This document is the briefing paper for the Australian ministerial delegation to the South Pacific Forum Economic Ministers Meeting (FEMM) held at Cairns in July 1997. It was discovered by the media amidst a pile of other misplaced miscellaneous papers at the meeting. The pessimistic assessment of economic and political trends in the Pacific Island States and the often disparaging portraits of the leaders of these countries caused scandal, embarrassment and controversy in Australia and throughout the Pacific region when these details became public. The report covers economic dilemmas in the Pacific, fiscal responsibility, resource management, public sector reform, health services and governance issues for each particular country and for the region as a whole. The backgrounds, beliefs and personal habits of Pacific leaders and finance ministers are also presented in a series of controversial character assessments. These were considered offensive and insensitive by many political and official commentators, along with some of the leaders themselves.

Section 1, Overview.p.1
Section 2, Program. p.9
Section 3, Draft Annotated Agenda. p.11
Section 4, Agenda items: Ministerial Dinnerp.,p.19
Opening Formalities,p.21
Session 1 Reform Processes,p.23
Session 2 Institutional Reform,p.25
Session 3 Investment Policy,p.29
Session 4 Tariff Policy,p.31
Session 5 Multilateral Trade Policy, p.33
Section 5, Forum Island Countries: Economic & Social Scorecard.p.35
Section 6, Aid to Forum Island Countries.p.38
Section 7, Map of South Pacific Forum Countries.p. 39
Section 8, South Pacific: Political Economy.p.41
Section 9, Individual Country Briefing:
Cook Islands,p.43
Fiji,p.45
Kiribati,p.49
Micronesia (Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Palau),p.53
Nauru,p.59
New Zealand,p.63
Niue,p.67
Papua New Guinea,p.69
Samoa,p.73
Solomon Islands,p.77
Tonga,p.81
Tuvalu,p.85
Vanuatu.p.87
Section 10, List of Ministers.p. 91
Section 11, Australian Delegation List.p.92
Section 12, Office Facilities.p.93

Lacks reports for the years 1964 and 1968. A document entitled '25 Years of A.S.O.P.A.' appears at the end of the film

Samuel Greatheed (d.1823) was one of the founders of the London Missionary Society. This work, written under the pen-name Nausistratus, was published as a series of articles in the Sailor's Magazine and Naval Miscellany, London, 1820-21, Vol.1, p. 402-6 and 449-56, and Vol.2, p. 1-8. It deals with the Bounty mutiny and its aftermath.

The work is based on printed sources, the then-unpublished journal of James Morrison of the Bounty, and verbal communications from an officer of HMS Pandora, which was sent to the Pacific to find and arrest the Bounty mutineers. It includes a number of details not published elsewhere. For a brief account of Greatheed's interest in Bounty matters, see Rolf Du Rietz's Note sur l'Histoire des Manuscrits de James Morrison in Journal de James Morrison, Paris, 1966.

Richard Branscombe Chave, was born in 1849, probably in England. He was manager of the guano diggings on Starbuck Island (part of the central Line islands of Kiribati) in 1871, when the island was under lease from the British Government to Holder Bros. of London. Subsequently, Chave appears to have returned to his profession as a sailor.

In 1871, Chave, then 22, was in charge of a guano team of three Europeans and 50 Rarotongans working on Starbuck Island. When provisions began to run low, and there was no sign of a brig which was to bring replenishments, Chave and three Rarotongans set off in a large boat to try to reach Malden Island, 120 miles away, which was being worked for guano by a Melbourne company. After becoming lost and surviving a capsize, the party reached Penrhyn Island, several hundred miles in the opposite direction. Later, Chave and a Penrhyn Islander tried to sail back to Starbuck Island, but again Chave became lost and he and his companion finally drifted to an uninhabited island, which proved to be Suwarrow Atoll, where they lived for two years before being rescued. Chave's narrative gives a vivid account of his adventures up to a point where he and his companion had been on Suwarrow for about nine months. For further details, see the Bureau's newsletter Pambu, Nov. 1968:4, pp.5-9 and Jan. 1969:6, pp.6-9.

Sister Margaret, daughter of the headmaster of Clifton College, an Anglican college in Bristol, was born in 1887. She was educated at St Andrews in Scotland; at a school run by Mrs Leonard Huxley at Priors Field, Godalming; and at Cambridge University. After a period of uncertainty, Sister Margaret became an Anglican nun. She taught at a school in South Africa for seven years and was later a novice mistress in India. In 1929 she went to the Solomon Islands as a teaching sister for the Melanesian Mission. In 1942 she transferred to the Melanesian Mission school at Torgil, Aoba Island, New Hebrides (Amber, Vanuatu). After furlough in England in 1948, Sister Margaret became a member of the Roman Catholic Church and served a further term in the Solomon Islands. In 1966 she went to live in New Zealand/Aotearoa.

Ligeremaluoga (c.1890-1972), a New Ireland man, was a leader of the Methodist Church in New Britain and New Ireland.

The material microfilmed comprises the first and probaly the third (and last) volumes of Ligeremaluoga's autobiography. The second volume has apparently been lost. It is in the Kuanua language of New Britain.

The whole work was translated and edited by Miss Ella Collins and published as The Erstwhile Savage (Sydney, 1932). A foreword to the published work states: 'The writer has been quite frank in his disclosure of old native customs - in fact, so frank that some portions of the original have had to be excluded in order to make the book fit for general publication.'

Captain Edward Primrose Tregurtha (1803-1880) was born in Cornwall, UK, and died in Launceston, Tasmania. He went to sea at an early age, and made voyages to the Far East and India. In 1831-33, as master of the whaler Caroline, he made an extensive whaling voyage out of Hobart. His itinerary included Sydney, the Bay of Islands, the Kermadecs, Rotuma, Wallis Island, the Gilberts, Solomon Islands, New Ireland, and the Coral Sea. After a visit to England, Tregurtha returned to Tasmania, whence he traded with neighbouring colonies as owner and master of the Henry. He made voyages to Adelaide in 1837 and took early settlers and sheep to Port Phillip. He later opened a business in Launceston as a general merchant and shipping agent.

The autobiography, which, in many places, appears to have been written up from journals kept at sea, gives a full account of Tregurtha's life from his birth in 1803 until the late 1830's. From then until the year 1852, it is brief and sporadic.

Waller was born on 9 November 1859 in Yorkshire, England. He served as a missionary for the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Hawaii from 1890 until November 1938 when he left for California.

Although described as an autobiography on the title page, this work is actually a history of the Reorganized Church in the Hawaiian Islands, written by Waller. Waller's name figures frequently in the history - in the third person.

Hopkins (1869-1943) served as a missionary with the Melanesian Mission in the Solomon Islands from 1902 to 1925.

The autobiography fills 112 typescript pages.

Sandars, a former officer in the British Army, went to the Solomon Islands in 1928 to join the armed constabulary. He was one of the most important District Officer and District Commissioners on Malaita throughout the 1930s until 1947. He died in NSW in March 1975.

The papers comprise:

1. Autobiography covering the years 1928-43
2. A diary kept from 23 November 1942 - 7 April 1943
3. Autobiography, 1896-1923