Pacific workers are being urged to chase up “many millions” in lost superannuation from their stints in Australia, with that problem also leading to calls for reform.
Difficulties navigating Australia’s complex tax system, particularly for foreigners, mean Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) workers often leave their hard-earned super languishing.
During a nine-month stint in Australia at the guaranteed base wage levels, PALM workers typically accumulate around $3,800 in pre-tax superannuation.
Like other guest workers, PALM workers can apply to access those funds once they’ve left the country, but most either do not – or can not.
All guest workers can apply to access their superannuation once they’ve left, but many do not. (University of South Australia/AAP PHOTOS)
“PALM workers are collectively leaving many millions of dollars in superannuation unclaimed,” Robert Whait, University of South Australia senior lecturer told AAP.
The PALM scheme has expanded in recent years to average around 30,000 workers from 10 Pacific nations in Australia at any one time, doing jobs that employers cannot fill.
Industries includes agriculture and food processing, but also aged care, hospitality, tourism, and even a pilot in early childhood education.
Dr Whait manages the UniSA tax clinic, which offers advice “to help vulnerable Australians with their taxes”, and on the foreign affairs department’s suggestion, widened to take in PALM workers.
“PALM workers have the same rights we do … but the main issue is that under the current law, they can only access that superannuation when they leave Australia and their visa is canceled,” he said.
“Either they’re not aware of it, or the process to put in the forms is difficult because of various barriers, so lots of money is left unclaimed which they could be taking home with them to use, directly with their families and helping out their lives.”
Barriers include the unavailability of key forms in languages other than English, the reliance on internet and computer access, and verification.
PALM workers also get slugged with extra taxes that effectively claw back half of their earnings: the 15 per cent tax on contributions and a 35 per cent “departing Australia superannuation payment” tax.
The messy situation has led Dr Whait, with Connie Vitale from Western Sydney University, to author a paper looking at policy reforms, especially given super primarily exists to fund the retirement of Australian workers.
Options canvassed include adding super into their take-home pay (as occurs in New Zealand) or sending it to a super fund in the worker’s home country, either as they earn, or when they head home.
Dr Whait believes the latter options would better serve the primary of purpose of super – to assist workers in retirement – and allow Pacific super funds greater pools of funding to invest at home.
“The money from PALM superannuation could be used to help infrastructure in their countries and help their communities, so that was probably the tipping point in in recommending that approach,” he said.
Just last year NSW were able to pull off exactly what the Maroons are attempting to do. After A series-opening flogging at home where Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii was sent off, Michael Maguire began throwing barbs at Billy Slater and the series turned. NSW demolished the Maroons in Melbourne, before winning a decider at Suncorp for the first time since 2005.
THURSTON DOES IT WITH ONE ARM IN 2017
Queensland looked shot after Andrew Fifita led an assault on Suncorp Stadium and NSW won the series opener there 28-4. The Blues then led 16-6 at halftime in Sydney, before Johnathan Thurston engineered a comeback while playing with a season-ending shoulder injury. Momentum had swung, and the Maroons won comfortable in Cameron Munster’s debut in Brisbane.
QUEENSLAND SAVE STATE OF ORIGIN IN 2006
There were genuine fears over the future of State of Origin when NSW won a thrilling game one in Sydney and looked on track for a fourth straight series win. The Maroons hit back with a 30-6 flogging in Brisbane, before Darren Lockyer’s famous effort to intercept a Brett Hodgson pass late in Melbourne secured a win for the Maroons and forever altered the course of Origin history with seven more consecutive series wins to follow.
JOHNS’ LAST HURRAH IN 2005
NSW had a mountain to climb after another all-time classic in the series opener, coming back from 19-0 down to lose 24-20 in golden point. Enter Andrew Johns. The Newcastle legend came back from injury set up a 32-22 win in Sydney before a 32-10 domination in Brisbane three weeks later. It would prove the champion halfback’s last Origin match, and the end of an era of Blues’ domination before Queensland’s dynasty began the following year.
BLUES’ 1994 RESURRECTION AFTER MAROONS MIRACLE
Mark Coyne scored the most famous try in State of Origin history to take Queensland to victory in game one, but it was NSW who pulled off the ultimate miracle over the next month. Defence won the game for the Blues in Melbourne, before a second straight victory on the road at Suncorp Stadium won them the series for the third straight year. It marked the first time a team came from 1-0 down to lift the shield.
The Mineral Resources Development Company (MRDC) has confirmed its significant role in the upcoming 2025 PNG Resources Week, stepping up as a Platinum Sponsor.
This move, announced by the Papua New Guinea Chamber of Resources & Energy (PNG CORE), highlights MRDC’s continued investment in the national conversation surrounding resource development and its impact on communities.
MRDC’s sponsorship is a contribution that supports PNG CORE’s function as a central platform for the resource sector.
PNG CORE facilitates vital discussions among landowners, communities, government, the private sector, academia, and industry leaders. This collaboration is essential for addressing challenges and opportunities within Papua New Guinea’s development landscape.
MRDC’s financial backing directly enables PNG CORE to host high-profile events like PNG Resources Week, providing a necessary forum for these diverse voices.
Sponsorship Aligns with Community Investment Record
The theme for the 2025 PNG Resources Week, “50 Years of Resources Building PNG Communities,” directly aligns with MRDC’s established track record of community investment. Since 2018, MRDC has committed nearly K80 million through its Community Investment Trust Fund (CITF).
These investments have supported infrastructure projects in key areas such as education, health, social and economic programs, and renewable resources. Such initiatives play a role in augmenting government services and contributing to improved quality of life in communities affected by resource operations.
“We thank MRDC for coming on board as a Platinum Sponsor for the 2025 PNG Resources Week. Their support enables PNG CORE to continue creating platforms that unite stakeholders and spark transformative conversations.
MRDC’s work in reinvesting in communities and advocating for landowner interests resonates strongly with our mission to capture the hearts and minds of Papua New Guineans. Together, we are building a legacy of pride, progress, and partnership in the resource sector.”
Augustine Mano, Managing Director of Mineral Resources Development Company, emphasized the event’s importance for landowners. “We have been a long-standing partner of PNG CORE and a major sponsor of its initiatives. The event is an important platform for our landowners to engage, share experiences, and collaborate in areas of mutual interest,” Mano stated.
MRDC’s Platinum sponsorship provides substantial support for the 2025 PNG Resources Week, ensuring the event can effectively gather key stakeholders to discuss and influence the future of PNG’s resource industry. The PNG Resources Golden Exhibition will also feature prominently, marking half a century of development in the nation’s resource sectors.
A defiant Billy Slater has declared that the Queensland Maroons won’t be pressured into kicking off to NSW firebrand Spencer Leniu in State of Origin II.
As Maroons prop Tino Fa’asuamaleaui said he was not scared of Leniu on Tuesday, Slater would not be drawn on whether the Maroons would kick to the Blues front-rower.
Of the four long kick-offs from Queensland in their game one loss, none went to Leniu or Payne Haas, in what has since been labelled by some as a pre-determined plan.
The situation left Leniu fuming, with the Sydney Roosters prop appearing to swear in frustration as the Maroons changed the direction of their kick to avoid him.
Haas has largely stayed away from the debate over the past week, but on Monday said he would want the ball kicked off to Leniu if he was in the Maroons side, since he’d want the chance to take down a powerful rival.
Former NSW front-rower Willie Mason has also accused the Maroons of being “s**t scared” of Leniu, while Braith Anasta labelled Queensland “weak”.
Slater dodged a question on Tuesday on whether Leniu would have the chance to take a hit-up from a kick-off at Optus Stadium.
But the Maroons coach did defend his team’s right to prioritise their own tactics over the entertainment factor.
“We don’t ask Nathan (Cleary) to kick to a specific corner. He does what he wants,” Slater said of the Blues halfback.
“He gets his game on. So, we’ll be getting our game on.
“I get all the dilemma about it, but at the end of the day, it’s about building a game and a game plan that best suits you.
“It’s not about what (the media) want or anyone else wants.”
Asked about the issue, Maroons front-rower Fa’asuamaleaui rejected any suggestion Queensland’s pack were scared of Leniu.
“I’m not scared of anyone,” Fa’asuamaleaui said.
“I just want to do my job for Queensland and I’m not going to back down from anyone and that’s our whole team.
“We’re just going to get out there, get our game on and do what we do best and play our game.
“(We’re) not backing down from anyone.”
Slater wouldn’t say whether the Maroons would make late changes to their pack, or if Kurt Mann could start at hooker in place of Harry Grant.
The Maroons have won six of eight games when Grant has come off the bench, as opposed to a 0-4 record with him starting.
NSW second-rower Angus Crichton had accused Queensland of mind games last week, refusing to believe Jeremiah Nanai and Pat Carrigan weren’t starting.
Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow has already let slip that he will move to the right wing at Optus Stadium, after playing left centre in the series-opening 18-6 loss in Brisbane.
That defeat has piled the pressure on Slater, who has already axed captain Daly Cherry-Evans and replaced him with Tom Dearden in the halves.
Pacific media outlets In-depth Solomons and Inside PNG face existential threats, while Benar News has already gone under, as America withdraws from the region.
America’s retreat from foreign aid is being felt deeply in Pacific media, where pivotal outlets are being shuttered and journalists work unpaid.
The result is fewer investigations into dubiously motivated politicians, glimpses into conflicts otherwise unseen and a less diverse media in a region which desperately needs it.
“It is a huge disappointment … a senseless waste,” Benar News’ Australian head of Pacific news, Stefan Armbruster, told AAP after seeing his outlet go under.
Benar News, In-depth Solomons and Inside PNG are three digital outlets which enjoyed US support but have been cruelled by President Donald Trump’s about-face on aid.
Benar closed its doors in April after an executive order disestablishing Voice of America, which the United States created during World War II to combat Nazi propaganda.
An offshoot of Radio Free Asia (RFA) focused on Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Benar kept a close eye on abuses in West Papua, massacres and gender-based violence in Papua New Guinea and more.
The Pacific arm quickly became indispensable to many, with a team of reporters and freelancers working in 15 countries on a budget under $A1 million.
“Our coverage of decolonisation in the Pacific received huge interest, as did our coverage of the lack women’s representation in parliaments, human rights, media freedom, deep sea mining and more,” Mr Armbruster said.
In-depth Solomons, a Honiara-based digital outlet, is another facing an existential threat despite a proud record of investigative and award-winning reporting.
Last week, it was honoured with a peer-nominated award from the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan for a year-long probe into former prime minister Manasseh Sogavare’s property holdings.
“We’re just holding on,” editor and co-founder Ofani Eremae told AAP.
A US-centred think tank continues to pay the wage of one journalist, while others haven’t drawn a salary since January.
“It has had an impact on our operations. We used to travel out to do stories across the provinces. That has not been done since early this year,” Mr Eremae said.
A private donor came forward after learning of the cuts with a one-off grant that was used for rent to secure the office, he said.
Its funding shortfall – like Port Moresby-based outlet Inside PNG – is linked to USAID, the world’s biggest single funder of development assistance, until Mr Trump axed its multi-billion dollar budget.
Much of USAID’s funding was spent on humanitarian causes – such as vaccines, clean water supplies and food security – but some was also earmarked for media in developing nations, with the aim of bolstering fragile democracies.
Inside PNG used its support to build an audience of tens of thousands with incisive reports on PNG politics: not just Port Moresby, but in the regions including wantaway province Bougainville that has a long history of conflict.
“The current lack of funding has unfortunately had a dual impact, affecting both our dedicated staff, whom we’re currently unable to pay, and our day-to-day operations,” Inside PNG managing director Kila Wani, told AAP.
“We’ve had to let off 80 per cent of staff from payroll which is a big hit because we’re not a very big team.
“Logistically, it’s become challenging to carry out our work as we normally would.”
AAP has confirmed a number of other media entities in the region which have suffered hits, but declined to share their stories.
The funding hits are all the more damaging given the challenges faced by the Pacific, as outlined in the Pacific Islands Media Freedom Index.
The latest report listed a string of challenges, notably weak legal protections for free speech, political interference on editorial independence, and a lack of funding underpinning high-quality media, in the region.
The burning question for these outlets – and their audiences – is do other sources of funding exist to fill the gap?
Inside PNG is refocusing energy on attracting new donors, as is In-depth Solomons, which has also turned to crowdfunding.
The Australian and New Zealand governments have also provided targeted support for the media sector across the region, including ABC International Development (ABCID), which has enjoyed a budget increase from Anthony Albanese’s government.
Inside PNG and In-depth Solomons both receive training and content-focused grants from ABCID, which helps, but doesn’t fund the underpinning costs for a media business or keep on the lights.
Both Mr Eremae, who edited two major newspapers before founding the investigative outlet, and Mr Armbruster, a long-time SBS Correspondent, expressed their dismay at the US pivot away from the Pacific.
“It’s a huge mistake on the part of the US … the world’s leading democracy. The media is one of the pillars of democracy,” Mr Eremae said.
“It is, I believe, in the interests of the US and other democratic countries to give funding to media in countries like the Solomon Islands where we cannot survive due to lack of advertising (budgets).
As a veteran of Pacific reporting, Mr Armbruster said he had witnessed US disinterest in the region contribute to the wider geopolitical struggle for influence.
“The US government was trying to re-establish its presence after vacating the space decades ago. It had promised to re-engage, dedicating funding largely driven by its efforts to counter China, only to now betray those expectations,” he said.
“The US government has senselessly destroyed a highly valued news service in the Pacific. An own goal.”
THE 2025 Sir Anthony Siaguru Walk Against Corruption, a powerful demonstration of collective resolve against graft, drew over 2,000 participants from 186 teams to Port Moresby on Sunday.
This annual event, spearheaded by Transparency International PNG (TIPNG), served as a vital platform for citizens, civil society, and the private sector to underscore the critical importance of integrity, transparency, and good governance in Papua New Guinea.
The Walk’s theme, “Integrity & Action Now“, resonated deeply throughout the diverse crowd, highlighting the urgent need for tangible steps in combating corruption.
Their banner, “Integrity at the CORE: Strengthening PNG’s Resources for Generations“, captured the sentiment that ethical leadership and responsible resource development are paramount for the nation’s future prosperity.
PNG CORE had four teams at the 15th Sir Anthony Siaguru Walk Against Corruption 2025, walking under the theme: “Integrity at the CORE: Strengthening PNG’s Resources for Generations”.
This highly visible civic movement plays a crucial role in fostering public awareness and galvanizing collective action against corruption in all its forms.
Participants, including PNG CORE, emphasized the shared responsibility of promoting accountability and safeguarding national wealth for future generations.
The sheer numbers involved in the walk sent a clear message: that a significant portion of PNG society is united in its stance against corrupt practices.
Mrs. Pansy Taueni-Sialis, Chief Operating Officer of PNG CORE, articulated the core message of the event, echoing TIPNG Chair Peter Aitsi’s sentiments.
“Saying no to corruption starts with us and is reflected through our actions,” Taueni-Sialis stated, emphasizing the personal commitment required from every individual.
She highlighted the broad participation, including family members and students, as a testament to the growing understanding and response to the call for a corruption-free Papua New Guinea.
Beyond the symbolic march, the event also encouraged community engagement, with PNG CORE sponsoring the “Best Dressed School Team” category, won by Kopkop Lower Secondary School. This initiative further reinforced the importance of instilling values of integrity and accountability from a young age.
Students of Kopkop College with their PNG CORE merchandise bags after winning the award for Best Dressed -School.
The enduring leadership of TIPNG in fostering a culture of accountability and civic engagement was widely commended. The 2025 Walk Against Corruption served as a powerful reminder that sustained efforts, collaborative partnerships, and a unified voice are essential in upholding the values of integrity, transparency, and sustainable development for the betterment of Papua New Guinea.
A woman with ties to Papua New Guinea is facing serious charges in Australia, accused of luring young Papua New Guineans with promises of education scholarships and then forcing them to work on farms. She has been charged with human trafficking and debt bondage offences.
The woman, who holds dual Australian and Nigerian citizenship and is based in PNG, was arrested at Brisbane Airport in Australia on Wednesday after arriving from Papua New Guinea.
Australian federal police allege that between 2021 and 2023, fifteen PNG nationals who travelled to Australia for study were instead forced to work against their will. Some were allegedly made to work seven days a week and up to ten hours a day.
The 56-year-old woman is accused of enticing these young people, aged between 19 and their mid-30s, to Queensland, Australia, with the false promise of education scholarships.
It’s alleged that these students were forced to sign legal documents and agree to repay costs for tuition, airfares, visa applications, insurance, and legal fees.
There are also allegations that she threatened their family members back here in Papua New Guinea.
Police claim the woman made the students work on farms across Queensland, which is against their visa conditions, and that she received their wages directly as repayment for their supposed debts.
The Australian Federal Police have described these allegations as deeply troubling.
“These are individuals who are young, that’s a point of vulnerability,” AFP Detective Superintendent Adrian Telfer said.
“They’re extremely isolated. They are pursuing an education, a dream to come here to Australia, opportunities that they don’t get in their own country, and they’re placed into a position that they weren’t prepared for and didn’t know how to get out of.”
He added that some of the victims are still in Australia and are receiving support from the Red Cross.
The woman appeared in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Wednesday and was charged with 31 offences.
These include four counts of trafficking in persons, which can lead to a maximum of 12 years in prison, and 13 counts of debt bondage, which is a form of modern slavery. She was granted bail and is expected to return to court on September 19.
Between Australia and New Zealand sits a chain of underwater volcanoes that are home to an abundance of fish, ancient corals and other marine life.
Known as Lord Howe Rise, the vast underwater landscape largely exists outside state maritime boundaries, beneath the high seas.
That makes the ecologically-rich habitat fair game for industrial fishing, including long-lining and bottom-trawling techniques in the spotlight following the latest instalment from acclaimed nature documentarian David Attenborough.
Footage in Ocean powerfully reveals to viewers for the first time, trawlers dragging heavy nets across the sea bed in an indiscriminate search for just a few prized species.
🚨 Sir David Attenborough's film OCEAN provides unprecedented visual documentation of bottom trawling devastation.
Join us for a breathtaking journey and conversation on ocean recovery at one of the screenings of the film we will host in different countries around the globe! 🐋 pic.twitter.com/skFUDJ4RR6
— High Seas Alliance (@HighSeasAllianc) May 23, 2025
As well as scooping up vast volumes of bycatch, such trawling has been found to churn up carbon that would have otherwise stayed locked in place on the sea floor, some of which ends up in the atmosphere to fuel climate change.
The documentary lands ahead of a major United Nations ocean conference in France in June.
Conservation groups are hopeful the film will help garner support for a landmark treaty to better protect the roughly two-thirds of marine habitat outside the boundaries of individual countries.
The high seas biodiversity agreement would lay the foundations to safeguard 30 per cent of the world’s oceans by 2030 in marine sanctuaries, helping preserve threatened species and support fish stocks for communities reliant on the food source.
According to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Australia, a founding signatory to the agreement in 2023, and the re-elected Albanese government have promised to ratify its commitment “as quickly as possible”.
“Australia is one of a small number of countries that requires implementing legislation to be in place before the treaty can be ratified,” a spokesperson says.
A multi-agency government delegation still being finalised is set to attend to conference in France.
To bring the treaty into force, 60 countries need to enshrine the treaty in national law via ratification.
So far, about 40 have either done so or signalled that they will.
WWF-Australia head of oceans and sustainable development Richard Leck is confident the treaty will come into force.
“But it means countries like Australia, who have indicated they support the treaty, really need to step up to their parliamentary processes and make sure that that actually gets through their systems,” he says.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific senior oceans campaigner Georgia Whittaker says marine animals are being “pushed closer to the brink of extinction” every day that passes without stronger protections.
Fresh analysis of fisheries data from the environmental campaigners reveals damage caused by industrial longline fishing – long stretches of baited hooks – to shark populations.
Almost half a million near-threatened blue sharks were taken as bycatch in the the central and western Pacific in 2023, the highest number ever recorded and double 2015 numbers.
Greenpeace has been angling for a marine sanctuary in the Lord Howe Rise and Tasman Sea region in anticipation of the oceans treaty going ahead.
Marine scientist and Research Connect Blue director Rachel Przeslawski says there is still much to learn about the diverse underwater tracts off Australia’s east coast.
The mighty chain of seamounts – underwater mountains – experience an inverse relationship to biodiversity to that of their on-land cousins.
Life is most abundant higher on the peaks, where there’s more sunlight and nutrients, with visiting humpback whales and other migratory species among the creatures found in their midst.
The deeper waters of the surrounding abyssal plains tend to host sparser populations of “weird critters” that have adapted to dark, nutrient-poor and hostile conditions.
Some seamounts are as shallow as 200m and a few breach the surface, Lord Howe Island and Middleton and Elizabeth reefs among them.
Australian trawlers are no longer active in the area but vessels from other countries are causing damage, Dr Przeslawski tells AAP, with sea beds taking years or even decades to recover.
She says any marine sanctuaries devised under a high seas agreement would ideally be completely no-take.
Many existing marine parks are only partially protected, with permitted sections to be fished or mined.
“Is it going to be toothless?” Dr Przeslawski asks.
“Or will it actually have some bite and the ability to affect some of these really ecologically damaging activities?”
With the withdrawal of much of USAID’s presence from the Pacific, I quietly hoped that the region could absorb it — maybe even take it as the jolt needed to “go all in on betting on ourselves”. We are building resilience to this donor merry-go-round and, if history is any guide, it will likely cycle back at some point.
What stands to have lasting long-term impact is US President Trump’s Executive Order 14285, aimed at fast-tracking deep-sea mineral (DSM) exploration in the Pacific, outside the oversight of the International Seabed Authority (ISA). It potentially opens the door to a “critical minerals race” fuelled by geopolitics, with the Pacific Ocean at its centre, sidelining Pacific nations who have registered through the ISA. Beyond the clear subversion of international law, the implications for the Blue Pacific’s marine biodiversity and future generations are profound.
If DSM ventures proceed outside ISA oversight, it provides yet another example of why it is so important for the Pacific nations to begin framing a rules-based order to protect the Blue Pacific Continent.
But this urgency raises a more uncomfortable truth — one that continues to undercut Pacific efforts — that, at its core, the problem is not external actors. It’s not the US. It’s us.
At its source, Pacific regionalism is about enabling Pacific nations to work better together. While it is important to acknowledge the many challenges that confront regionalism, we must also recognize that we are not immune from ourselves.
Despite our aspiration of what Pacific regionalism “ought” to be, we remain embedded in a Euro-centric model — one in which we are shaped, not by what we choose to be, but what we are paid to become.
Our region has, for decades, been carried by a vision of solidarity and collective action. Epeli Hau’ofa gave us the metaphor — our sea of islands — and we speak often of the Blue Pacific Continent and the 2050 Strategy for it as an expression of agency and collective sovereignty.
And yet, without solidarity, these narratives ring hollow. When it comes to some of the most pressing challenges of today — ocean governance, regional security, human rights — we are divided, hesitant or silent enablers.
A Pacific High-Level Talanoa (dialogue) on Deep Sea Mining was convened in February, with officials tasked to develop options for a regional approach for Forum Leaders; consideration in Honiara later this year. But DSM is not merely a regional or legal issue. It exposes deeper political, structural and cognitive fractures within the region, revealing the fragility of consensus-building, dollar-diplomacy and internalised dependencies. In this respect, regionalism is not failing because of external pressure; it is eroding under the weight of our reluctance to make hard, collective choices.
This is not about attributing blame. Rather, it’s an opportunity to reflect.
Having spent most of my career working in and around national governments, I’ve been part of the very machinery that enables these dynamics. At the moment, it feels like we’re advancing national interests, responding to pressing needs or navigating political realities. It feels like we’re working together. But are we truly collaborating or are we simply managing each other?
When you step back — and especially from a distance — the picture sharpens. There’s a certain perspective that comes when you step outside the system as I have. A part of you has never really left yet you’re removed from the grind. That’s where reflection lives, I think — somewhere between hope and cynicism, believing in the idea of Pacific-led regionalism in a reality ripe with the limitations of process, power and political motivations.
In 2019, Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders endorsed a comprehensive review of the regional architecture in Tuvalu, aligning it with the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent. The regional architecture here refers to the Pacific nations, external partners, regional institutions, processes — and most importantly — Pacific people who give life to Pacific regionalism. It was an important moment — an attempt to take stock and reimagine — but, six years on, the review is ongoing.
A new High-Level Panel established by PIF Troika Leaders has begun its consultations across the region on the regional architecture. The now-former Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa of Samoa recently said that the consultations seeks to answer three questions: Is Pacific unity still there? Do we still want it? If we do, what do we want it to look like?
The review will consider options for the rationalisation — or amalgamation — of regional institutions, amid growing concern that there are simply too many. Yet the regional architecture is now more complex, fragmented and contested than perhaps at any other point in its history. Compared to six years ago, the region is navigating a far more strained geopolitical landscape. Pacific nations have become more vulnerable — economically, environmentally and strategically — at the very time when external engagement has become more heavy-handed. This has contributed to a deepening over-reliance on Australia, New Zealand and, increasingly, China.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the Pacific’s regional security architecture. The Boe Declaration on Regional Security, endorsed in 2018, was intended to re-centre the region’s security needs squarely on climate change, human security and sustainable development.
But as external powers seek access and influence in the Blue Pacific Continent, the region has become heavily securitised and militarised — further complicating efforts to foster regional unity and cooperation. This has led some Pacific academics to call for the demilitarisation of the region.
Initiatives like AUKUS, expanded military partnerships and intelligence-sharing arrangements mask a creeping model of regionalism that appears to be preparing itself for future conflict. We are told this will keep us safe — but at what cost to our sovereignty, and to our future generations?
And this takes us back to the question that continues to plague Pacific regionalism: Who is driving regionalism, if not us?
Outside of process-oriented solutions, we tend to avoid holding heart-to-heart political talanoa on confronting and divisive issues including the influence of Australia, New Zealand and external partners, the China-Taiwan issue, DSM, regional security, and the place of territories within our shared future. It has long been argued, for example, that decolonization and regionalism are inseparable.
It would be a mistake, however, to assume that regionalism lives and dies at the hands of political leaders alone. Political will does not exist in a vacuum. It grows (or withers) within an ecosystem of public expectations, institutional interest and electoral cycles.
The end-game of regionalism is not the communique delivered at the annual PIF Leaders Meeting. It is a set of practices, compromises and choices that we, collectively, either uphold or allow to erode. Without conviction — without a shared belief in the value of standing together — these gatherings risk becoming rituals of aspiration with little action.
I firmly believe that Pacific regionalism is ultimately about people and relationships. But relationships are extremely difficult to manage, especially in a region as diverse and dispersed as ours. Sub-regionalism, domestic pressures and competing priorities all take their toll. And then there are the silences — the moments when we choose not to speak, not to take a stand, not to challenge each other when the stakes are high.
There is no single fix for the problems of Pacific regionalism. But perhaps the shift we need is not just structural reform — but a relational shift as well — from fragmented interest to a sense of shared purpose — moving beyond the talk. And it begins not with external forces, donors or declarations, but with us.
That’s the hardest part. It requires sacrifice, trust, willingness to endure short-term pains for longer-term gain. Hopefully, the current review of the regional architecture can encourage us to take that leap.
If we don’t, someone else will happily do so. And we will continue to follow.
Written by: Sione Tekiteki
Joel Nilon is presenting a paper on the Blue Pacific rules-based order co-authored with Sione Tekiteki at the 2025 Pacific Update which will be held on 3-5 June at the University of the South Pacific’s Laucala Campus in Suva, Fiji. Visit the event webpage for more details on this free event and the livestream of keynote sessions.
This article appeared first on Devpolicy Blog (devpolicy.org), from the Development Policy Centre at The Australian National University.
Sione Tekiteki is a senior lecturer at the Auckland University of Technology. He previously served at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat in three positions over nine years, most recently as Director, Governance and Engagement.
