I couldn't give 2 hoots about Fiji, cut it loose.....cut any $$$ aid (In fact I'd cut the $$ Aid NZ Govt hands out like lollies to a helluva lot of pacific countries...Tonga/Samoa etc etc)

What annoys me is the cost and hassle of trying to 'rescue' any NZ'rs that go to unstable countries. If they are going to go, they should be under no illusion that it things go belly up whilst they are their, they can find their own way out!

<i>Or are we actually helping the subjugated people of Fiji, who without international tourist dollars would surely starve? You can pick your argument to suit your purpose.</I>

Err, you do realise Colin, that almost 85% of tourist dollars spent in Fiji head offshore thanks to the hotel cartel, none of which spend money within Fiji to improve the lot of the natives.

Contrast with Samoa where no international corporations are allowed to set up (by law) and as a result, all the accommodation is locally owned. Any tourists dollars into the resorts/fales go towards improving the socioeconomic lot of the Samoan peoples. Personally, I've no time for Fiji, never want to holiday there again as it's far too depressing, and would much prefer spending my money where the locals benefit which is not the case with the Fijian hotel workers on $2 an hour.

Meanwhile back in little old NZ we have a man who got less than 4% of election votes dictating that 1.4 million people are to be amalgamated into one city.

I find it interesting that bloggers here would take the ultimate umbrage if any outside country attempted to interfere, in any way, with what we do in NZ. Whether that is the Rainbow Warrior or the (alleged) money-go-round funded from the US and Australia through the Closed Brethren.

Yet we condone - indeed applaud - when our politicians belabour (and more recently benational), the defacto government of Fiji.

We may believe that "democracy" is the best method of governance (though it is only a couple of centuries old even in our legal system), but it really bamboozles me as to why we have to force it on other countries.

Leave them alone - don't go there if you don't support their system - and rigorously apply that to all the other places you don't like. Let Fiji work out its own destiny - trade with them as that keeps many of their people employed (and, incidentally, many NZers employed too) and keep out of their politics.

If the regime becomes totally insupportable the people of Fiji will work it through.

Well as David Lange discovered in l987 we lack the military and muscle to do anything about this island local military dictatorship which is racist and repressive. Fiji Indians are among the most beautiful people. As Lange discovered our military was determined to pull the plug on anything too provocative to these tinpot dictators and to stiffle any Australian effort to do anything. The Fijians military is a suburb example of a pointless native indigenous military which has inevitably gone the way of African regimes. We should see what it tells us about our own pointless military which could not even design offshore patrol vessels that would stay upright in the Southern Ocean while the little Sea Shepperd trawler has curtraled the Japanese whaling effort for the moment.

Agreed, a travel ban on NZers would be both stupid and wrong - even if it could be enforced which it couldn't.

Fiji's loss will again be Rarotonga's windfall. It's easy to use locally owned and operated services and facilities there - and it's a friendly place, uses NZ currency with no sign of army uniforms, trucks or barracks anywhere.

The best thing NZ can do is support all the decent people who want to escape from the Fiji nightmare. Leave the dicators and their supporters to stew in their own juices but don't force innocent people to stay and suffer consequences not of their making.

With all respect to you Eddie n Jasper. Thanks for the enlightening. Even I a Fiji subject residing overseas and due a visit to my home country a week time. I'am now hesitate in going back due to unpredictable situation and I do not see why any foreigners would like to take their chances. Dangers is soo clear ahead only and fools will rush in so......DO NOT BE ONE

Mr Been #3 Precisely. As an Auckland ratepayer, I'm somewhat annoyed that the Royal Commission report was hijacked by that punk Hide, and his right wing mates, including that horrible man Banks. The 'one city' idea is a good one - one city, one mayor, one plan, one rates bill - but the concentration of power in the centre and the denial of genuine democracy is an old fashioned gerrymander, plain and simple.

Allegedly Commodore Bainimarama is ordering Fijian ISPs to shut down: http://rawfijinews.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/frank-orders-to-cut-off-all-internet-access/

If true, _that_ will hurt tourism..

Campbell (4)

I can see your point but the situation is a bit different when the country concerned is receiving foreign aid.New Zealand donates quite a tidy sum to the Pacific nations so surely that should give us the right to interfere (as you put it) in that country's affairs.

Democracy seems to work in this country . Look at North Korea . Which would you prefer? I know which one suits me.