Tag Archives: Susan Merrell

What Price National Pride ? The PNG solution

23 Tuesday Jul 2013

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By Susan Merrell

And he sold our reputation,
On the proceeds he will dine,
In a land of golden plenty…
Where just the dregs are mine.

(With apologies to) Idris Davies

The bilateral PNG solution to Australia’s refugee problem is wrong on so many levels but I am going to address just one:

…from the point of view of Papua New Guinea

It is already well recognised that the agreement is a cynical and expensive exercise at vote grabbing by the desperate leader of an ailing Labor Party whose wresting of power from Julia Gillard at the eleventh hour requires him to pull a rabbit out of a hat.

And does Rudd care about the consequences for anyone other than himself, first, – the Labor Party, second  – and Australia, third?  I doubt it.

There are more people to consider: like the refugees (who have many people advocating, quite rightly, for them including the UN).

Then there’s PNG. 

Here we have a nation battling to achieve modernity: struggling with the concept of democracy where pulling together over 800 discrete tribes into a nation is proving a challenge.  Here’s a nation that achieved independence only 37 short years ago  – some have mooted it was premature. Poverty is rife, as is governmental and institutional corruption.

The tortured transition to modernity combined with abject poverty and lack of government services has produced profound social problems, not least of which is violence against women.  Indeed PNG is a recognised producer of refugees – most of them women fleeing domestic violence.

Add to that law and order problems and a population that have embraced a form of punitive and retributive Christianity that sees homosexuality and adultery still on the statute books and a population generally intolerant of religious difference.

Under the circumstances, it is a society hardly likely to take kindly to the special privileges that will be afforded refugees through Australian money – a better life than they could ever hope for.  Can you blame them?

The main problem is not logistical, it’s ideological.

If you are going to say to the abused spouse that if he wishes to pursue Cinderella, he will be forced to marry the ugly sister – how must that make the sister feel?

PNGeans are not comfortable with the role of ugly sister, and neither they should be.

The whole idea of using the threat of living in PNG to deter refugees is repugnant.  PNG is a nation struggling to maintain national pride through all of their profound problems, not helped when even the ‘touchy, feely’ Green Senator Milne, insensitively stated that Rudd’s solution surpassed even Abbott’s in cruelty to refugees.

When international headlines have labelled PNG as ‘Hell’, a ‘shithole’ and other equally pejorative terms, how does PNG maintain a vestige of national pride?

The cartoonist, Larry Pickering postulated that:

The only cost to O’Neill is that his country will now be known as a worse hell-hole than the world’s worst hell-holes.

It’s a price far too high!

In a land of poverty and strife where just existing is often difficult, O’Neill has sold cheaply one of the few things that PNGeans have to embrace and hold dear – their pride.

Gary Juffa, a new breed of Member of Parliament who is fiercely patriotic and who sits on the middle benches (ie neither government nor opposition) wrote:

…Australia is sending them [refugees] to a nation that is a developing nation with many issues of its own to contend with…in the international landscape, PNG is painted as a horrible place, IT IS NOT! I am saddened that my home is being used to deter people, scaremongering as it were…I welcome those who need help but what if they do not want “OUR” help? No body wants a hostile guest…

Introducing: Papua New Guinea’s number 1 citizen and signatory to the agreement

Independence in PNG brought into prominence an echelon of society that is venal, corrupt – and ruthlessly so.  This stratum is the highest in the land. It is well understood in PNG that the only way to riches is through becoming a Member of Parliament where one can put one’s snout in the lucrative corruption trough.  It is why there were close to 3000 candidates contesting 111 seats in the last election.

At the very highest of this echelon is the man who, last week, sold the reputation of PNG for ‘cargo’ (a concept well entrenched in PNG tradition):  to achieve that which venal governments should easily have achieved long ago had they not stolen government funds:

He is Peter O’Neill, the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea.

In the early ‘noughties’ O’Neill was embroiled and implicated in a corruption scandal that saw millions of dollars disappear from the coffers of the National Provident Fund.

Although he was named in the Commission of Inquiry (along with others,) no one was ever convicted of any offence – which is par for the course in PNG.  Corruption is a low-risk business.  O’Neill’s case did not even reach the courts but was dismissed through lack of evidence – evidence that was clearly extant during the Inquiry.

With half the annual budget regularly going missing to corruption, who knows how much of Rudd’s blood money will even reach its PNG target.  The Australian Prime Minister’s desperation is making O’Neill’s negotiations like shooting fish in a barrel.

The agreement promises that PNG will have more control over aid monies, for instance, something for which O’Neill has been agitating since his inception as Prime Minister.  That notwithstanding, the very reason that Australia stopped contributing aid to the general national budget was to give the politicians and public servants less control and thus to stop funds disappearing into well lined pockets.

A national disgrace

No nation can thrive without national pride.

Without national pride to cement civil society, Papua New Guinea’s problems are just poised to worsen.

When Kevin Rudd positioned PNG as the proverbial repulsive ugly sister, for the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea to have, smilingly, agreed is nothing short of treason.

O’Neill should be in the business of nation building not nation (and soul) destroying.

Seven million Papua New Guineans are struggling to maintain their national pride against great social and economic odds. Take away pride and you take away the last vestiges of hope.  How dare this Prime Minister?

This Judas got his 30 pieces of silver.

Moti’s Illegal Deportation

09 Tuesday Aug 2011

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Julian Moti

Story by Susan Merrell

Aussies not aiding Solomon Islands to uphold the rule of law

Canberra: In Australia’s High Court last week, Justice Heydon, one of seven judges hearing the appeal of former Attorney General Julian Moti, conceded that although Moti’s 2007 illegal deportation from the Solomon Islands was a decision of the Solomon Islands’ government, Australia failed to fulfil its mandated role (under RAMSI).

“We [Australia] went to the Solomon Islands in order to restore the rule of law,” he said.

“What happened on 27 December [the illegal deportation] did not involve the Australian Government participating in a process of restoring the rule of law.”

Moti was in court appealing for a permanent stay of prosecution as redress for Australia’s alleged abuse of executive process – i.e. deportation, in contravention of a court restraining order that gave him 7 days to appeal.

Also in court both days observing proceedings was Solomon Islands High Commissioner BerakiJino.

The 2007 deportation led directly to Moti’s subsequent arrest in Brisbane and brought him wrongfully into the jurisdiction of the Australian courts.

Ian Barker QC for Moti, argued the Australian authorities ‘connived and colluded’ with the Solomon Islands government to effect what counsel described as an “abduction.”

Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) argued to the contrary that Australia was rightfully disinterested in the internal processes of another sovereign governmentand evidence was led includingofficial emails to Australian personnel in Honiara telling them to maintain the correct protocol and not become involved in the Solomon Islands deportation process.

However, there was competing evidence that these directives weren’t obeyed – including correspondence by AFP officers and other officials discussing and making arrangements for the departure of Moti via deportation.

Canberra’s wrongful involvement was further highlighted by a travel document emanating from the Australian High Commission, issued via instructions from the Australian capital.

It was issued without the request of Moti and was the document that facilitated the deportation.

The Justices questioned whether the Australian authorities could and should have denied supply of this document as they were aware of the illegality of the process it would serve.

CDPP argued that the Australian authorities, in issuing the document,were acting on legal advice from the Solomon Islands that the deportation was legal.

In response, Justice Heydon said the legal reasoning behind the advice was ‘laughable’ and furthermore that the Australian authorities had never accepted the veracity of that advice “for a moment.”

Justice Susan Kiefel, commented that given that the Australian authorities had the choice to deny issuance of the document, especially as they knew it was to carry out an illegal activity – that “…in that exercise of choice there may be the collusion.”

With the full bench of the High Court not calling for any evidence from the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) on the second ground of appeal – the excessive payments to witnesses, making it likely that this ground will be thrown out – Moti’s case will be decided on Australia’s inappropriate’collusion’ in the unlawful deportation process.

The court reserved its judgment and a verdict is expected in the coming months.

Should the appeal be upheld, Moti will be granted the permanent stay of prosecution if not, the court case emanating from the 2006 charges of child-sex tourism from an alleged statutory rape in Vanuatu in 1997 will go ahead.

First published in the Solomon Star – Monday 8 August

Razzle Dazzle ‘Em – at the Pig’s Arms, Susan Merrell

13 Friday Aug 2010

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Am I?

By Susan Merrell

While you were watching this ……

As I write, Australia is in the thrall of ‘Utegate’. It’s another ‘Ah ha! Gotcha!’ moment of which we are being served a regular diet.

Malcolm Turnbull alleges that the Australian parliament has been misled by the lies of government ministers. This, we are told, is a most heinous crime. Yet, politicians lie to the Australian public all the time.  In my book, this is a greater crime than misleading parliament. Yet they do so with impunity. So what’s this fuss really about?

This question can also be asked of the Tony Stewart affair. His Ah ha! Gotcha! moment occurred when he (allegedly) bawled out a staffer in public then held her leg so she couldn’t leave (allegedly). There was also that other grumpy politician, Belinda Neal, who (allegedly) yelled at a staff member at the Iguana nightclub then (allegedly) lied about it.

I don’t know about you, but, in the main, I can’t see what all the kerfuffle’s about. Politicians are certainly behaving badly. And when they compound the felony by lying their actions can only be judged as ignoble – yes, and sometimes even criminal. Nevertheless, our preoccupation with such trivial matters is elevating them to a position that isn’t rightly theirs.

In doing so, are important issues being overlooked? Indeed, are we being served up a mountain of trivialities in order to distract us?  Are the Australian public being razzle-dazzled?

Remember Marcus Einfeld? His Ah ha! Gotcha! moment came over a $77 speeding fine that he tried to get out of by lying to the courts. No doubt he behaved badly. He also paid a high price with a rather long custodial term. (Is he still in jail?).

When Einfeld’s case was all over the news there was another story of far more importance being played out in the background. It was largely ignored, not being nearly as ‘sexy’.

The same year (2006) that Einfeld had been prosecuted for speeding he had also been appointed by the government of the Solomon Islands to head up a judicial inquiry into the April 2006 riots in Honiara. The riots occurred because of popular dissatisfaction with the results of a general election – especially the appointment of Snyder Rini as Prime Minister.

The inquiry was very unpopular with the then Howard government as it intended to raise issues of culpability and incompetence of not only the Solomon Islands’ authorities but also of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) -a body that had been formulated by countries in the region and headed up by Australia as a peace-keeping mission during the ethnic tensions at the request of the then Solomon Islands government. The request for assistance had come from the Prime Minister immediately previous to Rini, Sir Allan Kemakeza.

In the aftermath of the riots, Manasseh Sogavare, a more acceptable choice to the people of the Solomon Islands, subsequently replaced Rini. However, he was not so acceptable to the Australian government having always been a strong critic of RAMSI.

What followed was an international incident of significant proportions that contained allegations of corruption amongst Solomon Islands politicians, charges of bullying and overstepping their authority against the Australian government and RAMSI, High Commissioners being declared as persona non grata, illegal raids on the offices of Prime Ministers – and that’s not the half of it.

During most of this time we, the Australian people, were following, with bated breath, the Marcus Einfeld $77 speeding fine saga.

Perfect timing sustains the conspiracy theory.  On July, 13, 2006, Sogavare appoints Marcus Einfeld as chairman of the committee of inquiry – August 10, a criminal investigation into Einfeld commences while in parliament Alexander Downer announces that he has “concerns” about the Solomon Islands inquiry.

Disgracing the chairman of a commission so unpopular with Canberra would certainly put a spoke in the wheel. Wouldn’t it? And it did.

Yet only one commentator picked up on this. (Patrick O’Connor writing for the World Socialist Web Site.) Not even Einfeld himself gave voice to highly probable political motivations. I can only guess why not

In a serendipitous bonus for Canberra, as well as the speeding Einfeld, the inquiry would also deliver up another large target.

Lawyer, Julian Moti, later appointed Attorney General under the same Solomon Islands Prime Minister who commissioned the inquiry, Manasseh Sogavare, largely formulated the inquiry’s terms of reference.

After his appointment, it took the Australian government no time at all to resurrect a largely dormant inquiry into an old (1997) sex charge against Moti allegedly committed in Vanuatu while he was resident there. The judiciary of Vanuatu dropped the charge in 1999.

The Moti affair, had further international ramifications when the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Sir Michael Somare refused to hand over Moti to Australian authorities to answer the charges and helped him reach Honiara.  Once there Sogavare also refused to repatriate him to Australia.

During the stoush that followed, allegations flew about corruption, bribing of magistrates and the right of sovereign nations to conduct their own affairs without interference.

Pacific relations had hit an all time low.

Yet we cared little for this as we got caught up in the Einfeld perverting the course of justice charge and the Moti sex-tourism charges.  (Moti was subsequently extradited back to Australia to face the charges when the new Island government under the leadership of Dr. Derek Sikua felt it was prudent to do so. His case is pending in the Brisbane courts as I write)

So, in spite of any crimes Einfeld and Moti may have committed (and do remember – no charges against Moti have been proved), I can’t help feeling that both of them are the scapegoats served up to distract us from seriously important political matters.

So what’s the real story behind Utegate?  Are you starting to feel like a fool whose righteous indignation will be used as a weapon for an unknown agenda?  Me too.

Susan Merrell – first published on Open Forum  http://www.openforum.com.au/content/razzle-dazzleem on 26 June 2009

Thanks to News for the loan of the Pic.