In the early 1980s Fraser responded to a request from Fiji’s Prime Minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, for an Australian to advise on the operation of his Civil Service Commission. Fraser recommended me for the task. After months of investigation in Fiji my reports, public and private, addressed the lack of method and much elementary incompetence which I found in the way the staff were exercising, or neglecting, their control of departmental establishments and selections for promotion. I saw at first hand the conflict of principle with equity in the opportunities for higher office as between Indians and Fijians, where merit alone would have greatly favoured one race against the other, less educated and agile-minded.

Later the Government gave me the privilege, when an election made it impossible to send a Minister, of representing Australia among the envoys celebrating Fiji’s 10th anniversary of its independence. There were appropriately dignified ceremonies to mark the occasion. Britain was represented by Princess Anne, whose conversation revealed a percipient understanding of what was going on in Australian politics. Inescapably, as has been my experience abroad over the years on solemn occasions, there were events that I found less than solemn. The Crown Prince of Tonga, a huge man of seemingly immeasurable weight, was taken on a tour of the University campus. Prudent arrangements had been made for reinforced seats at intervals to enable rest to be taken. Unhappily his guide, becoming distracted, led him off course. Rest was taken but I am told at the expense of much damage to University property as he smashed one conventional chair after another.

Some other hangovers from my Public Service days were less enjoyable. While in Fiji I was pursued by the Privileges Committee of Parliament to appear before them concerning actions, thought to be intimidatory, against an officer who had given evidence critical of the Department and Chiefs of Staff to a Parliamentary Committee. While within public administrative circles I made known my poor opinion of the judgement of this particular whistleblower, I avoided any action that would be contempt of parliamentary privilege. On return to Australia I learned that there had been some heavy-footed and insensitive actions by officers in the Department during my absence. When I did appear before the committee, various propositions were put to me that knowledge of the critical view of the individual by so influential a person as myself had inspired culpable actions against the individual by others in the Department. My recollection is that I displayed due modesty at the implied compliment, but left it to the Committee to find some wrongdoing to pin on me by the indirect route they had chosen. I believe their Report suggests they were not successful.