DPA Working Papers

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/1885/292045

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Open Access
A Destiny by Choice: New Caledonia’s Riots in 2024
(Canberra, ACT: Dept. of Pacific Affairs, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University, 2024-10-24) Tevahitua, Raihaamana
In a speech delivered less than a year ago in Nouméa, New Caledonia, French President Macron stated, ‘35 years ago, nothing was written. What you were able to do was to rise above the worst of events, the worst of fears and the worst of divisions; together, we were able to preserve peace … it is a treasure’ (Élysée 26/7/2023). On 13 May 2024, the eruption of violent disturbances across the Greater Nouméa area served as a reminder that the continuation of civilian peace in New Caledonia (NC) is the result of a deliberate and collective decision. This is equally true of its cessation. This crisis is situated within the historical context of the ‘Kanak revolts’ (1878, 1917 and 1980s) and a broader regional trend of increased political violence, characterised by a prevalence of urban riots due to grievances with the state and to ethnic conflicts (Ride 21/11/2022). In particular, the quasi-civil war of 1984–88 in NC led to the attainment of the highest degree of autonomy within the French Republic, and the promise of an independence referendum. The decolonisation process, one of the most protracted of the 20th century, has manifested in the creation of an agency in charge of the retrocession of customary lands, the reallocation of control of the nickel industry, an institutional design that, in retrospect, has favoured ‘independentists’ interests and the organisation of a cycle of three referendums on self-determination (2018–21). Despite these efforts, the ongoing unrest poses a dilemma between the process of decolonisation and democracy. Indeed, the French state has proposed a constitutional reform for provincial elections in favour of an electorate defined by 10 years residence on the basis of economic contribution and social embedding. In this way, Paris appears to equate the political legitimacy of this new electorate with that of a millennial society and a 170-year settlement bound by a ‘common destiny’. Furthermore, the political legitimacy of two referendums (2018, 2020) marked by an 80 per cent turnout is equated with that of the last referendum in 2021 which achieved a 43 per cent turnout due to the abstention of supporters of independence. In light of mounting antagonism between the loyalists (pro-France), the French state and the independence movement, how should we make sense of their power struggle? This Working Paper will attempt to elucidate the underlying factors that precipitated this upheaval, the subsequent repercussions, and the positions of the various actors involved, up until 13 June 2024.
Open Access
Peaceful Independence for Bougainville: In the Interests of the United Nations, United States, China, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the People of Bougainville?
(Canberra, ACT: Dept. of Pacific Affairs, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University, 2024-10-09) Braithwaite, John
Bougainville suffered armed conflict between 1988 and 1998. It started with environmental devastation caused by a Rio Tinto mine. Transformative peacemaking by Bougainvilleans drew on Christian beliefs to forgive old enemies. When tentative peace negotiations started 30 years ago, an independence referendum was the key demand. This was finally agreed in a peace process sanctioned by the United Nations (UN). The referendum did not occur until 2019. Independence from Papua New Guinea was the choice of 98 per cent of voters. Five years on, despair lurches to disgust among a younger generation who fear their leaders allowed themselves to be ‘conned’. ‘Wannabe’ warlords is a risk from that younger generation. So is a foreign power buying votes for an elected Bougainville president who seizes control of a Bougainville military to establish an authoritarian military regime after a unilateral declaration of independence. The international community must dedicate more attention in 2024 and 2025 to a peace with democracy resolution. Risks arise from a referendum that defers final settlement for too long. The UN Security Council should see peaceful independence as an imperative. A lesson learned is that the UN must analyse problems caused by peace agreements that are seen as broken promises in the eyes of many of the world’s most oppressed survivors of war.
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Nahau: Gavman, Pihi Manus, Lain: Articulating Gendered Historicities between Mortuary Time and Archival Space
(Canberra, ACT: Dept. of Pacific Affairs, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University, 2024-05-14) Rooney, Michelle Nayahamui
This paper is structured in three parts, each aimed at illuminating the interwoven gendered articulations of historicity. In Part 1, I briefly introduce the ethnographic context. In Part 2, I focus on the concept of discourse which refers to the ways knowledge about a particular subject or place or people is constructed through statements and formal language. Discourse is usually dominated by powerful experts, officials or scholars to construct knowledge that is used to represent or portray the non-Western Other. (Foucault 1971; Hall 2019; Said 1978). Focusing on Papua New Guinea, I cursorily problematise the different but interrelated discourses about Melanesian exchange and gender relations or women to highlight two things. First, historicity, as I use it here, is gendered. Second, the different discourses on Melanesia shape portrayals of the PNG gendered subject. In Part 3, I apply the analytical frames of mortuary time and archival space in the ethnographic context to reflect on historicity as gendered and relational. I am deeply implicated in this story, and to help me put some distance between myself and personal relationships I refer to family members by name while I make visible my positionality in the writing.
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'Fabricated Security Space': The Manus Regional Processing Centre and gendered discourse between Australia and Papua New Guinea
(Canberra, ACT: Dept. of Pacific Affairs, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University, 2023-09-08) Rooney, Nayahamui Michelle
Global processes such as mass human migration because of conflict or natural disasters, geopolitical rivalries, climate-induced insecurity and other forces have heightened policy focus on security. This has included securitisation processes, wherein issues that may have previously been regarded as social or humanitarian challenges are increasingly viewed as security threats. This paper draws on feminist security studies and the analytical frame of a ‘fabricated security space’ to examine the gendered dimensions of the security and securitisation discourses in the bilateral relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea (PNG) between 2012 and 2019. Specifically, I focus on Australia’s offshore detention of asylum seekers in the Manus Regional Processing Centre (RPC) during this period as one aspect of this bilateral relationship. The Australian policy and resultant highly secured detention centre complex were superimposed onto PNG’s own diverse and complex social fabric of security characterised by gendered social relationships. The Manus RPC complex, and the actors who arrived with it, set in motion a chain reaction that increasingly revealed the porous nature of this fabricated security space, leading to the undermining of bilateral efforts to address insecurity in the sense of high levels of crime, ethnic violence and gender-based violence in PNG. A key lesson from this period is the need to better appreciate relationality and mutuality in security discourse. Practices, events and discourses in and about each country are simultaneously and relationally shaped by factors domestic, bilateral and beyond, and each country’s contexts. While each country may deal individually with security as a national issue, this case study highlights how practices, policies, events and discourses can flow beyond national borders to shape the bilateral relationship between two countries and the security discourses within each country. This materialises into a range of outcomes that in turn feed back to shape the discourse.
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Navigating ‘Flexible, Responsive and Respectful’ Security Cooperation in the Pacific Islands: A 2022 Workshop Report
(Canberra, ACT: Dept. of Pacific Affairs, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University, 2023-03-24) McNeill, Henrietta; Batley, James; Powles, Anna; Sakai, Hidekazu; Tidwell, Alan; Wallis, Joanne
On 23 and 24 November 2022, the University of Adelaide Stretton Institute and the Australian National University (ANU) Department of Pacific Affairs cohosted the Security Cooperation in the Pacific Islands workshop in Canberra. One hundred representatives from academia, civil society and the governments of Australia, New Zealand, the United States (US), Japan, Samoa and several European states attended. The workshop was the culmination of our three-year Australian Department of Defence Strategic Policy Grant project that analysed how Pacific security cooperation can best be orientated to address current and future regional security challenges. This paper summarises the discussion from the workshop.
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Personal Reflections on Political Economy and Nation-Building in Solomon Islands
(Canberra, ACT: Dept. of Pacific Affairs, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University, 2022-12-19) Aqorau, Transform; Firth, Stewart
This paper is based on a speech delivered by DPA visiting fellow Dr Transform Aqorau on 26 August 2022 at The Australian National University. It is followed by an epilogue by Stewart Firth. The speech unpacks some of the factors that have influenced political developments in Solomon Islands in recent years, the complexities surrounding nation-building and the confluence of interests often at play that can exacerbate public policy formulation.
Open Access
Papua New Guinea’s 2022 Electoral Boundaries Redistribution
(Canberra, ACT: Dept. of Pacific Affairs, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University, 2022-03-31) Raue, Benjamin
The Electoral Boundaries Commission (EBC) of Papua New Guinea recently completed another redistribution, but the changes have limited relationship to the actual population imbalances and do little to resolve the severe malapportionment that tilts the balance of power towards some parts of Papua New Guinea over others. The redistribution was passed through parliament in March 2022, just months out from the June election, with little time to implement changes before votes are cast. Electorates are theoretically distributed on the basis of one person, one vote, but this assumes that each open electorate has roughly the same population. Population trends shift over time, with some areas growing faster than others, and other areas experiencing slower growth, or even a decline in population. These effects add up over time, to the point where some members of parliament represent far fewer voters than others. This phenomenon is known as ‘malapportionment’, where the share of seats in parliament allocated to one part of a country is significantly out of proportion with that part’s share of the population.The provincial seats are designed to give a seat to every province, regardless of population, so are not considered in calculations of electoral fairness. Instead, the focus in this Working Paper is on the level of malapportionment in the open seats, and the attempts to change that.
Open Access
Security Cooperation in the Pacific: Workshop Report
(Canberra, ACT: Dept. of Pacific Affairs, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University) Wallis, Joanne; McNeill, Henrietta; Batley, James; Powles, Anna
In November 2021 an online workshop was held to better understand security cooperation between partner states; between PICs themselves, and with their citizens; and between partners, PICs and citizens. The goal of the workshop was to discuss papers that are intended to form the basis of chapters in an edited book about security cooperation in the Pacific Islands. Speakers came from a range of PICs, as well as their major partner states, including Australia, China, Fiji, Japan, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands and the US. The PIF Secretariat also attended part of the workshop as an observer. Panels were organised around three key areas: regional security cooperation; the role of partner states in security cooperation; and security cooperation to address specific security challenges. This paper deals with each of these three areas before considering the question: ‘who is accountable to whom in the provision of security assistance?’
Open Access
Solomon Islands in Transition: Workshop Report
(State, Society and Governance in Melanesia, 2013) Allen, Matthew; Dinnen, Sinclair
The Solomon Islands in Transition workshop was held at the Australian National University on the 4th and 5th of November 2013. Jointly funded by the ANU and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and hosted by SSGM, speakers at the workshop included two Provincial Premiers, senior public servants and representatives of civil society; Solomon Islander, Australian and international scholars; and practitioners from the international and Australian development community. The workshop also attracted an audience of around 120 people and was accompanied by a number of ‘side-events’ including: a documentary screening, a joint book launch, a reception at the Solomon Islands High Commission, a half-day writers’ workshop, a roundtable discussion on sub-national issues, a policy dialogue at DFAT, and two academic seminars.
Open Access
Self-Determination and Electoral Geography in New Caledonia: Political Stasis or Independence?
(Canberra, ACT: Dept. of Pacific Affairs, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, 2020) Pantz, Pierre-Christophe
In June 2019 in Nouméa, the University of New Caledonia’s LARJE (Research Centre for Law and Economics) and the Australian National University’s Department of Pacific Affairs co-convened a PIPSA (Pacific Islands Political Studies Association) conference with the theme of ‘Democracy, Sovereignty and Self- Determination in the Pacific Islands’. This Working Paper is part of a PIPSA special series building on that theme.
Open Access
Decolonising American Micronesia
(Canberra, ACT: Dept. of Pacific Affairs, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, 2020) Fisher, William; Firth, Stewart
This writing of this Working Paper was prompted by the American decision in 2019 to renegotiate the Compacts of Free Association between the United States and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Republic of Palau. At stake are the expiring provisions of the Compact in each case, and initial talks began in May 2020. In particular, Bill Fisher, who served as Australian consul general to Micronesia 1983–87, wished to set the record straight, from his personal perspective, on Australia’s historical role in encouraging the incorporation of the three freely associated states into the wider diplomatic network of Pacific regionalism, especially into the South Pacific Forum. His account is revealing as only a personal account can be. Stewart Firth sets this account in the wider historical framework of the time, from the Cold War to the response of the region to French nuclear tests.
Open Access
Developing Papua New Guinea’s Tourism Sector
(Canberra, ACT: Dept. of Pacific Affairs, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, 2020) Sumb, Allan
This paper focuses on tourism in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and a range of challenges that hinder the progress of tourism development. Over the years, tourism has seen continued growth and increasing expansion to become one of the leading and fastest growing economic sectors across the globe (Mihalic 2014; Rayel et al. 2014; SPTO 2018). Modern tourism is directly connected to developmental progress and includes an increasing number of new sites being developed as tourist destinations (Mihalic 2014; Rayel et al. 2014; UNWTO 2016). With its vast and untouched natural environment, PNG has a great deal of potential as a tourist destination (Rayel et al. 2014). However, tourism visitation to PNG in the last few years has been relatively low compared to smaller Pacific Island countries (Rayel et al. 2014; Sumb 2017). In 2006, the PNG Tourism Promotion Authority (PNG TPA) released the Papua New Guinea Tourism Sector Review and Master Plan (2007–2017), the aim of which was to bolster tourism growth.The PNG TPA identified a number of factors that dissuaded potential tourists from visiting such as insufficient infrastructure, concerns about adequate health services and the dangers posed to tourists by criminal activities (Basu 2000; Bhanugopan 2001; PNG TPA 2006; Rayel et al. 2014). The objective of this paper is to investigate, identify and discuss the factors that deter tourists from visiting PNG
Open Access
Health Care Management in Australia’s and New Zealand’s Seasonal Worker Schemes
(Canberra, ACT: Dept. of Pacific Affairs, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, 2020) Bailey, Rochelle
Globally, it is estimated that there are over 164 million labour migrants, many of whom are temporary migrants choosing overseas labour mobility options as a way to improve livelihoods for their families and communities. This paper discusses the relatively untouched topic of temporary migrants’ health care management in Australia’s Seasonal Worker Program (SWP) and New Zealand’s Recognised Seasonal Employer Scheme (RSE), which are temporary seasonal worker schemes.
Open Access
National Development Plans in PNG — How They Measure Up Against the National Goals and Directive Principles
(Canberra, ACT: Dept. of Pacific Affairs, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, 2020-02) Kaiku, Patrick
This paper revisits the development models promoted in recent national plans in PNG, the influences that framed their ambitious visions and their compatibility with the earlier NGDPs. Learning from the failed attempts at implementing the National Goals and Directive Principles (NGDPs), this paper suggests making them justiciable and institutionalised — as suggested by the Constitutional Planning Committee (CPC) —for the purpose of vetting development policies and programs.
Open Access
The Search for Democracy in Fiji
(Canberra, ACT: Dept. of Pacific Affairs, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, 2019) MacWilliam, Scott
This Discussion Paper is the third of a trilogy written after the November 2018 election in Fiji. The first, In Brief 2018/28, considered the consequences of how reporting the results using competing media outlets affected popular understandings of the election. The second, Discussion Paper 2019/2, examined the continuing importance of land for elections, even as the conditions under which the indigenous population, the majority Taukei, live are commercialised and urbanised. Finally, this essay locates the search for democracy in Fiji, which is expressed in domestic and international objections to existing political circumstances
Open Access
How Does the 'Pacific' Fit into the 'Indo-Pacific'? The Changing Geopolitics of the Pacific Islands: Workshop Report
(Canberra, ACT: Dept. of Pacific Affairs, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, 2019) Wallis, Joanne; Batley, James; Seaton, Ruben
How does the Pacific fit into the Indo-Pacific? Read a summary of the thoughts of Pacific, NZ and Australian speakers on the changing geopolitics of the region during a recent workshop at the ANU.
Open Access
Politics, Religion, and the Churches:The 2002 Election in Papua New Guinea
(Canberra, ACT: Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University, 2004) Gibbs, Philip
In Papua New Guinea in the immediate aftermath of the 2002 national election, many of more than two million potential voters looked for ways to express their feelings of anger, disappointment, and frustration. With 43 political parties and 2785 candidates vying for 109 seats in parliament, some hitches were predictable. However, no one expected the extent of the chaos and intimidation that was experienced in many parts of Papua New Guinea during June and July 2002. After having spent 29 years in Papua New Guinea, I am well aware of how foolhardy it is to try to generalize about the situation in that country but on this occasion there was a pervasive sense that something had gone terribly wrong. On the first day of polling, the Prime Minister, Sir Mekere Morauta, having had to wait for nearly five hours to cast his vote, was reported as saying, “This is more than a bungle. Someone should be hung for this” (Post-Courier, 18 June:1). That was on 17 June and the situation subsequently deteriorated. The Prime Minister was fortunate. Bishop Arnold Orowae, Catholic bishop in Enga Province, lined up in Wabag to cast his vote only to find that his name did not appear on the electoral roll. He left without voting and with a feeling of having been disenfranchised. In Port Moresby, 90 students at the Don Bosco Technical College were registered so that their names would be on the Common Roll but on voting day only five of their names appeared. The other 85 students were left disappointed and angry. This was a common experience. In the Highlands, what Bill Standish has called “gunpoint” democracy was rife with presiding officers being forced to sign ballot papers while facing down the barrel of a gun (Standish 1996).1 The police were outnumbered and outgunned and the army had to be called in to try to bring about a semblance of order in some provinces such as Southern Highlands and Enga Provinces. This paper discusses the present-day political significance of Christianity and the churches in Papua New Guinea against the background of political unrest and confusion in which the 2002 election was conducted.
Open Access
Crisis in Timor Leste: Looking Beyond the Surface Reality for Causes and Solutions
(Canberra, ACT: Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University, 2006) Curtain, Richard
What caused the current upheaval in East Timor? The World Bank’s President, Paul Wolfowitz, visited the country in early April, 2006 and hailed it as a model of post conflict recovery. He praised Timor-Leste’s social and political harmony and stability, due to the ‘country's sensible leadership and sound decision making which have helped put in place the building blocks for a stable peace and a growing economy’. However, the World Bank did state in July 2005 in a major assessment of the state of the country that: ‘Despite considerable progress, the current stability in Timor-Leste is fragile, and the country remains vulnerable to conflict’.
Open Access
Strengthening Civil Society in Solomon Islands: Organisational and Network Development in Development Services Exchange
(Canberra, ACT: Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University, 2006) Upton, Michael
Open Access
The State of Francis Fukuyama
(Canberra, ACT: Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University, 2006) Nelson, Hank
Professor Francis Fukuyama, currently Bernard L Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University, was born in Chicago in 1952, and has a BA from Cornell and a doctorate in political science from Harvard. He has worked with the RAND Corporation, the Department of State specialising on the Middle East, and continues to serve on several significant boards such as the President’s Council on Bioethics and the National Endowment for Democracy. Something of the range of his interests can be gauged from the fact that he has written monographs on Russia and the Third World, the consequences of the biotechnology revolution, and social capital. He became widely known with the publication of The End of History and the Last Man in 1992. Translated into many languages, the head of bestseller lists and awarded major international prizes, The End of History and the Last Man provoked popular and academic debates; but his two most recent books, State Building: Governance and World order in the TwentyFirst Century (2004) and After the Neocons: America at the Crossroads (2006) have more immediate relevance to Australia. His shift from identifying as a neoconservative to asserting that neoconservatism was ‘something’ he ‘could no longer support’, has been reported widely in Australia. He had contributed to the neoconservatist underpinning of the war in Iraq and he had joined the initial celebration at the fall of Sadam Hussein, but he has concluded that the American theoretical justification for the war was wrong and its execution incompetent, and he has called for a new direction in American foreign policy, a ‘Realistic Wilsonianism’. While Fukuyama’s changing evaluation of the arguments of his one-time neocon colleagues has illuminated major issues about American policy and the war in Iraq, his general thinking about failed or weak states and foreign intervention has received less attention in Australia. And it is those considerations that have implications for Australian policies in East Timor, Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and the other islands where Australia has primary responsibility for any external interventions requiring personnel and cash. Where there have been debates in Australia, they have tended to be concerned with the immediate and practical, not the long-term and theoretical, but as Fukuyama and others have demonstrated, much foreign aid and intervention has been determined by theoretical assumptions that are unproven or false

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