There has been a great deal of angst over Commodore Bainimarama’s draft Media Industry Development Decree 2010 which features harsh penalties for journalists and news organisations which breach vaguely worded content regulations. Being a freedom of speech kinds a guy I can see too why this isn’t a good thing, however Fiji isn’t New Zealand and each country has its own solutions to particular issues of the time.
It is extremely hypocritical of us to wave the finger at Fiji over press freedoms while at the same time having free trade agreements with other, far more, authoritarian regimes. Currently we have;
- New Zealand-Hong Kong, China Closer Economic Partnership (NZ-HK CEP was signed on 29 March 2010 but not yet entered into force)
- New Zealand-Malaysia Free Trade Agreement (MNZFTA was signed on 26 October 2009 but not yet entered into force)
- ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA) – 2010
- New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement (NZ-China FTA) – 2008
- Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TransPac) – 2005
- New Zealand-Thailand Closer Economic Partnership (NZTCEP) – 2005
- New Zealand-Singapore Closer Economic Partnership (NZSCEP) – 2001
- Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relationship (CER) – 1983
Of those only Australia has true freedom of the press. The Asean Nations (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam) with the sole exception of the Philippines, and even that is marginal, re true democratic countries, the rest, including Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are authoritarian. If you don’t think Thailand is, then try and write something in the press against the King of Thailand and see where that gets you. There are no freedoms that we take for granted in Hong Kong and China yet we have deemed it desirable to have a FTA and also to not comment on their internal politics.
So why is Fiji different. is it because government was formed at the point of a gun? Yes? Then what about China? Their government was formed at the point of a gun when the Communists overthrew the legitimate Kuomintang government in 1949.
At the moment we are also busily negotiating anti freedom treaties like the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a law and treaty at the behest of big business, but I don’t notice Keith Locke or Labour railing against that. We are also negotiating an FTA with countries from the Gulf States, (Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the sultanate of Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.). Autocracies the lot of them without exception.
And so I come to Fiji again. For some reason New Zealand has a fixation, mostly for the negative for Fiji. As I have demonstrated we want and have FTA’s with countries with far worse political situations, far worse human right records, and yet we impose sanctions upon Fiji and travel bans. The latest outcry has been over press freedoms yet in our own country of New Zealand we have government organisations curtailing freedoms with a self imposed censorship.
These are media organisations that continue to spread rumour, innuendo and straight out lies about the situation in Fiji and Radio New Zealand in particular has taken a line of shutting down any dissenting voice from the political group think about how “we” are supposed to think about Fiji.
WHAT ON earth has happened to Radio New Zealand? Or rather, Nights host Bryan Crump? He has apparently dumped professor adjunct Crosbie Walsh, the most informed New Zealand-based blogger and commentator on Fiji affairs (naturally you would expect this calibre as former and founding director of the development studies programme at the University of the South Pacific). Walsh is such a tonic after the plethora of one-eyed and sensationalist anti-Fiji blogs that clutter cyberspace.
According to Walsh, Crump rang him last night, saying he didn’t want the blogger/commentator on any more on Nights programmes. Why? Apparently because Walsh “feels too strongly” on Fiji issues (why not? … he lived there for more than eight years) and he “borders on the emotional” for this programme.
Crump added: “It’s not what a lot of my colleagues want to hear.” Take this as you wish. Three more planned programmes on nights for Walsh for June, September and November have been canned.
Crump (pictured above – Radio NZ image) reckons the Nights spot works best with “commentators” and Crosbie is seen as an “advocate”. In fact, Walsh goes to great lengths to get some sort of balance in his blog commentaries, something sorely missing with many media commentators on Fiji. To be fair to Crump, he did invite Walsh to a symposium on Fiji later this year and, according to Walsh, was keen to interview him early next year.
Dr David Robie is an AUT University media academic and Pacific affairs commentator. As you can see from the above quote he has questioned Radio New Zealand’s apparent exclusion of fellow academic Crosbie Walsh from speaking on Fiji on its Nights programme. He also compares RNZ’s position to the worrying trends set by Radio Australia. he is the sole commentator that takes every country to task for their “censorship” of the media. He makes no exceptions.
Apparently though Croz “feels too strongly” (“bordered on the emotional.“) for the Radio NZ Night programme with the pencil necked dweeb Bryan Crump. The voice doesn’t fit anymore and so we will no longer hear the otherside of the discussion on Fiji on Radio New Zealand.
I reckon that RNZ Bryan and producer Robyn and their colleagues have had their nose put out of joint a bit. Croz presents a world view that they don’t like and so they shut it down. Their excuses or explanations don’t wash. There was no difference between the other discussions Croz has had with Bryan in the past. Basically they have told him they don’t want him on anymore and the reason why is lame and I think they are not telling the whole truth. From what Croz has told me and reading between the lines – I think it is more that he is telling the truth about Fiji and they don’t like it.
Looking at their track record RNZ do not want to report anything good about Fiji and the government. They aren’t acting like journalists nay more, just repeaters, reporting stories without checking the true facts first. It is clear that RNZ has an agenda and nothing would surprise me if the likes of Michael Field knows someone in RNZ.
Croz has been dropped and it could well be that his style, miraculously no longer fitted into Bryan’s Nights programme as he said, but just as probably there was a political reason. Either way, no regular (if only infrequent) commentator remains on RadioNZ National who presents any positive views on Fiji or who constantly tries to suggest ways to take events forward to a reasonable conclusion in 2014. The same could be said of other NZ media.
If you listen to the attached audio files of last Monday’s programme, and of an earlier one in January. There is zero difference in approach and tone, and both recordings seem very much the same. They are certainly insufficiently different to produce Bryan’s sudden “sea change.”
Croz Walsh on RNZ Nights January 2010
Croz Walsh on RNZ Nights April 2010
So as we have the moaning minnies of the liberal elite banging on about press and other freedoms being closed down in Fiji we have the very same commentators shutting exactly the same discourse that they would wish Fiji to have.
We should practice what we preach and certainly we should not have a state broadcaster deciding what we should and shouldn’t listen to. If any organisation should be totally impartial it should Radio New Zealand, unfortunately not though as the liberal elite control all of our media. It is unfortunate, now, that the only mouthpiece on Fiji is the utterly biased michael Field and his fellow travellers.
I have said itonce if I have said it umpteen times, Fiji requires better solutions than finger wagging, <sarcasm> which is working oh so well isn’t it?</sarcasm>
If we want to see elections in 2014 then the best thing New Zealand can do is help the Commodore not hider him like we are doing at present.
