The South Pacific island nation of Fiji is embroiled in another diplomatic row with Australia and New Zealand after expelling their top envoys over a spat about travel visas.

Frank Bainimarama, the self-appointed military leader who has ruled Fiji since the December 2006 coup, yesterday issued a 24-hour order for the ambassadors of Australia and New Zealand to leave the island over travel sanctions the two countries had imposed on people linked to the military regime.

He accused the two countries of sabotaging nation-building efforts by refusing to grant visas to Fijian judges.

In retaliation, Australia and New Zealand made near simultaneous announcements earlier today that they had expelled the Fijian ambassadors to their countries.

The Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said that he aimed to continue his government’s hardline stance against Mr Bainimarama’s leadership in order to maintain stability in the South Pacific region.

“We're not about to simply allow a coup culture to spread,'' he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Mr Rudd added that Australia would not allow what has happened in Fiji to become “some sort of norm for the Pacific at large”.

“This man, Bainimarama, has undertaken a military coup, suspended the constitution, refused to hold fresh elections and sacked the judiciary and appointed his,” Mr Rudd said.

Fiji's acting high commissioner to Australia, Kamlesh Kumar Arya, and the acting head of mission in Wellington, Mr Kuliniasi Seru Savou, have both been ordered to return to Suva.

Mr Bainimarama has been at loggerheads with Australia and New Zealand since the two regional powers led condemnation of the military leader's 2006 overthrow of the elected government.

The two nations pushed successfully for Fiji to be suspended from key international groups including the Commonwealth and from the Pacific Islands Forum for failing to return to democracy since its latest coup in 2006.

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Murray McCully said today that diplomatic relations with Fiji are “roughly the same they have been for the last couple of years, unfortunately. We have had our ups and downs and unfortunately today they are down."

Mr Bainimarama claimed that the heads of the Australian and New Zealand diplomatic missions had refused to engage with the Government and were waging "a negative campaign against the government and people of Fiji".

Mr Bainimarama told New Zealand's Radio Tarana: "We are suspended from the Commonwealth. Australia and New Zealand have suspended us from the (Pacific Islands) Forum. So it really doesn't make any difference. But ... we can't afford to be bullied."

It is the third time that New Zealand's top envoy to Fiji has been expelled since the 2006 coup, but the first expulsion of Australia's senior diplomat.

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