The Fijian government said it remains deeply disappointed that instead of constructive engagement, Australia chooses to punish Fiji for addressing the deep divisions in the Fijian society, the lack of equality and genuine democracy and the corruption that was destroying the country from within.
While opening the Australia Fiji Business Council Forum in Brisbane today, Foreign Affairs Minister, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola said next year, Fiji will have the first genuine democracy in the country's history of one person, one vote, one value.
He said the legal enforcement of people to vote along racial lines will finally be a thing of the past.
Ratu Inoke said the government imagined that Australia and New Zealand may at least try to understand what Fiji is trying to achieve.
But he said the two countries turned their backs on the government.
The Foreign Affairs Minister said it is not easy to forget Australia's efforts at the United Nations to bring an end to Fiji's three decade long commitment to UN peacekeeping.
He said it is also not easy to forget the Australian Government's action in severing our access to loans from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
Ratu Inoke said the travel bans that are still in place cannot be forgotten and have led to inconvenience and heartbreak and deprived Fiji of the ability to attract the best people to run the government departments and even serve on the boards of public enterprises and utilities.
Ratu Inoke Kubuabola said Australia has refused a visa for the Minister for Trade and Industry to attend the gathering in Brisbane.
He said this means the Minister who can most assist Australian businesspeople in their efforts to expand trade cannot be present in Brisbane.
Ratu Inoke said Fiji no longer looks to just Australia and New Zealand as our natural allies and protectors.
He said the government now looks to the world.
He said Fiji is looking North and has forged closer ties with China, India, Indonesia and Russia.
Ratu Inoke renewed the Fijian government's call today for the Australian Government to engage more constructively with it and with the other Melanesian countries.
He also said next week in Nadi, Fiji is hosting the inaugural Pacific Islands Development Forum.
23 Pacific countries will be attending, as well as 10 countries with observer status.
Ratu Inoke said at this meeting, Australia and New Zealand will be observers, not members.
Meanwhile Fiji has demanded that Australia conduct a thorough consultation with regional governments before it proceeds with its plan to transfer asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat to Papua New Guinea.
Ratu Inoke said to solve an Australian problem, Canberra had proposed a Melanesian solution that threatened to destabilise the already delicate social and economic balances in Melanesian societies.
Ratu Inoke said the Australian Government has used its economic muscle to persuade one of the Melanesian governments to accept thousands of people who are not Pacific Islanders, a great number of them permanently.
He said this was done without any consultation, a sudden and unilateral announcement, which is not the Pacific Way and has shocked a great many people in the region.
The Australia Fiji Business Forum opening was also attended by Australia's Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs, Matt Thistlethwaite.
Story by: Vijay Narayan
