PM pledges more aid for Pacific states

By HELEN TUNNAH deputy political editor

The Prime Minister is pledging a greater financial commitment to the Pacific ahead of tomorrow's mini-summit to debate how the region can pool resources to boost security and economic growth and tackle corruption.

Helen Clark said New Zealanders would accept increased aid funding for Pacific nations and the Pacific Islands Forum if it lifted economic well-being, helped fight health epidemics, and secured law and order in troubled states.

She said most New Zealanders had grown up in a time when the Pacific was a settled and secure region, but those days were fading.

"That illusion is pretty well shattered now," she told the Herald yesterday.

"There are some major issues which need to be confronted."

New Zealand now spends just over $100 million of its $245 million aid budget in the Pacific, and alongside Australia is the major funder of the Pacific Islands Forum secretariat in Fiji, which has an annual budget of US$8.5 million ($12.7 million).

Helen Clark said next month's Budget might be too soon to see a rise in aid levels for the Pacific, and extra commitments were more likely to be catered for next year.

"We think the forum will require more money because it's being asked to do more. And if the forum is to be better resourced, the burden will fall on New Zealand and Australia."

New Zealand, like Australia, has already increased spending in the region, notably through funding the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands, under which troops, police and civil servants were sent last year to restore law and order and crack down on corruption.

The success of that mission has added impetus to a planned restructuring of the forum and its secretariat, which is to be the focus of the special summit in Auckland tomorrow.

Fifteen of the forum's 16 members will study the report of an Eminent Persons' Group, which was set up last year and has been developing a Pacific plan proposing increased regional co-operation to tackle problems which can emerge if states fail, such as transnational crime, and promote economic growth.

Helen Clark, who will chair the meeting, would not elaborate yesterday on the report.

However, it is expected to back a significant strengthening of the role of the forum's Secretary-General, which Helen Clark said in February could allow that person to be "more proactive in crises that hit the region". These could be natural disasters, health breakouts like the bird flu which struck Asia, or security troubles.

The report will suggest four areas for an increased forum focus: economic co-operation, sustainable development, good governance and regional security.

While pooling resources in areas such as training facilities and transport is planned, two studies on shared shipping and air services have not been completed yet. The report does not include any timeframe for implementing any of its recommendations.

It will not suggest a formal union of states, such as the European Union, or the adoption of a single Pacific currency, proposed by an Australian senate committee just before last year's full forum meeting in Auckland.

There, Australia managed to offend smaller states by trampling over two long-held forum conventions: that the Secretary-General's job be held by someone from the Pacific - and not Australia or New Zealand - and that it be decided by consensus and not a vote.

Instead, Prime Minister John Howard persisted with promoting his candidate, Greg Urwin, for the job - eventually getting his own way after a vote was forced.

Mr Howard will make a flying visit to Auckland for the meeting, but Helen Clark last night dismissed a suggestion that the restructured forum was being pressed on other states by New Zealand or Australia.


Mr Howard has made his ambitions for the region clear, in an interview with an Australian journalist.

"With the heightened threat of terrorism and other forms of transnational crime, I believe we have a duty to assist the region.

"Political will to institute the conditions required for sustained economic growth - intolerance of corruption and adherence to the rule of law - is central to the Pacific's future."


SPECIAL SUMMIT

* A summit in Auckland tomorrow will discuss the future structure of the Pacific Islands Forum.

* An Eminent Persons' Group has been developing a Pacific plan proposing increased regional co-operation to tackle problems such as transnational crime and promote economic growth.