gosling, like Blaxland, has seized upon Anote Tong’s support for the Compact proposal. But this should be judged by Tong’s long history of support for ‘migration with dignity’, a policy that has won little support from the new Kiribati government, or leaders in Tuvalu and Nauru. See my DevPolicy story from 2012 on Tong's migration policy : https://devpolicy.org/kiribati_migration_climate_change20120112/ Australian politicians want a respectful discussion about the Compact, but they should honestly address the drivers of the policy, which include concerns about strategic denial in the islands (aimed especially at China). This may be another factor in Anote Tong’s attitude to the idea, given his longstanding support for Taiwan (his father having fled the PRC as a refugee). Kevin Rudd’s similar proposal for a Compact in 2019 was labelled as "imperial thinking" because Tuvalu's then Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga saw the Compact proposal as both a denial of Pacific sovereignty and a way out for successive Australian governments that have failed to develop a climate policy.

Fiji needs all the support especially from Australia at this difficult time. As our Pacific neighbor we rely on them at this difficult time.

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.