{"id":41887,"date":"2018-09-06T14:40:59","date_gmt":"2018-09-06T04:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=41887"},"modified":"2018-09-07T06:39:16","modified_gmt":"2018-09-06T20:39:16","slug":"australia-at-the-pacific-islands-forum-getting-our-priorities-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/australia-at-the-pacific-islands-forum-getting-our-priorities-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia at the Pacific Islands Forum: getting our priorities right"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Australia\u2019s new Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne probably envied New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern\u2019s welcome at this week\u2019s Pacific Islands Forum leaders\u2019 meeting in Nauru. During the leaders\u2019 retreat lunch break yesterday, Nauru President Baron Waqa joined a group of local elders to serenade Ardern<\/a> with a song titled \u2018Aotearoa our friend, Jacinda new star in the sky\u2019.<\/p>\n

Payne was never going to be described in such warm terms. After just over a week in the job, she had to convince Pacific leaders that Australia remained committed to being the region\u2019s \u2018principal security partner<\/a>\u2019 when the new prime minister, Scott Morrison, had chosen not to attend.<\/p>\n

Morrison\u2019s absence, and his non-appearance at the April 2018 Forum Economic Ministers\u2019 Meeting, suggest that Australia\u2019s continued claims about prioritising the region might be more hyperbole than fact. The PM\u2019s failure to attend this week\u2019s gathering also undermines Australia\u2019s claimed recognition of the importance of building people-to-people links.<\/p>\n

Although Payne is the person in Cabinet most likely to continue Julie Bishop\u2019s positive approach to the region as foreign minister, she was hamstrung at the meeting by Australia\u2019s hypocritical policies. The centrepiece of yesterday\u2019s leaders\u2019 meeting was the signing of the Boe Declaration<\/a>, designed to update the 2000 Biketawa Declaration on regional security.<\/p>\n

The Boe Declaration articulates an \u2018expanded concept of security inclusive of human security, humanitarian assistance, prioritising environmental security, and regional cooperation in building resilience to disasters and climate change\u2019. It\u2019s a sad irony that this commitment to \u2018human security\u2019 was signed only kilometres from Australia\u2019s offshore processing centre where the human rights of refugees<\/a> are regularly violated.<\/p>\n

This expanded concept of security also highlights the different priorities of Australia and its Pacific island neighbours. Australia is focused on strategic concerns, particularly the increasingly crowded and complex geopolitics<\/a> of the region, which has negative effects in the Pacific islands. Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi warned in a speech in Sydney<\/a> last week that the region is \u2018seeing invasion and interest in the form of strategic manipulation\u2019. \u2018The big powers\u2019, he declared, \u2018are doggedly pursuing strategies to widen and extend their reach and inculcating a far-reaching sense of insecurity.\u2019<\/p>\n

The biggest challenge facing Payne was the reality of Australia\u2019s climate change policies. The Boe Declaration identifies climate change as \u2018the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific\u2019 and reaffirms forum members\u2019 \u2018commitment to progress the implementation of the Paris Agreement\u2019.<\/p>\n

Payne faced a tough job convincing Pacific leaders that Australia is genuinely committed to meaningful action on climate change when her prime minister is a known advocate for coal-fired power and the government refuses to adopt an explicit strategy to meet its Paris Agreement targets.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s scope for Australia to improve its relationships in the region. For example, the Boe Declaration reaffirms forum members\u2019 commitment to the idea of the \u2018Blue Pacific\u2019, which is intended to highlight the \u2018collective potential of our shared stewardship of the Pacific Ocean<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

Australia already does valuable and valued work to help Pacific island states protect their ocean territories through its Pacific Maritime Security Program, under which it provides patrol boats and personnel to regional states. It\u2019s now looking to bolster that with expanded aerial surveillance, with a particular focus on fisheries and, increasingly, undersea natural resource management.<\/p>\n

The wider understanding of security outlined in the declaration also specifies \u2018humanitarian assistance\u2019 as a priority. Australia is already the primary provider of humanitarian and disaster relief (alongside New Zealand), which it can continue and expand. The declaration identifies \u2018transnational crime\u2019 as another priority, an area in which Australia provides significant support and which is likely to be enhanced when the proposed Australia Pacific Security College is established to train security and law enforcement officials.<\/p>\n

The declaration specifically mentions the need to \u2018improve coordination among existing security mechanisms\u2019, which is likely to be assisted by Australia\u2019s proposed Pacific Fusion Centre<\/a> to connect regional security agencies. And the declaration highlights the need to promote the \u2018prosperity of Pacific people\u2019, to which Payne\u2019s signing this week in Nauru<\/a> of agreements with Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to join the Pacific Labour Scheme (Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu are already members) will hopefully make a contribution.<\/p>\n

However, this week\u2019s forum leaders\u2019 meeting again highlighted the counterproductive nature of Australia\u2019s approach to the Pacific islands. Bishop worked hard to build bridges with the region when she was foreign minister, and was instrumental in formulating Australia\u2019s policy of \u2018stepping up\u2019 its engagement with the Pacific islands, but those positive developments are undermined by Australia\u2019s declared policy positions.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s unlikely that Payne (or any Australian leader) will be serenaded by Pacific leaders soon, Australia at least needs to be singing from the same song sheet as the region, particularly when it comes to climate change.<\/p>\n

Note: An earlier version of this post said that a clause about good governance that was in the draft text of the Boe Declaration had been removed in the final text of the document. In fact, it had been moved to another section of the document. The post has been amended to omit the references to the clause.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australia\u2019s new Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne probably envied New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern\u2019s welcome at this week\u2019s Pacific Islands Forum leaders\u2019 meeting in Nauru. During the leaders\u2019 retreat lunch break yesterday, Nauru …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":41888,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[283,285,717],"class_list":["post-41887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-climate-change","tag-foreign-policy","tag-pacific-islands-forum"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAustralia at the Pacific Islands Forum: getting our priorities right | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/australia-at-the-pacific-islands-forum-getting-our-priorities-right\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Australia at the Pacific Islands Forum: getting our priorities right | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Australia\u2019s new Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne probably envied New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern\u2019s welcome at this week\u2019s Pacific Islands Forum leaders\u2019 meeting in Nauru. 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