Mission & Justice

Julia Medew; 18/9/08

Australia must act to prevent HIV epidemics in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in Papua New Guinea, from worsening and creeping onto its shores, the head of the Red Cross global HIV program says. Dr Bernard Gardiner, an Australian based in the Red Cross’ Geneva headquarters, said a recent cluster of infections among heterosexual Australian men who had visited PNG, reinforced why Australia could not be complacent about neighbouring epidemics. “Australia cannot sit back and wait for this to become a big problem,” he said. “It’s a really dangerous notion for Australia to treat itself as though it is somehow wrapped in cotton wool and protected from the reality of the global HIV epidemic. It isn’t. As a rich country, we need to play our part.”

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Patrick Walters; 18/9/08

Australia and France have moved to strengthen bilateral security ties, with the defence force now able to use New Caledonia as a logistic support base for operations in the South Pacific.The agreement will allow Australian naval and military forces to re-supply and refuel as well as use repair facilities in the French territory. Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said the agreement covering use of French defence facilities in New Caledonia would significantly help Australia. “We have an intense focus on the South Pacific that will be reflected in the coming defence white paper,” he said.

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Written by: Sanjay V. Gathia, Regional Information Advocacy officer with inputs from country offices.
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Diakonia: PO Box 49, Sanampao Post Office, Bangkok 10406, Thailand, Jesuit Refugees Service; 16/9/08

De facto refugees: “Catholic social teaching applies the expression de facto refugee to “all persons persecuted because of race, religion, membership in social or political groups; to the victims of armed conflicts, erroneous economic policy or natural disasters; and for humanitarian reasons to internally displaced persons, that is, civilians who are forcibly uprooted from their homes by the same type of violence as refugees but who do not cross national frontiers”. -A The “silent Tsunami” is how the current food crisis been labeled with the globally noted price rise in the food grains which is reaching above the purchasing power of the poor people and in some cases resulting in food riots in some countries. Some countries are responding by imposing food grain export restrictions in order to keep their own local population and quell any social unrest.

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Gina Maka’a; 16/9/08

Besides being a symbol of the pacific, the Coconut tree other wise known as the ‘tree of life’ plays a major role to the people of the Pacific Region. Despite the different culture and tradition, the coconut fruit, the leaves and the trunk play a similarly important role to the pacific lifestyle. The coconut fruit is one the most favored drink; sweet, juicy and most of all healthy if you are health conscious. Even when the fruit is dried up, don’t think of throwing it away as the dried coconut fruit contains dried coconut meat, a most required Pacific recipe to any dish. Almost every pacific dish requires coconut milk and if you are a food lover, you are encouraged to try Fish in Coconut milk, Potato, Taro or banana in coconut milk, or the famous Pumpkin containing coconut milk and vegetables.

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Sarah Smiles; 12/9/08

Unscrupulous foreign migration agents are exploiting Australia’s 457 visa system by extorting money from foreign workers and encouraging employers to overwork them. The concern has been raised in a paper by Industrial Relations Commissioner Barbara Deegan, who has been appointed by the Federal Government to examine the integrity of the 457 temporary visa scheme. In her paper Ms Deegan describes how foreign middlemen often demand excessive fees to secure jobs for foreign workers in Australia, or deceitfully demand up to $10,000 a year to renew workers’ visas when they have already been granted for up to four years. The agents, in turn, encourage Australian employers to exploit the workers, telling them they will work “unlimited hours” for the minimum wage.

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Daniel Flitton; 8/9/08

Australia’s reputation as America’s “deputy sheriff” in the region is entrenched despite the fall of the Howard government last year. But in a sign that public attitudes are shifting at home, a poll to be released today shows younger Australians are more likely to see US meddling in the neighbourhood as a problem. The survey by Melbourne University’s AsiaLink gives a snapshot of opinion across Australia and Indonesia about relations between the two countries. Indonesians rank Australia among the top four regional troublemakers, with America heading the list ahead of Malaysia and Israel. Following on from East Timor’s vote for independence in 1999 and continued unrest in Papua province, Indonesians most fear the break-up of their country and the prospect of outsiders promoting internal dissent. In turn, Australians overall are more likely to regard Indonesia with hostility, while also being wary of Iran, China and North Korea.

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3/9/08

An Australian marine scientist has dismissed Japanese research that the body mass of minke whales is declining because of increasingly scarce ocean resources. The study, based on data from two decades of lethal research, found Antarctic minke whales had lost 9 per cent of their blubber. It argues that this has been caused by a shortfall of krill, a vital component of the food chain, due to climate change and the recovery of other species such as humpback whales. An Australian Antarctic division researcher, Nick Gales, says the Japanese study’s methodology is flawed.

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Michael McKenna; 28/8/08

As Australia plans to import Pacific island fruit pickers, it has been dealt a cautionary tale that workers in a similar scheme in New Zealand were allegedly mistreated, given little work and underpaid. Dozens of workers from the tiny island nation of Kiribati were housed in overcrowded conditions and after spending most of their lives in a hot climate, struggled to cope with the cold in some parts of New Zealand. They also encountered problems such as how to use unfamiliar appliances such as toasters. The workers were then left stranded by employers, who failed to provide promised jobs offered under the New Zealand seasonal visa scheme that the Rudd Government has used as a model for a pilot guest worker program in Australia.

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25/8/08; Michael Mullins is the editor of Eureka Street;

The Federal Opposition opposes the Government’s Pacific Guest Worker scheme while it considers that a range of important questions remain unanswered. There are indeed many questions, but the opposition appears to be missing those relating to the rights of the Pacific workers themselves. The plan, which involves a three year trial, follows many requests from both Pacific nations and potential employers in Australia. Pacific leaders see such schemes as a key response to the urgent challenge posed by rising sea levels.

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22/8/08

Japanese whaling ships caught 211 whales during their three-month voyage in the northwest Pacific, the fisheries agency said. The main ship of the six-vessel fleet, 8044-ton Nisshin-maru, will arrive in Tokyo on Saturday, with the rest returning to their ports by the end of the month, the agency said. Since they left on June 6, the ships caught 100 sei whales, 59 minke whales, 50 Bryde’s whales and two sperm whales, the agency said Friday. The Japanese government, which says whaling is part of the national culture, plans to kill around 1000 whales a year using a loophole in a 1986 international moratorium that allows “lethal research” on whales.

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