PROFESSOR HELEN HUGHES OF ANU IS NOT GETTING ENOUGH!

Helen Hugh's does not live in the Pacific. But as a good academic she gathers information from the comfort of her laptop and bunch of Aid Funded friends who regularly travel or traverse the Pacific; and then from these dinner parties and coffee sessions and telephone calls she writes and produces  articles such as this.

This is clearly a generalized piece of garbage from someone supposedly of scholarly standing!

No wonder Australia never understood the Pacific and will never understand the Pacific, if Canberra keeps taking its Foreign Policy cues from people like her!

Helen Hughes enjoyed great patronage from the Howard-Downer Regime for over 11 years. She makes little effort to hide her political biases in Australian politics, but her painting of Downer ( the 2IC of the Deputy Sherriff -Howard) as someone who cared or even understood the Pacific is so far off line, she must be talking about some fictituous disney character. Australia-Pacific relationships were at its lowest ebb when Downer was Foreign Minister. He was a bully of the Highest Honour, and unfortunately he still is, and somehow that seems to hold some affinity for Hughes.

Labours Kevin Rudds quick hop and skip diplomacy in the Pacific with Partnership Agreements clearly were destined to fail, because they were designed in Canberra and imposed on the Pacific. Again, like Australia's many Indigenous Policies, Australia's policies in the Pacific are all made to suit Australia's economic and strategic reasons and have never once been about genuine collaboration for the good of the Pacific peoples or about promoting the interests of individual countries.

So logically it does not sit well with an amply proportioned backside of someone like  Helen Hughes, shifting uncomfortably in her huge leather bound chair, peering out to sea, contemplating a possibly Chinese Pacific in a few years time...she will have to learn chinese to remain relevant! That is not always possible for a career that has been built on spinning anecdotes and casting innuendoes from rumors and conjecture.

Helen get a life! The Chinese are here to stay!

You have to tell us Pacific Islanders why what is good for the goose is not good for the gander? Why should Australia be the only country to benefit from China's great industrial advancement today. The proceeds of your exports to China every month is equivalent to or exceeds our total annual bugets of all Pacific countries for last ten years! What we receive by way of Aid from China is miniscule compare to Australian Boomerang Aid. The Chinese impact in the Pacific is negligible. So why the song and dance Helen?

Is it because you feel that the Pacific are all little Children and you feel some parental concern for the welfare of people like Banimarama- that you want to protect us?

Like you have done over Solomon Islands where you have become a fully fledged occupation Force and now setting about exploiting that country's resources and  are the government within a government?

Like you have done in PNG where you have recognized an illegitimate government to break down the Judiciary and the Constitution so that you can do another RAMSI on PNG for its resources- to keep out the Chinese?

Like you have done in Bougainville where you have advised then Chairman of BCL, John Ralph, not to attend and deal with Francis Ona and his people, or even offer a Compensaton package to support then PM Sir RabbieNamaliu's K45 Million package for the people to be followed by a review of the Bougainville Agreement in 1988-89?

Like you have advised and allowed BHP over OKtedi to create an off-shore trust to have its cake and eat it as well, leaving the Independent State of PNG the tag of owner only but the returns on one of our biggest Copper-Gold mines cannot be brought to account in our Consolidate Revenue?

The tone of your voice betray your own disappointment that you are not getting any- or enough.

The Aid gravy train always came past ANU on its way to the Pacific during the Howard- Downer days, and it is understandable, like in a pig pen, the one that doesnt get enough squeels the loudest. Im sure by now someone has noticed you and has conscripted you on to their committee for that needed $300,000 per annum for that Italian Holiday and the next Sabbatical in up-state Vermont, not to mention the extension on that the beach house in Kiama.

Well Aid has been a lovely gravy train for you intellectuals until James Packer and the big boys woke up to it and played the real game. They set up companies like GRM, and other corporate providers like Coffey International and Engineering Companies like SMEC and CARDNO DAVIES go involved. They know how to look after the pollies in Canberra and both Labour and Liberals in a quiet way...a way that is not openly corrupt, but lets just say 'it all works' for the good of all concerned...wink wink!

And so you lament the dearth of benefit such corporatized aid has on the Pacific, but extol the virtues of students ( like ex-ANU types) and their loyalty to Australia, to gain some lost ground!

Well, Helen we thought you were altruistic in some way, perhaps even kind hearted and genuinely concerned about us Pacific Islanders, but we are wrong once again.

Again this is about you not getting any, or not getting enough. That is so so pathetic and so so sad. But if your phobia is about sphere's of influence, (a button you have pressed so well over the years to get your kicks), that button is so so well worn, but works all the time- this time you expect the mob across the Lake to come for you.

But will they abandon the greater Picture of Sino-Australia trade to pander to your needs in the Pacific?

Oh please Helen do write in and correct me, and tell me Iam wrong and that there is hidden in your generalized prose of whinging, actually a silver lining of hope and  altruism for the Pacific, and that you are now a reformed woman.

The least you can appear to us is that you mean well. Humor me. Come on, Try it. 


ONE COUNTRY
Ed Note: Welcome back One Country... Hamamas long harim long yu, longpela taim.