{"id":44016,"date":"2018-12-03T06:00:52","date_gmt":"2018-12-02T19:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=44016"},"modified":"2018-12-03T06:59:49","modified_gmt":"2018-12-02T19:59:49","slug":"the-purposes-of-the-pacific-pivot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-purposes-of-the-pacific-pivot\/","title":{"rendered":"The purposes of the Pacific pivot"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

In the South Pacific, Australia confronts the law of untended purposes.<\/p>\n

The law states that if you don\u2019t tend to your policy and political purposes, stuff goes off course and the unexpected arrives. If your attention wanders, so do your purposes.<\/p>\n

Like its cousin, the law of unintended consequences, the untended purposes law is politics obeying physics: all systems tend towards entropy, to shift from order to disorder.<\/p>\n

Awoken to our drifting purposes, Australia\u2019s political leaders have done a pivot<\/a>\u2014offering Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific a lot of love, a bit more cash and greater policy attention.<\/p>\n

The prime minister and opposition leader are on a defence and foreign affairs unity ticket. Australia\u2019s political consensus on the South Pacific is loudly reaffirmed.<\/p>\n

Whoever wins the next federal election, there\u2019s to be more attention and extra effort in the South Pacific. Good.<\/p>\n

Scott Morrison promises \u2018a new level\u2019<\/a> of Australian commitment:<\/p>\n

This is our part of the world. This is where we have special responsibilities. We always have, we always will. We have their back, and they have ours. We are more than partners by choice. We are connected as members of a Pacific family.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why the first leaders I hosted in Australia as Prime Minister have been from Solomon Islands, Fiji and Papua New Guinea. It\u2019s time to open, I believe, a new chapter in relations with our Pacific family. One based on respect, equality and openness. A relationship for its own sake, because it\u2019s right.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bill Shorten promises<\/a> to embrace the Pacific as the \u2018blue continent\u2019, offering partnership not paternalism: \u2018A Labor government will put the Pacific front and centre in our regional foreign policy. We\u2019re not going to forfeit the Pacific because we didn\u2019t turn up.\u2019<\/p>\n

Shifting from defence to foreign affairs, Marise Payne made her first speech in her new job<\/a> about the islands: \u2018Stepping up in the Pacific is not an option for Australian foreign policy\u2014it is an imperative.\u2019<\/p>\n

So the language is agreed: new chapter, step up, front and centre, imperative.<\/p>\n

Australia acts because it sees its role in PNG and the islands directly challenged by China<\/a>. Strategic denial is our oldest instinct in the region. And Canberra\u2019s abiding instincts are aroused by the shock realisation of untended purposes.<\/p>\n

The Pacific step-up<\/a> is \u2018one of the highest priorities\u2019 of the\u00a0foreign policy white paper<\/a>. Bipartisan agreement can power up the step-up.<\/p>\n

The polity confronts a complex discussion of Australia\u2019s interests, influence and values in the islands. The interests\u2013influence\u2013values trifecta pulls in many directions. To clarify (and vastly oversimplify), view the trifecta and the pivot in two dimensions: power and Pacific people.<\/p>\n

Power competition:<\/strong> Australia wants to be the South Pacific\u2019s top security and economic partner. That\u2019s why we\u2019re the region\u2019s biggest aid donor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rising competition prompts Australia to do more on Pacific infrastructure, rather than leaving this bit of the game to others (Hi, Beijing!) or merely giving via multilateral channels: $2 billion for infrastructure and $1 billion to get more Oz businesses operating in the islands.<\/p>\n

One test of the power of the pivot will be how much extra cash actually arrives, as opposed to the rebadging of the existing aid budget.<\/p>\n

New diplomatic missions will open in Palau, the Marshall Islands, French Polynesia, Niue and the Cook Islands, so Australia will be represented in every member of the Pacific Islands Forum.<\/p>\n

The Australian Defence Force is out and about building and partnering, to play \u2018an even greater role\u2019<\/a> in training (with an ADF team rotating through the islands), capacity-building, exercises and interoperability.<\/p>\n

The headline bit of the pivot is the US joining Australia to help PNG redevelop the naval base<\/a> on Manus Island.<\/p>\n

The evidence of long-term policy substance\u2014<\/em>where purposes have been properly tended\u2014is the launch of the first of the 21 new Pacific patrol boats<\/a>. The boats will be given to 12 South Pacific nations plus Timor-Leste.<\/p>\n

The promise to get electricity to 70% of PNG\u2019s people by 2030 certainly fits under the \u2018power\u2019 category. But it also takes us directly to the vital purposes of people and values.<\/p>\n

Values and Pacific people:<\/strong> Australia\u2019s Pacific policy too often doesn\u2019t centre on Pacific people; that\u2019s the most useful critique of the pivot merely as power competition with China.<\/p>\n

Scott Morrison\u2019s constant use of the \u2018Pacific family\u2019 image must be more than political-speak. If the family dimension gets as much attention as the strategic struggle, Oz policy will serve its values as well as its interests.<\/p>\n

Australia is slowly talking itself back into the international media contest<\/a> in the islands. That\u2019ll be an important element in the family conversation.<\/p>\n

Letting more of the family into Australia is the big and exciting project for the years ahead.<\/p>\n

The Pacific labour scheme<\/a> is to be opened to all Pacific island countries, offering chances for both seasonal and non-seasonal work in Australia. The win<\/a> for the islands will need careful tending. Will Pacific workers get \u2018priority\u2019, as promised, or will many of the jobs go to those on backpacker<\/a> visas<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Negotiating to bring PNG into the labour scheme can be a huge step-up. One of the great silences of our Pacific policy is that almost no Melanesians can come to Australia (Polynesian access is via New Zealand).<\/p>\n

The pivot is a shift with substance if it opens Australia\u2019s door to the people of PNG, Vanuatu and the Solomons (and, stretch the geography, to add Timor-Leste).<\/p>\n

A pivot that can marry Oz strategic denial instincts with the fundamental needs of Pacific peoples will be a policy with enduring purposes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the South Pacific, Australia confronts the law of untended purposes. The law states that if you don\u2019t tend to your policy and political purposes, stuff goes off course and the unexpected arrives. If your …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":44018,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[415,1029,285,99],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe purposes of the Pacific pivot | 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\/the-purposes-of-the-pacific-pivot\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The purposes of the Pacific pivot | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the South Pacific, Australia confronts the law of untended purposes. 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