Wellington  - Fiji's relations with Australia and New Zealand struck a new low Wednesday following the military regime's expulsions of two senior officials from the South Pacific island state's biggest neighbours.

Fiji told New Zealand's Acting High Commissioner Caroline McDonald on Tuesday to leave the capital Suva in a week, saying she had ignored the military government, which seized power two years ago, and associated only with opposition politicians.

Then the Australian government revealed that the defence adviser posted to its high commission, who had been in Suva on a temporary visitor's visa, had been denied permission to stay.

Australia's Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said in a statement from Canberra that the two expulsions by Fiji's military strongman and self-appointed Prime Minister, Commodore Voreqe (Frank) Bainimarama, were destructive.

"The interim government should be focusing all of its efforts on returning Fiji to democracy, not on these destructive decisions which will do no good for the people of Fiji," he said.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully rejected accusations that McDonald had broken the rules of diplomatic behaviour.

He retaliated immediately to her expulsion and gave her Fijian counterpart, Kama Tuiloma, the same marching orders from Wellington.

Relations between Australia, New Zealand and Fiji have deteriorated since Bainimarama ousted the elected government in a bloodless coup in December 2006.

McDonald was the second senior New Zealand diplomat ordered out by Bainimarama, who expelled former high commissioner Michael Green, claiming similar interference in Fiji's domestic politics, in June last year.

McCully told Radio New Zealand, "The assertion that there has been any untoward activity - any engagement in domestic political activity - by our Acting High Commissioner is simply not true."

The catalyst for McDonald's expulsion was Wellington's refusal to issue a visa allowing the son of the Fiji president's secretary to return to New Zealand to finish his university studies.

New Zealand imposed a travel ban on Fiji officials and their families after Bainimarama ousted the elected government in a bloodless coup in December 2006.

McCully said New Zealand would not respond to Bainimarama's "ultimatums and threats" by making an exception to the travel ban for the student.

Fiji's Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum told Radio New Zealand that Australia's High Commissioner in Suva James Batley had also engaged in undiplomatic behaviour but was not being expelled.

He said McDonald's actions had been "contrary to the accepted international rules of diplomatic behaviour". The explusion was an act against an individual, not a government, and Fiji would accept another diplomat as New Zealand's representative, he said.

Sayed-Khaiym claimed in a speech this week that the New Zealand High Commission in Suva had used its local staff to spy on Fiji nationals and that Wellington and the Australian capital Canberra were tapping Fiji telephones.

New Zealamd, Australia, the European Union and the United States have all urged Bainimarama to hold fresh elections and restore democracy to Fiji. (dpa)