Category Archives: Solomon Islands

Labor pledges more foreign aid to Pacific with plan ‘to restore Australia’s place as first partner of choice’

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Seven-point plan also includes funding boosts for regional broadcasting and fight against illegal fishing

Labor will vow to increase foreign aid to Pacific island countries and ramp up patrols to fight illegal fishing, as it makes an election pledge to “restore Australia’s place as first partner of choice for our Pacific family”.

A boost to regional broadcasting is also part of the package, with Labor seeking to intensify political pressure on the prime minister, Scott Morrison, in the wake of China signing a security agreement with Solomon Islands.

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‘We have not seen the preparation’: Labor attacks Coalition after Dutton’s declaration on war

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Deputy Labor leader Richard Marles says Coalition ‘is a government which beats its chest’ but does not deliver

Labor has hit back at Peter Dutton’s claim that the only way to “preserve peace is to prepare for war”, suggesting the Coalition’s actions fall short of its words.

The defence minister made the comments on Anzac Day morning, warning that “people like Hitler” are not “consigned to history” and Australia must do more to stand up to China’s aggression in the region.

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China is exerting ‘enormous pressure’ on Pacific island nations, Scott Morrison says

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Morrison dodges questions on whether Australia knew of Solomon Islands-China pact amid ministers’ conflicting accounts

Scott Morrison says China is exerting “enormous pressure” on Pacific island countries, as the Australian prime minister fends off questions about whether his government was caught off-guard by the security deal with Solomon Islands.

Morrison said it was not “just as easy as picking up the phone or sending a foreign minister”, after Labor characterised the signing of the deal as the biggest Australian foreign policy failure in the Pacific since the second world war.

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Australia rejects claim its security forces in Solomon Islands were told not to protect Chinese-built buildings

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Former PM alleged Australian personnel twice failed to prevent the burning of Honiara’s Chinatown

Australia has refuted claims that Australian security forces deployed to Solomon Islands’ capital Honiara to quell last November’s riots were instructed not to protect Chinese-built infrastructure.

The claim was made by former Solomon Islands prime minister, Danny Philip, who is now the chair of the current government’s, foreign policy advisory subcommittee.

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Sharma labels Deves’s comments on trans people ‘reprehensible’ – as it happened

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Dave Sharma condemns comments of Warringah candidate Katherine Deves; Labor MP Terri Butler’s electorate office hit by car; nation records at least 50 Covid deaths. This blog is now closed

Q: But senator, I do want to take you up on that. This was the debate we were having in the dying days of the parliament, and all the national security experts and veterans in the field say it was unhelpful and that the ALP was anything other than supporting Australia’s policy, so why are you continuing this line of attack?

Simon Birmingham:

The Labor party have created the points of difference in the way they expressed themselves and the language they used. When last in office, let our investment in our defence forces whittle away to the lowest share of the economy. We brought it back to 2% of the GDP, and having that credible investment is what has enabled us to strike new defence pacts and partnerships with countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, making us a credible partner for defence and strategic investment in areas of artificial intelligence, in missile equipment and investment, and the nuclear-powered submarines.

I think we have seen a Labor party, who when China were making decisions to apply trade sanctions and tariffs against Australia, Labor seemed to want us to reach a compromise with China rather than to stand up for Australia.

Anthony Albanese spoke at the National Press Club not that long ago – he suggested we should negotiate or settle some of the points with the Labor party – sorry, with China. Well, ultimately, we have to stand up for Australian interests.

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Scott Morrison fends off claim Solomon Islands-China pact is worst foreign policy failure since 1945

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Prime minister defends Canberra’s ‘calibrated’ approach to Honiara and tries to turn criticism back on Labor

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has fended off accusations that he is responsible for “the worst Australian foreign policy failure” in the Pacific since the end of the second world war after the Solomon Islands struck a new security pact with China.

Labor has seized on the new agreement as evidence that Australia has been asleep at the wheel while China has cemented its influence in the region, with leader Anthony Albanese saying more should have been done to prevent it from going ahead.

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Australian politics live: NSW and Victoria to ease Covid isolation rules; Morrison says Solomon Islands-China pact exposes ‘very real risk’

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Penny Wong says Morrison government’s handling of Solomon Islands the ‘worst Australian foreign policy blunder in the Pacific since the end of world war two’; NSW and Victoria to ease Covid restrictions from Friday night; undecided voters will put questions to the rivals at a Brisbane forum tonight in first leaders’ debate of 2022 election campaign; NSW reports 15 new Covid deaths and Victoria 14. Follow all the day’s news

For followers of South Australian politics, the good burghers of Bragg in Adelaide’s east are headed back to the polls, with Vickie Chapman announcing she will quit politics at the end of the month, triggering a by-election.

Chapman is a moderate Liberal and the new SA Liberal leader, David Speirs is ... not in the same faction.

Labor appears to have lost ground in the opening week of the federal election campaign according to the latest Guardian Essential poll, but a majority of respondents still think Anthony Albanese will be Australia’s next prime minister.

The latest survey of 1,020 respondents shows Labor’s standing in the two-party preferred “plus” measure is down three points in a fortnight, and there has been a two point increase in the number of undecided voters. But 55% of respondents believe Labor will win on 21 May.

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Solomon Islands-China pact is worst policy failure in Pacific since 1945, Labor says

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Penny Wong accuses Coalition of mishandling situation, raising concerns of a potential Chinese military presence in South Pacific

Labor has lashed the Coalition in the wake of the newly signed security agreement between China and Solomon Islands, branding it “the worst Australian foreign policy blunder in the Pacific” in decades.

The Coalition government sounded the alarm over the deal, arguing the pact has been negotiated in secret and could “undermine stability in our region”. The foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, and the minister for the Pacific, Zed Seselja, said they were “deeply disappointed” by the deal, and would “seek further clarity on the terms of the agreement, and its consequences for the Pacific region”.

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US military leader warns Chinese security deal with Solomon Islands sounds ‘too good to be true’

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General David Berger raises concerns about Chinese influence while Australia’s Pacific minister asks Solomon Islands ‘to consider not signing agreement’

A senior US military general has warned during a visit to Australia that China’s offer to deepen security ties with Solomon Islands will come with strings attached, suggesting the Pacific island country may come to regret the planned deal.

“My parents told me if a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” the commandant of the United States Marine Corps, general David Berger, said on Wednesday.

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China requested heavily armed security team be sent to Solomon Islands, leaked documents reveal

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The 10-person detail was to be armed with pistols, rifles, two machine guns and a sniper rifle to protect Chinese embassy

China requested that a plainclothes 10-person security detail armed with pistols, rifles, two machine guns and a sniper rifle be dispatched to Solomon Islands late last year, leaked documents reveal.

The Guardian has received a copy of the documents, dated 3 December 2021, in which China requested security personnel be allowed to enter the country to secure the Chinese embassy in Honiara, in the wake of the riots there in November.

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Australia anxious to show it didn’t ‘drop the ball’ on Pacific after China and Solomon Islands deal

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Canberra must walk a delicate line when responding to challenges presented by Beijing and Solomons’ security agreement

As China makes progress on a security deal with Solomon Islands, the Australian government is anxious not to be seen to have “dropped the ball” in the Pacific region. That would be a tad embarrassing, given it has spent the past few years sounding the alarm about security threats from China while also trumpeting its own “Pacific Step-Up”.

The deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, has been one of the ministers on the defensive after leaked documents revealed the draft agreement between China and the Pacific island nation.

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Security agreement with China ‘initialled’ by both countries, Solomon Islands says

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Pacific nation has batted away concerns from Australia, New Zealand and the US, saying its policy is ‘friends to all and enemies to none’

Solomon Islands has announced it is pushing ahead with a security agreement with China hours after a senior Australian defence force officer said the deal may force Canberra to change the way it conducts air and sea operations in the Pacific.

The Solomon Islands government said officials from both countries had on Thursday “initialled” elements of the proposed security agreement with China which would be signed at a later date.

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It may be too late to stop China-Solomon Islands treaty, former Australian intelligence chief says

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Coalition urged to refrain from megaphone diplomacy as it tries to persuade Honiara to change course

China’s proposed treaty with Solomon Islands is an “adverse development for Australia’s security” but it may be too late to stop the deal, a former senior Australian intelligence official has warned.

Richard Maude, head of the Office of National Assessments from 2013 to 2016 and an experienced former diplomat, urged the Morrison government not to engage in megaphone diplomacy as it tried to persuade Solomon Islands to change course.

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Redspice: budget ushers in Australia’s ‘biggest ever’ cybersecurity spend

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Pledge of $10bn will see electronic spy agency ASD double and ramp up ability to launch offensive cyber operations

Australia’s electronic spy agency will double in size and ramp up its ability to launch its own offensive cyber operations as part of a $10bn national security budget pledge curiously dubbed Redspice.

But the funding is spread over 10 years and only $4.2bn will be spent in the first four-year budget cycle. Given the government is partly offsetting the package with savings from other parts of the defence portfolio, the cyber pledge is worth only $588.7m in new money in the first four years.

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Solomon Islands prime minister says foreign criticism of China security deal ‘very insulting’

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Manasseh Sogavare says it is ‘utter nonsense’ that China’s presence is a threat to regional stability

Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare has dismissed foreign criticism of the country’s security negotiations with China as “insulting” and called those who leaked the draft agreement “lunatics”, in his first comments to parliament on the proposed treaty.

“We find it very insulting, Mr Speaker, to be branded as unfit to manage our sovereign affairs,” Sogavare said on Tuesday.

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Australia’s lost influence in Pacific on display in Solomon Islands-China deal, Anthony Albanese says

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Labor leader says inaction on climate change and cuts to foreign aid have broken trust, forcing Pacific nations to turn elsewhere

Australia has lost influence in the Pacific by failing to act on climate and cutting foreign aid, Anthony Albanese says, amid concerns about China’s proposed security deal with Solomon Islands.

Australia and New Zealand are worried the draft agreement could jeopardise regional stability, with China having the opportunity to base navy warships in the Pacific less than 2,000km off the Australian coast.

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Scott Morrison says it would have been ‘weakness’ for him to meet new Chinese ambassador

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Australian prime minister defends level of support for Solomon Islands and rest of Pacific amid tensions over security deal

The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, says there will be no diplomatic thaw in relations with China until it lifts a block on ministerial meetings.

“So long as China continues to refuse to have dialogue with Australian ministers and the prime minister, I think that’s an entirely proportional response,” Morrison told reporters on Saturday regarding reports he declined to meet China’s new ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian.

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Chinese draft security deal with Solomon Islands didn’t blindside Australia, Morrison says

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Analysts say unratified document which would allow China to base ships in the Pacific is a ‘wish list’ which reveals nation’s intent in ‘black and white’

Scott Morrison says Australia was not blindsided by a draft security deal between China and Solomon Islands, which experts warn has demonstrated a “black and white” intent at expanding influence in the Pacific.

The draft would allow China to base navy warships in the Pacific less than 2,000km off the Australian coast, but some experts, including the Lowy Institute’s Jonathan Pryke, caution it reads more like a “wishlist” from China than a finalised agreement.

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Secret shipment of replica guns to Solomon Islands police by China triggers concern

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Police had been criticised after reports that a ‘shipment of arms’ arrived in the country on a logging vessel from an unknown source

A shipment of replica firearms by China to Solomon Islands police has caused concern as the Pacific nation grapples with security concerns sparked by its increasingly close relationship with Beijing.

The police force had been criticised over the secrecy surrounding delivery of what a local media report called a “large shipment of arms” that arrived in the country on a logging vessel earlier this month from an unknown source.

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‘Really concerning’: China finalising security deal with Solomon Islands to base warships in the Pacific

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Draft agreement circulating on social media suggests China could establish military base less than 2,000km from Australia

Australian officials are alarmed at Solomon Islands’ planned security deal with China with the defence minister, Peter Dutton, stating “we would be concerned clearly about any military base being established” less than 2,000km off the coast.

Solomon Islands has signed a policing deal with China and will send a proposal for a broader security agreement covering the military to its cabinet for consideration.

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