Future of Forum Line worries P.M.

Press, 10 April 1981, Page 1

Future of Forum Line worries P.M.

Wellington reporter A.collapse of the Pacific Forum Shipping Line would damage “very, very severely” the relationship between the< 13 member countries of the South Pacific Forum, said the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon). yesterday. Tonga has now joined Samoa in agreeing to release Australian South Pacific aid to help meet the line’s < indebtedness, but more contributions are needed to save the line from collapse. Fiji wanted to “wash its hands” of responsibility and Australia wa. “not showing very much enthusiasm,” Mr Muldoon said. “I am still worried. The L.*e is in considerable financial difficulty. If it collapses, the Waitangi Agreement collapses, and at that point our unions would not handle ships with Island crews which cross-trade. This would create all kinds of difficulties, and very considerable added cost.”

The Tongan and Samoan contributions totalled about $500,000. New Zealand had advanced $1 million, part of its contribution " for the fiscal year.

Australia now seemed prepared to allow use of its aid money by individual Island States; earlier it approved that course only if all member States agreed. Two indepen .ent surveys on the future of the line showed it breaking even towards the end of 1982. ' “It would be a tragedy if it collapsed after all the work that has been done to put it together, particularly when we can begin to see light at the end of the tunnel,” Mr Muldoon said. The line was established in 1977 to service and develop trade round the South Pacific, by 10 member countries: New Zealand, Western Samoa, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, Cook Islands, Fiji, Tuvalu, and Kiribati. Australia, Niue, and Vanuatu are associate members. Mr Muldoon said he was distressed by Fiji’s attitude. The Fijian Prime Minister (Ratu Sir Kamasese Mara) was part of the New Delhi consensus which agreed last year -to meet half the line’s losses from Australian aid money.

At the New Delhi meeting last year, New Zealand agreed to pay the other half of the line’s debts, which at that stage totalled $9 million. The Pacific Forum Line was the most practical demonstration of the value of the forum, Mr Muldoon said. Its collapse would damage the forum very severely. The Fijian Government responded yesterday by saying that the Pacific Forum Line carried Australian and New Zealand goods and really benefited only New Zealand and Australia. Fiji would be more supportive of the line if it carried Fijian sugar to New Zealand. It was neither fair nor appropriate that Fijians should forfeit Australian aid to prop the service up, the statement said. Mr Muldoon said that goods were carried to Fiji and other Pacific Island nations. The Waitangi Agreement would not have been signed if Fijian sugar were to have been carried in Forum Line vessels worked, by Pacific Islanders on low wages; the Seamen’s Union fought the provision.