Love Fiji, albeit they fined me $A200 for a few pieces of fruit in bag I forgot to take out having been to state of origin night before, which …… me right off.

I am booked to go there June, and hope travel circumstances change.

Sure, but only if we have offshore, mandated island quarantine in place! we want to fix it not f--k it?
Alan B.

Perhaps Ozzies should spend their money on helping our own devastated tourist industries.

As for more aid, we would do much better cutting all these attempts to buy friendship, it never has reached the majority of people in the islands, who are totally unaware of it, & spend it on our defense force equipment & personnel. That would have much more success in countering China's aggressive behavior than the friendship of millions of "Fuzzy-Wuzzy".

Have the Pacific Islands offered to take in refugees ? They could probably get paid to do so.

Ofcourse not individual, they are fat too smart to fall for that one.

I have close contact with friends and "family" in Fiji. Their situation isn't good, most of those that were employed in tourism have not had work since about March 2020. One good mate a Fijian/Indian has a very modest 2 bed home, he's been able to forestall his mortgage payments, but the bank has now been wanting him to start to repay. My mate has a legitimate taxi, but with tourism at zero he's had a problem with his car loan. The wife and I help out as much as we can, and he's been delivering aid parcels to villages through an Australian based charity organisation we are all a part of. The aid parcels of staples have been helping our "family" to survive. Two recent cyclones did a fair bit of damage as well, the fist one hit parts of the second island, Vanua Levu, hard and the next hit in our area around Sigatoka, did some damage but low lying flooding was the big problem, then clean drinking water and sickness from stagnant pools was hard to control. My friend doesn't want charity, he would like to see, as would I, a vaccination program and a travel bubble established so they can get back to work.

I don't know how to answer you Hasbeen, your assertions are totally wrong. Australian aid is vital in a multitude of areas. As for spending it on worthless old warmongers, as you suggest, now that is a waste!