Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Mackellar for her question and for her interest. I visited the Solomon Islands on Friday and Saturday with my New Zealand counterpart, Winston Peters. The Treasurer will remember that he was once the Treasurer of New Zealand. We held talks with the Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands, Mr Sogavare, as well as the foreign minister, Patterson Oti. The Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands told us that the Solomon Islands government was committed to what we call RAMSI, the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands.

Winston Peters and I made it clear to the Prime Minister that, as the key donors to RAMSI, we did not want to see the integrity of RAMSI in anyway diluted. RAMSI is a total package, and we do not expect the Solomon Islands government to cherry pick bits off it that might be seen to be inconvenient. For example, to have the Solomon Islands government withdraw the officials from the finance ministry who are trying to assist the Solomon Islanders to get the country’s finances into shape would be something that we would regard as unacceptable.

Of course, we are happy to finetune RAMSI here and there, in relation to it doing more tasks and doing some of the tasks that it does even better than it is doing them, but not to start downgrading RAMSI. We look forward to discussions with the Solomon Islanders, in particular on the issue of training more Solomon Islanders to do some of the tasks, in the fullness of time, that are being conducted by RAMSI. We have also made it very clear that one of the key issues for the Solomon Islands is combating corruption. We stressed the importance of that to the Prime Minister, to the foreign minister and publicly as well. Obviously, RAMSI has been doing a good job.

Let me make two final points. First of all, we do reject the criticism of RAMSI during the recent riots. I think the Australian Federal Police and state police officers who had to deal with the riots showed enormous courage. I do not think that that courage has always been properly recognised, at least in the media. I think it has been recognised by the parliament but not in the media. They showed enormous courage in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Any suggestion that somehow they are responsible for the riots is preposterous. The people who were responsible for the riots were the people who incited and conducted the riots.

There is an allegation that two people were involved in the incitement of the riots, Mr Ne’e and Mr Dausabea. It was announced by the Prime Minister that they would be ministers. We made it perfectly clear—I am sure that every member of this House agrees with this—to the Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands government that to have people who are facing charges for inciting the riots appointed as ministers, one of them as the police minister, is, at least for us as Australians, completely unacceptable. Of course, the Solomon Islands can make up their own minds about their own government; we do not have to approve of it. And we certainly do not approve of people in those circumstances being made ministers. I am pleased that the Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands has now at least appointed acting ministers in those roles, if not abandoned those appointments altogether.

Solomon Islands has a very long way to go as a country. It has been growing quite well in the last three years, since RAMSI has been there, at around four to five per cent a year. But for the Solomon Islands to return, at least according to the IMF, to its per capita living standards of 1980, it will have to maintain its current rate of growth until 2025. That puts into some context the sheer challenge that that country faces. We are happy to help it but, ultimately, the destiny of the Solomon Islands does not rest with us—it rests with the Solomon Islands people and its government. I hope that RAMSI will be able to continue beyond 23 July, the deadline by when the mandate has to be renewed by the Solomon Islands parliament. I am confident it will be renewed. It is important that the full integrity of RAMSI remains in place.

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