AUSTRALIA and Fiji have tabled treaties to deepen military cooperation, integrate their economies and strengthen joint efforts against transnational crime, illicit drugs and regional insecurity, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said.
The Ocean of Peace Alliance and the Australia-Fiji Vuvale Union were presented to the Senate as landmark agreements intended to transform the bilateral relationship and support a more stable, peaceful and resilient Pacific.
“At a time of great uncertainty, risk and contestation, the Albanese Government recognises that Australia cannot afford to be a passive observer of the profound changes occurring around us,” Wong said.
“Peace is never a given.”
The alliance, proposed by Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, is Fiji’s first and Australia’s fourth, Wong said. It will deepen military interoperability, with the two countries planning, training, exercising, and deploying together to strengthen combined capabilities, sovereignty, and regional security.
“An Alliance is the highest act of trust between two nations,” Wong said.
Fiji has championed the vision of the Blue Pacific as an “Ocean of Peace”, described by Rabuka as “a region in which strategic competition is managed; where stability is the touchstone of regional relationships; and where coercion is eschewed. A region where differences are resolved peacefully”.
Australia and Fiji have a history of military cooperation, with their servicemen and women standing “shoulder to shoulder” in two world wars, regional security deployments and peacekeeping missions, Wong said.
The Vuvale Union Treaty will be a “multi-generational endeavour” covering the two countries’ economies, security and peoples. It is backed by more than a billion dollars of investment over a decade, including grants and loans.
A $181 million security investment will bring the Australian Federal Police and the Fiji Police Force together to disrupt criminal networks and strengthen intelligence to interdict drugs before they reach Fijian or Australian shores.
The treaty also provides for Australian doctors and nurses to support specialist training for Fiji’s health workers and strengthen Fiji’s response to “the fastest-growing HIV outbreak in the world”.
Under the economic pillar, Australia will finance ports and major climate adaptation projects, strengthen Fiji’s role as a regional hub and support economic diversification through secure digital infrastructure, critical infrastructure investment screening and stronger supply chains.
The people-to-people pillar will build on deep personal connections, including more than 100,000 people in Australia with Fijian heritage, Wong said.
The treaty establishes the Bukmak Forum, named after a local Yolŋu word meaning “everyone”, to bring together government, traditional, faith and business leaders from the two countries.
Yolŋu elder Djapirri Mununggirritj travelled forty hours from Yirrkala to attend the treaty signing, while a Fijian delegation including Fiji’s Minister for Women, Sashi Kiran, and traditional leaders joined this year’s Garma festival.
Wong said the treaties were the first to give practical effect to the Blue Pacific Ocean of Peace Declaration after Pacific Islands Forum foreign ministers reaffirmed their leaders’ call for action.
“As Prime Minister Rabuka has said, these treaties reaffirm Fiji and Australia as trusted partners working together not only to benefit each other, but as contributors to a more stable, peaceful and resilient Blue Pacific continent,” she said.
“These two treaties send an unequivocal signal of our commitment to each other and to the Pacific family.”
“They will help realise the vision of an Ocean of Peace to make us all more secure, prosperous and resilient.”
Wong commended the Ocean of Peace Alliance and Vuvale Union treaties to the Senate for consideration.
