KEY POINTS:
The Government has made an exemption to its sanctions against Fiji so that the country's Education Minister can attend a meeting of Pacific Islands Forum ministers in Auckland. A spokesman for our Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, explained that Netani Sukanaivalu had been granted an exemption because "we firmly believe that the regional work of the forum is of greater value to New Zealand than our bilateral sanctions against Fiji".
That news will have been read with disbelief by certain sporting people in this country. Barely three weeks ago, two Fijian netballers were unable to come here for the sport's world championships because they had family connections to the Fijian military.
Last month, a soccer World Cup qualifying match had to be moved out of New Zealand because the Government refused to grant a visa to Fiji's goalkeeper. The player ran foul of its sanctions because his father-in-law is in the military.
Sporting people do not expect their innocent activities to rank in importance with affairs of state but they have a right to expect some consistency. Exactly how important is a Pacific Islands Forum education ministers' meeting in the grand scheme of New Zealand foreign policy?
The question is made more pertinent by the fact that the Prime Minister herself took an extremely stern view of the presence of the military coup leader, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, at the forum leaders summit in Tonga last month. She said nothing was gained by allowing him to attend, despite his undertaking at the forum to hold elections by March 2009, and she resolved to "keep Fiji's feet to the fire".
Well, some feet, it turns out. Whatever the regime's Education Minister has to contribute to the meeting in Auckland, it somehow outweighs the importance of the sanctions. The exemption, adds Mr Peters, "does not in any way signal any change in our policy towards the Fijian Government".
Actions always speak much louder than words in diplomacy and New Zealand's sanctions are becoming a trifle confusing, even on the sporting front. While the two Fijian netballers were unable to participate in this month's world championships at Trusts Stadium in Waitakere City, the president of Fiji Netball, Alice Tabete, was admitted despite family connections to the military.
The Prime Minister said the ban applied to serving military officers and their children and their children's partners. It did not apply to sons or daughters. "That's the way the ban was devised. This woman is not affected by that ban," she said.
Then she added, more tellingly perhaps, that Ms Tabete had been a frequent visitor to New Zealand.
It was at that point the ban began to sound very arbitrary; if it suits the Government to grant an exemption it will. And not just to people distantly connected with the military. Mr Sukanaivalu is a minister of the illegitimate regime. The only discernible "value to New Zealand" in his admission for the education gathering is that it teaches us a little more about our fraying sanctions.
It is a lesson also in the arrogance of power. By what principle can the Government argue that an ordinary gathering of ministers is more important to this country than a sporting event such as the chance to host a soccer World Cup qualifying match? It behoves those who intrude on others' activities to make sure they apply the same rules to themselves.
Fiji seems not to be suffering much from this ban, nor is the New Zealand Government. It seems to apply only to the not-so-well-connected.
