The leaders of the Melanesian Spearhead Group have signed off on a communique at the end of their meeting, raising issues of alleged human rights abuses in the Indonesian Province of West Papua.

They also accepted an invitation from Indonesia for a ministerial team from the organisation to visit the province.

The communique says the leaders have accepted an application for membership from the Papuan independence activists, but have not approved it.

For more, we are joined by Australia Network's Pacific correspondent Sean Dorney in New Caledonia, who has a copy of the recently release communique

Presenter: Bruce Hill

Speaker: Australia Network's Pacific correspondent Sean Dorney

Dorney: Yes, I think that's an accurate interpretation of their position. They were, of course, hoping for membership, but I don't think that was ever likely.

What they were telling me afterwards, after the issue of the communique, is that this is a first step for them, that they're pleased, but they're also questioning what this ministerial gropu is going to travel to Indonesia and West Papua just exactly what they will find. But yes, they're pleased as you say a first step in this application to become members of the MSG.

Hill: It's quite a serious step for the Indonesians, isn't it, to actually extend an olive branch like this, to actually get outside countries to come to West Papua and also to Indonesia to find out for themselves what's actually going on. Previously, they've been kind of resistant to outside forces coming and having a look. So it's actually quite a big thing for them to have done this?

Dorney: Well, the Indonesians have been I think quite concerned about this application by the West Papuan National Coalition for Liberation and it's the Vice-President of that Coalition, Dr. Otto Ondawame, was given an opportunity to speak for about five minutes to the plenary session and he made a plea for the rest of Melanesia to recognise the rights of the people, the Melanesian people of those provinces. Because there are two now, there is not only West Papua, but Papua, the old West Papua has been divided into two and the Indonesians made some point of the fact, they were talking about two provinces, not one.

The Indonesian Vice Minister who spoke fairly glowingly about what Indonesia had done and how much autonomy already existed within those two provinces.

One of the members of the Indonesian delegation was Frans Albert Jockey who I've known for a long, long time. He was the senior journalist in Papua New Guinea. He's now back in Indonesia, in West Papua and Frans Albert was saying that he thought this concentration on human rights abuses should have been raised long ago, 15, 20 years ago and he put the point that he said it's not now anything like it used to be, but he did say that there did need to be more negotiation, or more talks about just what is going on in Irian Jaya. But Frans Albert Jockey was putting the Indonesian position that yes, this invitation has been extended and the Ministerial team, which will be led we found out today by the Foreign Minister for Fiji sometime in the next six months.

Hill: Now, what does it mean that they've, the MSG has accepted an application for membership for the pro-independence West Papuans, but they haven't actually approved it. What does that actually mean?

Dorney: Well, it's the application. They talked about this application for membership and leaders noted that a roadmap in relation to this application should be based what they say on clear and achievable guidelines. They acknowledged human rights violations needed to be highlighted and noted that to progress this application from the West Papuan National Coalition for Liberation, in order to progress their application, it was important to continually engage with Indonesia. They agreed to establish a process of dialogue and the countries are going to raise, according to the communique allegations of human rights abuses both as the MSG and individually with Indonesia. And in that light, they welcomed the invitation from Indonesia to invite this mission, which will be led by Fred Sevele They're just waiting for confirmation on the timing of the mission.

Hill: OK. Well obviously, as well as West Papua, there are other issues for the MSG leaders to consider. What are the main points, other points of the communique?

Dorney: Well, there are quite a number, the communique itself runs to something like 35, 44 paragraphs. One of the things they've done is that they have decided to appoint an MSG, a Melanesian Spearhead Group high level representative and that's going to be Tirupati Tavola the former foreign minister of Fiji who led the report into the MSG, which was presented to the leaders as well, as to future direction and they're going to seek funding for his position and that he will travel around the region representing the MSG.

There were quite a number of other decisions Bruce. Trade was a major issue and they've even discussed the viability. They haven't decided on this yet, but they've discussed the viability of establishing an MSG stock exchange to facilitate the movement of capital across borders.

On the issue of kava, they've agreed to scaling up political efforts to secure regional and international market access for kava to Australia and the European Union and that they've approved that MSG leaders communicate with the Australian government to raise their objections to the restrictions Australia has on the importation of kava into Australia.

There's quite a declaration on climate change, there's endorsement of a Melanesian Green Climate Fund. There's going to be the establishment of a Silver Jubilee Scholarship from the MSG in honour of and will be named after Father Walter Lini, the former, the Prime Minister who took Vanuatu to independence and quite a number of other decisions. But I think the West Papuan one is the one that's attracted most interest.