It’s always been said in Fiji that the locals will invariably tell you what you want to hear. But the same applies when an outsider tells the locals what they want to hear. So that when an obscure Australian academic constitutional lawyer says the 2013 Constitution must be changed, he is suddenly feted as a national hero by those who want to amend or junk the supreme law.
Since his lecture at the FNU last week attended by a who’s who of the political establishment, Professor Anthony James Regan has been given star billing in the local media when most people in Australia have never heard of him. He has been on the front page of the Fiji Times for two days running saying much the same thing. And this morning’s CFL Fiji Village website gives him the lead story plus a prominent pointer to his forthcoming appearance on “Straight Talk” with Vijay Narayan.
Who is driving all of this coverage? Because it’s not as if there has been a groundswell of national opinion demanding constitutional reform. Is it dominating talanoa sessions around the grog bowl? As in, “Bro that Anthony James Regan. Smart fullah, eh?” No. It is being specifically orchestrated by the Coalition – notably the Attorney General, Graham Leung, and his predecessor, Siromi Turaga – to set the scene and create the conditions to change the Constitution.
Part of this involves wheeling in a tame academic from Australia to lend his voice to their campaign. It’s a striking irony that while many Fijians in these columns and elsewhere say they aren’t interested in anything a white man says, they are intensely interested if a white man says something they agree with and might be useful for their own political purposes. And Anthony James Regan LLB is saying all the right things.
He’s not a front-line constitutional expert in Australia – as Grubsheet reported yesterday – but he is certainly being touted locally as such. But he’ll do. And especially if he can add any credibility at all to the Coalition’s efforts to change the supreme law that every single one of them swore on oath to defend when they took their taxpayer-funded positions.
So how did Professor What’s His Name come to be garnering almost as many column inches in the Fijian media as a successful Rugby Sevens team? He is clearly at the pointy end of a concerted government comms effort that involves persuading the Coalition’s supporters at the Fiji Times and CFL to give him maximum coverage. But where did they find him? Grubsheet has been asking around and here’s an intriguing answer. Anthony James Regan and Graham Leung went to the same university – the University of Adelaide. So guess where all this might have come from?
As I said at the weekend, to his credit, Professor What’s His Name has been saying some positive things about the need to change the Constitution legally. That means 75 per cent of MPs have to back it and 75 per cent of the electorate in a referendum of registered voters. The “Opposition leader who isn’t” – Inia Seruiratu – says he is willing to consider changes that are “in the national interest”. As a former military officer surrounded by other military officers, does that mean junking the provision giving the RFMF overall responsibility for the security and well-being of the Fijian people? We shall see.
More pertinently – because nobody seems to want to talk about it – does it mean junking or altering the equal opportunity provisions of the Constitution – the common and equal citizenry, the common identity and the secular state? Because Inia Seruiratu must know that this would not be in the national interest. Far from it. It would revive all of the tensions and disunity that produced the Bainimarama coup in 2006 in which Seruiratu and his colleagues took part. And could even produce the kind of bloodshed we saw during the George Speight rebellion and mutiny in the RFMF in 2000.
Yet even assuming that 75 per cent of MPs could be persuaded to back constitutional change on the floor of the august House ( pronounced locally like the month we have entered), would 75 per cent of voters back it? You just have to “do the math” – as the Americans say – to realise that isn’t going to happen.
Even assuming that every iTaukei votes for change, that’s only two thirds of the country, not three quarters. And if the current equal opportunity provisions are to be altered to entrench indigenous supremacy, we can expect the minorities to fight this all the way. This would Include a sizeable number of iTaukei who know that it would constitute a tyranny of the majority against their fellow citizens and bring Fiji into disrepute in polite society the world over.
There’s a very worrying element already creeping into this debate that goes way beyond the highfalutin pronouncements of Graham Leung’s tame Professor from Adelaide. In today’s Fiji Times, the paper asks ordinary people about whether the Constitution should be changed. And two of the iTaukei interviewed say the supreme law should be altered to include the “qoliqoli bill” – a principal trigger for Frank Bainimarama’s coup in 2006.
Someone appears to be spreading the story among the grassroots that the Constitution can be changed to allow iTaukei to charge their fellow citizens money for the use of customary fishing grounds and to use beaches and surfing breaks – a nightmare scenario for the tourism industry for starters. A whole ugly can of worms is being prised open that was firmly shut 18 years ago. And that isn’t in the national interest at all.
Anthony James Regan has stumbled into a hornet’s nest with scarce knowledge of the underlying forces at work in Fiji. He is naturally entitled to his own opinion about the 2013 Constitution. But that’s all it is – an opinion that happens to coincide with his hosts – whereas elements of the mainstream media are treating him like some sort of constitutional guru. Moses bearing tablets from the mount.
The Constitution isn’t like the rules of some community social club. It is the nation’s supreme law from which all other laws flow. We have already seen repeated assaults on the Constitution from the likes of the Acting Chief Justice that are very dangerous for our democracy and community respect for the rule of law. Now, the Coalition believes it is entitled to tamper with the supreme law with a democratic mandate of just one vote on the floor of the parliament. Which isn’t a mandate at all.
It is also raising expectations in the vanua that the supreme law can be changed by politicians who just scraped into office to suit just one section of the population – the iTaukei. The Coalition is quite literally playing with fire. Its MPs and officers of state – having sworn before God to uphold the law in its present form – are now traducing it in their public statements and subverting it by actively violating its provisions.
No-one is saying the 2013 Constitution cannot be debated. But while it remains the supreme law, it is critical in the national interest that it be respected. Because it underpins social order in Fiji. And when that goes because the rule of law is no longer respected, we are in all sorts of trouble in every part of national life.
Fiji Times front page on Saturday…
And again on Sunday. Who is orchestrating this?
Worrying talk on the street. And division along racial lines.
A Professor in Australia has an LLB ?
Professors almost always have tons of publications and a PhD or even better an SJD(Doctorate of Juridical Science.)
ANU must have a very low standard of education.
I wonder how much this professor has been paid by the coalition government. I demand they tell us, today. What pisses me off is that Mahendra Chaudhary is sitting in the front row of this bullshit. Doesn’t he realise that he is being used once again and that he will be used, abused and discarded once again.
What do they all want – go back to be racially based Constitution with race based seats and race based voting? Perhaps they want the idiots in the GCC to have the final say and have veto power on everything. Perhaps they want to bring back the qoliqoli provisions so that all the vulagi need to pay to breathe the Fiji air in addition to walking and living on iTaukei land and fish in its waters. You cannot have the vulagi breathing the fresh Fiji air for free, can you? The fact is, the vulagis of this nation are bigger idiots. They were totally oblivious……….until now, after I told them.
An LLB cum Professor talking about consitutions carries more weight than someone with no LLB or Professor to his/her name spouting things he likes to hear as well. No difference there mate. He has creds, you don’t.
You mean you agree with this vulagi Professor? So you agree with selective vulagis, depending on who butters your bread? I always thought that iTaukeis do not need vulagis to tell them what to do but this time everyone seems to be trampling over each other to get on the band wagon. You need to make up your minds whether you know everything or not, because you all seem to suggest that you know everything.
But there is one thing for which there is no doubt, you all have a passion for a vulagi religion. So much passion that in only 150 years you know more than those who have practiced it for 2024 years.
Qualifications or not, everyone is allowed to express an opinion. It’s very different when a government seeks expertise. It is expected they seek highly and appropriately qualified expertise, and usually from more than one source.
Rokete Perfumed Guy. Don’t forget Magistrate Puamau has LLM, LLB and PDLP. This professor has a lower credential than Magistrate Puamau and the current acting CJ.
Thank you for highlighting this…its really sad that they think they can fool the people of Fiji by this C grade theatrics. FNU VC paying back her dues for her appointment.
Also, by the way, now that we have 2 “leaders of opposition”, are both of them entitled to receive the opposition leader’s salary?…Just wondering.
Good question. Does Ioane Naivalurua also get $200,000 a year plus a house like Seruiratu? Anyone know for certain?
Are you the qoliqoli cheer squad or an academic Rokete in the bum ?
Maybe they can start by changing the immunity provisions for the coup perpetrators – start there
Appoint the real legal expert john rabuku to write a new constitution.
It will then be reviewed by cj santa clause (yes, clause). LLB can sign it.
Then we all set eh! Happy daze.
The key is the 75% approval in a referendum of registered voters to make any changes to the 2013 Constitution. This will be near impossible to achieve. Changing the constituion should not be a priority right now when issues like poverty, jobs, employment, drugs menace, crime, water, roads and health services should be taking priority.
Everyone has gotten on the “Change the Constitution” bandwagon. Everyone has forgotten at the same time that changing the constitution will fix none of Fiji’s problems. All the previous Constitutions did not change anything for Fiji or Fijians so why should another change fix anything.
The reality is (because everyone seems to be so engrossed by the BaiYum phenomenon), changing the Constitution will not increase the size of the brains of Fijians nor their politicians. And that is what needs to be changed. Do not forget, Fiji is full of idiots – I told you first!
Anthony Regan is not recognized as constitutional law expert as per ANU website. Only 4 Professors are offered that prestige and Anthony Regan is not there.
It would also be good to write to ANU and explore his professorship status.
https://reporter.anu.edu.au/for-media/experts-guide?expertise=constitutional-law
Yes, very interesting.
The house is on fire and the occupants are arguing what colour the bathroom should be
Qoliqoli (balls balls in hindi). That’s all they talk about when poverty, constitution etc is mentioned. I can already see youths sitting on beaches demanding money.
The biggest disgrace is using paperclip to hold thr constitution together. A sign or disrespect to the written law of Fiji. This is how low these guy’s have scopped. Why wasn’t it binded and given a proper booklet like feature.
Shame shame shame.
Do you know what you are talking about or are you so prejudiced that you are blind?
You need eyes behind you. Are you blind and cannot read what I have stated? Do you see how he is holding the constitution with a bulldog paper clip?
Just get lost Ratu
I agree with the professor what’s his name. The constitution has to be changed. Let’s start with removing immunity for the coup leaders (back to death penalty for treason). Maybe then a referendum to change anything else.
Remember those days 16 years ago when cun@:nt Jon Sami was being paid 1000NZD a day for drafting and consultant on reconciliation and new constitution service to ASK and Bai regime.
Ended up with f.uc#all .
Made hundreds and thousands from Fiji and nowhere to be seen again.
Than after some years blue color note book looking 2013 constitution was waved to people of Fiji,telling them this is the new constitution.
Hopefully we not going to see that again this time.
Make public whoever or whatever will be spent on anyone telling government what is required.
GB Fiji.
Let’s face it the Military has been the biggest beneficiary under this 2014 Constition. We now have a President, Prime Minister, two concurrent Leaders of the Opposition, Chairmab if the GCC and a Minister of Home Affairs all serving ex mikitary officers, and a record budgetary allocation beyond the wildest dreams of the military 20 years ago.
The lads fm Nabua have done quite well for themselves under this Constitution so why would they want to change it?
Few observations from me while watching the presentation on zoom:
1. The said Professor says in his opening remarks that he didn’t have enough time to prepare for his presentation at FNU because as an academic, as he says they are always busy but he managed to do some reading while on the plane to Fiji. What a thing to say in front of the PM and on live! Goes to show his lack of commitment to the invitation.
2. He (Professor) also says that one of the provisions that should be removed is the immunity clause – I had hoped that the camera would focus on Rabuka when the professor said that!
3. I was also wondering why the FNU VC was involved in this and not a faculty or a specific department e.g Department of Law & Education as would be the case in most universities.
4. The government of Fiji has its disposal to arrange for its own constitutional expert and to advise them on changing the constitution. Why did it decide to jump on a university public lecture to make its point to the people of Fiji ? We could all see the bullshit in this process !
5. The Professor said nothing that we already knew! It was a waste of time, big time theatrics and a con job!
6. I could see the PM scribbling away while the Professor was presenting. I totally smell drama because as I have said above all that the professor says we’re nothing new but is common knowledge.
Lastly, the event was a sham! It is iTaukei elites working together – from politicians, special interests, lobbyists and now academia to manipulate the Fijian people.
Why does it all of a sudden feel like we are back in the 1990s?