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Frank Bainimarama - Source: ONE News -
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The government will consider what to do about the expulsion of our senior diplomat from Fiji on Wednesday.
Acting Head of Mission Todd Cleaver, along with Australia's High Commissioner, has been sent packing from the island nation.
Self-appointed Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama is accusing New Zealand and Australia of interfering with Fiji's judiciary and trying to hinder his plans to hire judges from Sri Lanka.
Bainimarama accused the envoys of engaging "dishonest and untruthful" strategy to undermine the Fiji judiciary.
He says that displays a consolidated effort to attack Fiji's independent judiciary.
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ONE News Pacific Correspondent Barbara Dreaver says much of the latest tension is due to a situation where a visa granted to Fijian judge was delayed.
Fijian judge Angela Wati was granted a medical exemption to fly to Auckland with her daughter, who is receiving treatment in new Zealand for a non-emergency condition.
However the delay in processing angered Fijian authorities.
The New Zealand High Commission in Suva says an application for a visa on medical grounds by Justice Wati was never rejected and that they were not informed of the urgency.
Judge Wati is now in Auckland, where her child is in Starship Hospital.
Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully says the situation is disappointing, and the people who are hurt by this, the people of Fiji, are innocent.
He says this is a significant step backwards for both New Zealand and Australia, but says "it is something we are becoming used to in dealing with Bainimarama."
As a response to the expulsion, McCully says the head of the Fiji mission in New Zealand maybe given the boot.
Last December, New Zealand's Acting High Commissioner and Trade Commissioner were expelled from Suva.
Fiji has suffered four coups and a bloody military mutiny since 1987.
It was plunged into a fresh crisis in April after the president reappointed coup leader Frank Bainimarama as prime minister, less than two days after a court ruled the military leader's 2006 coup and subsequent government was illegal.
Australia and New Zealand, two of Fiji's major aid donors and trading partners, have been critical of Bainimarama and have called on him to hold fresh elections as soon as possible.
In September, the Commonwealth suspended Fiji after the nation failed to meet a deadline for opening talks on a return to democracy.
Bainimarama, who had promised an election this year, has now ruled it out until 2014.
It is the third time in three years the top New Zealand official has been kicked out.
In 2007 then High Commissioner Michael Green was expelled and last year his successor, acting High Commissioner Caroline McDonald was expelled.
Meanwhile, the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has updates its travel advice for Fiji, saying that there is some risk to security in Fiji and they advise caution.
MFAT say that currently, Fiji is calm but a rapid deterioration to the situation, including the potential for civil disorder and violence, cannot be ruled out.
New Zealand citizens in Fiji should be security conscious at all times, avoiding any demonstrations, large gatherings and areas of military activity, especially in and around the capital Suva.
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