NEWS & EVENTS

The biggest country, Papua New Guinea, sees salvation in a $16 billion Exxon-Mobil liquefied natural gas project, which will instantly double its GDP when it starts up in 2014. A new gold mine in the Solomons will pull in 1000 workers, and the relocation of US forces...

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is currently calling for submissions on PACER Plus.PACER Plus is a proposed free trade agreement between Australia, New Zealand and 14 Pacific Island countries, which will cover trade in goods, services...

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New Zealand foreign minister Murray McCully appears to have no qualms about New Zealand's half-billion-dollar foreign aid programme being used as a tool of its diplomatic policy. The notion of that aid being sent where it can do most good is not for the Foreign...

There remain cultures that place very little real value on money. Many have their own traditional money which often serves their societies' needs better than anything the modern world can provide. They are often in control over the valuation of their economic systems...

In October 2006 the ATO disqualified AID/WATCH as a charitable organisation. AID/WATCH appealed to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and in July 2008 the AAT President, Justice Downes, overturned the ATO's decision. The ATO is now appealing to the Federal Court,...

PACER itself is a product of John Howard's unapologetic interventionism in the Pacific - and the Liberal government's attempts to reshape political and economic decision-making in the region, with an orientation towards 'regional integration, trade liberalisation and...

Labour mobility may be in the headlines but when Kevin Rudd stepped off the plane in Niue for the Pacific Island Leaders forum this week, he had just one thing on his mind: markets. And not the colourful Pacific handicraft kind.Allowing Pacific workers to plug the...

The new government's pledged aid budget increase is a significant win for civil society campaigners and has rightly been celebrated as such. Australia has avoided meeting the pledged allocation of 0.7 per cent of GDP to overseas development assistance for too long and...

A major review of the $3 billion Australian aid program, the first of its kind ever conducted, was tabled in Parliament last Thursday at 4.30pm, one hour before most of Canberra departed for the four-day long weekend.If it weren't for the 11th hour timing, the...