Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama said the Fijian government wants to rebuild and redefine its official relationship with New Zealand.
While speaking at the banquet at GPH last night, Bainimarama told NZ Prime Minister John Key that the Fiji that Key has come to is a vastly different place compared to the Fiji that the last NZ leader, Helen Clark found when she visited our country in 2006.
Bainimarama laid down the list of things that were happening prior to December 2006.
Bainimarama also said that there appears to be a substantial body of opinion in New Zealand led by its generally hostile media which said that what has happened in Fiji somehow lacks legitimacy.
Bainimarama said Fiji has moved on but it would appear that the New Zealand media has not.
He said no‑one who reports on events in Fiji fairly and in a balanced manner is excluded and that any journalist is free to criticise the government or him in an opinion piece or report criticism made by others in their news stories.
Bainimarama added that they cannot allow the willful propagation of false information that damages the national interest and undermines our vulnerable economy.
He said that is what has happened in the case of certain New Zealand journalists and others from Australia.
Bainimarama said no journalist from any other country has been banned from Fiji.
We will have more later today.
