AUSTRALIA: FUNDING AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY TO SUPPORT ELECTIONS

June 11, 2007


Australia has funding available immediately to support Fiji’s Bureau of Statistics with the presentation of census data, Australian High Commissioner James Batley said today. According to the report of the Independent Technical Assessment Team released last week, such support would enable elections to be held by November 2008.

Mr Batley said he had written to the head of the Prime Minister’s Office to confirm this offer of support.

Mr Batley said Australia welcomed the report of the Independent Assessment Team and looked forward to the response from the interim government to the report. “The report is an objective and politically-neutral analysis, by professional experts, of the steps needed to hold elections in Fiji” Mr Batley said.

He noted that the membership of the Independent Assessment Team, and its terms of reference, had been endorsed by Fiji along with all other members of the Fiji/Forum Working Group. He added that former Electoral and Boundaries Commissioner, Barrie Sweetman, was appointed co-leader of the Team in accordance with a request of the interim government.

Mr Batley said “it is widely acknowledged that elections won’t solve all of Fiji’s problems, but they are a necessary pre-requisite for building a sustainable and prosperous future for all the people of Fiji”. Mr Batley acknowledged the importance of public confidence in the integrity of the electoral process and said that international support could be one key way of ensuring this.



(ENDS)