I got involved in politics in 2000. I was a Cabinet Minister for six years to December 2006. My political portfolios were Foreign Affairs and External Trade. Pacific regionalism was a central piece of that portfolio.

I became a Consultant from 2007 after leaving politics. I gave up full time consultancy in 2016, but I was still doing the occasional consultancy reports up to 2019.

I finally got onto Twitter and Facebook during that period. I retained my interest in the Pacific and Pacific regionalism. From November 2018, I started writing opinion columns for the monthly Islands Business magazines.

For the last two decades, I have penned a number of reports and papers on the Pacific and Pacific regionalism. Two of these have been published. These were:

1. “Towards a New Regional Diplomacy Architecture”, Chap 3, in Greg Fry & Sandra Tarte (Editors), (2015): “The New Pacific Diplomacy”, ANU Press, Pacific Series;
2. “The EU and the Pacific: A Tale of Unfulfilled Expectations”, Chap 5, in Annita Montoute & Kudrat Virk (Editors), (2017): “The ACP Group and the EU Development Partnership – Beyond the North-South Debate”, Palgrave Macmillan.

My intention therefore is to share these documents and others that may create increased interests and debates on our region: the Pacific and the regionalism it supports. I have always begrudged the goldmine of documents pertaining to regionalism in Africa and the Caribbean when compared to the relative bare cupboard of the Pacific.