Australia and the South Pacific nuclear free zone treaty: a reinterpretation

A number of analysts have identified the 1986 South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone (SPNFZ) Treaty as one of Australia's major achievements in the area of arms control diplomacy. This article challenges the orthodox view in the secondary literature that Australia's pursuit of a SPNFZ Treaty was motivated exclusively by a desire to protect the nuclear dimension of its alliance relationship with the United States from more ‘radical’ proposals in the region. Drawing on previously unreleased documents made available to the author by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade under the Commonwealth's Freedom of Information Act, this article argues that the Hawke government's pursuit of a nuclear‐free zone in the South Pacific was motivated primarily by what it perceived as an opportunity to promote Australia's image as an activist middle power committed to bolstering the coherence of the global non‐proliferation regime.     

France in the South Pacific: power and politics

Two Worlds. First Meetings Between Maori and Europeans 1642–1772. By Anne Salmond. Auckland, Viking, 1991. 476 pp, illus., maps, appendix, refs, bibliog., index. $NZ69.95. ISBN 0–670–83298–7.

Island Kingdom: Tonga Ancient and Modern. By Ian Campbell. Christchurch, New Zealand, Canterbury University Press. 274 pp, bibliog., maps, illus., appendixes, glossary.

Mararoko: A Study in Melanesian Religion. By Mary MacDonald. New York, Peter Lang, 1991. 591 pp.

The City and County of Honolulu: a Governmental Chronicle. By Donald D. Johnson assisted by Phyllis Turnbull. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press and City Council of the City &; County of Honolulu, 1991. viii, 462 pp, tables, notes, bibliog., index. ISBN 0–8248–1344–8. $US35.

Marquesan Societies: Inequality and Political Transformation in Eastern Polynesia. By Nicholas Thomas. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1990. xvi, 256 pp, gloss., illus., maps, append. $A75.

Micronesia: Decolonization and U.S. Military Interests in the Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands. By Gary Smith. Canberra, Australian National University, Peace Studies Centre, 1991. 131 pp. $A12.

Decentralisation in a developing country: The experience of Papua New Guinea and its health service. Edited by Jane A. Thomason, William C. Newbrander and Riita‐Liisa Kolehmainen‐Aitken. Canberra, National Centre for Development Studies, R.S.Pac.S., Australian National University, 1991. x, 162 pp, figs, tables, map, refs, index. $A25.     

Grammars of the South Pacific

Vanuatu is fertile ground for linguists. Six recent grammars of languages from that country's rich heritage document Austronesian linguistic structures. They also disclose current institutional support for grammar writing for documentary and comparative purposes, as well as local community and national interests that shape grammar production. These grammars, and the now increasingly digitalized and archived data upon which they draw, are models for what is likely to be a final burst of salvage linguistics in the 21st century as many of the world's smaller, unwritten vernaculars lose speakers to other encroaching languages, both local and global.     

Tom's Tambu House: Spacing,Status and Sacredness in South Malakula,Vanuatu

This paper is based on video footage I filmed in South Malakula in April 1996. It explores the case of Tom Moses, a man who claims to speak with God. He has constructed a house on the outskirts of Milip village which he has declared tambu, or taboo/sacred. Around it he envisions a new living space, following directions given to him from God. I argue that Tom's enterprise can be understood in terms of a spacing—status—sacredness nexus. This nexus is grounded in a pre-Christian Malakulan sociality revolving around men's houses, ancestral worship and grade-taking rituals. This takes place with a lived Christianity which in many contexts is expressed as a departure from kastom. As such, I argue that this ‘spatial’ analysis can help us understand dimensions of local human relationships which purely discursive analyses sometimes eclipse.     

A new theropod dinosaur from South Australia

The Oligocene vegetation at Pioneer was closed temperate rainforest dominated by Nothofagus johnstonii Hill, which probably produced N. menziesii-type pollen. However, other angiosperms (Quintinia, Cupaniae, Ilex, Cunoniaceae, Myrtaceae, Proteaceae and Winteraceae) were also present, as well as several conifers (Athrotaxis, Phyllocladus, Podocarpus, Dacrydium, Dacrycarpus and Araucariaceae). This rainforest was floristically more complex that the modern Tasmanian Nothofagus cunninghamii rainforests but contained many taxonomically related elements. One major difference was that a fern similar to extant Cyathea filled the riparian niche now largely occupied by the tree-fern Dicksonia antarctica. There is indirect evidence that species producing Nothofagus brassii-type pollen may have occurred upstream of the site of deposition, suggesting that the Nothofagus species were altitudinally zoned or edaphically restricted. The current absence of many of these Nothofagus species in Tasmania may be due to their inability to survive the low temperatures of the Quaternary glaciations. The high degree of similarity of the Pioneer palynoflora to that recorded in Oligocene sediments in onshore (Partridge, 1971) and offshore (Stover &; Partridge, 1973; Stover &; Evans, 1973) Gippsland Basin strongly suggests that there was little regional differentation in southeastern Australia at that time.