Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Fiji's acting high commissioner in Canberra was declared persona non grata and was told to leave Australia within 24 hours.

"This is deeply regrettable and Australia is deeply disappointed at Fiji's conduct in this matter. We worry very much that this will see Fiji further isolating itself from the international community," Smith told reporters.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully, meanwhile, said Fiji's acting head of mission in Wellington was similarly declared persona non grata and was instructed to leave New Zealand.

Bainimarama, who seized power from democratically elected Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase in a bloodless coup in December 2006, ordered the expulsions after accusing Australia and New Zealand of trying to undermine Fiji's institutions after they threatened to extend travel bans to include members of his self-appointed judiciary.

"I can accept their ban on me and my senior officers given the personalization of matters. But why punish those individuals, both Fijians and non-Fijians, who join the judiciary?" he said, according to reports from Suva.

Smith dismissed that excuse as "neither warranted, reasonable nor justified...and regrettably it takes Fiji's relationship with Australia, Fiji's relationship with New Zealand, Fiji's relationship with the Pacific Islands Forum and Fiji's relationship with the international community backwards."

Both Australia and New Zealand had made it clear to the Fiji government, he said, that as consequences of its abrogation of Fiji's constitution and changes it made regarding appointment of judges, both countries would regard judges effectively appointed by Bainimarama as subject to travel bans already in place.

Those bans apply to Bainimarama, his supporters and their families, members of his interim government, and military officers and their families.

"Australia needs to send a strong message, not just to Fiji, but to our colleagues in the Pacific, our colleagues in the Commonwealth, our colleagues in the international community generally, that we are steadfast in our view that Fiji has to return to democracy," Smith said.

But he lamented that the situation had come to this.

"In recent times, I had been hopeful that once the dust had settled from Fiji's suspension from the Pacific Islands Forum, Fiji's suspension from the Commonwealth, that we could find a way of having a dialogue with Fiji to bring Fiji back to democracy, to bring Fiji back as a fully fledged democratic member of the international community," he said.

Following Fiji's expulsions, he said, "Very regrettably we came to the conclusion that the only response could be a proportionate response."