Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has celebrated a new pacific policing initiative backed by Australia, marking a new chapter for the pacific region’s collective security.
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00:00The symbolism behind this event was very, very clear.
00:05This is something called the Pacific Policing Support Group.
00:09This is actually the support group's first ever deployment under something called the
00:13Pacific Policing Initiative, endorsed by Pacific Island leaders a couple of months ago in Tonga.
00:18Now there's a couple of things that's driving this.
00:21The first is a desire in Australia to try and bolster the capability of police forces
00:27around the region.
00:28You've got a training centre that's been set up in Brisbane, near the airport there.
00:31And then you've also got this support group that can be deployed to various hotspots or
00:36major events around the region.
00:38And this deployment to Chogham is the first one that the PPSG, as it's called, has done.
00:45So one, it's about capability, but the second element here is strategic.
00:50And the aim here is very clear.
00:53Australia and New Zealand in particular are clear for a Pacific-led approach to security
00:57in part because they want to make sure that China doesn't insert itself as a major security
01:03or policing player in the Pacific.
01:06There's enormous unease still in Canberra about that policing deal that Solomon Islands
01:10struck with China not that long ago.
01:12There's an awareness and a worry that China is intent on striking similar deals across
01:17the Pacific.
01:18So the idea is if Australia and New Zealand and the Pacific can work together to provide
01:23security for major events or to respond to crises, then there'll simply be no need for
01:28Pacific Island nations to turn to outside players, perhaps particularly China, for assistance.
01:34Let's take a listen to what the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had to say about this initiative
01:38here in Samoa.
01:40The Pacific family needs to provide security for the Pacific by the Pacific.
01:48And that's what this initiative is about.
01:51Pacific neighbours want to look after each other.
01:55We do that in times of crisis.
01:57The Fijian Prime Minister spoke about the deployment of Fijian support during the bushfires
02:04in Australia of 2019-20.
02:07Australia regularly provides support for our Pacific neighbours and I think what this does
02:13is confirm the Pacific family needs to look after our own security in our own interests.
02:20Today leaders have their retreat, which means their private one-on-one conversations where
02:24you'd imagine perhaps the most sensitive and difficult topics are likely to be broached.
02:29We're expecting the Commonwealth leaders to issue a final statement at the end of the day.
02:34They're also going to issue an oceans declaration that's expected to commit all Commonwealth
02:38nations to making sweeping protections of the ocean.
02:41We might see commitments for as much as 30 per cent of oceans to be protected.
02:46On top of that, it will be interesting to see exactly what leaders have to say on the
02:50rather fraught and difficult question of reparations.
02:54Some Caribbean and African nations have been pushing for the United Kingdom to pay financial
02:59reparations or engage in what's called repertory justice in acknowledgement of the depredations
03:05of slavery.
03:07Now the United Kingdom has essentially ruled that out.
03:09It says it wants to look forward rather than looking back.
03:12But it does seem likely that that final leader statement will make a reference to a need
03:16for quote a conversation at the very least on the issue.
03:20Now, how one-sided that conversation is depends on the United Kingdom, but I think there's
03:25enough of a push behind this from enough countries in the Commonwealth that the issue can't simply
03:31be swept away.
03:32The appetite for this discussion means that the United Kingdom at some point, even if
03:37it doesn't want to actually pay reparations, is probably going to have to come to the table
03:42for a talk about exactly where this issue goes.