CENTRAL QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY GRADUATION CEREMONY
SUVA, 21 AUGUST 2007 SPEECH BY HE MR JAMES BATLEY
AUSTRALIAN HIGH COMMISSIONER

Let me first of all express my warmest congratulations to those of you who are graduating here today. You are the reason we are here, and you have got reason to celebrate. Gaining your qualifications is a significant personal milestone for you, and doing so in this formal ceremony is an important rite of passage.

I’d also like to express thanks to all those who have contributed to getting you to this point – and I’m thinking here especially of your families and loved ones but also all those who have taught you or otherwise assisted you to get to this point. Of course in the end it is you, the students, who are most responsible for your own success, but no-one makes it this far on their own. So let’s spare a thought for all those people who have helped you along the way.

Let me also take this opportunity to acknowledge specifically the role your University – Central Queensland University – has played in the education of young people in Fiji for more than a decade now. While CQU’s involvement here has had its ups and downs, it has remained committed, throughout, to a core commitment of providing world class education to all its students. And I congratulate it for that.

I think it is worth dwelling for a while on the fact that you, Fiji Islanders, are gaining qualifications from an Australian institution, here in Fiji, because I think it’s possible to see our ceremony today against a broader canvas.

The simplest way of saying this is that our ceremony today is further evidence of the importance that globalisation is playing in all our lives in the 21st century. I don’t know whether that sounds like a cliché to you or not but I’d like to explore this theme a bit this afternoon, and in particular look at how it is affecting us in this part of the world.

What do I mean by globalisation? I use the word to mean a long term trend which is seeing the countries of the world becoming more interdependent, through an increased flow of goods and services – and people – across national borders. Globalisation is both powered by economic growth, and itself powers growth: think of the incredible impetus that economic liberalisation in first China, and now India, has had, not just on living standards in those two countries, but on national economies right around the world. In recent decades globalisation has been underpinned by huge advances in transport, communications and financial services – so that, for instance, someone from Australia can not only hop on a plane at almost a moment’s notice and fly to Fiji, when they get there they can read their home newspaper as it is published, and they can even do their own banking. This sort of picture was almost unimaginable even a short time ago in history, indeed within my own lifetime.

Our own region is clearly more interdependent now than it has been at any stage in the past. Since my arrival in Fiji in January this year I have been struck by the interpenetration of our two societies. It’s hard to find anyone in this country who doesn’t have close relatives living in Australia. Part of the reason for that may be political – that is, to be perfectly frank, people have departed Fiji because of successive coups. But they have been able to do so because they have skills that are internationally marketable – in other words, they have benefitted from the process of globalisation. Just as you have too: as I suggested above, the fact that you are receiving your degrees from an Australian university in Fiji is a clear example of globalisation at work.

So far so good. But the picture is more complicated than that. Globalisation means change, it creates opportunities and gives the vast majority of the world’s population greater options. While the global balance sheet is overwhelmingly positive, at the same time it is undeniable that globalisation creates winners and losers – at least in a relative sense. There is nothing sentimental or soft-hearted about the laws of supply and demand.

Even if the rewards can be huge, managing globalisation can place enormous demands and pressures on governments. If they are doing their job properly – that is, if they are striving to improve the welfare and living standards of their populations – then the pressure of globalisation requires governments to reform policies to improve the climate for the private sector. They must do so continuously. This very process of reform can lead to contrary pressures on government from protected and often powerful sectors of the economy that do not want to see competition and openness. At the same globalisation places demands on governments to manage change in a way that protects traditional cultures and ways of life. These are hard choices for governments, and hard balances to strike, and not all governments get them right.

Governments in the Pacific region face the same challenges as governments in other regions around the world. Unfortunately, experience over the past few decades, and more recently, suggests that governments in the Pacific Islands are struggling to meet those challenges. Rates of economic growth among Pacific Island countries have, with few exceptions, not kept pace with population increases so that real economic growth has essentially stagnated over a generation. Even worse, this underperformance has taken place at a time of global boom: in recent years economic performance in East and South Asia has been very strong indeed and even Africa has sustained five percent growth in recent years. According to the World Bank extreme poverty could be eliminated in Asia by 2030 and be significantly reduced in Africa. Countries in those parts of the world have seen sustained economic growth not by resisting globalisation but by embracing it, by taking advantage of it. In short, there should be no excuse for political leaders in our part of the world to say, it’s just too hard.

The challenges posed by globalisation won’t go away. Anyone with even a superficial knowledge of Fiji’s sugar industry, for instance, must be well aware of that. Fiji’s garment industry is another example. Equally, I’m sure you’ll be aware of the current negotiations between Pacific Island countries and the European Union over an Economic Partnership Agreement, to govern economic and trade relations between them. That is just part of the picture. In the coming years, Australia and New Zealand will sit down with Pacific Island countries to negotiate a comprehensive free trade agreement covering goods and services. This agreement, known as PACER Plus, will be vital to the region’s future prospects.

There is no doubt that the agreement will impose adjustment costs on Pacific Island economies. That is why both Australia and New Zealand have said the negotiations will take into account island countries’ respective needs and resource and capacity constraints, and have committed themselves to a process of phased and asymmetrical regional trade liberalisation.

But I am convinced that the future of our region lies in the sort of openness and closer integration implied by such agreements. Let me emphasise that this does not mean sacrificing those things that are distinctive about Pacific Islands societies. Nor does it mean surrendering sovereignty. But it does mean a process of change.

I think it’s important for you, as young professionals, to understand that the alternative for Pacific Island countries is not to sit on the sidelines; the alternative is to risk even further decline, both relative and absolute, in standards of living. The alternative for Pacific Island countries is not to avoid change; the alternative is having change forced upon them.

In a real sense, you are already winners from globalisation – or at least, you’ve been given a healthy head start. Your degree is not just a qualification – it gives you options and opportunities in a wider world. You will be active players in the integration between our societies. As professionals I am certain that you would be beneficiaries from a PACER Plus agreement between Australia and New Zealand on the one hand, and Pacific Island countries on the other.

But it’s important to remain aware that there is nothing inevitable about globalisation or the opportunities it affords. Never forget politics. Just as governments in the past have refused the challenge of change, so governments in the future may also fail the test. There will always be some in the community who benefit from protection, from closed economies, and who seek to influence politicians to prevent change. But closed economies are like closed rooms: they get stale and dusty, lifeless.

So I think it’s important that you, who are the beneficiaries of globalisation, also remain its advocates in your working lives. It’s important to speak up in favour of greater openness, greater integration and greater interdependence.

Now I hope I haven’t spoiled your graduation day by talking about such a serious subject. I hope that I have stressed the opportunities as well as the challenges presented by globalisation. I’ve talked to you on this subject not as an abstract exercise, but because your working lives are going to take place in this environment and are going to be shaped by it. This will be your world.

I wish you all the very best of luck in it.