Refreshing our security partnership with the Pacific

Australia is a Pacific nation. The security of the Pacific is therefore a matter of national security for Australia.

To be clear, this is not because the Pacific is our backyard, or sphere of influence. The Pacific is not a buffer, nor a gated neighbourhood to which we have exclusive access.

Our Pacific partners are sovereign. They are agents who have every right to chart their own path.

Still, our security is naturally enmeshed. Common geography transmits shared challenges.

We are both acutely vulnerable to climate change.

We are each weakened by the transnational crime that crosses our waterways.

As large ocean states, we share an interest in protecting our exclusive rights to the maritime resources on which we depend.

And we are alike in our aspiration that the Blue Pacific remains free from great-power rivalry.

These shared interests form the natural basis of a security partnership—one we have long worked to cultivate. Australia and the Pacific have a deep history of successful cooperation on defence, peacebuilding, transnational crime, illegal fishing, and disaster relief.

Despite best intentions, however, we have sometimes been seen as a patron more so than a partner. Our engagement with the region has also become reactive, driven by competitive concerns about China's influence more so than a sustained and independent sense of commitment.

This is not to downplay the significance of China's expansion in the Pacific. China's indicative interest in firming up a regional military presence is a challenge to Australia's strategic position. More broadly, it threatens to bring the dangers of great-power rivalry to a region that has prospered for decades in its absence. This should be of concern to every Pacific country.

Nevertheless, we must acknowledge that our perceived neglect of the region, or at least of its priorities, has helped create the vacuum that enables the worrying influence of other states. Australia's inaction on climate change, particularly, has diminished our standing among neighbours who see it as an urgent and existential threat.

If we are to restore our attractiveness as the Pacific's partner of choice, a reset in various ways is required.

First, we must rebuild our regional credibility through significant climate action. Further, to show real solidarity, our contribution must go beyond that which our self-interest in transitioning requires.

Second, given we cannot outspend China indefinitely, we must offer a distinct value proposition. This involves leveraging our unique credibility as a provider of condition-free, citizen-centred security assistance. As much as China's growing influence is cause for self-reflection, Australia should feel secure in the knowledge that we are trusted as one of the only security providers who will assist the Pacific without extracting coercive quid pro quos.

Finally, our commitments and attention to the region must be sustained, not driven reactively by other states' activities. Outsize counter-offers to China's enticements appear disingenuous and self-interested. In that sense, they do not earn us long-term influence, even if they may buy it temporarily. More significantly, though, our reactiveness creates perverse incentives. It effectively signals that we will only come to our neighbours' aid when we fear they are entertaining another offer. To that extent, our reactive generosity is self-defeating: it likely encourages our neighbours to invite the very forms of influence we then try to out-compete. The point is not that we should instead withhold assistance, so as not to reward our neighbours' engagement with other states. That, after all, is their sovereign right. Rather, it is that our commitments must be sustained and all-weather in the first place, so that our Pacific partners feel no need to play off external powers to extract much-needed assistance. As an altruistic partner, we should have always been providing it.

The last point carries the core principle that should underpin our renewed engagement. It must be based on an appreciation of the value of the relationship in absolute terms; of the significance of our obligations and shared interests independent of what others are offering. Acting clearly and consistently on that basis is fundamental to restoring our reputation as a partner.

In that vein, we will reinvigorate our commitment to Pacific security in the following ways:

Deepen our diplomatic presence across the Pacific. While Australia maintains the largest diplomatic network in the Pacific, with missions in every member of the Pacific Islands Forum, there is room to deepen it. Australia will increase its official representation at missions across the Pacific, including from Defence, Home Affairs, and the AFP, to ensure we have an appropriately sized, on-the-ground interface to listen and respond to the Pacific's security needs.

Support Pacific-led diplomacy on regional security challenges. Australia will continue to prioritise the Pacific Islands Forum as the primary regional platform for raising and resolving collective issues. We will also work harder to act as an amplifier of Pacific voices and concerns at wider platforms, such as the Shangri La Dialogue, the East Asia Summit, and the United Nations.

Re-affirm our commitment to the Boe Declaration. In light of our perceived inaction on climate change, Australia will take the opportunity to reiterate its full endorsement of the Boe Declaration. At the same time, we will signal our willingness to join Pacific leaders in adopting an even stronger declaration, in which we meet our partners' expectation that we commit to urgent emissions reduction. Australia will also advocate a new PIF declaration as a powerful opportunity for all Pacific nations to enshrine a joint commitment not to invite or enable geopolitical tensions in the region.

Expand cooperation on transnational crime. Specifically, we will increase resourcing to the Transnational, Serious and Organised Crime (TSOC) Pacific Taskforce. And we will invite more Pacific partners to join Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and Tonga in this endeavour.

Empower community-led peacebuilding efforts. Parts of the Pacific are still challenged by ethnic or religious tensions and the memory of civil conflict. Australia will play a supporting and enabling role, when invited, in community or civil society-led initiatives working towards a just and durable peace.

Lead in developing regional frameworks and standards for civil-military cooperation. As in Southeast Asia, Pacific security forces are often called on to respond to non-traditional security threats, such as natural disasters. This requires effective coordination between civilian authorities and military responders. Australia will therefore work to diffuse best practice in this space, leveraging expertise from Home Affairs, Defence, and the Australian Civil-Military Centre.

Integrate the Women, Peace, and Security agenda across all aspects of our security cooperation. As in Southeast Asia, we will work with Pacific partners to promote women's meaningful inclusion, recognising its vital role in mitigating both the causes and consequences of insecurity. Equally, we will ensure that our security assistance regionally—particularly regarding disaster relief—is more sensitive to gendered harms and gender-specific needs.

Expand our Cyber Cooperation Program to the Pacific. As the region becomes increasingly digitally reliant, it is critical that we support our partners' development of robust cyber security capability. Often, ASD can do this working with counterpart organisations. The Pacific, however, is more likely to require assistance building a foundational capability, both technically and organisationally. Australia's engagement in this case will be attuned to the Pacific's particular needs.

Scale up our support under the Pacific Maritime Security Program. The PMSP, under which Australia is delivering 21 patrol boats to Pacific partners and enhancing region-wide aerial surveillance, forms a core pillar of our regional security contribution. Australia will increase the number of patrol boats provided as part of the program, to ensure our Partners maintain a reliably available at-sea capability. Further, we will increase our commitments towards the long-term sustainment of donated patrol boats. For our Pacific partners, the costs of maintenance are otherwise prohibitive, and would hamper their ability to deal with illegal fishing or drug smuggling.

Boost our commitments to help prevent illegal fishing. Beyond the provision of patrol boats under the PMSP, Australia will also offer to help the Pacific manage its maritime spaces by increasing the tempo of joint patrols.

Diversify and scale up Australia's provision of Mobile Training Teams. Defence's MTTs offer a promising model for delivering agile capacity-building assistance that is responsive to Pacific priorities. Australia will increase the Pacific's access to MTT support, particularly with respect to engineering (given its significant civil and humanitarian applications). We will also expand the scope of the program beyond Defence-led teams so that the Pacific can more widely leverage Australia's expertise in dealing with non-traditional threats.

Accelerate the establishment of the Australia Pacific Defence School. The proposed institution would be an effective way of both increasing and streamlining the Pacific's access to high-quality, regionally tailored education and professional development opportunities across the defence, law enforcement, and humanitarian sectors.

Continue to deliver under the Defence Cooperation Program. As in Southeast Asia, Defence Cooperation Program is and will remain a core pillar of Australia's security cooperation across the Pacific. In this case, too, we will continue to ensure that the Program is well-resourced and responsive to our partners' priorities.

Scale up our assistance towards the region's development of defence and policing infrastructure. Strong infrastructure is a crucial enabler of effective security provision. Australia will increase funding support towards high-quality, resilient, and sustainable government infrastructure. We will prioritise support for projects that either boost the disaster-resilience of critical services, such as hospitals and police stations, or which better enable disaster relief, such as airfields.

Subsequent sections in this chapter detail the economic, social, and environmental pillars of the broad-based security cooperation we envisage with partners in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.