Fiji attorney-general urges Australian Government to lift travel restrictions

ELEANOR HALL: Fiji's Attorney-General is keeping up the pressure on the Australian Government to officially lift travel restrictions. During a visit to Fiji last week, Australia's Foreign Minister said there had been a significant easing of the restrictions on government officials.

But Fiji wants the Federal Government to lift the ban completely, calling it "economic sabotage".

From Suva, New Zealand correspondent Dominique Schwartz reports.

DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ: Mr Sayed-Khaiyum is one of the interim government's most influential figures. He's also one of the government ministers and officials for whom Australia's official travel bans have been waived - in his case, on humanitarian grounds so that he could travel to Australia to seek medical treatment for his young son.

While he appreciated that opportunity, he says it's not enough for Australia to decide such matters on a case by case basis.

AIYAZ SAYED-KHAIYUM: I called it an abomination in the sense that, how can you, in this globalised world, have that type of travel ban placed on individuals who are completely apolitical, who have nothing to do, for example, with the events of 5 December 06.

DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ: But if you take away...

AIYAZ SAYED-KHAIYUM: It was a form of, what we believe, a form of economic sabotage. Why would you want to deprive a country from not being able to access the best brains that's available to help run the country? Or to help sit on various state-owned enterprises?

DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ: Has that now effectively changed, because Ms Bishop says since the Coalition has been in Government, they've approved the visas of more than 50 people, and the only one that was rejected was on technical grounds.

AIYAZ SAYED-KHAIYUM: Look, there are still some people who are reluctant to come on board because of the fact there's been no general announcement made. So people don't want to necessarily go through the throes of, you know, we'll deal with each on a case by case basis, and they do not necessarily understand the extent of the travel ban.

DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ: So you're saying it then prevents people taking us positions with the government because they're fearful they will have restricted movement?

AIYAZ SAYED-KHAIYUM: Absolutely. And these are not people, you know, who are political people; these are apolitical people who are professionals who want contribute to their country.

DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ: Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says the travel bans have been under review. She expects to get a report this week and any change of policy would be taken to Cabinet.

While in Fiji, Ms Bishop unveiled a plan of measures to normalize bilateral relations, which broke down after Commodore Frank Bainimarama seized power in the 2006 military coup.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum says that while relations now are more cordial the devil will be in the detail - right down to how Fiji is treated over its discovery of a giant African snail - a pest - bound for Australia.

AIYAZ SAYED-KHAIYUM: Fiji is not a GAS country - GAS in the sense meaning giant African snail country. We don't have giant African snail. But because Fiji uses a trans-shipment port, Suva in particular, we for example sometime back identified a giant African snail that was on its way from Vanuatu via Suva to Australia, and we identified that, and we said, look, we've killed the snail for you, but just to let you know, it was on its way from Vanuatu to you.

We've now been listed as a GAS country! We're not a GAS country.

So it's... the Australian bureaucracy, or whether there's some political intervention in it, they still continue to list us as a GAS country. So what it means is that it has a huge import upon our exports to Australia; we have to go through, you know, jump through certain loops which we're not supposed to because we're not a GAS country.

So those are the types of issues I raised with her. For example, even our double taxation agreement - we had a tax pairing system that expired back in 1995, there's been no movement on that. The withholding tax dividend has been charged on Australians who do business here is a lot higher than Australians actually charge Australians doing business in other, bigger economies.

DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ: The ball, he says, is in Australia's court. In Suva this is Dominique Schwartz for The World Today.