Regenvanu calls for more 'independent' Pacific (PMC)

Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu's recently-appointed Minister of Lands, Geology, Mines, Energy and Water, is a self-confessed "notorious critic" of free trade and foreign ownership. He wants to see Pacific nations become more independent of Australian and New Zealand influence.

"One of my priorities is to reform land law to really enshrine customary tenure over land," Regenvanu recently told Pacific Scoop.

"New Zealand, Australia and the World Bank are saying that we need to get away from that, but I totally disagree. We need to enshrine it so that cultural land-owning groups or land-stewarding groups never lose control of the resource -- because in the Pacific land is our only resource, people and land."

Reporter: Michael Sergel of AUT University's School of Communication Studies at the Pacific Parliamentary and Politics Forum (18-22 April 2013) for the Pacific Media Centre (PMC).

Linked story: http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2013/04/va...