Howard Hits With Heavy Hands

Pacific leaders will rumble on the quiet for some time to come now that a non-Pacific Islander has the position.

John Howard...pleased with Greg Urwin's appointment as Forum's secretary-general.

But John Howard's man had the numbers when it came to the ballot which saw Nauru eliminated first, then Tonga and Samoa paving the way for Greg Urwin, a 57-year-old Pacific veteran.

None is better pleased than the Australian Prime Minister who said Urwin is a person who has independent experience and strong links with the Pacific. He's a Pacific veteran and therefore in his own right he's a very good man for the job.

"I know he will repay that by performing extremely well at a very critical time for the Forum. This has been quite a watershed meeting. It's the most engaged forum meeting I've ever been to. This body is seen as having new authority, new clout, new relevance, and everybody will go from this meeting feeling that they're part of something that will punch even harder and more effectively in the region than before."

Leaders departed from the 34th Pacific Islands Forum in Auckland with some misgivings but have come to accept the outcome in goodwill.

Urwin's immediate concern is that countries of the region are facing challenges that interface with most of their own histories. They involve the phenomenon of globalisation, for example, various stresses and strains that have arisen in their own societies and a range of other threats to their security which take a very comprehensive form, Urwin said.

The forum has done a lot of good work in addressing these challenges. What I think will be my task is to continue that good work and do everything I can to ensure the forum and the secretariat is at the very heart of the responses that leaders have to make to these challenges. Adapting smaller Pacific nations to globalisation is a very big issue and it's one that I and the secretariat can play a key role in helping countries interface with these large and somewhat impersonal organisations. It's unquestionably the case that these smaller countries are still working to find their proper place in those sorts of organisations.

"There is work to be done to ensure these large organisations give the Pacific the kind of place in their deliberations that the Pacific deserves," he said.

Born in New South Wales, Urwin is no stranger to the Pacific having joined Australia's Foreign Affairs Department in 1971, headed the mission in Samoa from 1977-1979 and was on secondment to the Samoan government three years after that.

He served in Vanuatu, the Solomons, Tuvalu, Nauru, Fiji, Samoa and was recognised for his outstanding contribution to the pursuit of Australia's interests in the Pacific.

On the Forum, Urwin said it was a much changed organisation than the one which started out in 1971 with was a small grouping of mainly Polynesian states who came together primarily to further various economic objectives. The Forum itself, in a sense, grew out of previous association of banana producing countries and now has a broad ranging agenda.

We all know that regional aviation has had a long and sometimes difficult history. We're all aware that Air Pacific had its genesis in an aspiration to be a regional airline. But over time various other countries found that their national interest dictated that they themselves have their own links. I personally think it is very timely to look at this issue again partly because of economic pressures. Many countries find it difficult to maintain air services adequate to their needs. It is in some ways becoming more and more difficult to move between the islands countries in the region.

"You find yourself if you want to travel from point A to point B in the region you have travel down to Auckland or Brisbane, then go back into the island region. If you go into the central Pacific and talk to people in a country like Kiribati you find they have huge uncertainties about guaranteeing to their people a reliable means of moving in a predictable manner."

He said there is definitely a lot of work to be done to develop cooperative behaviour in the subregions to make sure people's right to move is protected. The Forum is working on putting in place a framework for intra-regional trade and trade with areas outside the region.

On the Solomons Islands crisis, Urwin said nobody wants to go in and play a role in the internal affairs of another country. That applies to our region as well as any others. But matters reached a point in the Solomons where there didn't seem to be any other options than to adopt a regional response "I personally think we got to a point very quickly where the specific security aspects were well handled and the need for military presence will decrease. But there will need to be assistance in the Solomon Islands in policing for quite some time."

Urwin takes over from Papua New Guinea's Noel Levi who returns to his country when his term expires in December.