PETER CAVE: The aid agency Oxfam says Australia and New Zealand need to stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution.It went on...
It estimates that climate change could result in 75 million refugees in the Asia-Pacific region over the next 40 years.
People living in the islands, like the leader of the tiny territory of Tokelau, say they're watching helplessly as climate change ravages their countries.
New Zealand correspondent Kerri Ritchie reports.
KERRI RITCHIE: When the New Zealand Prime Minister John Key visited Samoa this month, the leader of the tiny pacific nation of Tokelau boarded a run-down old boat and travelled for 24 hours so he could speak to him.
Foua Toloa wants New Zealand and Australia to know that his people are in very real danger.
He says climate change is already leaving its ugly mark on his country.
FOUA TOLOA: The forces and the devastation and even the inundation of the land is even worse. You recall, 1914 you have a cyclone, there was a huge cyclone, 1966 and then it lapsed. But the current years it's been "bang" - every year you expect a cyclone
KERRI RITCHIE: Foua Toloa says the rising sea waters are stealing their food.
FOUA TOLOA: Back home it's an atoll, very low. When salt water comes in, you know, it solidifies to the stage that you need so much rain, you know, to dissolve that salt. And it's killing a lot of vegetation, even the town, the swampy town (inaudible), it's effecting. So it takes a lot of time to break before the next cyclone.
KERRI RITCHIE: Further north from Tokelau are more coral atolls which make up the nation of Kiribas.
Forty-eight-year-old Palaneesi Alofa Pidatatee (phonetic) lives in a rented house in the capital. She told Radio New Zealand all her coconut trees are dead and every day she fears for her country's future.
I just kept saying "What a load of bullshit."
Why are these lies allowed to continue?
***
After watching the 4 Corners program (Holy Cash Cows) last night the drive in to work this morning was rather interesting, hearing snippets of the accusations in the Indian media of Australian racism.
TONY EASTLEY: Another storm of controversy has broken out in India over revelations that Indian students are being ripped off by unscrupulous operators in Australia.Read the whole story here.
The Four Corners program last night detailed how students had paid tens of thousands of dollars for services they claim they never received and how complaints to government authorities in Australia were ignored.
Police in Australia are investigating an attack on an Indian journalist who was working undercover on the program but at this stage it's not known if the assault on the young woman was actually linked to her work with Four Corners.
This latest education controversy, coming hot on the heels of the attacks on foreign students in Australia, has been set upon by India's media.
South Asia correspondent Sally Sara reports from New Delhi.
SALLY SARA: This is the kind of coverage Australia has been receiving from the Indian media. Last night, one of India's most popular news channels broadcast a special half hour program on student attacks and education scams in Australia. It was simply called, Yes, It's Racism.
INDIAN TV PRESENTER: Welcome back, you're watching this special show, Yes, It's Racism. Not that we had any doubt.
SALLY SARA: The program reported on the attack against an Indian journalist working undercover for the ABC's Four Corners program. Four Corners journalist Wendy Carlisle told ABC News it appeared the attacker may have been Indian.
Perhaps it's an Indian thing, but when the three nearly adult children of Indian parents were murdered and left in a spa in their home while their parents were overseas an Indian friend said that it must be racism that the police hadn't arrested anyone for the crime yet.
'Racism'. Now the most meaningless, overused word in the English language. It now means "shut up" when used by whites against whites, or "they're white so it must be racism" by non whites. The training institutes which rip off foreign students should be investigated, they are mostly opportunistic. If someone stands up for themselves and the opportunists think they can't get away with their extortionate practices then they back off. I say that they'd "try it on" anyone if they thought they could get away with it.
Seeing the 4 Corners program and the Indian students who took their case to the NSW High Court, and lost, and thousands of dollars in court costs maybe awarded against them, only to find that the institution they took to court has now been found guilty of breaching many regulations and not having properly qualified trainers (it was a flying school), surely they have a case for some sort of appeal?
Read more of the AM programme here.
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