Australia and the Latin American Pacific

This week marks four years since Australia began ambitious negotiations for a free trade agreement with the Pacific Alliance. This year also marks ten years since the Pacific Alliance bloc was first formed by Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru.

Australia’s Seasonal Worker Programme is failing workers and employers

A reinvigoration of Australia’s seasonal worker programme would help boost the economies of both Pacific Island Nations and regional Australia while strengthening regional ties.

Cracks in the Pacific

The ongoing power struggle in Samoa is just one of several thorny political issues affecting Pacific Island Nations or disrupting regional unity.

Resolving Samoa’s democratic crisis

Samoa is facing a political impasse as caretaker Prime Minister Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi faces off against his former deputy Fiame Naomi Mata’afa.

Samoa’s constitutional crisis

Samoa has elected its first woman prime minister. Now an ongoing constitutional crisis, ironically centred around competing interpretations of Samoa’s parliamentary gender quota provisions, is preventing her from taking power.

Stepping up the step-up

The time is right for Australia to imagine a bigger, better Pacific step-up and be even more frank with our Pacific partners regarding the need to preserve our collective sovereignty and boost our security at a time of growing strategic competition.

What’s the best vaccine for the Pacific?

Up until now, most of our Pacific Island neighbours have done well controlling COVID-19. But as cases surge in some countries, is one vaccine better for these remote communities?

Tackling cervical cancer in the Western Pacific

Researchers at The Kirby Institute will collaborate on a first-of-its-kind program to set Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu on a path to eliminating cervical cancer.

Australia’s evolving guarantee to the South Pacific

Australia is strengthening its security guarantees to the Pacific in the light of Chinese expansion, but the region may be taking this protection for granted in terms of their own policies.

Relationships build resilience in the Indo-Pacific

As we move out of the pandemic, Australia has the opportunity as a middle power to match our rhetoric with practical action. We have the opportunity to become a good neighbour. Let’s not let it pass us by.

ADF health partnerships should be the next step in Australia’s Pacific step-up

An enhanced role for the ADF in regional health security might become a successful example of mutually beneficial partnerships between the ADF and our Pacific neighbours.

The COVID crisis on our doorstep

Our neighbour’s stability and prosperity are in our interests too. There can be no better example of this than the current crisis in PNG.