Labour Party rocks Fiji’s political boat

Press, 14 December 1985, Page 19

Labour Party rocks Fiji’s political boat

By

KEN COATES

The time to rock the boat in Fijian political waters, dominated for 15 years by the ruling Alliance Party, could hardly be better for a brand-new Labour Party, founded just five months ago. The country’s deeply divided Opposition, the National Federation Party, has lost both credibility and supporters. Rising prices, unemployment, exploitation of workers in some areas, no realistic welfare system to ease poverty, and a worsening economic crisis provide a ready platform for Labour. The new party claims that already, by focusing on issues like corruption in the Government, of development promises not kept in rural areas, and the plight of nonunion workers, it has effectively become the real Opposition. To gain sufficient support to win the next election, would be a startling success story for what is now only a fledgling party, but it has made a promising start with success in the recent City Council elections in Suva. The tide of events favour Labour assuming some national political clout that could, among other things, lead to a change in Fiji’s attitude to New Zealand’s antinuclear stance — presupposing the staying power of Labour in New Zealand.

At present, the New Zealand Prime Minister, Mr Lange, and Fiji’s head of state, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, are at odds. Fiji reversed its anti-nuclear stance in 1983 to permit United States nuclear armed and powered warships into its ports. The Fiji Labour Party shares New Zealand’s anti-nuclear policy; it would ban nuclear warships and would adopt a non-aligned foreign policy. Two of the new party’s leaders received higher education in New Zealand. The president, Dr Timoci Bavadra, a former deputy director of preventive health in the Health Ministry, gained a post-graduate

diploma at Otago University’s Medical School. The secretary general, Mr Krishna Datt, also president of the Fiji Teachers’ Union, is a graduate of Canterbury University.

Dr Bavadra complains that the Government has become increasingly dictatorial. He heads the Public Service Association, one of the country’s largest unions, and says an example of the switch from traditional consultative methods to a heavy-handed confrontation was the Government’s handling of a strike at Nandi Airport last year. (The Minister of Civil Aviation declared the strike illegal and issued an order that it be stopped, but the P.S.A. recently won a court action against the Minister’s handling of the dispute.) Mr Datt says he became involved in the union-based move to found a political party primarily because of Government corruption. “It really concerns me that we are moving towards a system in which you can hardly move without humiliating yourself, and which implies a whole life of crawling around people,” he says. People could not help but notice that the Education Department had moved into a new and costly building that was owned by the Prime Minister.

The party officials cite reports of selected people given favourable rates for work done on their boats by the Marine Department. They

allege lobbying of the Government resulted in 55 Thai workers being brought in to work for rich businessmen, in the face of high Fijian unemployment. One of the most dramatic of Labour’s claims is that of Dickensian sweat-shop work-places in which women, desperate for jobs, are employed for a pittance for long hours making garments. Mr Datt showed me a letter from a worker complaining that in one garment factory turning out 3000 T-shirts a week, 25 to 30 women were employed at SFIS (SNZ24) a week. Five boys earned 40c an hour and they frequently had to work until 10 o’clock at night. The workers are not covered by a union. Fiji’s clothing industry has expanded rapidly as factory owners have striven to take advantage of access to the Australian market, competing against South-east Asian countries.

Police in Fiji were told that one employer kept his female workforce working during the night and sustained them with pep pills. A University of the South Pacific economist, Mr Wadan Narsey, made a survey which found that during 1984 wages in the garment industry were only half those of

workers in industry generally. Australian and New Zealand Governments would hardly be able to resist pressures from Australian labour organisations to ban the imports, or apply high duties, Mr Narsey says. The Labour Party in Fiji alleges that the ruling party frequently makes decisions to suit an elite and powerful group. Fair labour laws have not been passed because those in Government have interests in industries which exploit workers. The new party also sees itself as overcoming a polarisation along racial lines in Fijian politics. The Alliance is viewed as attracting an increasing number of Fijians and Europeans, with a sprinkling of Indians, while the N.F.P., still in the throes of a leadership struggle, is mostly Indian. “We are attracting both Indians and Fijians,” claims Dr Bavadra. (Indians comprise slightly more than half of Fiji’s 700,000 population.)

Both racial groups are well aware that living standards in a Fijian village can be as low as those on a poor Indian farm, Mr Datt says. Just how leftist is the Labour Party in Fiji? Perhaps it is too early yet to answer this question definitely, but the constitution refers to the need for support for “a competitive, non-monopolistic private sector, with particular emphasis on small-scale business,

farming and co-operatives, controlled and owned by the people of Fiji.” It seems that like the Chinese, the socialists of Fiji realise the value of opportunity for personal profit. Certainly they dare not ignore the drive of the Fijian Indians in any kind of commercial activity.

Neither Mr Bavadra nor Mr Datt struck me as the kind of rabid “communist extremist” I had been warned against by some in the Fiji tourist industry.

Rather I seemed to be talking to two sober, rather earnest, middleaged social democrats intent on changing the old order for the benefit of the many rather than the few.

Says Dr Bavadra: “Although there are two major races, there is a good deal of inter-mixing and it

would be difficult for me to adopt a stand that is too leftist. “We are more likely to take a middle-of-the-road course, emphasising social needs of the multiracial and multi-cultural population.” Labour aims to be responsive to people’s needs, but also realises the value of private enterprise and would work towards a greater involvement of unions in worker participation. “We would look at small industries, especially in rural areas, rather than encourage the capitalist approach in which benefits go only to a few," he adds. Canning of fruit juice could be one enterprise that would replace importing the product, and would supply the home market. The party president was not

exactly full of ideas on how to change the tourist industry which, he reminded, depends largely on multi-national companies. But he favoured a gradual plan to involve more local partnership in resorts so that not so much of the profit went outside Fiji.

At present Labour is concentrating on winning local body seats and by-elections. It is also constantly raising issues and hitting out at the existing N.F.P. Opposition which, it claims, presents no real alternative.

“As a party that represents the interests of a handful of businessmen and lawyers, often at the expense of people it claims to represent, it is highly unlikely the lot of Fijians would be. improved under N.F.P. rule,” says Dr Bavadra.