Lowy Institute

In November, New Caledonia will face an independence referendum. This will bring to an end the Matignon and Noumea Accords, which delivered 30 years of peace after a bloody civil war. France is overseeing preparations.Australia's position continues to be simple support for the full implementation of the 1998 Noumea Accord, including a genuine referendum process. The Accord planned a scheduled handover and sharing of some responsibilities by France, and economic re-balancing between the mainly European and mainly Kanak areas. It stipulates that the final vote would decide three things: New Caledonia's future international status; whether France retains responsibility for defence, foreign affairs, currency, law and order, and justice; and citizenship, or employment/voting rights, for longstanding residents.On August 15, CarriageWorks presented the world premiere of new work by resident company Marrugeku, with an inter-cultural and trans-Indigenous production, featuring Australian and New Caledonia dancers of First Nations, immigrant and settler descent. Presented as New Caledonia moves towards the referendum on independence from France, Le Dernier Appel (The Last Cry) asks questions of cultural, political and personal decolonisation in both Australia and New Caledonia. Alexandre Dayant, Research Fellow at the Lowy Institute, interviewed Emmanuel Tjibaou, the Director of the Tjibaou Cultural Centre (which co-commissioned Le Dernier Appel). Mr. Tjibaou has been involved in the development of Le Dernier Appel with Marrugeku (Australia's leading Indigenous intercultural dance theatre company), from a Kanak perspective. Emmanuel Tjibaou is the son of the assassinated Kanak independence leader Jean Marie Tjibaou who signed the accord for the peace treaty with France and the conditions of the referendum which takes place this November.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Lowy Institute hosted an address by the Hon Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Samoa.The Pacific is back in international headlines. New partners in the region are contributing to a fast-changing geostrategic landscape, and old partners are ‘stepping up’ in response. But how new are these current dynamics? How do Pacific Islanders view the movements and machinations of large powers in the Pacific and how have they responded to such developments? How are Pacific Island countries shaping the engagement of partners in the region, and how will they continue to shape them in the future? We delved into these issues and more with Samoa’s Prime Minister.The Hon Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi is the leader of the Human Rights Protection Party, which currently retains 47 of the 50 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Samoa. He has been a Member of Parliament since 1981 and has previously served as Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. In 1998 he became the sixth Prime Minister of Samoa, and has led his party to four general election victories. Before entering politics, he served in the Department of Treasury.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Whether in terms of denuclearisation talks with North Korea, an escalating trade war with China, or the promotion of a concept and strategy for a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’, the pace of US statecraft in Asia has been frenetic in recent months. Has the United States reclaimed the initiative in great power competition in the region? Are bold but often contradictory US initiatives unpicking or strengthening America’s position in Asia? Will a ‘new era in US economic commitment’ to the region prove more meaningful than the last, which ended with US withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership? And how do regional partners and adversaries interpret recent developments?Alex Oliver, Director of Research at the Lowy Institute, chaired a panel discussion with Gordon Flake, CEO of the Perth USAsia Centre, together with Lowy Institute Senior Fellows Dr Euan Graham and Richard McGregor.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australia now has its fifth prime minister in five years. What does this mean for Australia’s place in the world? Does our reputation as the ‘coup capital of the democratic world’ damage Australia’s international standing? How does it affect our ability to run a coherent foreign policy? And what might we expect from the Morrison government? Four Lowy Institute experts discussed the global implications of Australia’s political crisis. Executive Director Dr Michael Fullilove chaired a discussion with Director of Research Alex Oliver, Senior Fellow Richard McGregor, and Director of the International Security Program Sam Roggeveen.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The future of the Middle East peace process under US President Donald Trump, the use of chemical weapons in Syrian conflict, the implications for the United Nations’ role and its duties – these topics are politically, culturally, and ethically complex and are not easily navigated.The Lowy Institute hosted Mr Nick Kaldas APM, former Director of Internal Oversight Services in the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), to hear his views on these issues, followed by a question-and-answer session. Mr Kaldas was a former deputy commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force. He has recently returned from two years with the UNRWA based in Jordan, during which time he was seconded as Chief Investigator into the use of chemical weapons in Syria by the UN/OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea have emerged as the testing ground for great power competition between the US and China, and as a lightning rod for rival claimants in the region, as well as Australia and Japan, to assert their own maritime rights.Lowy Institute Senior Fellow Richard McGregor moderated a panel with other pre-eminent experts on the South China Sea – Wu Shicun, of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Linda Jakobson, of China Matters, and Professor Benjamin Schreer of Macquarie University – where they discussed the controversy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Foreign aid is an important resource for the Pacific Islands, and for many countries is a major point of engagement with the region. Yet public information at the project level is sparse, often lacks detail, and is difficult to access. This lack of transparency reduces the effectiveness of aid. It makes it difficult to coordinate aid efforts across multiple stakeholders. It makes it challenging for countries in the Pacific to align aid with their own investment priorities. It makes it harder for donors to learn from each other and from the past. It also reduces the accountability of aid, on both the sending and receiving sides, that flows in to Australia’s immediate region. The Lowy Institute Pacific Aid Map helps address this situation. The Pacific Aid Map is an analytical tool designed to enhance aid effectiveness in the Pacific by improving coordination, alignment, and accountability of foreign aid through enhanced transparency of aid flows. The resource has collected data on close to 13,000 projects in 14 countries from 62 donors from 2011 onwards. This raw data has been made freely available on an interactive multifaceted platform, allowing users to interrogate and manipulate the information in a variety of ways. Lowy Institute Director of Research, Alex Oliver, moderated a panel with principal researchers Alexandre Dayant and Jonathan Pryke, for a discussion on the method and findings of the most comprehensive assessment of aid flows in the Pacific ever undertaken.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At the end of 2017, China announced it had been a year of “remarkable progress” on human rights. However, activists draw attention to an increasingly repressive environment in China, including restrictions on academic freedom; domestic human rights deteriorations in law, policing, and terrorism; the surveillance apparatus; and repression in Tibet and Xinjiang. Behind closed doors, Australia has raised human rights issues with China in annual high-level dialogues, and continues to work on human rights capacity-building projects with Chinese President Xi Jinping. What is the current state of human rights in China, and has the Chinese Communist Party been trying to improve the situation? How have different Australian governments (and others) engaged China on human rights, and how effective have those efforts been? Dr Merriden Varrall, Director of the Lowy Institute’s East Asia Program, moderated a panel with Dr Sophie Richardson, China Director at Human Rights Watch, and Natasha de Silva, Director International Engagement and Partnerships at the Australian Human Rights Commission, for an in-depth discussion of these issues.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How are human rights in North Korea and broader regional security through North Korean denuclearisation connected, and can one be achieved without the other? Kim Jong-un’s successful pursuit of his nuclear agenda has arguably only been possible because of his ruthless wielding of power and control, and the surveillance and oppression of the North Korean people. The US and its allies want North Korea to denuclearise in the interests of regional and global security. Following the recent meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump, we have focused on if and how genuine denuclearisation can be achieved. But does the lack of any real public accountability that arises from the human rights situation in North Korea mean Kim’s promises at the Singapore summit are just empty rhetoric? Should human rights be a part of the denuclearisation discussion, and if not, what are the implications, both for the North Korean people and broader security? To explore these questions, Dr Merriden Varrall, Director of the Lowy Institute’s East Asia Program, moderated a panel with the Hon. Michael Kirby, Chair of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea, and Dr Beomchul Shin, Director of the Division of North Korean Military Studies at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When French President Emmanuel Macron recently visited Australia, the Australian government welcomed France as a stable partner in the Pacific region. Much of this stability relies upon the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, which will hold a referendum on self-determination in November this year. The independence movement Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) has been campaigning for independence from France for more than three decades. Leading Kanak politician and official FLNKS independence spokesperson Daniel Goa spoke about the lead-up to the referendum, the FLNKS proposal for a Kanaky-New Caledonia republic, and economic options for an independent and sovereign state. At a time when the Australian Government is stepping up engagement in the Pacific region, he discussed implications of the referendum for ties between Australia and one of its closest Pacific neighbours. Daniel Goa is President of Union Calédonienne (UC), the largest member of the FLNKS independence coalition. He was born at the Haut-Coulna tribe, near Hienghène, New Caledonia. Goa was elected to New Caledonia’s Northern Provincial Assembly in 2002, and to the Congress of New Caledonia in 2009. In 2012 he was elected UC President, and today serves as official spokesperson for the FLNKS independence coalition in the lead-up to November’s referendum on self-determination.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.