Iliesa Tora
RNZ Pacific senior sports journalist
A paramount
traditional leader of the Lau group of islands in Fiji is
calling on the Australian government to allow visa-free
travel for Fijians visiting Australia and immediate domestic
university tuition rates for Fijians.
Ratu Tevita
Uluilakeba Mara, who goes by the traditional titles of
Gone Turaga Bale na Tui Nayau, Sau ni Vanua ko
Lau, and Tui Lau, said while he appreciated the
expended ‘Vuvale Union’ announced in Suva last month, he
believed a level playing field was needed to make the
‘vuvale’ (family) real.
Fijians should be allowed to
have visa stamped on arrival in Australia, he said, similar
to arrangements for Australians travelling into
Fiji.
The Suva announcement in July, included that
Fijians may apply to stay for up to four months on tourist
visa, business travellers become eligible for five-year
multiple-entry visas, and Fijian students will study at
Australian universities on domestic fee arrangements from
2029.
Ratu Tevita, the son of Fiji’s first prime
minister, made the comments following his short visit to
Australia last week.
He visited Australia as part of
Fiji’s Great Council of Chiefs (GCC) delegation to the Garma
Festival at Gulkula in northeast Arnhem Land, at the
invitation of the Yothu Yindi Foundation and the Australian
government.
He was able to meet with members of the
Lau diaspora in Sydney.
Advertisement – scroll to continue reading
“I say this as a guest who was
received in Australia with real warmth, and as a friend of
that country,” he said in a statement.
“Vuvale means
family. In our custom, family does not apply at the door. An
Australian steps off the aircraft in Nadi and is welcomed
without a form; a Fijian must still apply to enter
Australia.
“I thank the Australian Government for what
has been agreed on the length of our stay. It was a generous
step, and it was noticed. But the last part of the journey
is the door itself.
“When a Fijian may travel to
Australia as an Australian travels to Fiji, then vuvale will
mean the same thing on both sides of the water.”
He
also welcomed the commitment on university fees for Fijian
students, but questioned the date that initiative will come
into effect.
“I welcome what has been agreed for our
students, and I thank Australia for it,” he said.
“My
question is the date. Why 2029? Every year between now and
then is another year of our families paying international
fees they cannot afford.”
He wants Australia to review
the decision, noting that Fijian workers were now inputting
into the economy and have provided more manpower to their
workforce, by recruiting trained personnel in different
fields from Fiji.
He said more than 5000 Fijians were
working in Australia under the PALM scheme in late 2025,
recruited through the Fiji’s National Employment Centre into
horticulture, meat processing and aged care, are sending
home an estimated FJ$145.5 million in the year to June
2025.
“Our workers are picking Australian fruit,
standing in Australian meat works and caring for elderly
Australians – this season, and every season,” he
said.
“Fiji trains a nurse, a teacher, a tradesman,
paid for by his own family and by the Fijian taxpayer, and
within a few years Australia has the benefit of them, fully
qualified, at no cost to itself.
“We are already
sending Australia our best, and much of what they earn comes
home to villages like mine. If our people are good enough to
hold up Australian farms and Australian hospitals today,
then our children are good enough to sit
in Australian
lecture theatres at an Australian’s fee today. Not in three
years’ time.”
Lau think tank
Meanwhile, Ratu
Tevita said the Lau province has determined it would now
take its future into its hands, with the setting up of the
Lau Economic Think Tank Group, which was approved at the
Bose Vanua o Lau (Lau Provincial Council) meeting in
Suva.
He said they will seek the assistance of members
of their province living abroad to invest in projets and
initiatives that will help the province grow
economically
The think tank includes a number of
prominent Lauans who have served in different fields, both
locally and regionally, and they have been tasked with
preparing proposals on the coconut industry, fisheries and
tourism, under a ‘One Island One Product’.
“We are not
coming to Suva with our hands out,” he said.
“We will
bring proposals a bank can read and a ministry can act on,
and we will ask our own people abroad to invest alongside
Government.
“What we ask is modest, and I would not
take a metre of road from anywhere else to get it. What we
ask is that our province and our people are valued equally
with every other.”
Ratu Tevita said they would carry
the same case to the GCC, and looked forward to working with
government and with every other province on the development
of the maritime islands.
Maritime needs
The
Lau Think Tank set up also comes into play at a time the Lau
province believes maritime islands are suffering with lack
of investment in infrastructure.
He said while the
Fiji government’s 2026-2027 Budget’s programme of investment
in roads, airports, water, sanitation and energy across
Vanua Levu and Taveuni was needed and welcomed, he was
hoping alot more could have also been done for the maritime
islands.
“I welcome every road built in Vanua Levu and
Taveuni, and I support them fully. What I ask for is
fairness,” Ratu Tevita said.
“There are islands in my
province where a mother carrying a baby must be handed out
of a small boat into the swell, because there is nowhere to
land. We are not asking for anything grand, we are asking
for somewhere to put our feet down.
“And let no one
hear this as one province speaking against another. Lau
wants nothing that belongs to Vanua Levu, or to Kadavu, or
Rotuma, or the villages in the highlands of Viti Levu, or
the settlements of the cane belt. Their case is
ours.
“This country is not a small table with too many
hands reaching for it. We are one people – iTaukei,
Indo-Fijian, Rotuman, and everyone else who calls these
islands home, and a nation is measured by how it treats
those who live furthest from its capital.”
The Lau
group includes 57 islands, surrounded by some 114,000 square
kilometres of
ocean.
New Zealand’s public broadcaster, providing comprehensive NZ news and current affairs, specialist audio features and documentaries.
Radio New Zealand is a Crown entity established under the Radio New Zealand Act 1995. Radio New Zealand News are vital elements in our programming, providing impartial news and information to New Zealanders every day. Radio New Zealand (RNZ) provides listeners with exciting and independent radio programmes in accordance with the Radio New Zealand Charter.
