Just yesterday, Minister Regenvanu was kind enough to respond to my column of last week, in which I expressed more than a little impatience at his silence over the March 4 attack on Marc Neil-Jones. He thanked me for my views and asked, “But who’s done more for good governance and transparency in Vanuatu: you or me?”

It’s a fair question –more than fair, actually– one that bears serious consideration.

My first instinct was to reply, “Your colleague beat the crap out of my friend. I said something about it; you didn’t.” That has the benefit of the truth, and it’s a fairly good summation of how I felt at the time I was composing the column.

But it’s not at all satisfying, nor does it do anything to further the goals that I know Minister Regenvanu shares with me and with an ever-increasing number of voters.

More importantly, tit-for-tat point-scoring rhetoric only contributes to the decline of political dialogue, making enemies and sowing confusion in the very places where clarity and unity should be most easily achieved.

So let’s dig a little deeper and see what more we all could be doing to make things better.

First off, let me state that any man of principle who embarks on a career in politics is a better man than I. (Any woman of principle who does so is probably a better man than any of us.) From the very first step, compromises must be made. As I said in last week’s column, the calculus of power is byzantine and counter-factual.

If you’re looking for easy answers to anything, look elsewhere. If someone promises you easy answers, don’t trust them. They’re either naive or they’re deceiving you. To his credit, Minister Regenvanu made a point of not promising anything but the sweat of his own brow during his election campaign.

In my afternoon convos over kava, I’ve often said that politics is a muddy road, so throwing out a politician for having soiled his feet is silly and wrong. It’s the ones who roll around in the middle of it like pigs in a slough – these are the ones we should be objecting to.

It’s easy for someone like me, who won’t even qualify for citizenship for another two and a half years, to sit on the sidelines and imagine that I could outplay those on the field. So it’s healthy to consider from time to time what things look like from the ground, to understand the pressures and exigencies that impose themselves from minute to minute.

The price is a heavy one. It’s impossible, in politics at least, to have friends without having adversaries. If you don’t have any rivals, that’s because you don’t have any power yet. So every choice, every compromise comes laden with the knowledge that, even if you’ve pleased some people, you’ve upset a few others. Victories are measured in inches and the goal line is often miles away.

The question then –the impossible question– is this: When do you stand and when do you sidestep? Which are the battles that must be fought, and at what cost?

Conventional wisdom has it that, following MP Iauko’s assault on Daily Post publisher Marc Neil-Jones, PM Kilman was handcuffed by the fact that removing Iauko from his portfolio would effectively topple the government. So, like it or not, this marriage of inconvenience had to continue.

To make matters worse, the prospect of a successful prosecution was vanishingly small. There was nothing to indicate that the Public Prosecutor and the Police wouldn’t be just as ineffectual in this instance as they’d been on countless occasions in the past. Not only would a powerful man be given grounds for vengeance, he’d likely have the means and opportunity to exact it, too.

Better, then, to bide one’s time and wait for an opportunity further down the line. Iauko’s rather incendiary rise has not made him a lot of lasting friendships, and anyway, his countless pre-election promises would soon be coming home to roost. Why fight an overt battle, possibly at significant cost, to achieve something that Iauko seemed to be perfectly capable of doing to himself?

Viewed through the lens of political calculus, there’s some merit to this line of reasoning. One could even be so bold as to argue that the baroque architecture of parliamentary rules and precedents that govern behaviour in other nations using the Westminster form of government are neither appropriate nor desirable here in Vanuatu.
But just for the sake of argument, let’s consider what might happen if things played out differently.

What if PM Kilman had required his Minister for Infrastructure and Public Utilities to resign his portfolio, pending a police investigation? He’s shown he’s capable of moving inconvenient Ministers out of the way. At the same time as the Iauko scandal was unfolding, he manoeuvred the Labour party out of power. This in retaliation for having signed an Opposition confidence motion.

In that case, the immediate goal was to remain in power, to live another day in order to achieve the policy goals that comprise the very reasons for governing in the first place.
Let’s apply the same logic to the Iauko debacle.

On the one hand, sharing power with people who care nothing for policy and are willing to fight every minute of every day for a bigger piece of the pie, people who, more to the point, are willing to stop at nothing… well, you have to ask yourself: Are you making things better or worse? On the other hand, you can’t get into government without them, and they know it. More to the point, perhaps it’s better to have them using these tactics against others than against you.

As the author of the Godfather famously put it, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

The problem with this equation is that it allows the worst excesses to continue unchecked. In other words, there will never be a better calibre of MP in this country, because the others either drag them down or elbow them aside. You either learn how to scrap or you don’t play at all.

So how do we improve governance, then? The only way to maintain one’s integrity is to be able to exert enough power over the other players to force them to play nice. And there’s no way to gather that much power, because of the disunity and distrust that’s endemic in Vanuatu’s political landscape.

It would take a grand, unifying goal, something about which the entire population of Vanuatu could agree, to achieve –even momentarily– the kind of unity of purpose and energy that Fr. Walter Lini managed during the first days of the Republic.

What if taking a stand, even allowing a government to fall, were enough to galvanise such a movement? What if it could be made clear to voters that there are certain kinds of behaviour that simply cannot be tolerated, and that this behaviour is the cause of so many of Vanuatu’s afflictions?

That’s not an easy task. Many voters don’t think in terms of policy and long-term reward. Some are willing to choose self-gratification over nation-building every time. Given Vanuatu’s voting districts, you don’t need more than a few hundred of these to get yourself in the running. Pony up a bit of cash to run some stalking-horse candidates and you can split the vote small enough to get in with the support of a single village.

So the risk, then, is that you take a principled stand, try to galvanise the electorate into an unprecedented level of support, only to find yourself standing on the sidelines, come Election Day plus one.

Worse, you could actually succeed in garnering an unprecedented level of the vote, only to discover that you’d been equaled by, and forced to share power with, the very kind of candidate you were elected to turf out.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

I’ll say this again, in all sincerity: A principled man who’s willing to walk that muddy road is a better man than I, because I would always take that principled stand, keep my conscience clear, and fail entirely as a politician.

That may sound back-handed to some. It’s not. Life is a complex and messy thing; there are no simple answers. And sometimes staying pure and principled means staying powerless.

For my part I’m willing to abdicate that power, because once in a while things need to be said at any cost.

It’s easy for me to say this, but I don’t say it lightly. I say it because others can’t:

If a Government Minister resorts to political violence and coercion and the government takes no action to remedy this, that government deserves to fall.

One for all and all for one? Policy-making processes aspire to this, but where IT is concerned, it’s as often a free-for-all as one-for-all.

One of the biggest problems we face when we try to establish standards and policies around technology is that it extends into all sectors of society and the economy. This often results in very different views about – well, about pretty much everything.

Some people see ICT policy-making as a chance to pave the way for new business opportunities. Some see it as a chance to enhance the same moral, ethical and legal framework that currently defines their society; others see it as an opportunity for social transformation. Still others see it as merely a vehicle to define technical standards and protocols. Yet others see ICT as only one little egg in a much larger policy basket.

Getting everyone to agree on the process of establishing a national ICT policy, therefore, can be an exercise akin to herding cats and chickens all at once. Priorities are like noses: everyone’s got one, and every one of them is different.

The biggest battle usually arrives before a policy discussion can even start: Who gets to lead this little dance? It’s obvious enough that without substantive commitment from government, a national ICT policy hasn’t got a hope. But it doesn’t follow that the policy-making process falls exclusively within the government’s purview. Indeed, there are many aspects of ICT policy where government doesn’t need to – and arguably shouldn’t – play a role.

Online businesses, for example, are usually happiest when no one’s looking over their shoulder. Indeed, well-intentioned but misguided legislative efforts have done more to hinder online business than help it. The US state of Maine recently required that websites offering products and services to underage people must verify that their customers have obtained parental consent before selling them anything. That’s all well and good, but how exactly do they propose to accomplish this? Webcams? Phone calls? Even those can be faked.

That said, government oversight is often needed in order to ensure that people aren’t blithely left exposed to loss of privacy and identity theft. In an indictment revealed earlier this week, an American and two Russian hackers were charged with stealing over 130 million credit card numbers and owner details from a credit processing company that handles transactions for thousands of online stores. Security at New Jersey-based Heartland Payment Systems was so lax that the criminals effectively waltzed in, using the most trivial means to steal the data.

Industry-developed and driven standards exist for the management of online payment systems and credit card information management, but it’s obvious that whatever inspection regime may exist is woefully inadequate.

Whenever issues of online privacy, identity and trust appear on the radar, we inevitably find ourselves in a push-me-pull-you scenario where business sees any regulation as a threat to its bottom line and government finds itself struggling to express important constitutional values in practical terms. Meanwhile, parents, churches, privacy advocates and other concerned social groups tug the debate in all directions. Inevitably, something’s got to give.

That particular morass is just one tiny facet of a much larger conflict. Education too, often finds itself caught between the flood of newly-accessible information pouring in from the Internet and its own pedagogical processes. It’s a common affliction of education systems around the world that the kids end up knowing more about the technology they’re using than the teachers. There is often significant tension between those who insist on building the entire learning process anew and those who would simply throw technology pell-mell into the mix.

Public morality is another touchstone issue. On the one hand, we have those who would go to any lengths to ensure the safety of their children as they explore what often seems like an online moral wasteland. On the other, there are those who understand that every single tool that allows parents to monitor their children can be used for more nefarious purposes, too. Iran and China are the most obvious places where these same tools are used to control and suppress political and social dissent.

Conversely, the same encryption technologies that keep our online conversations private also protect purveyors of child pornography and other illegal material.

While government plays an important leadership role in determining how much privacy is enough, it must at all costs not be allowed to define and designate appropriate online behaviour alone. More importantly, independent defences against the worst abuses must be built into the mechanisms of Internet management from the start. There aren’t many politicians in the world that would do this without significant – dare I say pointed – encouragement from their consitituents.

Vanuatu has an energetic and ambitious IT community, and we feel it’s time to start thinking in broad terms about how we’re going to cope with the radical changes presented by the entry of high technology into our collective existence.

We can’t do it alone. But we can do it. Government has been toying for years with the idea of developing an overall ICT strategy, but as near as anyone can tell, the closest they’ve come was the fairly broad (albeit quite sensible) telecoms strategy that set the stage for market liberalisation in that sector.

The question of mandate has bedevilled its efforts to set internal standards and policies. The question becomes even more troublesome when we turn our focus outward at the nation as a whole. Who has the right to lead? Who needs to be part of the process?

Well, the short answer to both questions is the same: Who cares who leads; just make it an open, flexible process. In fact, little matters more than defining a transparent, open-ended mechanism for engaging with all sectors of society, and allowing it to take on this vast, amorphous challenge piece by piece over the course of years. Some aspects of the problem will prove intractable, others will develop such momentum that we’ll be tempted to throw obstacles in the way just to keep up.

But just as we’ve always done at village level, we need to keep talking. And talking. If we don’t, the process of developing an appropriate and manageable national ICT policy for everyone will resemble a free for all more than anything else.

Note for online readers: For more detailed analysis and reporting of the situation in Fiji, I’d recommend the perceptive and well-sourced Coup Four and a Half blog. In its own words:

This blog has been created to allow stories and information that have been supressed or banned by the administration of Commodore Frank Bainimarama, as a result of the decision by the President Ratu Josefa Iloilo to impose Public Emergency Regulations, which has led to heavy handed censoring of the media.

Recently, numerous commentators in Vanuatu and other Pacific countries have complained loud and long that Commodore Frank Bainimarama is being treated unfairly by the media. The real bad guys, they say, were the ones who so abused the shambles of Fijian democracy that the army leader was left no choice but to intervene.

Furthermore, they argue, the problems of governance in Fiji are significant enough that holding elections before 2014 (the date recently suggested by the ruling junta) would only result in a return to the same sorry state the nation was in before. In short: Fiji can have its coup now or later, but by having it now, we can rest assured that it’s happening for the right reasons, guided by the right man.

I’m not entirely unsympathetic to this argument. It’s true that some reports, especially those appearing in Australian popular media, tend to miss the point that Fijian democracy was deplorably weak when Bainimarama took over. Furthermore, the hard rhetorical line taken by the governments of Australia and New Zealand hasn’t done much to improve the situation for anyone.

Frank Bainimarama is without a doubt a patriot who cares deeply about the welfare of his nation. But the question is whether any single patriot should rule Fiji.

To be sure, Fiji needs to clean house. But the process by which this is accomplished is more important than any other consideration. The current regime’s apologists might say that the Commodore became disgusted with the tenants’ behaviour and, like any good landlord would, he turfed them out.

A commendable act, perhaps, but here’s the thing: It’s not his house.

The arbitrary use of coercive force is antithetical to democracy. Fiji’s military is known worldwide as an effective and disciplined force, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief that (for the most part) they’ve shown discipline and restraint in spite of having no checks on their authority. But the very things that make it an effective fighting force make it perfectly unsuited to govern.

Government in a healthy, pluralistic society is a messy, disorganised, often self-contradictory contraption. Dissent, competition and the basic precept that a candidate succeeds or fails based on his standing in the eyes of his peers are all necessary to its proper functioning. Military organisations are necessarily designed to stifle all of these.

There’s a good reason why the military in every healthy democracy subordinates itself to the nation’s political leaders. It is precisely in order to ensure that discipline, unity of action and obedience for their own sake do not end up taking the country down a path the populace is not willing to follow.

Recent events in US political history have led to vigourous arguments about the nature of a unitary executive, but alas, even that kind of questing debate about the exercise of power is not currently possible within Fiji’s borders. As wise and well-meaning as Frank Bainimarama may be, he cannot be allowed to rule alone. He is, after all, one man, just as fallible and prone to human frailty as the rest of us.

And here we come to the crux of the problem: Nobody who’s given it more than passing thought would deny that the de-colonialisation of the Pacific has been fraught with problems. Vanuatu, Tonga, Fiji, the Solomon Islands and PNG have all wrestled with the application of the tools of democracy left us by our erstwhile masters, often failing in the attempt to reconcile them with traditional approaches. The fundamental issue of self-determination remains unresolved in New Caledonia and French Polynesia. Today, after a generation of mixed results, we would all do well to engage in a thorough examination of just what democracy means in the Pacific.

But that debate is prejudiced, even precluded, when its terms are applied arbitrarily and by fiat. Frankly, there is no place in a soldier’s world for dialogue. As long as Fiji remains under military rule, it cannot heal itself.

Even with the benefit of hindsight, it’s hard to imagine how things could have happened differently. Before he ousted Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, Bainimarama had already taken unto himself the role of benevolent but implacable defender of Fijian democracy. Few people complained when he ousted George Speight’s openly racist regime in 2000, and when he elevated Qarase to the PM’s chair, the populace later validated the choice. It was hardly a surprise, then, to see him take up the reins once again when Qarase began consorting with his opponents.

By acting unilaterally to ensure that Fiji’s previous coup-plotters were not allowed to walk away unpunished, Bainimarama was saving his own life as much as anyone else’s. But he was also defending one of the fundamental tenets of a society of laws: actions must have consequences.

What he seems to have disregarded, though, is the logical extension of that precept: His own actions have consequences, too. He must be answerable to his own people. As things stand right now, he is not.

And that alone makes him dangerous. Not necessarily because he’s wrong now, but because, being fallible, he could be. And when he does act against the interests of his country, intentionally or not, the only recourse left to those who oppose him will be to apply the same tools of arbitrary force against him.

One hope remains: That Bainimarama, with the assistance of his Pacific allies, finds an orderly way to back down from this impasse, and to subordinate himself once more to the will of the people he’s spent his life defending.

With headlines like ‘Man Gets On Bus’, and ‘Breakfast As Usual’, Fiji’s beleaguered fourth estate is reporting all the news it feels is still fit – or safe – to print. Such stories are a reaction to Commodore Frank Bainimarama’s extensive power grab this week, which included the abrogation of the national Constitution, removal of judges and senior financial figures, expulsion of Australian and New Zealand-born journalists and censorship of domestic media.

One particularly riveting feature, titled ‘Paint Dry’, recounts the couch painting adventure of a man named Max. The paint, he recounts, “went on wet, but after four hours it started to dry…. That was when I realised, paint dries.”

I expect it ran with a four column headline.

In solidarity with my Fijian colleagues, I’ve decided to write about nothing as well. Happily, this is easily done. Even though Port Vila is home to the Melanesian Spearhead Group and PM Edward Nipake Natapei holds the chair this year, I am glad to say that I have nothing to report.

Despite being uniquely positioned to provide sober diplomatic counsel to the increasingly isolated Fijian dictator, despite what our PM describes as a fraternal relationship with one of our closest neighbours, one with whom we have a unique trading relationship, whose culture closely resembles our own, we and our Melanesian brethren have decided to do exactly nothing to prevent Fiji’s descent into constitutional, social and economic crisis.

So, in the space where I might otherwise have observed that, in throwing out the Constitution without so much as a ‘by your leave’, Commodore Bainimarama has left himself with little room to manoeuvre, let me instead tell you just how lovely my frangipani tree is this year. Its fragrant flowers, tinged in the softest rose and yellow hues, have a transient, fragile beauty.

Were this a column of any substance, I might remark on their similarity to Fiji’s tourism industry. Stunning beaches run for miles, uncluttered by tourists. Boutique resorts, once frequented by backpackers, lie picturesque and empty, their charm neglected, their staff sent home.

Instead, I can devote this space to the weather. The gloomy overcast, high winds and heavy rain that beset us this last week have at last cleared away. Were MSG members inclined to do more than bicker over the cost of renting an apartment in Port Vila, I might have been forced to draw an analogy to a ray of light shining across the region after a stormy political setback. Happily, no such comparison is necessary.

I have to admit that I’m glad. It’s so much easier to write about my family’s Easter celebration, which featured much laughter and too much pizza and chocolate, than to venture into the delicate and inordinately complex dynamics of a well-meaning commander who may truly believe himself the defender of his nation, but whose soldier’s philosophy prefers the rule of force to rule of law. I would much rather recount how my 3 year old niece shrieked with delight when she saw her photograph appear on my computer screen than try to explain to an uncomprehending world how this 54 year old self-styled protector of justice has allowed things to come to this pass.

Far better to dwell on the simple pleasures of a walk through Vila’s market house than to wander down memory lane, enumerating the countless failures in democracy and governance experienced by every Melanesian country. Totting up the list alone would take up half my word count. Explaining the many causes, the patchwork quilt of kastom, the tightly raveled web of filialism represented by the wantok system of patronage and support, would require volumes.

Layering on the cross-cultural tensions between ethnic Fijians and their Indo-Fijian neighbours would have been near-impossible. Explaining Bainimarama’s simplistic logic of using arbitrary measures to cast out these inequities and injustices – well, that seems to be beyond the ken of most international commentators. Thank heavens, then, that I can content myself with a pastiche on the variety of life and colour in my garden.

And Heaven help me if I had been left with no recourse but to prognosticate. How could I hope to properly characterise the patient, determined diplomatic dance that represents Fiji’s only hope of escaping economic, political and social collapse? If I had to describe the potential for outright destruction of the very things that the Commodore genuinely wants to defend, to lay out in simple terms just how far from the democratic fold he’s drawn his nation, I honestly don’t know if I’d be up to the task.

How to encapsulate a manageable framework to honestly and positively perform a stock-take on the state of democracy in Melanesia after its first generation of Independence? Engaging in the renewal of political and social engagement, shaped into a uniquely Melanesian form, is truly a place where even our brightest political angels fear to tread.

Small wonder the leadership of the Melanesian Spearhead group would rather issue non-statements, preferring a sincere tut-tutting to action.

Let’s go one better and join our silenced Fijian brethren watching paint dry.

A prominent US liberal blog recently ran a story, titled “So Go Already” that captured in a nutshell the deep resentment that many, Americans especially, are feeling toward those captains of enterprise who continued to receive massive payouts even as the financial service companies they guided were foundering in bankruptcy.

Reacting to a rather blithe and blinkered editorial on tax havens published by the right wing Washington Times, the article ranted, “If you don’t like paying taxes here on the millions you’ve made or that someone made for you, you’re free to take your shekels and move.”

Both Right and Left utterly miss the point.

These ill-informed rants paint tax havens as a place to hide one’s (possibly ill-gotten) riches. That might have been true in the past, but following the events of September 11, 2001, reporting requirements have changed significantly. New rules proposed at the recent G20 summit in London would make reporting requirements even more stringent than they are today.

Righteous anger felt by many hard working individuals toward financial managers who received multi-million dollar rewards for having failed so spectacularly at their job is venting in all directions. And now, some in Vanuatu feel they’re being made to pay for others’ sins.

Not so, says Nikunj Soni, Executive Director of the Pacific Institute of Public Policy (PiPP). While the Pacific region is home to 6 of the 38 formally declared tax havens in the world, not all of them will be affected by the proposed new reporting requirements mooted at the G20 summit.

The only nations facing significant sanctions are Malaysia, the Philippines and Costa Rica, members of the notorious OECD ‘Black List’ – tax haven countries that are subject to sanctions as a result of their non-compliance with international taxation and reporting standards.

A PiPP press statement notes, “the G20 communiqué does not seek to punish tax havens – only ‘non-cooperative jurisdictions’ – that is, only those countries on the black list.”

Vanuatu is not entirely out of the woods. As a member of the so-called Grey List of countries who have committed to international tax standards, but who have yet to conclude any bilateral tax treaties, Vanuatu would be subject to monitoring. Sanctions might eventually come into play if we don’t show willing when new reporting and information sharing requirements are put forth, but that’s not terribly likely.

When the pressure starts, Soni says, “it is in the industry’s interest to become more open about its activities.”

That should not present a problem. The point of tax havens is not money laundering, nor is it tax evasion. Some have tried to abuse the system for those purposes, and in fairness, lax standards did in the past make such abuse far easier than it should have been. But no longer.

The rationale for acting as a tax-free jurisdiction is simple: Given a lack of sustainable industry, a small economic base and few prospects for international trade, tax haven status is one of the few avenues available to countries like Vanuatu to attract foreign currency. By enticing money and people into the country, the government is able to derive income from import tariffs, license fees and other activities that don’t unduly burden either investors or ni-Vanuatu.

Some degree of visible, verifiable probity is required for such a role, and cooperation will no doubt be expected from neighbouring nations as they pursue individuals playing fast and loose with the rules. But this should not be cause for alarm. We don’t want people investing here who only see the rule of law as an encumbrance.

Nonetheless, we’re facing a strong, even unreasonable backlash, which is directing itself in part at some of the punier members of the international community. Great care, and large helpings of wit and diplomacy, will be required as we sit down with OECD member nations to discuss the issue.
On the one hand, we need to show willing in terms of information exchange, but on the other, we cannot afford to give away entirely one of our only means of attracting foreign investment.

The same week this news was announced, Vanuatu embarked on the opening movements of a multilateral dance between its Pacific neighbours and local economic heavyweights Australia and New Zealand. With our two largest donor partners leaning on us to reduce trade tariffs on the one side and the OECD on the other pressuring us to move into line on tax policy, Vanuatu cannot afford to assume that everything will be hunky-dory.

Says Soni, “If the industry is to get Pacific governments to support its cause on the international stage, it will need to demonstrate the contributions to economic growth, which in turn will require a degree of openness and trust.”

It’s a fine balance, but a manageable one, if all parties play nicely. A fair amount of cooperation will be required, and some of that may feel a little uncomfortable to financial management companies here. Foreign governments are going to be looking at them askance, and the people of Vanuatu cannot afford to sacrifice much for either side’s benefit.

Last Thursday, members of the IT industry, researchers and interested members of the public got together with Ministry of Infrastructure and Public Utilities to discuss proposed new laws governing Vanuatu’s burgeoning telecommunications sector.

At issue was a Bill to define the precise role of the Telecommunications Regulator. Designed to supplement the existing Telecommunications Act of 1989, it outlines in detail the extent of the Regulator’s mandate to influence the newly-liberalised telecoms market.

The draft Bill describes an environment wherein the Regulator has wide latitude to impose his will on telecoms operators if they misbehave. Among other things, he can enforce fair and equitable access to rare or unique infrastructure (known as bottleneck resources), he can intervene if telecoms operators are deemed to be offering preferential or prejudicial prices to others and if necessary he can enforce tariff or pricing regimes on carriers if they don’t play fair.

Viewed in the light of their exemplary track record, the draft Bill reflects well on both the Ministry and the Regulator. To date, their attitude has been to let market forces work with little if any intervention. They have nonetheless made sure that the regulatory stick they hold in reserve holds real clout. The proposed Bill gives this all the force of law. Rather than relying in the language of various negotiated agreements, they’ve outlined a set of rules that applies to anyone and everyone operating in the telecoms sector.

Others aren’t so sure that a big regulatory stick is such a good thing….

Digicel Pacific’s General Counsel David Dillon objected vociferously to the draft Bill, remarking that investors need more than verbal assurance that the Regulator’s broad mandate won’t be abused in the future. While expressing all confidence in the incumbent Interim Regulator, Dillon nonetheless contended that you can’t take good will to the bank.

Telecommunications is an expensive business, he explained. Digicel’s investment to date is close to 3.5 billion vatu, with more planned. The benefits for Vanuatu are undeniable, he said, with an estimated total of 100,000[*] people now actively using one or other of the mobile telephone services.

What is required, Dillon suggested, is a regime that makes it more difficult for the Regulator to intervene in the market without good reason. He repeatedly mentioned the need to establish a ‘clear threshold’ for action. Put plainly, the Regulator should not be able to intervene in the market unilaterally and arbitrarily.

According to Dillon, one way to ensure this is to make the Regulator’s role more reactive. If, for example, the Regulator could only intervene following a formal complaint filed in accordance to a high standard of evidence, then a telecoms operator could be assured that they wouldn’t face unduly high legal and consulting fees spent fending off frivolous complaints designed only to slow them down and make them less competitive.

Dillon also suggested that the Regulator have a more clearly defined ‘toolkit’ of actions available to him. The range of available remedies should be defined by the circumstances, he said. Again, this would have the effect of ensuring that some future Regulator doesn’t run roughshod over the marketplace.

Lastly, Digicel complained about the lack of higher authority. As the Bill is written, the Regulator’s decisions can be appealed to the Supreme Court, but the court can rule only on whether the Regulator followed the correct process. It can’t rule on whether the substance of his decision was right or wrong.

Why not follow the European Union model, asked Dillon. Current EU regulation allows for the creation of an appeal board composed of industry experts. This board can rule not only on the process, but they can also decide whether the substance of the decision is correct.

State Law’s legal advisor replied that this approach had been considered, but was ultimately rejected due to cost considerations, along with concerns about sovereignty. This technical expertise necessary simply doesn’t exist in Vanuatu, he maintained. What would people think if we were seen to be outsourcing our legal decisions overseas?

While TVL’s Managing Director Ian Kyle had little to say at the meeting itself, he confirmed that he had already voiced reservations about the regulatory framework.

Digicel, he claimed, “has only 50 sites in operation and a relatively modest US $30m investment. TVL has 260 sites across the country, has invested hundreds of millions of US dollars into our network, and applies a further US $10m each year” in capital and operating expenses. (Digicel claims 63 operative sites in Vanuatu.)

“We therefore endorse the essence of this point, as do our shareholders.  On the other hand, we are confident, from our prior negotiations with Government, that they too understand the matter.”

TVL were more reticent about the issue of appealing regulatory decisions. Kyle stated that they and their shareholders would rather avoid litigation due to the expense and inherent uncertainty of the process, but hinted that other players might not be so inclined. To this end, he said, a clearly defined framework would help everyone.

Reiterating his confidence in the government’s intentions and ability, Kyle nonetheless characterised the proposed Bill as a ‘work in progress’ – a commendable effort that required further clarification before it could be considered properly finished.

Other parties from civil society and local research institutes expressed overall confidence in the government’s commitment to building a healthy and vibrant telecoms market. Nikunj Soni of the Pacific Institute of Public Policy made the distinction between policy and legislation, suggesting that a clear statement of the Government’s position and intentions would do more to clarify the Bill than any additional legalese.

Vanuatu has an excellent track record in telecoms regulation, he maintained. Far better, in fact, than past efforts, like the much-maligned VMA, for example. One need only consider the Bill in light of these past failures to see that important lessons have been learned, and most – if not all – of the critical protections against abuse or politicisation of the Regulator’s position will be in place when the Bill becomes law.

DPAA’s Andonia Piau-Lynch was largely supportive of the work the government had done to date, but admonished them that market forces should not be the only consideration when striving for universal access. She encouraged all parties to remember the disadvantaged and to ensure that they too have equal access to our newly abundant communications services.

Legal wrangling notwithstanding, Government representatives were glad of the opportunity for robust engagement on these important issues. John Crook, Interim Telecommunications Regulator expressed satisfaction with the process to date, and said, “I expect that the government and the advisors will take the major points into account as the law drafting is finalised.”

The proposed new Telecommunications Bill is not a perfect document. But Vanuatu is not a perfect place. Considering the limited resources it can bring to bear, the great gains it’s made in improving communications nationwide are truly commendable.

Contrasted with other legislative efforts (like the recent Employment Act amendments), its efforts in telecommunications are truly laudable. Much work remains to be done, but so far, Vanuatu’s record in this area is world-class. If things continue along this track everyone, investor and consumer alike, can be confident about Vanuatu’s status as a reputable and reliable place to do business.

Others have expressed doubt about the number, but without hard evidence to work with, their suppositions were based more on whether the number ‘feels right’ (i.e. if it matches whatever anecdotal evidence they have available to them). I provide the number here uncorroborated, though I assume it must have some basis in fact if Digicel is willing to use it in public.

I’ll write more about the significance of this number in a separate post….

Here’s a more detailed analysis.

There is only one thing worse than a badly played football match: a badly refereed match.

What makes a bad referee? Players the world over agree that it’s not strictness or laxity; what makes a referee really bad is when he’s inconsistent and unpredictable. The ref consistently calls offsides in favour of the defence? Not great for the strikers, but a team can adjust and try different approaches to the net. The ref calls them consistently in favour of the offence? Drop the zone defence and mark your man carefully.

But when neither team knows how the play will be called, it creates uncertainty, which leads to sloppy play and sometimes a little opportunistic cheating, hoping that this time the ref won’t call a questionable play.

This principle applies everywhere. In numerous business surveys, company leaders consistently report that continuity and predictability in economic management and government affairs matter more to them than the economic structures themselves.

As long as clear rules exist around ownership, trade and the economic environment in general, a well-run company will be able to find its way – and possibly to thrive – under just about any regime.

But a company that can’t predict what will happen tomorrow can’t plan effectively. And a company that can’t plan finds itself scrambling from one day to the next. It finds that it can’t commit – neither to its customers nor to its staff. When this uncertainty becomes generalised, with nobody willing or able to say what tomorrow holds, the business climate worsens all round.

The government of Vanuatu has made great strides in recent years in its efforts to make its bureaucratic components simpler and more predictable for all concerned. The primary purpose of this is to insulate the civil service from the innate turbulence of Vanuatu politics. By carefully channeling initiatives through straightforward but rigourous processes, the worst weaknesses of government instability are compensated for.

The days are long past when political infighting could result in the failure to table a budget, as happened under then-Prime Minister Barak Sope.

These reforms are invaluable, but not sufficient. The process of creating new laws and regulations requires the same kind of predictability and respect of process. Currently, there is next to none.

To be clear: The State Law Office generally does excellent work in drafting legislation. With a few notable exceptions, Vanuatu’s laws in recent years have been clearly scoped, defined and written. But State Law’s influence is limited to ensuring the legality and clarity of the bills they draft. They have no say at all over their contents.

What a Bill actually contains is entirely up to the Cabinet members and their staff.

So how, exactly, did the recent amendments to the Employment Act come about? To the best of my knowledge, there was little if any consultation with business, unions, civil society organisations or the general public. Whatever actually transpired, the near-panic expressed by a number of prominent business owners demonstrates that they were singularly unprepared for the Amendments’ passage in Parliament.

Contrast that with the policy and legislative review conducted by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Public Utilities. For years now, they’ve been talking, thinking, researching and sharing their views with anyone interested. Policy papers and proposed legislation are made available months before they enter Parliament. By the time a Bill arrives on the Order Table, people know exactly what’s in it, and what motivated the choices made.

Not every stakeholder agrees with every aspect of what gets enacted. But at least they know what to expect. The player doesn’t have to like the call, but she needs to respect the referee.

In any given election, about half of all elected MPs are new to Parliament. Efforts are underway to educate them in Parliamentary process and the roles and responsibilities of Members and Ministers. But we need more.

The real battle behind the Amendments to the Employment Act is not over their constitutionality. Nor has it to do with the Minister’s prerogative – and responsibility – to legislate matters of employment rights. It’s not the Minister’s responsibility to make everyone like what the Act contains.

The shock of latest amendments has done nothing but create uncertainty. They undermined confidence across the board. Businesses are increasingly tempted to perform an end-run around the rules, to sack their fulltime employees and require them to return as short-term independent contractors.

This means that such workers will get no severance at all. Worse, benefits like VNPF contributions become the employee’s responsibility. This will almost certainly undermine the Provident Fund. There will doubtless be other negative consequences as well. In short, the Minister’s unquestionably good intentions are being subverted by the lack of due process and consideration.

It is up to the Minister and the Government to ensure that Vanuatu’s market place is ruled fairly, clearly and consistently, according to rules that we may not all like, but we all agree to respect. The only way to achieve this is to create a clear, well-trodden path down which every piece of policy and legislation must travel before it becomes law.

On January 5th, the Sydney Morning Herald published a story titled, “Dial X for Optus.” The feature recounted the story, by now well known in Vanuatu, of how Optus collaborated with certain Pacific Islands nations to make tens of millions of dollars in profit from the pornography industry.

“The scheme,” wrote Vanda Carson, “allowed the telcos to bill customers premium rates for sexually explicit calls or X-rated downloads when they dialled the country codes” of many Pacific nations, Vanuatu included. “Optus was part of the partnership of telcos which acted as gatekeepers in the porn trade between the US and Europe and small Pacific islands.”

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Optus illegally appropriated 100 Vanuatu telephone numbers and kept all revenues generated by them.

None of that could happen today. With the creation of a functioning and effective Telecommunications Regulator, we now have proper oversight on how Vanuatu’s communications resources are used. The government of Vanuatu has made great strides in ensuring that all telephone operators manage their systems responsibly and efficiently.

Now we need to do the same for our Internet resources.

We don’t often stop to think about it, but telephone numbers, Internet addresses and domains names are all sovereign resources. The Australian body that handles the .au domain states things quite succinctly:

“Taking the view that the Internet Domain Name System is a public asset, and that the .au [domain] is under the sovereign control of the Commonwealth of Australia, auDA will administer the .au [domain] for the benefit of the Australian community.”

Here in Vanuatu, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Public Utilities is conducting a public consultation on these issues right now. At issue is how we in Vanuatu can ensure that the .vu domain is administered for the public good.

On one side of the issue, we need to make sure that businesses, organisations and individuals are all free to access and benefit from domain names that identify them with Vanuatu. On the other, we need to ensure that these resources maintain a healthy, positive reputation, one that’s consistent with Vanuatu’s image as a safe and friendly place.

The management of Internet domains has been something of an afterthought for many nations. In most cases, the technical challenge of making sure they worked properly and efficiently fell into the hands of a few well-intentioned, civic minded techies. In most cases, that worked well.

But there have been a few notable exceptions.

Jo Lim, policy director for the organisation that currently manages Australia’s domains, recounts the following history: Until the late 1990s, Australia’s domains were managed by Robert Elz, a Melbourne University computer scientist who managed it in a personal capacity and on a voluntary basis. Around 1996-7, people finally lost patience with this situation. They objected to Elz’s unilateral decision to delegate the management of the lucrative .com.au domain space to a company that was owned entirely by his employer. On top of that, non-profit organisations were not at all satisfied with the way he managed the .org.vu domain.

A decision was made, finally, for stakeholders to organise themselves and take over management of the entire package. But getting geeks to work together is sometimes like herding cats. In the end they needed some encouragement from government. Lim writes:

“Minister for Communications and IT, Senator Richard Alston, gave the go ahead for the then National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) to lend support to the industry in its efforts to establish a new organisation to manage .au. Note that industry self-regulation was the government’s stated preference, in line with concurrent reforms in the telecommunications industry. At first NOIE’s assistance was fairly low key, but after a couple of false starts it was considered necessary to become more hands-on. The government laid down a number of criteria that had to be met in order to ensure continued government support for industry self-regulation. NOIE also provided some funding and staff support to help the new organisation get established.”

Other countries weren’t so fortunate. In particular, the Chinese and Russian domain spaces have become hopelessly polluted by spammers, fraudsters and purveyors of viruses and other malicious software. Spam abuse from Chinese domains has become so terrible that some administrators of large-scale systems simply block all email originating from .cn (China’s domain name).

That’s an effective, but not very elegant solution. Ultimately, a billion people are being punished for the inaction of the people whose responsibility it is to look after the .cn domain.

We certainly do not want the same thing to happen here in Vanuatu.

It needs to be said that in recent years the .vu domain has been well managed by TVL. Indeed, as someone who works with the responsible staff on a frequent basis, I feel compelled to observe that the people responsible for the technical management of Vanuatu’s domain space are among the most efficient and professional of all of Telecom’s staff.

But here’s the thing: TVL has no formal mandate from the government to manage the .vu namespace. They took it on as a public service simply because nobody else was willing or able to do so at the time.

Now, with other Internet Service Providers ready to start rolling out their respective services, it’s time to start deliberating on how we want this sovereign resource to the treated. Most of the ground rules are pretty straightforward: We want everyone to be able to share equally; we want the process of sharing to be as simple and straightforward as possible. And we want to make sure that nobody abuses the resource.

Internet domain spaces like .vu are generally considered to be a Commons. The term comes from shared lands in England where villagers could graze their cattle. As long as everyone cooperates, all of their cattle thrive. But as soon as someone tries to get more benefit out of the resource than the others, the community at large suffers. Eventually, we arrive at a situation characterised by influential ecologist Garret Hardin in 1968 as the Tragedy of the Commons.

To date, Telecom Vanuatu has shown nothing but competence and responsibility in its management of the .vu domain. From a technical and ethical standpoint, their performance has been exemplary. But as we’ve seen from the Optus debacle, it only takes one short-sighted individual to sully the entire resource.

While we have every reason to believe that this kind of abuse will never happen again, it would be more comforting to be sure of it. There’s a difference between stating that something will not happen again and stating that it cannot happen again.

All that’s required to ensure this is a simple set of clear rules (the fewer the better) and the authority to enforce them. We already have the authority in the Office of the Regulator. Now the community at large needs to sit down with him and write the rules.

“Here is the ocean, vast and wide, teeming with life of every kind, both large and small. See the ships sailing along, and Leviathan, which you made to play in the sea.” – Psalm 104

In 1651, an Englishman named Thomas Hobbes used the metaphor of the powerful, even unassailable aquatic giant of biblical lore to present the concept of the commonwealth. If we live as individuals, caring only for ourselves, he said, our lives could only be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

But if people can find their way to compromise with one another, to accept that respecting mutual rights is better for one and all, a person could “be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself.” Hobbes contended that this commonwealth of like-minded people becomes strong enough to be unassailable – or at least better able to defend itself than any individual ever could. Leviathan emerges where only shoals of darting, frightened minnows existed before.

The Internet lends itself very well to such imagery. Individually, we are tiny minnows awash in a vast, sometimes unfriendly sea of information. Acting alone, we can find some good in it, but we are largely defenceless against the greater forces at work. If we join forces with our like-minded brethren, though, we can achieve great things. Not the least of these is a degree of safety, comfort and predictability in how we experience the Net.

Sometime very soon, Vanuatu’s Internet marketplace is going to be liberalised. The approach will be similar to that used to bring competition into the mobile telephony market. But there are a few significant differences….

Perhaps most important, the number of Internet providers won’t be arbitrarily limited. License applications are being considered according to a standard set of technical criteria, meaning that the number of potential Internet Service Providers is limited only by the number of companies who successfully apply.

This means that there needs to be a set of rules in place – a contract if you like – to ensure that everybody providing Internet services plays nicely together. We also need to make sure that customers who want to use local Internet resources can do so in a predictable and consistent manner. Whether we’re obtaining an email address, setting up a website, or just downloading files, we need to know that we’ll be treated fairly, respectfully and professionally.

Until now, TVL’s Internet service provision has been guided by common sense and its own good judgement. As far as anyone I’ve spoken with knows, there’s never been any outside effort made to formalise the way TVL administers our shared Internet resources. These include the addresses we need in order for our computers to talk to one another, Vanuatu-specific domain names and the data flows themselves.

Before going any further, it should be emphasised that TVL has done a perfectly adequate job of managing these resources for themselves and their customers. But once others are involved, we’ll need to approach things differently. It won’t do to have one competitor controlling access to the very Internet domains and addresses that everyone will be sharing.

So, whatever TVL’s past performance, we need to build a new set of rules.

The Internet’s a funny thing. In many ways, it reflects important aspects of the world around us. As far as that goes, defining a workable set of rules of behaviour doesn’t differ significantly from the way we approach policy-making in government and society.

But the Internet differs from the material world in a couple of fundamental ways. First of all, it’s entirely man-made. Government, the world economy and society are all, to some degree, a reaction of humanity to the range of environments it inhabits. In other words, there are some things we just can’t change about the world we live in. We just have to adjust to them as best we can and move on.

Not so with the Internet. Where it’s concerned, we can fiddle with pretty much every aspect of it. Of course, changing some parts of it could effectively break it. Let’s say we here in Vanuatu wanted to alter the way domain names work, we could do that, but we’d have to accept that we’d be running against a very strong international current. Odds are that nobody else would want to play along. That would leave us with a functioning local system, but the rest of the world would be blind to these new domains.

And that brings us to a crucial aspect of this particular Leviathan: the commonwealth of data and human interaction that we call the Internet is exactly what we decide we want it to be, but if we can’t agree, then it’s nothing at all.

Contrast that with the way governments normally work: They often make every effort get along with their neighbours, but the bottom line is that, within their geographical boundaries, they make the rules.

Furthermore, because the Internet is an entirely technical construct, it’s really difficult to say where the technical bits end and the human bits begin. An example: In the real world, we have laws against theft. We all know what that means: If you take something that doesn’t belong to you, you will be punished. Simple as that.

But on the Internet, there are no ‘things’. It’s convenient for us to say that this picture is ‘mine’ and that music file is ‘yours’, but once we start digging down, we quickly realise that ownership means something different in the online world. If you make a copy of my photo, have I really lost anything at all?

On the Internet, theft means what we decide it means. And usually, definitions like ‘theft’ or ‘ownership’ are arrived at by consensus within the community. Most people, for example, have decided that sharing television shows and movies online is okay, despite what Hollywood thinks. By creating software that makes sharing easier and avoiding that which more closely fits the desires of the big media companies, the Internet population has effectively voted for what it wants.

Internet domain names and addresses, along with the data flowing in and out of our country, are all sovereign resources. This means that the government and the people of Vanuatu have a right to decide how they operate. But the Internet is a bit of a messy place. There are no clear borders.

Once we begin to look at how everything fits together, we discover that our online environment is global in nature, notionally ruled over by a hodge-podge of national and international laws, but effectively controlled more by programmers than legislators. The geeks who keep the machines running work largely by consensus. They are very conscious of their role within the online commonwealth.

Ultimately, the Internet is what we all agree it should be. It is a state that’s defined more by its technical conventions than it is by law. So if we want to change things, we need to understand that our ability to act is determined by the rest of the world’s willingness to accommodate our desires, and by our own technical ability.

The commonwealth we create for ourselves with Vanuatu’s Internet resources will no doubt reflect much of the spirit of cooperation and community that is central to our culture. We need government assistance in a few particular areas, but we need to be clear that our corner of the Internet is but a small part of an immense Leviathan, a commonwealth of code encircling the entire globe.

One of the hallmarks of a healthy democracy is our right – and our responsibility – to question every aspect of our national institutions. If the political dialogue over the last few years is any indication, Vanuatu’s democracy is alive and kicking.

Kalkot Mataskelekele’s adult life has been devoted to promoting and defining an independent, democratic Vanuatu. The nation has benefited from his consistency, wisdom and guidance. He has long been a public proponent of a US-style system with a clear division of power between legislative and executive branches of government. He has been joined by others in suggesting that factionalism could be addressed by putting limits on the number of political parties.

Mataskelekele is one of many leaders who have remarked on numerous occasions that we should not take the structures of government for granted. He rightly points out that Vanuatu’s Westminster system was created mostly as a sop to its departing colonial masters seeking reassurance that the nascent democracy would remain recognisable to them.

In the rush to create a new constitution, important aspects of Vanuatu culture were overlooked. The consensus-driven style of leadership-from-within that typifies chiefly rule is difficult to reconcile with majority rule and a codified, winner-take-all legal system.

Most difficult of all are the contending principles of public service and entitlement.

The no-confidence motion currently pending in Parliament is yet another symptom of a sense of entitlement that subverts stability and erodes the ability of the Opposition to perform its appointed task.

No one questions Harry Iauko’s contribution to the VP, nor the mandate handed him by his record 1600-plus supporters. But it doesn’t logically follow that he automatically merits a cabinet position. The public interest is only served when cabinet positions are filled by those most able to serve.

The tiff between Iauko and party leader Edward Nipake Natapei has crossed the line from intra-party rancour to a crisis in governance. Surely there are other mechanisms to resolve this issue than bringing about the downfall of the government?

A congenital weakness in Vanuatu politics is the lack of real opposition. In most parliamentary democracies, the term ‘loyal Opposition’ is more than just a pleasant bromide, serving only to placate the loser. It’s an effective reminder that policies must be publicly, thoroughly and constructively scrutinised and critiqued. The give-and-take of parliamentary debate is the most valuable service MPs can render their constituents.

In Vanuatu, however, there is little if any critical evaluation of policy and legislation. Rather than accepting the implicit legitimacy of the ruling coalition and performing the integral public service of scrutinising its every action, the Opposition fritters away its political capital in a petty game of parliamentary musical chairs.

This stems from a system of debt and obligation that lies at the heart of Vanuatu culture. A man’s stature is often directly proportional to his ability to deliver wealth and bounty to his family and his village. Gifts of food, pigs, mats and other symbols of wealth lie at the centre of most ceremonies. But, as with so many other aspects of kastom, pigs and mats do not translate directly into western-style government.

Moana Carcasses Kalosil (ironically, a supporter of this latest motion) said in a pre-election debate that a cabinet position should mean more than 17 jobs for one’s supporters. Indeed it should. It seems, though, that the wisdom of his words remains lost on MPs on both sides of the floor.

As long as every politician’s main objective is to get his ‘fair share’ of the spoils, the guidance of our elder statesmen serves no purpose. The US, for example, has learned in the most vivid terms that even their vaunted democratic mechanisms can be subverted by greed. Regardless of the number of parties, the division of powers or the roles and responsibilities of elected representatives, the popular will is sapped by an anemic culture of government.

Instilling a sense of duty and purpose into politicians is not a simple process. Significant effort has been invested in recent years to bolster the civil service, making it more resistant to the worst aspects of this venal approach to governance. It’s taken years to make even tenuous gains, but Vanuatu’s rapidly improving stature in the Pacific community is testament to its success.

We need to begin the same process in politics.

We need to find a way to express – not just to politicians, but to the electorate as well – that everyone benefits more from the application of a principled, patient and indirect approach to good governance than they do from short-sighted, paternalistic vote-buying and nepotism. Only then can we begin a productive dialogue on how best to integrate the best aspects of kastom with the tools of western democracy.

I often feel a rush of vicarious shame when I contrast the insights of leaders like Mataskelekele with the actions of some of Vanuatu’s elected representatives. His vision of democracy and its role in society is far in advance of current practice.

My fervent hope is that one day soon the state will deserve a president as good as this.