10 Apr 2014

New Zealand to help set up new Fiji parliament

4:36 pm on 10 April 2014

New Zealand is to provide financial support for re-establishing Fiji's parliament.

The New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully has announced New Zealand will make a 1.3 million US dollar contribution to a UN-led project providing support for IT and Hansard equipment, new MPs and parliamentary staff.

Mr McCully is on his first visit to Suva since New Zealand lifted sanctions on the Fiji regime last month in recognition of progress towards the September polls and he says that progress is continuing.

"Areas like the parliamentary clerks, the cabinet office, institutions around key government agencies - those are all areas in which I'd expect to see an increase in activity between New Zealand and Fijian counterparts and frankly it's one of the reasons that the sanctions had to be removed."

New Zealand's Foreign Minister Murray McCully.

The Fiji parliament was shut by the military in the 2006 coup.