Charlie Charters is one of those End-of-Empire Englishmen like Jon Fraenkel and Matt Wilson who set out for the South Seas like their 19th century predecessors, marry local women, get involved in local politics and exploit the gormlessness of the natives to advance their own prejudices.
Some of these English imports like Harry Dugdale – the aristocrat husband of the ever-lovely Adi Litia Mara and son-in-law of Fiji’s first prime minister – have learnt over the years to keep their opinions to themselves. Matt Wilson – the former advertising guru who is one of Sitiveni Rabuka’s closest advisors – also wields his considerable influence behind the scenes and stays resolutely out of the limelight.
The Wellington-based Professor Fraenkel – who is married to a strident iTaukei ethno-nationalist – regularly comments on Fiji and wasn’t happy recently to be criticised by Grubsheet for describing the Ashton-Lewis Commission of Inquiry as a “disgraceful interference in Fiji politics” when David Ashton-Lewis is a judge of the Supreme Court of Fiji and has a local association that goes back decades.
But it is Charlie Charters – the author and rugby administrator who lives in Yorkshire but is “temporarily in Qatar” – who has been the most vocal in mounting a full-blown attack on the COI in an avalanche of Facebook postings, letters to the editor (see below) and in responses to Grubsheet articles that I am now largely disallowing because their strident peddling of disinformation has become repetitive.
I’ve been scrapping with Charlie for some time over his public campaign against the DPP, Christopher Pryde, who he has never forgiven for prosecuting Charlie’s late mother-in-law, the madrai queen Mere Samisoni, for lending her car to ethno-nationalists intent on using petrol bombs to burn down Suva.
Fuel samples taken from the boot of Samisoni’s car led to charges being laid against her that were eventually dropped when Samisoni’s confession was found by a magistrate to be inadmissible because the police caution interview period exceeded the statutory 48 hours. The prosecution was unarguably in the public interest under the circumstances but Charlie Charters continues to wage war on Christopher Pryde for pursuing his beloved “Granny Fiji” (see below) – an unashamed ethno-nationalist herself.
Now Charlie – who I have dubbed Old Peculier after the famous Yorkshire beer – has trained his sights on Justice David Ashton-Lewis, doing everything possible to destroy the credibility of both the Judge and the Commission of Inquiry into the Malimali affair, even though he spent years during the Bainimarama era railing against alleged assaults on the rule of law.
The latest outburst- detailed in a Radio New Zealand story this week – is extraordinary – the Yorkshireman deploying his limited knowledge of Fijian, as well as his undoubted literary skills – to savage the Supreme Court judge.
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“No need to import a fancy white man? ” What do you think this is, Charlie? Or at least was (the picture is from the noughties).
Here’s the permanent list of the current judges of the Supreme Court of Fiji – six visiting “fancy white men” and a fancy white woman, a genuine Dame – aside from the President of the nation’s highest court, the Chief Justice Salesi Temo.
Does Charlie Charters want to get rid of them all? Because that would leave us with just one local on the permanent list who the COI has recommended be suspended for alleged abuse of office, perjury and obstructing and perverting the course of justice.
Or maybe Old Peculier would have preferred Justice Temo to conduct the COI into himself? Such is the quality of analysis from the Kai Colo in the floral shirt from Old Blighty (slang for the UK).
And why is the Ashton Lewis Commission of Inquiry a “fiasco that has diminished Fiji”? Well mostly because it has exposed some of Charlie’s old local mates to the blowtorch of the Judge’s scrutiny – in particular the President of the Fiji Law Society, Wylie “Coyote” Clarke and the dismissed attorney general, Graham Leung.
This is what the redacted (censored) Chapter 7 of the Ashton-Lewis Report says about Wylie Clarke and the remainder of the posse who descended on FICAC on September 5 last year to “rescue Barbara Malimali”.
And this is what Chapter 7 says about Charlie’s other mate, Graham Leung:
As we’ve reported, this finding resulted in Graham Leung receiving a terse one-line text message from the Prime Minister at 0500 in his Hong Kong hotel room terminating him as attorney-general.
It was brutal but entirely justified, according to the veteran academic and former civil servant , Jioji Kotobalavu, in a front page Fiji Times story and extended interview ( more below)
But never mind the views of a “top civil servant who served five successive Fijian prime ministers”. Old Peculier from Yorkshire knows better.
Charlie Charters patronises Jioji Kotobalavu in this letter to the Fiji Times by saying his admiration for him “knows no bounds”. But then proceeds to accuse him of perpetrating another “travesty of justice” against Graham Leung.
Charlie Charters is doing what Manoa Kamikamica has shamefully done. He has avoided addressing the main COI findings and has turned a blowtorch not on what those adversely mentioned in its Report might have done but on Alexandra Forwood – the innocent whistleblower who was a COI witness and brought some of the wrongdoing to pubic attention.
It entirely misses the point, as anyone who reads the full account of what Jioji Kotobalavu said can easily appreciate.
It’s worth reading in full because it exposes Charlie Charters for what he is – someone who is excusing the inexcusable and pardoning the unpardonable simply because Graham Leung is a friend and part of his social clique in the Suva beau monde.
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Plus a clearer understanding to counter the concerted campaign of disinformation and shameless manipulation of the facts by Charlie Charters and his elite cabal of friends and associates, who are hell-bent on derailing the Malimali Commission of Inquiry because it threatens the positions of some of their own.
Their objection seems to be that a white man from outside fiji has called out the bad behaviour of their mates in Fiji. Because they are simply not addressing the main issues.
Why was Wylie Clarke silent while an instruction was relayed from the Chief Justice to Francis Puleiwai that no charge she laid would be accepted in any court in Fiji? This was the leader of the nation’s lawyers in private practice not standing up to defy one of the most egregious attacks on the rule of law in Fijian history. An attack not by the usual suspects – politicians – but the Chief Justice himself.
This is not denied by anyone. It is all there in the transcript of what happened – a conversation recorded by the chief FICAC investigator, Kuliniasi Saumi, who lost his job because he recorded it and dared to give evidence at the COI.
What do you say to that, Charlie?
Why did Graham Leung as attorney general tell the Chief Justice that is was OK to proceed with the appointment of Barbara Malimali as commissioner when he knew that she was being actively investigated by FICAC? According to the record, Leung had opposed the appointment at first only to change his mind when he received a communication from a personal friend, Atu Emberson-Bain , complaining about a FICAC raid on the Electoral Commission that led to Barbara Malimali being charged with abuse of office.
Are you seriously defending Graham Leung’s conduct, Charlie? Because this is misconduct on his part that has seen him sacked and would have seen anyone sacked under the circumstances. Because Leung breached a basic tenet of his duty as AG – to provide the Chief Justice with proper advice.
Leung has defended himself by saying “I just signed off on it”, as if that was where his responsibility ended.
Are you seriously defending that, Charlie?
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For further background on Charlie Charters, here’s a piece for the Fiji Times he wrote on his mother-in-law’s passing in 2023. The photo is from his pre-hirsute days in Fiji.
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Plus the full RNZ story from which our first quote came.
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This Charlie is a fool and wouldn’t know about ‘fool’s gold’ despite being a rugby commentator. SO, I feel he can’t be taken seriously for his ‘fool’s errands’ in the media on the CoI that he so generously gives from his ‘fool’s paradise’.
I read this article with amusement and the first visual and thoughts that came to mind when you describe these colonials was ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’. Make no mistake, I think Charlie rather fancies Fletcher Christian, the rebel and is leading the rebellion against common sense. Alas, no Tahitian beauties for him rather a Fijian beauty instead.
He got one thing right. Despite any misgivings about her, Ms Mere Samisoni was there to support any local effort that contributed to lifting up standards in Fiji. This when bigger businesses would look the other way. She was the donor of morning teas for workshops I conducted with Fijian small businesses. A gesture that I will be forever grateful.
Yes, it is important for us all to recognise that there is good in everyone. Hitler, for instance, was very fond of dogs.
You keep nailing it GD.
Malimali’s biggest crime was hiring a mediocre and overweight Tanya Waqanika as her lawyer. The entire legal fraternity knows that Tanya is of limited capabilities . Her big mouth, and her own inflated sense of abilities not withstanding.
Another Malimali crime was paying Tanya astronomical sums from the public purse that even some of our top lawyers do not command. If that is not corruption, I do not know what is.
With a friend like Tanya by her side, Malimali doesn’t need enemies.
Having Tanya as her lawyer shows the poor decision-making ability of Malimali. Tanya claims Justice David Ashton Lewis destroyed Malimali’s career. How silly. Malimali destroyed her own career by, among other things, her misadventure on the beach that fateful night, not to mention her illegal antics as the head of FICAC.
Not only was she illegally appointed at FICAC in the first place, once she got there, she showed the world how unfit she was for the job.
Charlie is an elitist and doesn’t give a shit about Fiji. If he did, he’d have paid more attention to this or even more interest to ensuring that people who work for the family bakery are all making above poverty rates. But why give a f*** about Fijians when you can shout to protect the powerful?
How many women who work for that business have been able to save up for a vacation overseas?
Damn shame isn’t it. Too much yap yap while globe trotting.
The reason white men leave their countries and marry native women in foreign lands is because the women from their own nations don’t bother about them. So those white men use their Just Be White card, mostly in Asia. But in this case, in Fiji.
These men aren’t wanted by their own white women. And since native women in foreign lands were fooled into marrying these men because they were white, and that finally the rejected white men have a life, in return these white men will dedicate their lives to serving the people of their native wives.
It is all about repaying the favour forever for exploiting the native women by all means to satisfy their cravings.
Seti. Even I think that’s a bit rough. 🙂
Well, looking at Charlie, it’s a theory that’s hard to argue against.
Hahahaha! Seti, Graham!
Charlie Charters needs to keep up the energy to feel relevant! Eda mai sara vukivuki vei ira qo!
Olei kuku. Just please stop about your biases and racism on white men and your so beautiful and intelligent Fijian women.
Wow. I suppose my right of reply to this will be deleted like all of the other attempts that I have had made to join your supposed roundtable discussion where a plurality of views, no matter how contrarian to yours, was at least welcome once upon a time.
I even tried to correct one of your readers about why the PIB price-controlling of long loaf doesn’t work which is why it sells our so quickly. But even that, you must have thought, was too hot for your readers [or too complex?!].
You need to really make up your mind if you’re content only to live in an echo chamber of your own views, or if there might be something to be gained by considering other opinions from different perspectives.
In specific terms, I am happy to discuss and debate what I have put out there. Every time I have tried to do this with you, you have deleted my replies. So that gets a bit tiresome.
Ashton-Lewis made Malimali’s lack of qualifications a key part of finding there was an overarching conspiracy: ‘this woman, she is unsuitable for the job. She’s unqualified for the job by dint of her background, and no one trusts her’ – Radio 4CRB/May 29.
This is the central conspiracy that the COI Report advances.
If it’s okay to make Malimali’s qualifications an issue why is not okay to make Ashton-Lewis’ qualifications an issue?
He is NOT entitled to call himself an SC and this is subject to investigation by the Queensland Bar Association, after written clarification from the PNG Bar Association that he was never entitled to call himself SC based on any entitlement or qualification earned in PNG.
Personally I have never been a fan of titles and hierarchies but you know this is not a small matter amongst lawyers. It’s also the means by which legal fees and entitlements are set.
Ashton-Lewis’ SC claim was included on page one of the CV he submitted to be considered to join the Supreme Court.
Along with a claim that he received an award from Queen Elizabeth II [he spells her first name Elisabeth] for service to jurisprudence. This award does not appear in the London Gazette which would be the first port of call for anyone wanting to check. I don’t know how to contact Ashton-Lewis otherwise I would ask him directly what this award was. I wrote to Mason but she has not replied.
He claimed, when joining the Supreme Court and on appointment to the COI, he was an adjunct law professor at the Sunshine Coast University. There is no record of him holding that appointment either in 2023 or now, and a search of the University website shows no hits for his name.
He claimed in his discussions with Radio 4CRB that he was assisted by a King’s Counsel who was 48. Janet Mason has made clear she has never claimed to be a KC and that Ashton-Lewis was wrong. The year of Mason’s birth is 1967 [according to a government website]. This does not make her 48.
He told CJ Salesi Temo during his COI witness testimony that he, Ashton-Lewis, had been ‘a director of public prosecutions for ten years’. This claim can be viewed in the video content uploaded by Forwood which ends with Temo declining to answer questions from Chaudhry because he is a fugitive from Fiji.
This extraordinary claim to have been a DPP does not even appear in the CV that he sent to the JSC. Yet he made it live to the CJ in the middle of the COI.
Even when he’s not talking about the COI Report he has an uncanny ability to cut out completely the part of the story that he doesn’t like. HIs latest ‘The Judge’ interview has him lecturing his audience about Alexander Fleming and the Nobel prize for Medicine in 1945.
‘Again the English say it was Alexander Fleming [who discovered penicillin]. It wasn’t. He had started the process but he couldn’t complete it and it was a young Adelaide doctor doing post-graduate work at, I think it was, Oxford, said ‘Can I have access to your petri dishes please?’ And Fleming in his grace said ‘Yes’. But the Nobel Prize for Medicine was not given to Alexander Fleming in 1945. It was given to Howard Florey and his Hungarian doctor colleague.’
Except of course that Fleming was given a one-third share of the award with Florey and Ernest Chaim [who was German and not Hungarian].
I appreciate how much you have invested in Ashton-Lewis being Obi-Wan Kenobi in the battle you are waging against dark forces. But I cannot think of a judge that I have known who is a less faithful custodian of the facts. And the COI Report hinges, like all judge-led inquiries, on having a faithful custodian of the facts.
I am sorry that this seems too much for you to tolerate. But I was always taught in journalism school not to treat judges, priests, politicians, doctors etc as deities. They deserve to be tested as much as the next man or woman.
The only thing article that you have quoted that I have reservations about is the Radio New Zealand article. The criticisms you make up of me are legitimate based on what RNZ saw fit to scrape from my FB post.
What I actually wrote was a longer piece saying that Fiji should have confidence in her local judicial resources and should have selected someone from here to lead the COI.
I pointed specifically to what I thought was the excellent job done by the Tuilevuka Tribunal. The tribunal judges also had to negotiate their way through a politically charged situation and appear to have done so without obvious favour to one side or the other. Certainly you celebrated the clarity of their decision.
I know you must feel it helps your cause to paint me as some strange blow-in to Fiji. You don’t discourage your cowardly readers from speculating anonymously about my predatory ties to Fiji and her womenfolk.
I am pretty sure that in aggregate I have lived longer in Fiji than you have. I am pretty sure Fiji will be where I die [just not at the moment please]. As well as my brother, nephew and nieces and their family, I also married into an extensive family all of whom are firmly rooted in Fiji.
I could bore you about all the things I was able to achieve at the Fiji Rugby Union which was my last engagement. I would happily put my list up against your list of achievements working for Qorvis, sorry, I meant Bainimarama, and we could let the readers decide whether the Flying Fijians, kaji rugby, the Pacific Islanders team, the return of the Farebrother etc was more nourishing for the common good in Fiji than PER, MIDA, Grace Road, InstaCharge, a constituency-free unrepresentative democracy etc
You have your right of reply, Charlie, though you deliberately avoid answering the questions I posed to you in relation to your campaign on behalf of Wylie Clarke and Graham Leung. The central premise of my article is simply ignored.
Is this the best you can do – another attack on the Judge’s credentials, a recitation of your contribution to Fiji, the usual snide attack on me for my work for the last government and a claim that you have “lived longer than me in Fiji”? You weren’t born in Fiji. Are you a citizen? In any event, I’ve lived longer than you on the planet. Does that give me any more right to “belong”? Crikey.
And it is me who “lives in an echo chamber”? People who disagree with me regularly appear on this website. You make attacks on me on Facebook knowing that I can’t even access them because of the ban on me Lynda Tabuya secured from Meta, let alone respond to them.
No defence of your disgraceful campaign to smear Alexandra Forwood, as if one complainant is responsible for the Ashton-Lewis findings? No more on your disgraceful vendetta against Christopher Pryde, who was completely justified in pursuing your mother-in-law?
All in all, a miserable effort, old chap. 26 paragraphs in which you completely ignore the main points I raise. So here they are again:
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Why was Wylie Clarke silent while an instruction was relayed from the Chief Justice to Francis Puleiwai that no charge she laid would be accepted in any court in Fiji? This was the leader of the nation’s lawyers in private practice not standing up to defy one of the most egregious attacks on the rule of law in Fijian history. An attack not by the usual suspects – politicians – but the Chief Justice himself.
This is not denied by anyone. It is all there in the transcript of what happened – a conversation recorded by the chief FICAC investigator, Kuliniasi Saumi, who lost his job because he recorded it and dared to give evidence at the COI.
What do you say to that, Charlie?
Why did Graham Leung as attorney general tell the Chief Justice that is was OK to proceed with the appointment of Barbara Malimali as commissioner when he knew that she was being actively investigated by FICAC? According to the record, Leung had opposed the appointment at first only to change his mind when he received a communication from a personal friend, Atu Emberson-Bain , complaining about a FICAC raid on the Electoral Commission that led to Barbara Malimali being charged with abuse of office.
Are you seriously defending Graham Leung’s conduct, Charlie? Because this is misconduct on his part that has seen him sacked and would have seen anyone sacked under the circumstances. Because Leung breached a basic tenet of his duty as AG – to provide the Chief Justice with proper advice.
Leung has defended himself by saying “I just signed off on it”, as if that was where his responsibility ended.
Are you seriously defending that, Charlie?
God this clash of the aged whiteys is embarrassing…
Not as embarrassing as the failure of black mainstream media journalists to do the job an aged white man has to do because of their negligence and incompetence.
Good one GD.
The black useless media in Fiji.
I am black and I agree with your opinion.
Graham, I am a citizen but currently without a valid passport because of this Government’s inability to get a functioning passport system in operation. One of the few things I would give Bainimarama credit for was visa-free travel to China for Fiji citizens. Very helpful for someone living in Hong Kong.
I have said my piece about Ashton-Lewis and his fantasy CV which obviously doesn’t alter your view of the man’s ability to be a custodian of the facts in his COI Report.
[I forgot to mention that in his CV for consideration to join the Supreme Court he claimed to have sat on the Fiji Court of Appeal while also serving on the High Court from 1992-1996. A check of PACLII does not show any such record. Maybe there’s an explanation for that, along with the other errata in his CV].
Rather than rehash all of the old points about the COI maybe we can agree that an important thing that is missing, and does not seem to have been released, are the transcripts of the COI.
This will allow us to understand all of the evidence that was taken in and not just what the COI Report chose to accept. As you will know, you can make a heck of a good case by selecting the fifty percent of the evidence that you like.
On Forwood, I am not aware of any disgraceful slurs that I have made against her.
I defend her regularly online but I am not sure she is particularly interested in that or even aware of it. I disagree with her on a lot of things [her inability to accept that MPC was convicted for the Haryana FX being one].
But at least she does all her warrioring in the open and under her name which is more than a lot of the viperous commentators you indulge who still want to hide behind the anonymity of mummy’s skirt.
Also, she has triumphed over an almost impossibly grim start in life thanks to guts and determination, and the role played by Peter Bott. Her affection for and loyalty towards her dad seems a wonderful thing.
But while you write [touchingly] about Lau’s opportunity to set a course for greatness with the accession of the Tui Nayau, she is writing about Roko Ului’s marital status and speculating who he is now trying to bed. I don’t think I have to say anything more than that.
I did a six-part piece on my Facebook page on the central conspiracy that the COI Report alleged – the rush to get Barbara Malimali into position as FICAC Commissioner come what may.
But it just doesn’t make sense.
The two key allegations Forwood made [in emails sent on April 8 and 9 in copied to Francis Puleiwai] were not acted upon by FICAC until August 29 when Forwood dropped a third allegation and asked Puleiwai for an update on her earlier written complaints.
Those were the two complaints that the COI Report said were the strongest. The ‘filtering’ complaint being the stronger of the two, with FICAC planning to interview all the ECF Commissioners as well as Malimali as it was a joint resolution.
If Puleiwai had had her team investigate and charge Malimali at any point from April 8/9 onwards none of this would have happened.
The COI Report is entirely silent on why the April 8 complaint disappeared. The COI Report at least acknowledged that the April 9 was misassigned and kind of lost internally.
How can you build a conspiracy on the assumption that FICAC is going to show such gross dereliction of duty?
Yes, you can go on and on about what Wylie should or should not have done when the Chief Registrar said what he said, and could Graham Leung have acted differently when FICAC said they were investigating Malimali based on a Forwood complaint which the ECF Commissioners said in writing was her usual nonsense … but these are all tiny little subplots that are completely peripheral to Ashton-Lewis’ main conspiracy.
If FICAC had lifted their finger at any point between April 8 and August 29 when they got reacquainted with the Malimali complaints and suddenly decided these were very grave allegations, then none of this could have happened. FICAC would have done their job and everything put to bed one way or another.
What Ashton-Lewis does not consider but sticks out like a sore thumb is there could have been no conspiracy unless FICAC itself was part of the conspiracy because who could believe FICAC’s own response – plainly admitted in the COI Report – could be so Keystone Cops for almost five months.
Charlie, once again you dodge the main issues.
I asked you specific questions in relation to Wylie Clarke and Graham Leung which you again decline to answer, waiting till paragraph 18 to dismiss them as “tiny subplots that a completely ephemeral to Ashton Lewis’ main conspiracy”. What conspiracy? He is a Supreme Court Judge who has heard the evidence in the Malimali affair and has made certain findings.
My beef with you is that you are discrediting the COI not on any sound intellectual basis but in defence of your mates. And that is not acceptable when there has clearly been wrongdoing for which there deserves to be an accounting.
In the case of Leung, there was. He was sacked. But you still saw fit to tackle Jioji Kotobalavu when he correctly stated that Leung deserved it.
I have given you ample opportunity to directly address the questions I raised and you have chosen to reach for a tin of red herrings. Our discussion is therefore at an end.
Re your dual citizenship. Enjoy it while it lasts. Because if the PAP gets what it wants and we revert to the 1997 Constitution, that will be the end of that. So will it be Fijian or British? Your choice, old chap.
Charlie Charters might think he is the best thing since sliced bread the way he goes on about anonymous contributors on this blog
First, go get your own blog with your own rules about real identity requirements. Or feck off. Suit yourself.
Perhaps you do not realise that you live in a free(er) part of the world that does not persecute critical opinion or those simply disagreeing with government policy.
In Fiji, we have a rogue judiciary, rogue chief justice, rogue odpp, rogue finance minister, rogue DPM, rogue prime minister, rogue president, rogue law society and even a rogue media and a compliant police.
These dictatorial, thin-skinned politicians always threaten to sue everyone and the neighbor’s dog for the slightest of perceived slights.
Corruption permeates the entire government and civil service and has never been higher. Even the lowest minions have gone rogue expecting ‘lunch money’ to provide basic public services.
Overt racism is rife, institutionalised, and encouraged from the top of government.
While you have the benefit of “supporting” the current rogues because of your wealth/special influential connections in Fijian society, and living abroad to boot, the ordinary people in Fiji have a very real fear of being “taken to task” by the police and a rogue court system.
We do not live in a free society. Why don’t you address the real problem every day Fijians face, especially the corrupt government.
Anonymous contributions are not by default worthless. There is no reason for you to pay them any attention, let alone be riled up about them.
People wish to remain anonymous for several reasons, such as but not being limited to working in government, the real threat of thuggery, targeted reprisals and possible loss of employment.
Unless one is like the lingam prick in the Fiji Times who endlessly praises this government, everything and anything.
Focus on the message people try to convey, opinions, and viewpoints. Respond to the issues raised and don’t worry so much about identities.
The problem with the Charlies of this world is that they have too many axes to grind. Often with undisclosed agendas. Doing the bidding of friends and relatives and/or espousing bad policies, sidestepping the central issues raised.
Your musings are often needlessly long and pointless. Yet you still are able to demonstrate your arrogance to insult our intelligence thinking that Grubsheet readers aren’t able to comprehend your high minded jibber jabber.
Having a high opinion of yourself does not make you an intellectual expert.
Charlie is so far up his own behind in defending those implicated that he is now pulling issues out from the past to deflect valid criticisms. Typical elitism. Why are you so desperate to protect those who have wronged Fiji?
By the way; if you know there is a high demand then why don’t you bake more white long Loaf? How does it run out before 6am?
If the US Govt instituted PIB controls on, say, the sale of i-Phones and set the price at or below the cost of production.
a) how many i-Phones would you expect Apple to put out every day for sale when they were, at best, covering their own cost?
b) when Apple put those i-Phones on sale how quickly would they sell out?
c) what incentive would Apple have to replace the i-Phones that had sold out each morning?
As a general rule, when governments around the world get involved in manipulating pricing for political reasons, it’s the customer that ends up paying on the supply side.
Oh don’t bring USA into this. Your greed doesn’t need to be deflected onto other things. Its funny how an elitist like you is comparing iPhones to bread. Literal bread, man. How greedy are you? No wonder you are such a staunch defender of those who have wronged Fiji as per the COI. Elitist bunch need to stick together.
You profit on the backs of women who’ll never be able to afford a luxurious holiday. Also screwing them into limiting access to cheap and affordable bread. People like you should stand up, look in the mirror and think thrice before commenting on national issues, especially when none of the workers in your bakeries are ever going to live above the poverty line. But we all know your pockets are lined up and you love to travel the world. Where are you responding from today? Or back in Fiji already.
Isa, good ole’ Charlie sounds like a nice chap, if a bit needy (and nerdy) in how he has gone out of his way to bat for Wylie ‘Coyote’ Clarke and Grahame ‘Suave’, while they have largely maintained their silence.
Charlie in his desperation for their friendship and approval took it upon himself to become their knight in shining armor, making a spectacle of himself in the process. He needs to take a chill pill. And a chilled beer! As well as a bowl of grog!
Too much valuable oxygen misspent in the Charlie and Graham bun fight. The facts speak for themselves and EWMWEENWMILF with cross bows have figured heavily as key determiners of our history from Cannibal Islands to FTWTWSB …GD go figure these acronyms from our acronym mad isles. Perhaps a healthier pursuit than trying to know sense in CEECEE
I confronted Charlie Charters because of his campaign to denigrate and discredit a lawfully constituted Supreme Court Inquiry that has uncovered unprecedented wrongdoing at the highest levels and instead of being acted upon, is being largely suppressed.
It is not “oxygen misspent” but IDOPATROL – an important defence of principle and the rule of law.
Charlie Charters displays the logic of a primitive from England.
He absolutely does. A whimsical approach to appeasing those in power who he knows. I guess it’s if you scratch my back, it means I’ll scratch yours? Even if the person being scratched doesn’t abide by the law or interferes with it.
I freaking finally found out who the heck this Charlie C is! Like bro! You are a total waste of good elite entitlement in Fiji. Move on and send your another white brother in to save us in Fiji.
Hurry up. We are need a Charlie D, E, F or Charlie D D (Cici).
Deviating slightly from the topic under discussion, may I comment something on the long loaf shortage that Mr Charters mentioned. The fact is a lot of bakers do not bake the ordinary long loaf these days because it is under price control (99c). Thats why there is always a shortage. Instead they bake a so called “whole meal” long loaf ( with a bit of coloring) and sell it at inflated prices. It will be interesting to find out if our wholemeal breads are really made of wholemeal !!!
Charlie Charters’ actions represent a serious attack on the principles that uphold a fair and just society. By leading a campaign to suppress and discredit a lawfully established Commission of Inquiry—one that uncovered significant wrongdoing at the highest levels—Charters undermines not just the inquiry itself but the very foundations of accountability and trust in public institutions.
In any healthy democracy, the rule of law means that everyone, regardless of status or power, must be held equally accountable under clear and fair laws.
When someone seeks to silence or discredit a legitimate investigation, they threaten this fundamental principle. Such suppression damages public confidence and discourages citizens from engaging in the civic responsibilities necessary to maintain a just society.
Good citizenship requires more than passive acceptance of laws; it demands active participation, respect for truth, and a commitment to the common good. Citizens and leaders alike have a responsibility to protect institutions that ensure transparency and fairness. By attacking the inquiry, Charters not only disregards this responsibility but also promotes division and mistrust, weakening the social fabric that binds communities together.
Ultimately, defending lawful processes and exposing wrongdoing are acts of civic virtue—demonstrations of commitment to justice, fairness, and the collective welfare. Charters’ campaign runs counter to these values, prioritizing personal or political interests over the health and integrity of democratic governance. This approach threatens to erode the rule of law and the shared sense of responsibility that sustains a free and fair society.
Very well said. If we ignore or discredit this COI report which sets a precedence, what will happen to all future such investigations and findings?
Precedence is a very powerful thing in law. And if we lets these imbeciles in government and the likes of Charlie Charters put their personal prejudices above a legally constituted commission than all will be lost.
We must not let this happen and this must not be allowed to happen at any cost. If this government chooses to ignore the findings of the COI than we will just have to wait for the next government to take action based on this report.
These people must not be allowed to get away with it. They will be looking over their shoulder until justice is served.
Well said, Lorraine. Couldn’t agree more. Vinaka.