There’s nothing like free publicity and I got it in spades today from the Fiji Sun, which is clearly stung by my criticism of it for completely ignoring the Taiwanese government’s account of the attack by two Chinese diplomats on one of its representatives in Suva and running only the improbable Chinese Embassy account.
The Sun dedicates the whole of page 2 to me, which is rather odd when the main premise of the article is to dismiss me as irrelevant. Nemani Delaibatiki – who I’ve cast as the Attorney General’s manservant – does all the usual propaganda tricks, including half truths, selective facts and casting me as Australian to marginalise my local relevance when I am a Fiji-born Fijian. The white-haired Sage of Rewa is actually a New Zealand citizen who spent many years working in the NZ media. So this is just one of a number of instances in the article in which boulders are hurled from the glass house of the Beijing Sun headquarters in Gorrie Street.
Nemani Delaibatiki has no ethical compunction in publishing a photo of me from my private Facebook account – which he has access to as a “friend” – deliberately trying to portray me in an unflattering light. It shows me drinking wine at my home with the clear intention of reinforcing the depiction of me by my critics over the years as a drunken rake. Yet I am clearly enjoying myself and the photo gives the lie to Nemani’s contention that “Davis is a bitter man sitting alone and unnoticed in Sydney after his life on the expatriate gravy train ended”. Yes, I am sitting alone in the photo he chose from my private Facebook account but it is not a selfie and the grin on my face and the tidal height of my glass doesn’t exactly scream bitterness.
It is not worth canvassing all of the personal observations in the article ( “flying business class” is a pejorative?) but I take grave exception to my depiction as “anti-Chinese”, which is defamatory and totally without foundation. My quarrel is with the Chinese Communist Party, not the Chinese people, and this is an ugly smear for which Nemani Delaibatiki has no evidence whatsoever. Unlike the Fiji Sun, I sided with the Taiwanese democrats against the dictatorship in Beijing but I am categorically not “anti-Chinese”.
The notion he advances that I am “not widely experienced in the Pacific islands” is similarly risible. In my four decades in journalism, I have reported much more widely in the region than the Rewa Sage. This includes multiple stories from Papua New Guinea (including the Bougainville civil war), Vanuatu, Hawaii, the independence struggle in New Caledonia and most of the momentous events in Fiji over the years, even before the coups of 1987, plus multiple stories and interviews with Frank Bainimarama, Sitiveni Rabuka, Mahendra Chaudhry, Timoci Bavadra and all manner of other Fijians. I have also interviewed most of the leaders of his adopted Kiwi homeland, beginning with Norman Kirk in the 1970s. And of course, I know so little about the Pacific Islands that I was actually promoted as a Fiji Sun columnist for several years when the paper republished my Grubsheet pieces and regularly put my beatific countenance on its front-page banner to sell the paper.
Aside from Nemani’s personal hatchet job, the Fiji Sun also rehashes the Prime Ministers ill-tempered denunciation of me from last month with the clear intention of portraying it as new. It doesn’t carry the date the PM delivered the statement, written for him by Qorvis and the AG. Yet repeating it is clearly designed to drag the Prime Minister into the Fiji Sun’s little pantomime to give it some semblance of credibility when it has none. Wheeling the PM out has all the hallmarks of the AG, who routinely used the PM’s mana to add lustre to almost anything when I worked for him.
Let’s get this right, Delaibatiki: My quarrel isn’t with the Prime Minister, who I have repeatedly said is the best person to unite the country. All along, I have made it clear that I am siding with the Military Council and a significant proportion of the cabinet in pressing for the reform of the FijiFirst government, including the removal of the AG, to make it more competitive and avert defeat for Frank Bainimarama at the next election in 2022. He almost lost in 2018 and those pressing for reform are convinced he has no chance of winning in 2022 with the AG still in place. So that’s the agenda and sooling the PM onto me when I am actually working to protect his position benefits Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, not Frank Bainimarama.
Among the most risible of Nemani Delaibakiti’s claims is that the AG doesn’t control the Fiji Sun. He may not control the business side of the paper but he controls its editorial content, telling it what stories to run and where to place them and what stories not to run. And no amount of dissembling and spin from the Rewa Sage can alter that fact. I am willing to attest to this under oath at any official inquiry and you can bet Nemani Delaibatiki won’t be doing the same.
But when will the Sun and its patron, the Attorney General, ever learn? You don’t publicly elevate your critics, and especially when you are trying to cast them as irrelevant. That was the basis of my advice to the Fiji Sun several years ago to stop attacking the Suva lawyer, Richard Naidu – an incident Nemani Delaibatiki raises in his attack on me. I gave that advice informally as part of my professional duties at the time and it is advice the Fiji Sun would have done well to heed about a lot of its targets, long after the “bitter Australian” had gone.
Far from being bitter, I am, in fact, deeply grateful to the Fiji Sun and Nemani Delaibatiki for devoting the whole of Page 2 in the Fiji Sun today to make the point that I am allegedly irrelevant. Because it has underlined the fact that as a source of information and venue for discussion, Grubsheet is arguably more relevant to the national debate than ever before. In the past 48 hours, more than 12,000 people have accessed the articles that have irked Delaibatiki and his patrons – as well as all of Grubsheet’s other coverage – and like the Prime Minister’s attack before it, it doesn’t get any better when comes to marketing a nascent website.
I am bound to get another big readership spike after all this publicity. And when Fiji Sun readers are pointed in the direction of Grubsheet, they will learn of the one truly significant thing about this whole episode that the Sun doesn’t mention at all in its Page 2 photo spread of me – that they corruptly suppressed a major story of global significance because of their business relationship with the Chinese Government. It’s called an own goal. Vinaka.
Keep fighting mate… someone has to when all have become corrupt and greedy.
Vinaka Graham. Keep up the good work.
I see ive missed too much! All this raises a few questions to me about Fiji Sun, and it’s fixation of certain individuals of note, and these continue to be the same people Fiji Sun either attacks on the regular or in some cases ignores completely.
Fiji Sun is obviously beholden to ASK.. but i want to pick your brains further on a related issue… why do you think ASK is obviously obsessed with Biman Prasad? This whole NFP donation saga is not an isolated thing. Even before the SOE Saneem came into the picture, ASK had mentioned NFP donation list in the last sitting of parliament in September. Every speech he makes in parliament seems to contain a direct or an indirect jab at the NFP Leader.
He often goes to the extent of blaming the Professor for the actions of Rabuka in 1987… so what gives?
And not surprisingly, you would know how much he fans many of the notable academics in Fiji.. so far so that the Fijian government made Tessa Price, an outsider and non-career academic the VICE CHANCELLOR of FNU for a while this year when Prof. Nigel Healey left unexpectedly and abruptly. This begs the question why Nigel left in the middle of the so many projects FNU had become engaged in under his watch? No sane manager does that… unless they really dont believe in their projects anymore??
You would also be well versed with how Prof. Brij Lal, Dr. Padma Lal, Prof. Wadan Narsey, Dr. Ganesh Chand, Dr Sunil at USP and Prof. Yash Ghai, and more recently Prof. Eddie McCaig and Prof. Joji Malani have been treated by the Fiji First government and regime. They even had another Dr. Brij Lal in their lineup, who was axed, as was Dr. Neil Sharma. The only 2 that seem to be surviving are Drs. Mahendra Reddy and Ifereimi Waqa (notwithstanding the fact Mahendra Reddy probably wouldnt even know an ethical dilemma he was smack in the middle of one :’D).
It would be unthinkable for a non-PhD to be holding the top academic spot at any Aussie institute.
Actually, this doesnt just stop at Drs., but also extends to people like Richard Naidu, Shamima Ali, Imrana Jalal, and a plethora of others who are at the top of their game and could easily teach a university level course in their fields.
If it were a few people, it would be understandable, but it’s not just a few people. I imagine its some complex he seems to have developed over the years, but im still keen to hear from you. Is it just that he cant work with any other person who has different views from him? But isnt that the cornerstone for how good things come about anyway? Arent dissenting views the catalyst of innovation and the path to reaching best solutions to pertinent problems?
Nemani has what we in Fiji refer to as the ‘RB syndrome’
Rewa Bullcrap indeed, he’s already become an insult to the delta people.
He has his NZ passport in his napsack.
As soon as the shit hits the fan he (and many other syncophants of the Fiji First) will be on the first plane out of Fiji.
Rats are always first to desert a sinking ship.
Great one Graham.
I’ve missed reading several issues of Grubsheet but I certainly enjoyed this one.
Vinaka Graham Davis, keep it coming..
You’re doing very well so far GD, and I don’t expect you to stop anytime soon unless it’s on your own terms. Hitting a nerve with the “Pro-government Sun” that’s no different from the Communist Party’s “People’s Daily” just proves your point where the opposite effect is happening where you’re more credible instead of Nemani’s vain attempt at shaming you.
Playing the same old annoying tune in a paper useful for suki tobacco that it’s not even a good fish wrapper, most people except blinded FFP supporters are tired of it.
The Fiji Snub may have just compelled curious readers to check out grubby itself, especially with the amount of flawed arguments that grandpa Nemani is putting out.
Vinaka Ben Trader,
Many great points, as with others in the forum.
We have lost our way, no pride – the old saying, the way the world should be !
Their is more spitting and rubbish on the streets in Fiji than ever before, our leaders can not fix the most simplest of problems, the very basics of any developing nation, but we want to be like Singapore !
I recently visited the Sigatoka Agriculture research station, that is what the sign reads……what an absolute shambles, an embarrassment, like the others I’ve been to over recent times, Seqaqa, another up in the hills past ACS, another out past Nausori town, towards Tailevu, these are merely settlements where many have made it home, probably a generation or two, no doubt a few exceptions. These sponsored stations, paid for by the tax payer, are dirty, dusty & derelict ….I doubt the Minister for Economy has ever visited such outposts, where he allocates many dollars, year in year out, yet I now see he suggesting school leavers should take up farming.
I could go on……but simply, we have lost our way, and lack much needed pride to get Fiji to anywhere near it was or could be.
While we have some down time, ie due to the dreaded Covid Virus , could the two jockeys at the top roll their sleeves up and encourage a clean up of the streets, teach the kids (and not only kids) how not to throw rubbish out the bus windows for one, and the spitting on the streets……why do the same people spit on the streets of Fiji, but dare not when visiting the likes of New Zealand and Australia ? Simple stuff, why ?
Our current leaders, have no idea how far they’ve mislead the Country, they fear losing, the power and glory they revel in, they couldn’t run a relay where you pass a baton from one to the next, team stuff, but preach the reasons everyone should. They’ve simply run out of money to please the people, from the outrageous spending spree they’ve been on, imagine if it was their own business they were running, like most of us, they’d be bankrupt, simple.
Khaiyum, totally lacks any sort of leadership skills required to lead, Frank merely trying to hold a straight face in these times.
Never heard another word from Charlie Charters, and an alternative way forward.
How can we get a word to the Fiji Times, the only paper I read, to engage a decent cartoonist, a little humor in these times, Fiji Times.
Vinaka Graham Davis
Fiji Sun and Grunsheet have one thing in common. Nobody reads either
Nemani Delaibatiki is worse than the village aunties peddling and dealing in gossip.
You just know these are the sort of people you dont want the misfortune of ever coming across, let alone having to work with.
But then again, I guess birds of a feather flock together. lol.