ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors focus on the Pacific region. In fact, it isn’t a part of the world that Australians generally think much about. They argue the value of seeing Australia as a Pacific nation, as part of a Pacific multiculture that has been invisible to most Australians. John became more aware of the importance of the Pacific Islands—and Australia’s ambivalent links to them—by living and teaching in Fiji for three years, forming deep relationships in the process. Likewise, a (multicultural) Australian presence in an emerging trans-Pacific multiculture would benefit all participants. At the moment it is happening almost accidentally, without much conscious government planning. The many non-formal (in the economic sense) trading relationships that characterise Pacific societies are not counted in their GDP, because they are part of economies of reciprocity, of exchange, or of local markets outside the formal economy.
