Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has once again confirmed that he will not attend the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Papua New Guinea in September.

Bainimarama told New Zealand based-Radio Tarana there has been some push from the international community for Fiji to attend the Forum.

However, he says his reply maintains that Fiji will not attend the Forum unless the membership is changed.

Bainimarama has called for the removal of Australia and New Zealand from the Forum.

“Now I understand John Key (NZ Prime Minister) was talking about funding – they only see our relationship is to do with funding and that is their outlook on what our relationship is in the Forum – to dangle funding in front of us – then obviously that is a poor view of what our relationship should be like.”

Bainimarama says Fiji has not been part of the Forum meet for the past 6 years and it did not make any difference.

“It’s been doing that for the last 6 years – so we not worried about that – nobody should be jumping up and down about our presence at the Forum now because nobody jumped up and down about our presence in the Forum in the last 6 or 7 years. So I really don’t know what the big deal is that they are trying to bring it up again.”

The Pacific Island Forum Leaders meeting will be held in Port Moresby.