Reforming the Pacific workers scheme

Australia’s Pacific worker scheme has drifted from its original intention of providing seasonal farm work for Pacific guest workers but some targeted reforms can put it back on track.

Supporting girls in the Pacific

A new report released by Plan International Australia urges the Federal Government to increase targeted aid investment for adolescent girls, warning that global aid cuts and a growing anti-rights backlash are placing gender equality in the Asia-Pacific great risk.

Here comes the sun

Pacific nations plan to progress from spending up to 25% of their GDP on fossil fuels to running on 100% renewables, but how will this ambitious target be achieved?

A Pacific reflection on “Women, Peace and Security”

Pacific women have always been navigators, charting paths through complexity, building coalitions and sustaining communities. Now, the WPS agenda must rise to meet their leadership.

Boosting Pacific food security

Australia can use our immense capability in agriculture and food production to help the Indo-Pacific become more self-reliant.

Australia’s tricky track record at the Pacific Islands Forum

Given the importance of ‘listening’ in Australian diplomacy with its Pacific ‘family,’ one would expect Australian leaders to behave respectfully at the Pacific Islands Forum, but their actions this year showed that true listening involves not just attendance, but also sensitivity, responsiveness, and accountability.

Survival

The Pacific island countries care less about narratives of malign influence and more about the essentials: survival, domestic stability and economic opportunity. Australia’s challenge is to prove it understands this, not just in words but in actions.

The Pacific pushes back

Geopolitical tussles are buffeting the annual Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting, held this week in Solomon Islands, despite the barring of major powers from the event.

From briefcase to bedside

Created to circumnavigate travel restrictions during the COVID pandemic, a new online approach is revolutionising surgery training across the Pacific.

Safeguarding the digital Pacific

The digital contest in the Pacific is already underway. Winning it will not depend on the speed of cables but the clarity of commitment, the quality of partnerships and the willingness to treat connectivity as the new frontline of strategic influence.

Friends to all

Many Pacific nations want to remain ‘friends to all and enemies to none,’ as they like to say, hedging their bets as to who wins out and extracting investment and attention from the competing powers.

Fighting for our voice in the Pacific

Every day that Australia delays developing a comprehensive media strategy is another day authoritarian narratives go unchallenged and democratic values lose ground in the region that will determine Australia’s prosperity and security.