20 Years Ago In Pacific Magazine

Prime Minister Lange was excited about the meetings and about the opportunity to become active in the region. He said, "It's important to New Zealand that you have a viable Pacific of small nation states. To put it at the cold level of political cynicism, we have a constituency in New Zealand that is from the Pacific, and that sharpens our focus. It means that we have then a domestic, real political responsibility that few foreign policy issues ever assume."

The Labour Party leader had just defeated the National Party of Sir Robert Muldoon, and his interview suggested both his government's style and focus regarding the Pacific Islands. Said Lange: "We, I think, have to come to grips with ourselves about the relative self-interest in what are aid programs. We need to draw some new philosophy which talks about the compassionate rescue, obvious need for moving, say, to stop the plight of dying Africa - which is the current crisis - and then come back to a very rational, rather hard-headed assessment of what aid programs there ought to be for economic development." Lange's approach sounds like today's debate in the region.

Remember SPIA? "South Pacific Island Airways (SPIA) has installed a $100,000 computerized reservation system in its offices in American Samoa, Guam, Saipan, Tahiti, Tonga, Western Samoa, Alaska, Papua New Guinea, Canada and Honolulu. Called Spiamatic, the system uses a Georgia-based computer network used world-wide by many international and domestic airlines."