By Bevan Berg
Samoa and Tokelau – What’s the difference?
About 300 kilometers in distance but not a lot when it comes to our ideological menace, Jacinda Ardern. Our homegrown crisis has rippled across the Pacific as NZ is essentially the regional superpower these little countries are connected to.
What happens to us, happens to them, as it has, and trying to hide this, is not a long term resolution or living up to our Pacific responsibilities.
Our situation, seen here in New Zealand, has played out separately as a human rights failure in Tokelau and an economic failure in Samoa. They are the extremes of what we are fighting here in New Zealand although it may appear they are their own private little disasters in far away places rather than our battle seen through different lens.
Tokelau is trying to work its way through what we are still fighting in New Zealand – not just the covid-menace but for our way of life and the preservation of our individual sovereignty represented as human rights.
Samoa on the other hand is seeing an accentuated micro-version of what we are seeing here. People desperate to leave a devastated economy. Talent, whether it is professional, business, trades people, or qualified workers have or are fleeing the country. Samoa has a new normal too.
Against good advice and knowledgeable warnings, Ardern and Robertson created an inflated situation in isolation. Inflation is the responsibility of modern government. (Individual responsibility is focused on employment).
Thank God we got up and protested for our own good, or Samoa would be far worse off now.
Government is doing its best to avoid the publicity on Tokelau. You can try and do that when it’s small scale human rights and human suffering in a far away place. The world didn’t leave us to suffer alone and we should not allow Tokelau to be the victim of our own incompetent administration.
What just happened in Samoa?
It was sold to us as a renewal of a friendship treaty with a highflying bipartisan delegation delivered by our big grey airforce one.
(Like Tokelau) There is justified resentment against the NZ High Commission in Samoa who helped manufacturer this facade.
Behind this is Ardern playing her own separate game as Pacific Princess. Ardern also meeting separately with the Samoan government made a mockery of our current Opposition.
We handed over two cheques, one for 12 million to rebuild a market destroyed by fire and one of 15 millon supposedly to stop climate change.
I’m not protesting regional aid and development. These two cheques are a drop in the bucket in comparison to the cost of the current and consequential economic damage Ardern’s covid strategy has caused for Samoa.
You might wonder why some people in Samoa were being quite rude, saying, “Go home, Ardern, you’re not welcome here.”
This was a manufacturered face saving event for Ardern, allowed by the Samoan Government for some small change. (What other choices were there? Let’s be grateful that didn’t happen.)
Will there be significant change in Samoa? Of course not. Samoa is not only still linked to us but is now even more dependent on us while they wait for us to resolve our economic arguments in New Zealand – our framework is directly responsibile for their circumstances. That doesn’t get better until we get better.
It’s up to us to see these situations clearly for what they are and recognise the size of the manufacturered and destructive government we have and that its consequences go well beyond our shores.
It would be easy to grow hostility against Samoa because we gave them some money rather than acknowledging that they can’t be successful while we’re failing.
I’m aware of the significant connection that the Daily Examier (TDE) has with Samoa and I’m hoping they’ll produce a more detailed picture of life in Samoa that gets behind Ardern’s propaganda machine. Its a big ask for a little newspaper. Let’s see what happens.
The Daily Examiner had their finger on the pulse when it came to Tokelau and getting that story out. If they do good a job casting some light on Samoa, that would help Kiwis get a better understanding of how not to let Samoa become a missing piece in the regional puzzle.
The bottom line, though, this wasn’t cheque book diplomacy. It was tax-payer funded stop-gap compensation for Ardern’s ideological incompetence.
