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Swimming with sharks Chapter 5.1

Extreme outrage - Pacific leaders’ condemnation of French nuclear testing

Age and gender matters in the Pacific; old men dominated the annual uninspiring Pacific Forum summits I covered. Out of 16 nations over 40 years, only New Zealand managed to provide women to the line-up. The meetings were held around the region with hosting rights fiercely fought over. Wherever it was, the majority of leaders had hitched a ride on the RNZAF plane carrying New Zealand’s prime minister. 

Without French nuclear testing, Forum politics were dreary dross featuring the latest global buzzwords and causes. They made next to no difference in the lives of Pacific citizens; they probably reduced the quality of life by wasting so much money attending luxury talkfests.

The Evening Post had me cover my first forum, 1982 in Rotorua. Muldoon studiously avoided Vanuatu’s Walter Lini. Australia’s Malcolm Fraser, who realised his room was right above Muldoon’s, had his staff jump up and down through the night. 

For reporters the attraction was the colour of the host nations, such as Vanuatu, which in 1990 was my first for AFP. I took a drive around Efate, the main island, and produced a light piece on people selling salvaged World War Two Coca-Cola bottles and selling them to tourists. The Americans had dumped millions of them into the sea at the end of the war. It was a good earner for many.

Dancers wait at a Forum opening in Papua New Guinea. Pix Michael Field

At a PNG forum I wrote a piece about pairs of sneakers cluttering the power-lines of Madang. Sean Dorney of the ABC chastised me for this in a Port Moresby newspaper. He didn’t know why there were so many sneakers either.