Veteran photojournalist decries lack of Pacific coverage

Transcript

BEN BOHANE: I mean it is not just that it is our backdoor and our backyard but the fact that there are so many really interesting stories. And the Pacific covers 30 percent of the world's surface area so you have got all these small island states you know scattered across the region but you know they are very strategic and they are full of people who do want to engage with the outside world and trade and have freedom of mobility. And we are also now in a new era of strategic competition where I would say the Pacific has become hugely strategic again. Maybe for the first time since world war two. And we are seeing very serious competition between the US and China for influence and maybe even control of the region and I don't think we should be taking anything for granted. And so to me it is a bit of a mystery as to why the Australian and New Zealand media aren't really looking at these big shifts geopolitical shifts that are happening in our immediate region.

KOROI HAWKINS: Do you think it is because of the lack of conflict? Like the more mundane issues of policy and the day to day business of governments in the Pacific aren't as exciting as bloodshed and war?

BB: Yes to some extent in that often our media responds to a crisis. So if we have made a major cyclone in Fiji or Vanuatu or if there is a coup or you know if there is conflict obviously that will drive a little bit of media coverage. But we need to be focussing on a lot more than that we need to be looking a lot more at the day to day development issues, trade issues, looking at business for instance across the region so that we have got a much more balanced picture and we don't just have media fly in and fly out in times of crisis we actually need to be cultivating journalists in Australia and New Zealand but also in the Pacific to be able to look at the long term issues and be able to discuss them so that we don't get superficial coverage,

KH: It is also, unlike the Middle-East and unlike Europe and the US it is actually the area which Australia and New Zealand can make the biggest impact and which will have a possible impact on themselves.

BB: Definitely I mean I think there is some irony that the Australian government, maybe less so than the New Zealand government, but Australia bends over backwards to support its US allies in a whole range of theatres around the world in particular the Middle East but the one are where we could really be making a difference to that alliance is in the way we deal with the Pacific Islands. It is the most strategic area I would say of the 21st century and yet we are still putting most of our focus militarily and diplomatically on issues in the Middle East. We need to be changing that and ironically I think the Americans are concerned as well that Australia and New Zealand maybe not doing enough to have a positive influence through the Pacific Islands.

KH: Just looking to the future where do you think  we are heading?

BB: I am look I am fairly optimistic in many ways there is so much that the Pacific Islands has to offer in terms of models of sustainable living. I mean in a way I sometimes argue that in the 21st Century with a planet of nine billion people and big carbon footprints in a way everybody in the world has to start living like a Pacific Islander. Living within your means, having a garden, having a small carbon footprint. So there is many areas where the Pacific Island can actually teach the rest of the world how to live. Equally there is always challenges over land, over health and education issues, so their certainly are a number of big challenges for the Pacific to face and trading their way out of aid dependency. I mean the big issue that everyone is confronting in the region really is the rise of China and how the US and some of the other traditional powers in this region find a way to accommodate that and maybe work with the Chinese in a win win situation for all the Pacific Islands. But there is equally a chance that things, that that strategic competition can spill over into something a little bit more hostile. So all the islands have to calibrate their relationships with their traditional partners and their new partners and hopefully find a way forward that leads to peace and prosperity for this whole region,