Let bygones be bygones.

Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama says it is now time for Fiji and Australia to reach out fully to each other again at an official level.

While speaking at the Australia Fiji Business Council Forum in Sydney this morning, Bainimarama said Fiji seeks a new relationship with Australia – a partnership based on mutual respect and friendship.

He says the two countries should build an atmosphere of confidence, cooperation and trust, and work more closely together than ever before.

Bainimarama says it is a great shame that Fiji’s traditional friends, Australia and New Zealand turned their backs on Fiji when the government set out to substitute a flawed democracy in Fiji with a proper one like Australia and NZ.

He says he personally will never understand why Australia and NZ could not understand that Fiji simply could not go on being a nation in which some of its citizens enjoyed more rights and privileges than others.

Bainimarama said in Sydney that Fiji could not go on with a situation in which the votes of some citizens were worth more than others.

He says the nation was divided along ethnic lines in which people were categorised by their race and ethnicity.

Bainimarama says it was certainly something no Australian or New Zealander would ever have accepted in their own country yet their governments tried to enforce it on Fiji.

The Prime Minister then raised the issue that he can’t help wondering how things might have been different if Australia and New Zealand had not tried to destroy Fiji with their sanctions, travel bans and their diplomatic offensive to damage Fiji’s interests the world over.

Bainimarama says he knows there was widespread surprise in official circles in Australia and New Zealand when the Fijian people endorsed the revolution and the new Constitution by giving the FijiFirst political movement 60% of the vote under the proportional representation system.

He says it came as no surprise to him or to most Fijian voters because the government has created a fairer, more equal and more just society.

Bainimarama says he is delighted to attend the Australia‑Fiji Business Forum in Australia after nine years as he was banned from Australia all that time.

He also met Australia’s new Minister for the Pacific, Steve Ciobo

Bainimarama also highlighted that Fiji and Australia have their differences.

He stressed that Fiji will continue to press for Australia and New Zealand to step back from the main table at the Pacific Islands Forum and allow the island nations to determine their own agendas.

Bainimarama says the government is still irritated by certain impediments to trade such as the Australian ban on imports of Fijian kava.

But he says none of this should be an impediment to a higher and more friendly level of engagement between the two countries.

The Prime Minister also appealed to the business communities of both countries to ramp up their own activities as part of this wider engagement.