Moala explores Tongan democracy and identity issues

By Pippa Brown: Pacific Media Centre

Publisher and broadcaster Kalafi Moala led an intimate and spirited philosophical public discussion last night on what it means to be Tongan with a sense of place in the world.

The issues of modern Tonga and how to take the country forward without losing its sense of identity dominated the discussion as the kingdom moves into a fresh era as it progresses toward developing a new constitution.

When Tongans express a sense for democracy there is also a voice saying “please don’t touch my Tonganness, my identity that was established over 3000 years ago,” says Moala.

“Even radical reformists do not want to break up this system.”

Moala, who publishes both the Taimi ‘o Tonga and Tonga Chronicle, was being hosted by the Pacific Media Centre at AUT University to talk about his new book In Search of the Friendly Islands and the constitutional reform consultations.

As the problems of diaspora and the dispersing of people and culture become greater with the issues of globalisation, consequential loss of identity were likely to become more prominent, he says.

Moala introduced the statement, ‘I belong, therefore I am’, and contrasted it to ‘I think, therefore I am’, as being fundamentally important to Tongans and other Pacific peoples in knowing who they are.

He says young people are starting to question who they are as they move among other social structures and although this can relate to anyone, it applies in particular to people in the Pacific.

The quest for identity is a huge thing in the sense that for so many years being Tongan has been taken for granted.

Social relationships
“It is not so much that ‘I have’ but my belonging that shapes everything else that I am,” says Moala.

“In Tonga, the social relationship starts with the family, from the immediate family to the kainga (extended family) which contribute to the grouping of the families who make up the village which combine together to become a region and a nation which then become the fonua.

Moala says the more people look at this belonging and social structure within Tonga, it shows how the relationships work within the family and the strong traditions and headships that lead.

“It’s the people, it’s the land, it’s the nation,” says Moala.

The difference is that Western identity is based on what a person does while Tongan and Pacific identity are based on who people are and the relationship with family, village and so on.

“It is not what you do that really matters in the relationship,” says Moala.

“I belong, therefore I am: Belonging is the relationship of who we are and how we base our relationships in Tonga,” says Moala.

The structure is clearly defined even before Christianity. It is always important that we have a head of the structure from the immediate family where the father figure protects, provides and teaches to the emotional support the mother brings, he says.

Within the relationship courtesy, loyalty, sharing and love are very much part of the social structure. In this sense of structure or Kainga there is always a headship person to relate to.
It is very clear in this society knowing who people relate to, family, kainga, village, and nation and within this nation, the head, says Moala.

“We as a nation are progressing toward reform and the people want changes to happen but they are saying please don’t let it affect my Tonganness and my relationships and relationships to the land and the issues that need to be resolved spiritually for our future,” he says.

Concept of land
Tongans have a strong relationship to the land. The Tongan concept of land and the spirit and life of the land we belong to always remains even as generations come and go, says Moala.

The system of tenure and generational inheritance remains in the sense of Tonganness when returning to the homeland.

“The issues of land extend to the ocean and seabed,” says Moala.

The oceanic kingdom of Tonga comprises 169 islands, 36 of them inhabited and extends over a distance of about 800 kilometres.

Spirituality plays a large part in Tonganness. Moala sees the strong thread of spirituality that binds the people in their relationship with one another and the land as becoming stronger.

“The movement of people across borders is opening up more spirituality as there is more out there to explore,” he says.

Modernisation has made some issues difficult to grasp within the Tongan and Pacific world which are clearly defined in Western terms.

“It is important for us to find conceptual tools that we can use to construct new thought patterns to allow us to find what we are looking for,” says Moala.

“As scholars, media and academics we are trying to probe into this new era of Pacifica and we need to find and create the right conceptual tools."

“The challenge of walking into the future is how we develop new tools,” he says.

Consensual methods
The consensual methods we traditionally use to provide solutions to problems are deep in our culture together with the peace and harmony that come with it says Moala.

He says one of the problems of cultural dispersion and diaspora is that wherever Tongans and Pacific Islanders are in the world they encounter these issues of identity.

“In international cities where there are large populations of Pacific Islanders churches become very important and almost like a refuge,” says Moala.

He thinks the Pacific as a region identifies with a lot of similar issues that we need to find a solution for.

“It is important to find the tools to walk down the aisle together and discover who we really are,” says Moala.

Vaea Hopoi is a student who also works with youth who are dependent on alcohol and drugs. He thinks the biggest problem for Polynesians is a loss of identity and not knowing where they come from.

“I believe you must know your history to know who you are now and to know where you are going in the future,” says Hopoi.

Moala questions why the Pacific region is trying to solve the current Fiji political problem in an confrontational way.

“Why not solve it in a Pacific way and let the Pacific sovereignty leaders meet Fiji and see how we can open up the dialogue,” he asks.

Moala thinks New Zealand is a country that is standing in confrontation with Fiji so Māori may offer a solution. Going in as an outsider hasn’t worked but to look at the issue as Pacific brothers in the broader sense of fonua may work.

New framework
“It hasn’t been solved within the current framework so we need to find another one,” he says.
He thinks the Forum had the right to suspend Fiji “but we don’t need to keep beating them up.”

Moala says the heads of government in the Pacific Island Forum may have some conflict with the duality of the Pacific and Western frameworks.

It is important to apply criticism and look at the challenges facing the Tongan and Pacific Island people he thinks. He says rather than standing outside and looking in we need to come to the culture.

“While it hurts talking about these things it feels good to be a part of it,” says Moala. “We need to report on it but report on it from our own perspective.”

David Robie, associate professor in communication studies at AUT and director of the Pacific Media Centre, commented on how Moala was one of the only journalists in the Pacific who is reflecting on these new issues of belongingness and sense of identity.

“Media reflects a society and its sense of identity and yet in the Pacific this is very much influenced by New Zealand and Australia,” says Dr Robie.

Moala thinks people need to learn to be comfortable with the two sides of traditional belonging and Western way of thinking, to overcome the confusion with identity.

He says some concepts cannot be explained because the tools are not there and “it may be a role for Pacific scholars to investigate and construct these tools and find how to put it in words”.

Top photo of Kalafi Moala last night by Pippa Brown; photo of Moala and Taimi in Nuku'alofa by David Robie. - PMC .

Pippa Brown is an AUT Graduate Diploma in Journalism student on internship with the Pacific Media Centre.

In Search of the Friendly Islands, by Kalafi Moala, published by the Pasifika Foundation
Taimi 'o Tonga

NZ media 'misses point' in visa scam, says Tongan group

By Josephine Latu: Pacific Media Watch

Tongan Advisory Council chairman Melino Maka (pictured) has criticised New Zealand’s mainstream media for “missing the point” in coverage of an alleged visa scam on Pacific Islanders.

Manukau-based immigration consultant, Gerrard Otimi, appeared in court yesterday and entered no pleas on three charges of deception.

The charges against Otimi involve the alleged stamping of passports with visas for overstaying Pacific Island immigrants at a cost of $500 and adoption by his hapu.

The New Zealand Herald reported that $40,000 had been uncovered by police yesterday in the Manukau area as well as 5000 blank “hapu certificates”.

The police and immigration departments have since called for duped Pacific Islanders to come forward, although there is no guarantee of amnesty.

Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples said he sympathised with the islanders involved in the alleged scam, while Pacific Island Affairs Minister Georgina te Heuheu called the deceit “deplorable”, especially with “some of the most vulnerable people in our country” as victims.

Maka told Pacific Media Watch he planned to arrange a lawyer to look into the Tongan cases involved in the alleged scam.

He also added that the spotlight should be on the perpetrators and not the victims.

“The mainstream [media] is not sympathetic. They don’t know how it is, and perhaps they don’t want to know. But they tend to sensationalise the issue,” he said.

A news release from the council stated that most media fail to recognise two major issues “driving people to take such extreme steps”.

This includes a “very mixed history” in NZ Immigration Department’s dealings with Pacific Island issues, including a “high level of poor decisions”.

Also, the council claimed that complaints from Pacific Islanders about misinformation and mishandling on the part of immigration consultants were “not treated as high a priority as removing the overstayers themselves”.

Maka said the Tonga Advisory Council would organise “free advice workshops” for immigrants next month to deal with these issues.

Courts 'have no right to judge tikanga Māori'

Planet FM - from minority broadcasting to mainstream

By Terri Byrne

In 1987, the Auckland Ethnic Council founded a radio station that would:
- allow non-English communities to hear their languages, their news, music and literature that
- would represent their culture, values and beliefs, and
- would allow them to have a public presence in a land they had lived in for decades if not generations.

Today that station is 22 years old and the most diverse medium in the country. Planet FM has full schedules, broadcasting in 50 languages, all made by the language groups concerned. It is multicultural and cross-cultural. Radio represents 42 percent of the media day. It is portable, intimate, comparatively inexpensive to make and always free-to-air.

Sadly though, this public broadcasting service is not adequately funded. The major constraint on its content is the need for the programme makers to pay to air their material.

One of our hopes for 2020 or much sooner is that those with the least ability to pay are no longer the only ones who have to pay for media that’s relevant to them.

Currently the station is obliged to choose those who pay, rather than those with the best ideas or the most needed content.

However, they are often the same thing and the programmes are vigorously supported by their contributing communities, with research revealing figures between 60 and 80 percent of targeted communities listening to their shows.

Around today’s forum I hear a lot of references to “mainstream” media, which I believe is an increasingly dinosaur concept.

Already SKY brings 80+ channel options to 50 percent of NZ households, there are another seven free-to-air and two digital-only TV channels and a range of regional channels. A number of our broadcasters have satellite dishes to pull in own-language television.

There are 212 radio stations in NZ and Auckland, with 50+ radio stations has more than New York or London. The commercial stations run an array of brands over about 140 stations. The national public broadcaster is on frequencies throughout the country including for a select minority on Concert FM. There are 11 community access stations nationwide, as well as student radio stations and countless LPFM stations.

About 60 percent of NZ homes are web-connected, more than half are broadband connected. The online population of this country is equivalent to 85 percent of the population.

So the market – or the audience as I prefer to think of us – has splintered into dozens of niches.

Minority is Mainstream and in 2020 will be more so.

To quote Bob Geldof, a man who has led the way in many areas of media:

“The future belongs to those who build their own media.”

We’re delighted that Planet FM is ahead of the curve on all this.

• We recognise the hundreds of niche broadcasters and their listeners …
• We facilitate the making of their own media
• We do not exercise editorial control, ensuring freedom of cultural and social expression…
• We support local.
• And we ensure their productions are archived for on-demand, online listening 5 minutes after broadcast – along with a range of other multi-lingual information services for settlers.

It is our belief that in 2020 we’ll all be shopping for our media on multiple platforms and the content will often be of our own devising rather than from a schedule devised for advertisers
addressing matters deemed relevant by programmers with a narrow cultural focus.

Already music radio is an iPod, but informational, entertaining and community-enabling content is flourishing.

Already NZ is fabulously diverse and when what was once mainstream media catches up with that, it will:

• hand over the tools,
• Relax the editorial controls,
• Embrace the new aesthetic
• And discover the riches already being expressed in a thousand ways.

It will not be about “them” becoming like “us” or hopefully by 2020, it will not even be about “them” explaining themselves to “us”. Hopefully it will be about all of us discovering who we are becoming as a nation.

And we should not imagine that only non-English audiences are interested in so called “ethnic” content. Māori Television attracts between 50 and 70 percent non-Māoriviewers.

In discussing the aging of PBS’s demographic with Gareth Watkin, Leslie Rule at KQED in San Francisco says:

“It’s about changing the idea of what public broadcasting is. It’s now more about “broadcasting the public."

This will require funding policies that are about where we are headed, rather than where we’ve been. Policies that promote equity of access to services.

Government agencies with responsibilities to non-English populations will take a leaf from the efforts of our Pacific people and make it mandatory for information campaigns to be extended - so if cervical screening is best understood in Farsi or Russian it is aired that way, that Tamil and Arabic communities are alerted to social policies, that education projects are broadcast in Tagalog and Amharic.

In 1975, SBS Radio came into being as a three-month experimental service to explain Australia’s new healthcare system. Now, independent audience surveys of Australia’s largest language groups show that for the majority, SBS Radio is their primary source of information about government and community services.

The Australian government spends in excess of $20 million of Vote Broadcasting on non-English radio and more again in information campaigns.

The least we can do is add existing multilingual broadcasters to government agency advertising budgets.

Terri Byrne is broadcast manager of Planet FM, run by Access Community Radio Inc. It was an address delivered at the NZ On Air seminar on diversity - "Screen and Heard: NZ Broadcast Audiences in 2020" in Auckland on 4 June 2009.

Pacific Beat producer calls on ethnic groups to 'break into' mainstream

Thakur Ranjit Singh: Pacific Media Centre

Ethnic communities need to break into the mainstream media by telling inclusive stories and giving the message that Pacific people are part of New Zealand, says a leading television producer.

Stan Wolfgramm, producer of Pacific Beat Street, says his own German, Tongan and Cook Islands heritage prepared him for a balancing act of operating in a commercial as well as a cultural environment.

He was speaking in a panel of television journalists and producers speaking about “finding the ethnic voice” at the diversity broadcasting forum in Auckland today hosted by NZ On Air in association with the Office of Ethnic Affairs.

Julia Parnell, producer of Minority Voices, said she sought to create programmes that provided opportunities to recent migrants, minorities giving their version of experiences in adjusting and settling in a new country.

She said her programmes allowed people to say what they wanted to say and to help them assimilate.

Her programmes were meant to be a springboard to promote cross-cultural understanding, assimilation and true diversity.

Bharat Jamnadas, senior reporter of Asia Downunder, said his programmes produced a magazine style, topical, relevant and entertaining - primarily targeted at the Asian communities but also to anybody wishing to get information on diverse people of New Zealand.

He said his programmes showed positive people stories with general interest.

'Freak stories'
They could easily be taken on board mainstream television programmes, but the networks tended to show “freak stories that may not be necessarily reflective of the Asian community”.

He said programmes needed to be more integrated, as ordinary stories about ordinary people should be part of the mainstream media and showed at prime time.

Jamnadas called for more diversity to be included in the mainstream media programmes.

Rachel Jean, head of drama in TV3, had ventured on making a drama series but ended up making a story on diversity depicting South Auckland, based at Otara Market, entitled, The Market.

She said drama was helpful in changing ethnic perceptions of people.

She criticised lack of funding and the programme being slotted late at night.

Her other drama, Ride with the Devil, involved a core Chinese cast and she said “true representation happens through drama”.

However, Jamnadas was critical of the programme, saying "it was too much of a stereotype with a Chinese boy racer as the lead role".

The panel argued that diversity ought to be incorporated in drama series and TV programmes.

NZ on Air was praised for organising such forums to air the views that would contribute to promoting change in funding policies to introduce more diversity in broadcast media.

Thakur Ranjit Singh is a postgraduate communication studies student attached to the Pacific Media Centre. Photo of Stan Wolfgramm and Bharat Jamnadas by Del Abcede.

Asia Downunder
Minority Voices
NZ On Air
Pacific Beat Street
Ride With The Devil
The Market

From Thai refugee camp to politics student in NZ

By Deirdre Robert: Pacific Media Centre

It has been eight years since Cicilia Dwe and her family left their United Nations refugee camp in Thailand and set foot on New Zealand soil.

The Burmese 18-year-old is now looking to the future with her eyes set on gaining a politics degree at the University of Auckland, beginning in July.

The road to a brighter future has led from a tumultuous past.

Her parents fled Burma in 1988 during the student-led protests for democratic change, in which 3000 people are believed to have killed.

Cicilia Dwe (pictured) says her parents feared the ruling military junta of Burma and felt it was not safe to stay.

“In Burma the government can take away anything you own. If they decide to develop an area they can just take away your land. You have no rights.”

Dwe has family in Burma she has never seen and may never get the chance to meet.

Even as New Zealand citizens, Dwe and her family are on the blacklist, meaning if they return to Burma they could be at risk.

Born in Thailand, Dwe’s move to life in a refugee camp was sudden.

One day her sister picked her up from school and they went straight to the UN refugee camp where they were joined by their mother, father, three sisters and one brother.

NZ home
The family spent two years at the camp before being offered a permanent home in New Zealand.
Dwe’s parents chose New Zealand because it provided better future prospects and opportunities for their children.

Culturally, life in New Zealand is very different says, Dwe.

If she were still in Thailand she would likely be married. In that country the focus is on “getting married, looking after your kids and being a housewife”.

She says in New Zealand there are a wider range of opportunities for education and career.

Being young proved an advantage to her integration into New Zealand society.

She was well received at primary school and had support from her fellow students from the start.

Family sponsors have also played a big role in the family’s settlement.

Local North Shore volunteer Catherine Geeves is one of the family’s main sponsors and was heavily involved in their integration.

She helped enrol the kids in school, found the family a local GP and negotiated with Housing New Zealand for a family home.

Rewarding role
Being a sponsor is “enormously rewarding”, she says.

She is extremely proud of the way Cicilia and her older sister Elizabeth have managed to get themselves to university.

“I think they are an inspiration and show what you can achieve if you work hard.”

She says the whole family is a huge asset to the community.

While being a sponsor is a very involved task, Geeves says it is a “two-way street”.

When her mother died later that year, the entire Dwe family prepared food for the funeral.

“There is a huge willingness to muck in and help,” says Geeves.

Dwe echoes these sentiments.

“The sponsors are part of our family and we are part of their family.”

Now firmly a part of New Zealand, Dwe is herself looking at becoming a refugee sponsor.

Beyond that, and with her life experience as motivation and inspiration, she envisions herself working for the UN or the Human Rights Commission as a social worker.

Deirdre Robert is a Graduate Diploma in Journalism student at AUT University.

End Burma's system of impunity

'‘We have a little girl here, come down and work it out'

The year Ofa Donaldson was born, in 1972, there were 3600 adoptions in New Zealand. But rediscovering her Tongan cultural roots was an extra challenge.

By Sylvia Giles: Pacific Media Centre

Proud family photographs hang on the walls of the Donaldson’s Hamilton home - just like houses up and down New Zealand. Ofa Donaldson’s picture is somewhat conspicuous in the family line up, as the only brown face in an otherwise palagi family.

Being adopted may not make Ofa, 36, unique - in 1972 there were 3600 adoptions in New Zealand. It does not even make her unique in her own immediate family, where a younger brother is also adopted, the pair being followed by two biological children.

Yet Ofa’s Tongan lineage stares her in the face.

“It wasn’t like I looked in the mirror one day, and was like, ‘Oh my gosh, Mum! I’m brown! What’s going on?’

“It was just a natural thing. I always knew I was an adopted kid. It was just like I was adopted, and Mum and Dad were Mum and Dad,” she says.

“It was really funny around teenage years. Mum would come down to school, and I’d yell out, ‘Mum!’ and my friends would be like, ‘Aye? Your mum is white!’ But for me it was always a fun thing.”

Strictly speaking, Ofa Donaldson’s surname is still Talatala, as her adoption was never made formal.

“Mum and Dad just got a call from social welfare saying we have a little girl here, and would they like to come down here and work it out?”

But Ofa still calls herself Tongan, especially in recent years.

“Going to Tonga and meeting actual family. I never thought it would be so important, but it was. And it was like, wow, this is actually where my family is from.”

Urban Polynesian
Unusual circumstances aside, she is a second generation, urban Polynesian, and like so many others finding her place in the Pacific. The urban Polynesian has grown in influence in New Zealand, particularly as it is growing at a faster rate than the overall population.

It is a trend apparent in New Zealand pop culture, visible across film, music, art and theatre; the latest telling hybrid is perhaps Othello Polynesia, which is just about to hit Wellington at the Downstage Theatre.

David Fane is just one of the figureheads of this movement. He is a host at Flava fm, is one of the brains behind Bro’town, and a mainstay of The Naked Samoans, and Outrageous Fortune.

Born in New Zealand, he sees a big difference between him and his parents’ identity.

“When my parents came out they joined the church straight away, to draw the community around them. My generation doesn’t feel the need to be a part of a specific island group.

“But that’s not a breakdown. There is no way we’d survive if we held on to those ways. You need to adapt.”

It’s a theme through his many projects, depicting “the Samoan I chose to be”. He makes a trip back to Samoa every three years also, initially joking it is important to him for the duty free.

“But no, and for the chance to catch up with family. But you become very mindful of the difference between being Samoan and being a Samoan New Zealander,” he says.

“You become half-bred of both.”

Pasifika heritage
Ofa Donaldson herself made two trips to Tonga in her thirties to discover her Pasifika heritage.
However after two weeks, she was so rattled by the whole experience she decided to come home early, to her “normal family, and flushing toilets and normal food”.

But her trip was to culminate in her meeting her biological father, almost by accident. In the network of Tongan families that is now woven across the Pacific, she bumped into the sister of a Tongan colleague from back home in Hamilton.

“She knew I was coming to Tonga, but I hadn’t told her when. And that’s how we met my Dad. Because she said, ‘Your Dad is here, he was been waiting 34 years to met you.’”

“It was really emotional. He cried. He could hardly speak any English. So it went me, translator and then him,” she says tracing out their positions on the kitchen table with an index finger, indicating the interloper placed between them.

“Until then I had only heard it from my mother. He explained how he got deported, how he wrote lots of letters to people he knew in New Zealand to try to find me.

“He wants you to know he hadn’t forgotten about you, the uncle explained. And he and my mother weren’t talking so she didn’t tell him where I was.”

But the voluntary pilgrimage still didn’t make the imprint of being forced to meet her birth mother as a 12-year-old child, an experience she describes as “bizarre”.

Her adoptive mother had been upset for the week leading up to it. Ofa Talatala, after all, was still a foster child.

Her Dad, on the other hand, she described as being “a typical English, middle class male: no emotion, just pat, pat, it will be ok”.

Cultural contrast
Which runs in stark cultural contrast with the next piece of Ofa’s storytelling: “When we left [her birth mother’s house], I remember her coming out of the house and standing under the tree, and just wailing,” she recalls.

“I was just like ‘get me out of here’. But it must have been so emotional on her part.

At the time I was like, ‘Oh, my god, how embarrassing, who does that? But for her it must have been grieving. And no shame in it for Tongans, I guess”.

So where does Ofa Donaldson take her cultural cues from in such situations, whether she be adult or child, in New Zealand or in Tonga?

“I really don’t know. It has been cool going back to Tonga, and seeing where I am from, but I think I am so heavily engrained in New Zealand culture.

“It’s not like I am going to drown myself in Tongan stuff now. Some people would, but I am happy to know that I am Tongan, and I’ve been there and met the people.
“I’m happy. Just putting the tapa up, I’m like, ‘that’s me!’”

Sylvia Giles is a Graduate Diploma in Journalism student on the AUT Asia-Pacific Journalism course. She took the photograph of Ofa Donaldson at her home in Frankton.

Othello Polynesia

Amnesty boosts Pacific human rights campaign

Pacific Media Centre

Amnesty International’s New Zealand section is stepping up a new strategy focused on grave abuses of human rights in the Pacific.

And Fiji has emerged as the major target at the organisation’s national annual general meeting at AUT University this weekend.

“Demanding dignity gives Amnesty International members an unparalleled opportunity to be regionally relevant,” chief executive Patrick Holmes told delegates.

“Grave and growing human rights abuses in the Pacific region are a big concern.

“We will work to ensure dedicated human rights laws in the Pacific are on the radar.”

Amnesty’s Pacific researcher Apolosi Bose, who last month spent two weeks in Fiji on a fact-finding mission, said in a report that the regime could commit further human rights abuses now it had almost unlimited power.

He said people who were critics of the government were afraid to speak out because there was no constitution, no judiciary and the media had been censored.

Holmes said Amnesty International would work towards developing strong partnerships with local human rights groups in Pacific nations.

“Human rights is the only way to human dignity,” he said.

The organisation’s strategic plan for the next two years said the two main objectives were to focus on:

• Grave abuses of human rights in the Pacific, including New Zealand.

• Understanding and contributing to a “footprint in the Pacific”.

One of the two keynote speakers, Sacha McMeeking, law lecturer at the University of Canterbury and a member of Te Hunga Roia Māori (Māori Law Society), spoke of the “antipodean dream” and a wide belief that New Zealand had an exemplary human rights record.

“But embodying the dream means giving effect to the law,” she said. “Having an international human rights role means taking responsibility to step up and show by example.”

The 1840 Treaty of Waitangi had been a legal attempt to embody the dream by articulating rights and responsibilities on both sides.

The 1975 Waitangi Tribunal had been set up to drive things forward.

But the tribunal was only an advisory body and as it had no judicial powers, governments could ignore recommendations.

McMeeking said a challenge for these times was for New Zealand to develop a legal system that balanced protecting Māori human rights and the cultural right to survive as a people while protecting the rights of other New Zealanders.

Fiji human rights lawyer and women’s advocate Imrana Jalal spoke about the need for a regional human rights commission or agency as many smaller Pacific countries could not establish a sustainable national commission.

Picture: Governance board member Tuwhakairiora Williams, Fiji civil rights lawyer Imrana Jalal and Amnesty International Aotearoa's chief executive Patrick Holmes. Photo: Del Abcede.

Amnesty International Aotearoa New Zealand

Undersea volcano, climate change step up turtle worries

By Olivia Wix: Pacific Media Centre

An undersea volcanic eruption off the coast of Tonga this month worries marine biologists over a risk to Pacific feeding grounds for sea turtles.

The volcano spewed ash into the sea and into the air near the low-lying volcanic islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha’apai.

The area is a common turtle feeding ground for some turtle species.

Massey University vulcanologist Dr Jerome Lecointre says an event like this can have severe consequences for species within the sea.

He says the eruption may have killed many nearby creatures.

“The eruption was sudden. There was no warning and people couldn’t do anything to lessen the impact,” he says.

Dr Lecointre says the heat of the water would be the most devastating to the marine life.

“At the surface it was boiling, it would have been much hotter in the sea,” he says.

The water continues to boil until the volcano stops erupting.

“It makes sense that the marine life would be killed. The eruption would have had much more devastating effects if it was land-based.”

Population decline
Sea turtle populations have been on the decline for years, although fears surrounding the impacts of climate change on them are only now being realised.

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) believe an increase in extreme weather events, rising sea levels and increased temperatures are the main contributing factors towards the decline of the turtle populations.

The “red list” classifies all six sea turtle species in the Pacific as endangered. The leatherback and hawksbill species are considered critical.

SPREP and WWF predict that increased air and water temperatures would be the main climate related reason sea turtles become extinct.

SPREP’s marine species officer Lui Bell says warmer air temperatures increase the heat of sand. This can impact on the species as the temperature of the nests determines the sex of a turtle.

WWF South Pacific’s regional marine officer Penina Solomona says: “Research has indicated that climate change can influence the sex ratio of hatchlings.

"This means a hotter beach can result in the inundation of nests, further decreasing the number of hatchlings recruited into the population.”

Bell says the ideal temperature for incubation is 30 deg C. This means that if the eggs are buried in sand less than 30 deg C it will produce a male – higher will create a female.

Kelly Tarlton’s fish department team leader and turtle expert Nik Hannam says that as temperature rises more female turtles will be born.

“This is making them becoming the predominant gender.”

Bell says: “As more females will be born they will not be able to maintain their population for long.”


Sexual maturity
Research has shown that currently only one in 1000 turtle eggs will stay alive until sexual maturity at the age of 25 to 35. Bell says this will also play a major role in the declining population.

“Female turtles usually lay between two to five different clutches of eggs per nesting season, each having been fertilised by a different male,” adds Bell. This means that the amount of clutches a female turtle can lay will decrease.

Sea turtle conservation groups have discussed a strategy for when populations start to become predominantly female. In these situations, eggs would be incubated below 30 deg C to produce more males.

The warming of the sea has also had major implications for the turtles. Warming sea levels have caused extreme coral bleaching in South Pacific nations.

WWF says this will negatively impact on the sea turtle populations as many rely on coral as their main food source. Hatchlings will be most severely impacted, as coral is their main food source until they are old enough to migrate to bigger feeding areas.

The death of many young turtles has also been attributed to the warming sea. This means turtles venture further out of their normal migratory zones.

Hannam says New Zealand tends to end up with turtles from Australia and the Pacific.

The turtles that usually come to New Zealand are sexually immature (under 10 years old) and get caught in the trans-tasman current.

“The turtles get too cold, so end up with hypothermia and are too sick to return to their nesting and feeding areas,” adds Hannam.

He says this is where his team at Kelly Tarlton’s steps in. They care for the turtles and get them back to full health. They then release them when the waters are warmer and they are strong enough to swim back.

Nesting times
Sea warming also alters nesting times. The usual nesting times are from October to February.

Bell says turtles “sense when to nest by the temperature. When the seas become warmer the nesting season will be delayed, it will give them less time to lay their eggs.”

Rising sea levels and extreme weather events also play a major role in the future of the species.

During the 20th century, sea levels rose 15cm. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change indicates that this is expected to increase, with the Pacific islands being most severely effected.

Countries such as Tuvalu and Tokelau are among the worst affected – and both are common nesting areas for many sea turtle species.

Solomona says the rise in sea level can result in the overcrowding of nests which further decreases the number of hatchlings in the population.

She says that cyclones and king tides are among the most destructive extreme weather events that affect the turtle populations.

“Storm surges and strong tidal action only make the problem of habitat loss worse,” she adds.

Floods and tsunamis that hit the islands wash up turtle eggs buried in the sand and wash them to sea, potentially killing thousands of turtles.

Picture: Dizzy, a rescued green turtle found on a Northland beach and being cared for by Kelly Tarlton's marine centre. Photo: Olivia Wix.

Olivia Wix is a student journalist on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.

Underwater volcano erupts off Tonga - video
South Pacific spared quake damage
Undersea volcano erupts off the coast of Tonga - video

New website tackles high cost of Pacific money transfers

By Sylvia Giles: Pacific Media Centre

High fees for wiring money to the Pacific through banks or agencies such as Western Union erode the earnings of Pacific migrant workers.

A new website, www.sendmoneypacific.org has been launched this week as a New Zealand aid project in a bid to make savings for Pacific families and economies.

The new English-language website - a joint venture between AusAID and NZAid with the slogan “all the information you need to send money to the Pacific” - compares costs as well as time delays, exchange rates and transfer methods.

It shows, for example, that NZ$200, sent from New Zealand to Samoa with TSB Bank, incurs a fee of $65.37, while taking two to three days to be transferred.

Westpac, using the same search criteria, carries a fee of $5.98 and takes less than an hour with the use of a pre-pay card.

The website also allows users to sign up for updates for specific countries.

There is also a plan to move into print, across different languages, in order to target workers who don’t speak English.

Sendmoneypacific.org was launched at the Otara Markets by Pacific Island Affairs Minister Georgina te Heuheu on Saturday.

‘Safety net’
In a media statement, the minister described remittance payments as an important “safety net” for some families.

World Bank senior economist Dr Manjula Luthria says money-transfer companies took $190 million from the remittances flow to the Pacific in the past financial year.

The World Bank website cites international best practice as having remittance fees between one and five percent. Money roaming the Pacific, from New Zealand and Australia, incur fees on average between 15 and 25 percent.

The former Labour-led government announced last August at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in Nuie that its aim was to bring fees to between 5 and 7 percent by 2009 through increased regulation.

However, the new policy under the present government leaves the fate of these fees to the market.

According to sendmoneypacific.org, figures reveal the remittances income as a staple, rather than disposable income as it may be perceived to be.

Remittance payments make up 24 percent of Samoa’s national gross domestic product, bringing the country $128.2 million a year. It is their single biggest source of income.

In Tonga, remittances are equally crucial. In Fiji, since the collapse of both the tourism and sugar industry, remittances bring in more income than the two industries combined.

In-kind transfers
Remittances are defined by the World Bank as “transfers of cash formal and informal, households’ bills paid by the migrant to a third party, and in-kind transfers”.

In a report released in 2006, research carried out in Tonga and Fiji showed that 79 percent of remittances were cash transfers.
In Tonga, 75 percent all remittances were made through fee-based bank or “other” money transfer agencies (such as Western Union).

In Fiji, 69 percent of remittance payments were made using these channels.

In the past, there has been little alternative for the speedy transferring of money.

Remaining forms of transfers were listed as money being physically transferred by the migrant or a friend or a visit to migrant, through a shop, through the mail or “other”.

However the use of these methods was high enough for the World Bank to note that any “official” figures, compiled by banking networks, were unlikely to be truly reflective of actual figures of remittances reaching the Pacific.

Sylvia Giles is a student journalist on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.

Send Money Pacific

Bennett gives new Indian paper full marks

By Kara Segedin: Pacific Media Centre

New Zealand’s newest ethnic newspaper was launched to a rave notice from Social Development Minister Paula Bennett at the weekend in Waitakere City.

“It’s very informative and has the sort of light-hearted information we want,” she said after being presented with the first edition of the Indian Weekender.

The launch was part of Race Relations Day celebrations to mark the Holi Mela festival at the Trusts Stadium. Bennett is also MP for Waitakere.

The Indian Weekender is a free, English language newspaper covering stories of interest to New Zealand’s Indian community and the general public.

Editor Dev Nadkarni said organisers have been busy planning the paper for six months.

He said the paper would cover India and many other countries where there is an Indian diaspora.

Along with several Auckland-based reporters, the paper has put together a group of experienced foreign correspondents who will write exclusively for the Weekender.

Currently printed fortnightly, the paper will eventually become a weekly publication.

Shared culture
Nadkarni, who has lived in Fiji, said the Weekender’s main audience would be people of Indian extraction who shared Indian culture and values, but not necessarily from India.

“People have been living out of India for as many as four or five generations,” he said

There is a substantial market within the Indian community.

In the 2006 Census, 104,583 people identified their ethnicity as Indian, with 71 percent of the population living in the Auckland region.

“While there have been media outlets catering to Indians we thought that there was a gap in the market - both in content and the way that news and information is presented,” Nadkarni said.

The Indian publishing industry is highly advanced, with many publications tied to international brands such as the Washington Post, Financial Times and the Daily Mail.

“They have a very high standard of both journalism and layout, which has been sadly lacking in publications directed at Indians in New Zealand,” he said

Nadkarni said New Zealand’s existing Indian publications look dated and seem to be “stuck in the 1970s”. The team wants to bring New Zealand-based publishing on a par with Indian standards.

Nadkarni wanted to make the content accessible and user friendly.

“People don’t have time to read 2000 word articles,” he said. “In this day of txt and the internet, we are really looking at shorter stories, pieces that drive home the point and add value to a typical migrants’experience here in New Zealand.”

More colour
With an emphasis on original stories, pictures and colour, the paper will give readers information from New Zealand and their countries of origin.

“Our stories are going to be more focused. It’s going to be variety family reading for the weekend.”

So far the response from the community has been positive. “It’s been in the market only three days, but we’ve already run out of copies,” said Nadkarni.

Bhav Dhillon, a director of the publishing Kiwi Media Group, said the positive feedback was “a lot more than what was expected - people are impressed by the look and feel of the paper”.

His first time in the publishing industry, Dhillon’s responsibilities include finances, organisational management and distribution.

Dhillon said the paper would be stocked at 85 locations around the Auckland region, with plans for up to 1000 door-to-door deliveries

It is expected the paper will also be available in Hamilton, Tauranga, Napier, Hastings, Wellington and Christchurch.

Dhillon said plans for a website were underway and this was expected to be running in several weeks.

Publisher and director Giri Gupta said that while most community papers were run by a couple of people adopting a “cut-and-paste” process to creation, the Indian Weekender was a team effort.

The paper’s goals were to “increase frequency, circulation, and pages numbers,” he said.

Two purposes
Melissa Lee, National MP and former television broadcaster, said cultural newspapers like the Indian Weekender are important.

“They reflect the views and opinions of the community,” she said.

In the case of the Indian Weekender, Lee said it served two purposes. Not only did the paper reflect the Indian community’s needs, but as it was published in English it gave other New Zealanders a better understanding of the Indian community.

Lee would like to see increased interaction between the ethnic and mainstream media.

Associate professor David Robie, director of AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre, said the challenge for new community papers was identifying what the community wanted.

“There seems to be a mood that a more positive paper is needed than they’ve had in the past,” said Dr Robie.

“I think the first edition looks fairly promising. It’s bright and it’s got a range of different topics.”

As with new publications the stories were light - “it takes a while to bed down to getting some of the hard stories. But I think that will come,” he said.

One of the strongest factors in the paper’s potential success was the talented and experienced individuals in charge.

Nadkarni was head of journalism at the University of the South Pacific, is a respected business journalist and is involved with the Islands Business magazine in Suva, Fiji. Chief reporter Ranjit Singh was a former publisher of the Fiji Daily Post and currently contributes to a number of publications.

As with any publication, the future of the Indian Weekender is tied to its economic success.

Marginalised
“Community papers seem to be the most successful in NZ at the moment,” he said.

Dr Robie said most ethnic communities were marginalised by the mainstream media.

“The mainstream media doesn’t do a good job reporting important issues for the communities,” he said.

This means Auckland’s 75,000 strong Indian community is not given enough voice.

“The best thing that mainstream media can do is actually have newsrooms that reflect the communities around us,” said Dr Robie.

He said the challenge for mainstream media organisations was to go out and get more ethnic journalists.

He said journalism schools also had an important part to play - “they’ve actually got to put a lot more effort into attracting an ethnically diverse range of students.”

Picture: Social Development Minister Paula Bennett with editor Dev Nadkarni (centre) and publisher Giri Gupta. Photo: Kara Segedin.

Kara Segedin is a student journalist on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.

Money transfer website seeks savings for Pacific families

By Krista Ferguson: Pacific Media Centre

Pacific peoples will get a boost in financial literacy and save some money thanks to a new website-based programme with handy remittances advice.

Pacific Island Affairs Minister Georgina te Heuheu launched www.sendmoneypacific.org at the Otara Markets at the weekend.

“Pacific families in New Zealand are entitled to a fair go,” says Te Heuheu.

Transparency, fairness and speed of remittances are important – the cost is a burden on low income families.

“If $25 is lost for every $100, this is a loss to both the family in New Zealand and the family in the Pacific,” she says.

A joint NZAid and AusAID-funded project, the website provides a comparison of the fees charged by money transfer operators to send money from New Zealand to other Pacific countries.

It also compares the time it takes for the money to arrive.

Client manager for the website developer, Developing Markets Associates (DMA) Ltd, Jonathan Capal says it is a joint initiative that followed on from World Bank studies that looked at remittance costs for transferring money from one country to another.

“This region has the highest remittance costs in the world,” he says.

“In the UK it costs less than 5 percent to transfer money to India. In New Zealand there is a cost of up to 30 percent, including fees and foreign exchange, to send money to the Pacific.”

Heavy loss
Remittances to the Pacific region amount to more than USD$425 million a year, according to a media release by the minister.

Ministry project manager for the Pacific Remittance Project, Kim Hailwood, says it is estimated that NZ$80 million is lost a year on remittance fees to the Pacific Region.

Three-quarters of Pacific Islanders living in New Zealand send money to family in the Pacific Islands, says Hailwood.

“Money sent to the Pacific outstrips aid.”

The minister says remittances are a critical flow of money into the Pacific and provide an important safety net for some families.

“The money sent helps Pacific communities to be strong and sustainable,” says Te Heuheu.

The website shows that sending $200 from New Zealand to Fiji would cost $5.98 using a Westpac pre-paid card and $34.13 through Western Union.

The calculation was based on figures updated on March 20.

Taking note
Both Westpac and the Western Union deliver the money in less than one hour. Other money transfer operators can take up to three days, according to the website.

Money transfer operators have taken note since the website went live, says Capal.

“No-one likes to be seen as the most expensive,” he says.

“Some banks are starting to update us with offers that are relevant to remittance costs.”

Te Heuheu says: “In the end it’s a benefit to the banks as well. If they provide a good service, they will get good business.”

Westpac spokesperson Craig Dowling says it took the World Bank to dig out the scale of the issue. Banks attended forums coordinated by the World Bank and the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, he says.

The World Bank demonstrated how exposed Pacific communities are to these fees. A considerable amount of pressure was put on banks by the World Bank around this issue, he says.

The fees were contributing to a massive burden that could be alleviated, he says.

“A 25 percent fee is definitely too much,” he says. “It’s now up to banks to decide where this lies in their priorities.

“Our parent company, Westpac Banking Corporation, has a large footprint in the Pacific so we wanted to demonstrate our commitment to those communities.

Competitive advantage
It becomes a competitive advantage having the lower cost remittance product, he says.

“We decided we could move more quickly than our competitors. Westpac introduced a new card for remittances to the Pacific last year.

“We think there will be a competitive response. Western Union changed some of their rates when Westpac announced their new remittance product,” says Dowling.

He says a broader response by banks is needed to have a full effect.

“Why hamstring the whole Pacific community,” he says.

Westpac has also used the Otara Markets to promote its remittance product.

“Uptake has been okay, but there is a long way to go,” he says.

Capal says that internet use by different Pacific peoples varies. Samoans have a higher internet uptake compared with Tongan and Solomon Islands communities.

Because of the lower internet access, DMA will be regularly updating printed material to be handed out at churches and community groups, he says.

The website generated interest before the launch.

“It’s been notably picked up by bloggers in Papua New Guinea,” he says.

DMA expect the number of hits, currently several hundred a day, to at least triple following the launches in New Zealand in the weekend and Australia next Friday.

The website is part of a wider Pacific remittances project involving a partnership between the World Bank, Reserve Bank, Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs and the Pacific Cooperation Foundation (PCF).

PCF programme manager Tina McNicholas says the foundation is co-funding the education phase of the project.

“Phase two is much wider than the website. The focus will be on financial capability and a community education campaign,” she says.

McNicholas says she hopes that the website will also have an impact on the high level of fees “we’ll be able to pass on savings to families in the Pacific.

Picture: Pacific Island Affairs Minister Georgina te Heuheu (left) and project manager Kim Hailwood. Photo: Krista Ferguson.

Krista Ferguson is a student journalist on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.

Send Money Pacific

New ethnic paper targets Indian community

By Violet Cho: Pacific Media Centre

A new ethnic newspaper, the Indian Weekender, has been launched in Auckland – and Social Development Minister Paula Bennett was handed the first copy at the Holi Mela festival last weekend.

Chief reporter Thakur Ranjit Singh says the mainstream New Zealand media tend to cover the negative side of the Indian and other migrant communities and there is a need for something new.

“Indian people have needed their own new newspaper to help fill the gap,” Singh says.

“NZ has become cosmopolitan. A lot of migrants are coming here but you can hardly find them in the media.

“You can look at the New Zealand Herald, TV1, TV3, the Dominion Post and they hardly have any people from migrant communities to reflect the cultures, traditions and sensitivities of this country”.

Starting at 32 pages, the Indian Weekender will be published with at least 6000 copies every fortnight from now on.

But the paper plans to go weekly with 10,000 copies in the future.

The target market is predominantly at least 120,000 Indian people from the sub-continent and also diasporic communities from Fiji, Malaysia, Singapore and South Africa.

Binding people
“We felt that there was a vacuum and there was a need for a paper like this. It’s important to have a community-based newspaper,” says Singh.

“Something that binds people together to give the information that's relevant to them.”
The paper was welcomed with enthusiasm by media academics, media personnel and politicians in New Zealand.

Associate professor David Robie, director of Pacific Media Centre, says a paper like the Indian Weekender can focus on issues important to the ethnic Indian community.

“Mainstream media in New Zealand fails in reporting for ethnic minority communities in the country. There are so many tremendous positive things that have been done by a whole range of communities.

“It is really important for the community to have its own media, not just relying on the mainstream.”

Parliament’s first Korean MP, Melissa Lee, former executive producer of Asia Down Under, says ethnic media is important in reflecting minority views.

But she warned that the editorial team should make sure that the standard of journalism is upheld and not to rely on publishing “advertorials”.

“The Indian community has a variety of newspapers, which I think is very important. Competition is always a good thing.”

The first edition of this paper features national and local news in New Zealand, India and Fiji, as well as business, education and entertainment.

Well-rounded
Editor Dev Nadkarni says the paper is trying to give well-rounded content produced for the people who live away from their original home.

“There are columns written by experts on IT needs for businesses, taxation, mortgages and all the valuable information that Indian experts living in NZ need.

“For women, children and young people, we have separate sections. For the first time in the newspaper here, we have two pages dedicated to children only. These talk about Indian values.
“There are also comics and illustrations for children,” he says.

Starting the newspaper during the global economic downturn is a challenge for the group, says Nadkarni.

“A lot of people say it’s probably the worst time to launch the newspaper. Everybody talks about the economic downturn which makes advertising hard to come by.

“But our management saw that it is probably the best time - we are at the bottom and we can only go up.”

Another challenge to compete with is another long–established newspaper, Indian Newslink, which is distributed fortnightly around New Zealand and has a circulation of 65,000, according to its website.

It also has similar objectives, aiming to be a platform for Indian community issues and to raise the profile of the community.

Picture: Director Bhav Dillon and Social Development Minister Paula Bennett launch the Indian Weekender at the Holi Mela festival. Photo: Violet Cho.

Violet Cho, from Burma, is the 2009 Asian Journalism Fellow and on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.

Violet Cho on the Karen website Kwekalu.net

Falun Gong disciples tell of harassment

By Christopher Adams: Pacific Media Centre

The persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China is well documented. But less well known is how followers of the spiritual discipline face harassment in many Western democracies from the Chinese Communist Party through consulates and embassies.

Auckland practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement founded by Li Hongzi in China in 1992, claim they still face many pressures from the Chinese government in New Zealand.

Practitioners say the CCP’s atheist ideologies leave no room for spirituality, which is why the government fears the Falun Gong movement. It has been outlawed in China since 1999.

Charmaine Deng, a practitioner who came to New Zealand 15 years ago from China, says Chinese Falun Gong adherents in Auckland find themselves isolated from the Chinese community.

“We try to talk to them but they close their doors,” she says.

Deng believes the CCP has caused much of the community to become anti-Falun Gong, claiming the Chinese Consulate-General in Auckland feeds misinformation to people in order to turn them against the movement.

Propaganda
The consulate’s website contains a large amount of anti-Falun Gong propaganda, describing the movement as a “cult” that is “anti-mankind, anti-anti-science and anti-society”.

“The CCP has extended the persecution of Falun Gong from China to New Zealand,” says Deng.
She says the consulate is not sticking to “New Zealand rules”.

“In New Zealand everything is supposed to be free.”

Daisy Lee began practising Falun Gong in China before moving to New Zealand several years ago. She says the Chinese state media, with its anti-Falun Gong rhetoric, has a big impact on how Chinese people view the movement - especially international students studying in Auckland.

“Chinese international students are the biggest problem for Falun Gong in Auckland,” she says. “They don’t read the Herald or watch New Zealand news, only Chinese media.”

Lee also says a website for Chinese students in New Zealand, skykiwi.com, is a problem for the movement in Auckland because of the many anti-Falun Gong messages posted on the site, often inciting hatred against the movement.

Exposure to Chinese media has turned many international students against the movement, sometimes leading them to turn up at Falun Gong events.

‘Disrupting’ events
The Chinese consulate is organising students to disrupt events and protests held by both the Falun Gong and Free Tibet movements in Auckland, claims Lee.

Lee tells of meeting a Chinese student recently at the University of Auckland, who was putting up posters around the campus for a Chinese Students Association event.

Unaware of Lee being a Falun Gong practitioner, the student boasted he had been “organised” by the Chinese consulate to counter-protest against Free Tibet activists last year.

“Chinese mix up country, nation and government,” she says. “In China, the government is your mother, so some Chinese students believe the Falun Gong and Free Tibet movements are against their motherland.

“When I was a child in China we were told that communism would liberate the world, but after I came to New Zealand I realised communism was there to control us, not to liberate us.”

Another practitioner, Margo Macvicar, came to New Zealand from Scotland 26 years ago.

Macvicar got involved in Falun Gong in Motueka before moving to Auckland recently.

She finds the meditation routines of Falun Gong have given her a “quietness inside”, and changed her life.

Macvicar says Chinese students are one of the main problems the movement faces in Auckland, and also suspects the Chinese consulate of feeding them misinformation about Falun Gong.

“A lot of Chinese have been swayed by the consulate,” she says.

During a protest rally outside the Chinese Consulate in Penrose last year, an unknown vandal smashed Macvicar’s car window. She believes “there is a link” between the protest and the damage done to her car.

She was also spat at once when handing out Falun Gong flyers in Queen St.

Despite being isolated from the Chinese community, Falun Gong practitioners say it is not a lonely existence being part of the movement.

“We don’t feel lonely,” says Macvicar. “It’s not only through our belief; through our practice we learn to be tolerant and compassionate.”

Amos Chen, a practitioner originally from Shanghai, left China on the same day the CCP began cracking down on the movement in 1999.

Chen takes part in the silent protests the Falun Gong regularly hold outside the Chinese Consulate in Penrose.

Passport block
He says the consulate makes life difficult for Falun Gong adherents living in Auckland in many different ways, such as not renewing Chinese passports when practitioners want to go to China to visit sick or dying relatives.

Chen recalls running a Falun Gong stall at an Auckland Chinese festival a few years ago, when a member of the Chinese community in charge of the event asked him if the stall was linked to the Falun Gong.

When he replied yes, the man said: “I want to close your stall because the consulate doesn’t like you.”

David Jiang, president of the Chinese Students Association based at the University of Auckland, denies any link between the Chinese consulate and the association.

A second year engineering student, Jiang says the association with more than 3000 members never acts as an information channel for the consulate.

“We support the Chinese government, but we are not a political group.”

The association’s main focus is on organising entertainment for Chinese students, and services such as free tutorials, he says.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Consulate-General in Auckland said there was no knowledge of claimed incidents such as Falun Gong practitioners’ cars being damaged near the consulate.

Picture: Falun Gong practitioner Amos Chen outside the Chinese consulate in Penrose. Photo: Christopher Adams.

Christopher Adams is a student journalist on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course, AUT University.

Healthy eating message in for next Polyfest

By Pippa Brown: Pacific Media Centre

Health messages are in for next year’s Polyfest after more than 90,000 people enjoyed the latest event here over the weekend at the Manukau Sportsbowl. School teams from more than 15 Asia-Pacific cultures contested the annual event - the world's largest Maori and Pasifika cultural event.

Event manager Tania Karauria says subtle changes are made to the successful formula each year – “another reason for the calm mood”.

The festival, now far too big for the host schools to handle as a venue, is a smoke free event - and a real effort is put into stamping out smoking.

This year free water was on offer with no fizzy drinks.

The aim for 2010 is to further encourage a healthy eating message around festival type foods and the different cultural stages, says Karauria.

The festival evolved from humble beginnings in 1976 when it was first hosted by Otara’s Hillary College.

Dean Wilson, media manager, has been with the Polyfest for three years. He describes this year as “brilliant”.

“It’s a bit of a slice of the islands – every stage has a bit of a presence.”

Wesley College hosted this year’s four-day event. More than 9000 students from 60 schools performed under the slogan of “Many cultures, one world”

Five stages included Maori, Cook Island, Niue, Samoan, Tongan performers along with a diversity stage.

More relaxed
“The presentation of the festival has got better. Using professionals makes it more relaxed and the quality of the performance is bigger. The students go out and work really hard to be competitive,” says Wilson.

Manukau City had assisted the 34-year-old festival with the infrastructure at the Sports Bowl.

“Sponsorship is a big part of the support. The downturn has brought a tougher sponsorship market but many of our sponsors have signed up for three years so will come back,” says Wilson.

“ASB has been a loyal supporter for 24 years and every year continues to add to the event. It’s a good positive youth celebration and a good synergy to be involved with,” he says.

Wilson has not seen violence at the event for some time. Counties Manukau police have a strong presence and there is security on site.

Tania Karauria, ASB Polyfest event manager, says organisers want to see it stay safe and exciting.

“There is a total concerted effort to make the festival what it is today,” she says.

Karauria says there is an increase in the number of large groups from schools attending.

On Friday, Te Atatu Intermediate bused in the whole school of 270 pupils and 30 staff to the event.

Multicultural goal
Inspector Dave Simpson, in charge of operations, says: “The festival started out as a really good intention for a multicultural secondary school extravaganza. Unfortunately, it also provided the opportunity for young people to act inappropriately.

“Going back about six or seven years there were some brawls, ethnic pressure and tension between schools,” he says.

John Sione, a visitor from New Lynn, is concerned about talk that the future of the festival could be at risk.

“It’s stupid. This is what our parents from the islands did,” he says.

“For some of us, learning this is our only escape from gangs. The practice in the weekends and after school keeps us occupied. It’s good the way it is.”

Inspector Simpson believes the event is good for young people committed to training and competing for a trophy with strong parent support.

He took over the policing of the event in 2003 and quickly recognised there were problems and safety issues.

Safety issues
“We started putting a lot more police staff into it, working with the organisers and a security firm and producing a more integrated response to safety issues. More effort is put into this event than other events like an international sports fixture or rock concert,” he says.

“We have a disproportionate number of lower decile schools in our district and an incredible ethnic diversity. This event celebrates that diversity.

“An organisation like ours should be very much involved rather than sitting on the periphery and doing its normal job,” says Inspector Simpson.

“The fact that this event is all about connecting with culture is not really the issue. It’s about providing the opportunity for young people to get together, to commit and train for something, to gain a sense of achievement whether they win or lose.”

“I just think that events like this do so much for our young people. We are really pleased to see the improvements that have occurred and I must stress that this is not just about the police or down to the police. By working closely with the organisers and security we have come up with a type of solution,” says Inspector Simpson.

Top: Cook Islands dancers at the Polyfest; Above: Police keep an eye out for problems. Photos: Pippa Brown.

Pippa Brown is a student journalist on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course, AUT University.

ASB Polyfest

NZ’s aid 'true agenda' faces probe

By Megan Anderson: Pacific Media Centre

As Foreign Minister Murray McCully’s controversial reviews into NZAid are completed over the next month, questions are being raised over the true agenda of New Zealand work in the Pacific.

McCully has ordered two reviews into NZAid – one by the Chief Executive of Foreign Affairs, and another by the State Services Commissioner – in response to what the minister’s spokesman, James Funnell, says was “part of National’s election policy”.

The reviews have been criticised by non-government organisations, development studies academics and political observers as too hasty, too vague, too secret, and lacking the expertise needed for the complicated issues at stake.

Professor Crosbie Walsh, former director of development studies at the University of the South Pacific, says the minister and many advisers “know next to nothing about the countries to which New Zealand gives aid”.

Oxfam executive director Barry Coates says one of the main demands of the NGO-supported “Don’t corrupt aid” campaign is to open up McCully’s decision-making process.

Don’t Corrupt Aid is launching an appeal to the public against McCully’s reviews through their website, blog and Facebook campaign.

In late February, the minister expressed his desire to see NZAid make a policy change from the “old mantra of poverty alleviation” to a “clear focus on sustainable economic development”.

He also hinted at structural changes within NZAid and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, aiming for “a much closer alignment between our aid and development activities and our overall foreign policy goals”.

Political agenda
It has been this, alongside McCully’s plans to change NZAid’s OECD-applauded focus of ‘poverty elimination’ to ‘economic development’, which is raising questions about New Zealand’s involvement in the Pacific.

At present, NZAID spends 53 percent of the overall $480 million annual budget they receive from the government in the Pacific.

Dr Roman Grynberg’s recent controversial comments on the Pacific Islands Forum (which accompanied his resignation as Director of Economic Governance at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat) raised a number of concerns on the political agenda of Australia and New Zealand aid.

He says McCully’s proposal to align NZAid closer to MFAT would mean NZaid would increasingly become a political vehicle for government aims.

Dr Grynberg says: “In the past NZ aid policy was seen as more independent than Australia, but if this shift occurs NZ aid will become the financier of other arms of government as Australian aid has become over time.”

“The move of both Australian aid and NZ aid closer to their respective ministries of foreign affairs has meant that both have increasingly become arms of government and part of the 'whole of government approach' to the Pacific.”

Dr John McKinnon, an honorary research fellow at Victoria University (who set up development studies there several years ago) is critical of McCully’s approach to NZAid.
“McCully seems to have a need to flex his muscles but unfortunately most of his muscles are in his head,” he says.

“Why should he be allowed to arrogantly and so hurriedly demolish an agency that has taken more than a decade through careful deliberation to start up?”

Reputation at stake
Dr McKinnon says McCully’s proposed changes to NZAid would do little for New Zealand’s reputation as a leader in government aid.

“I really think NZAid has done a good job in placing itself, as much as possible, outside a political arena and setting its principal goal as poverty reduction”.

“New Zealanders can feel proud of what the agency has achieved in enhancing our national profile as a nation that cares.”

Professor Walsh is less convinced by NZAid’s efforts in the Pacific.

“Poverty is a structural issue that can only be addressed by each Pacific government,” he says.

Professor Walsh says the complicated flow of aid passing from the taxpayer to Island bureaucracies, large foreign-owned firms, NGOs, and “the backflow of aid through the purchase of NZ goods and services and repatriated salaries and profits” make any real positive impact upon the Pacific difficult to come by.

Statistics suggest New Zealanders share Professor Walsh’s scepticism. A NZAid study from July 2007 found that while 76 percent approved of New Zealand government providing overseas aid, “confidence in the effectiveness of overseas aid, whether provided through NGOs or by government, was again limited” (compared to the 2004 study).

Just 39 percent thought New Zealand’s NGOs are helping the impoverished in poorer countries, while only 29 percent were confident in the effectiveness of government aid.

Coates says the implementation of McCully’s mandates would ultimately mean “New Zealand’s reputation will suffer in the developing world”.

Human rights
While Coates says it is important for NZAid to exert some political influence over the Pacific – such as political intervention on the side of human rights, “good governance”, and “getting substantial services to people” – he questions recent government plans to use NZaid money to subsidise Air New Zealand flights between the United States, Tonga and Samoa.

The subsidies would be provided with the purpose of maintaining and strengthening the Pacific trade and tourist link to the United States.

“We think that might be a good idea, but it probably shouldn’t be done from the aid budget,” says Coates.

“It’s all very well to give that sort of support…but that’s not the kind of aid that should be targeted to the poor.”

McCully’s plans to move NZAid towards what he calls a more “hard-headed” economic focus is also calling into question the direction NZAID is heading.

Dr McKinnon says: “Talk of giving priority to economic issues is just another way of saying we should use aid solely for our political and economic advantage.”

One of the reasons McCully gave for the move is the enormous inequality in trade between New Zealand and the Pacific.

Barry Coates calls it “a travesty”.

“There’s a massive trade imbalance,” he says.

While New Zealand exported $794 million to Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) members (excluding Australia) in the year ending June 2008, imports from PIF members totalled at just $237 million, with a trade imbalance of $546 million.

New Zealand exports to Fiji were $337 million, with imports at just $69 million, 0.2 percent of our total imports.

Pacific imports
McCully said last month: “I believe that over time measurable increases in imports from the Pacific will be an important gauge of the effectiveness of New Zealand's development efforts in the region.”

Coates, however, criticises some of New Zealand’s recent moves towards freeing trade with the Pacific. In particular, he highlights the recent Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) between the Pacific and Australia and New Zealand, which aims to ultimately establish free trade between all three parties.

“There’s a hard push from New Zealand and Australia for negotiations to start before the Pacific are ready,” says Coates.

Trade Aid general manager Geoff White points to the general murkiness surrounding having economic development as a goal for NZAid.

“While economic development will always be a big part of poverty elimination, unless you have poverty elimination as the focus, economic development can mean anything.”

“We think that aid has to benefit the recipient and not the donor”.

Spokesman James Funnell says people are reading too much into the comments the minister has made concerning NZaid.

On Friday, the Labour Party is due to co-host a summit in Wellington with the Progressives, the Greens, other parties yet to be announced, and NGOs, to discuss the future of NZAid as McCully’s reviews proceed.

Picture: Oxfam's Barry Coates ... trying to open up the decision-making process.

Megan Anderson is a student journalist on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course, AUT University.

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