GLENN Miles came to Fiji three years in ago to handle probably what was the hottest seat an Australian could have been in.
He was appointed the Acting High Commissioner to Fiji in a tense political environment.
Australia was placing sanctions on Fiji, in retaliation Fiji had sacked the Australian High Commissioner.
Almost three years in Fiji, now Mr Miles is moving on to a new posting and he flies out of the country today.
“I have had a wonderful time, that has almost been three years that I have served here and this would be my seventh or eighth posting and I have enjoyed immensely. From work experience, from an interest experience and cultural experience, it certainly has been fantastic,” Mr Miles said.
Mr Miles said the days leading up to the election were probably the most exciting time he had in Fiji.
“We were able to support the elections office. We were able to negotiate a memorandum to allow the Multinational Observer Group to come in. And to see the elections and people participate in was great from our perspective,” he said.
“The MOG report is still to come out although the preliminary press release summed it up. The participation rate was so high, it demonstrated that people wanted the elections and people wanted to vote, they wanted to exercise their rights. And so from that perspective we think that it was fantastic.”
Mr Miles said there were misconceptions about Australian aid pre-election.
“We have a development program that has doubled in the three years that I have been here so it’s now over a $F100million. And a lot of that goes to health and education,” Mr Miles said.
He added that prior to coming to Fiji, he had his reservations but soon found out why Fiji was so different from anywhere else in the world.
“I didn’t really know what I was in for, sort of felt that I come in and see how things pan out and I have got to say that in all my interactions with everyone, even in the hard times, everybody was incredibly courteous and incredibly professional,” Mr Miles said.
“People could separate their personal life from political life. So you can have a great personal relationship, you can have political differences and it’s not Fiji we have differences with, most countries have differences of opinion, policies and it’s putting that aside and working together for the good of the country.”
