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Dame Meg Taylor ends time as Secretary General of Forum

Akaiti Puna the latest MP in Cooks parliament

Akaiti Puna last week won the Manihiki byelection, bolstering the ruling coalition s majority. Akaiti Puna (left) with husband Henry Puna and former US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in the Cook Islands, 2012. Photo: Ola Thorsen With 82 votes, Puna beat Munokoa Maraeara of the Democratic Party with 32 votes and Temu Okotai from Independent who won five votes. Puna s win restores the Cook Islands Party coalition government s majority of 13 to 11 seats in the 24-member Parliament. Prime Minister Mark Brown has congratulated Mrs Puna, saying he s looking forward to her participation in the government. Brown said that Puna s win has shown that Manihiki has spoken loudly that she, and the government, have the support of a clear majority of the population of the island.

Opinion: Forum s moral failure for Melanesians

During the recent crisis over the appointment of Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat s new Secretary General (former Cook Islands Prime Minister Henry Puna), much public debate occurred over the supposed gentlemen s agreement to share the leadership between Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia. There was little debate about the great regional challenges that actually face and defined Forum s leadership. Once upon a time, the stopping of French nuclear tests in the Pacific, was such an issue that united all Pacific countries. Economic integration in the Pacific via the Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA) and the Pacific Agreement of Closer Economic Relations (PACER) then took center stage.  But this issue has dwindled away as fairly empty agreements led by Australia and NZ were signed by all the countries, except the two largest (PNG and Fiji) who really needed to be part of the agreement to make it meaningful.

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