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I used to be as soon as requested “why ought to Australians care about what occurs within the Pacific? and my response was (or began with) “That is the place you reside”.
Being within the neighbourhood is a truth of geography. Being a great neighbour requires thought, care, exercise, and participation. In relation to being a great neighbour within the area, how has Australia’s statecraft rated previously and the way can it’s improved for the long run?
Two years in the past I led a analysis group that spent a great whereas listening to Pacific islanders (from Fiji, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu). I’ve distilled a few of what we heard into what I describe because the “Australia paradox”. Primarily because of this for individuals in these international locations, the connection with Australia is way and away an important one, the one they care essentially the most about. And since they care a lot about it, they need it to be higher.
Pacific Islanders need the connection with Australia to be higher. Australians ought to need that too.
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The significance of ‘how’, not simply ‘what’
So how can we do it higher? Is it extra help, higher labour mobility, financial integration, extra help for Pacific regionalism, all the above? Everyone seems to be in search of or placing ahead a solution. However first, we have to have a look at the questions and what underpins them.
Within the Pacific, the primary forex is relationships. Relationships have to be nurtured and constructed on stable foundations. The “how” of what Australia does has been given inadequate consideration. The narrative of the Pacific step-up has been an excessive amount of concerning the “what”. This has led to it being one thing that’s perceived as being completed “to” or “for” the Pacific. It is just by addressing the “how” that it may be elevated to one thing Australia does “with” the Pacific.
There are 4 elements to establishing the stable basis that’s wanted to maintain and enrich Pacific relationships: listening, speaking, Pacific literacy, and capability constructing.
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In relation to listening, there must be extra of it, and it must be completed higher. Australian policymakers must hearken to a wider vary of voices, they usually have to be open to listening to issues that could be uncomfortable to listen to.
Most significantly, Pacific voices have to be those doing the speaking. Particularly, Pacific diaspora communities in Australia are key sources of information and experience who usually really feel that they’re ignored in terms of crucial conversations.
As for speaking, loads of what now we have seen throughout this election marketing campaign, notably in regard to the pact between China and the Solomon Islands, signifies that there must be much less bluster and extra self-awareness and respect. The phrases that political leaders, commentators and journalists use matter. They are often offensive and even inflammatory. Solomon Islands will not be a “fly-speck nation” or a “little Cuba” and neither is it in anybody’s “again yard”.
Even with out the overestimated political rhetoric of an election marketing campaign, too usually how the Pacific is mentioned or reported on reveals some rusted on tropes and prejudices. It doesn’t require a lot scratching to see they’re based mostly on a poisonous mixture of racism and neo-colonialism. Not solely is that this unattractive, additionally it is counter-productive.
Australians additionally want to enhance their Pacific literacy.
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Australians want to enhance their Pacific literacy
Pacific islanders know rather a lot about Australia, however the reverse is way from true. The Australian coverage group and the broader society must make a significant and sustained funding in constructing Pacific literacy. Too little is taught in colleges and universities concerning the variety and dynamism of the Pacific neighbourhood.
The mainstream media has paid too little consideration to the Pacific, apart from in a reactive, knee-jerk manner. A significant hole within the Australian consciousness pertains to historic hyperlinks. Fortunes have been made by plantation house owners in Queensland and New South Wales on the again of labour that was blackbirded from Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Solomon Islands. That is a part of a shared historical past, and it must be acknowledged and understood if there may be to be shared prosperity within the area.
Learn extra:
From the Caribbean to Queensland: re-examining Australia’s ‘blackbirding’ previous and its roots within the international slave commerce
“Capability constructing” is presumably essentially the most generally and over-used phrase related to Australian coverage within the Pacific. However Australia’s leaders and officers have their very own critical capability deficits within the growth and implementation of insurance policies in our area.
Specific areas of focus are linguistic and cultural capability. An unwillingness or refusal to have interaction with the cultural underpinnings of Pacific methods of considering and being is extra than simply unhealthy manners – it’s intellectually lazy and strategically inept.
Different companions, together with New Zealand and China, are in a position to develop shops of social and political capital by investing in cultural capability, and Australian recalcitrance doesn’t go unnoticed by Pacific counterparts.
These are the constructing blocks that may create a basis for no matter technique, coverage, programme or undertaking Australia seeks to develop with Pacific companions. They’ll type the idea of reinvigorated relationships that will likely be nurtured by belief, reciprocity, and respect.
Tess Newton Cain doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or organisation that may profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their tutorial appointment.
