This week has shown Australia’s partners have come to understand they cannot leave it to Australia alone to carry the democratic standard in the Pacific.
The security treaty signed last week is the logical next step in the two countries’ relationship. But Australia’s interests in PNG should remain broad-based.
Papua New Guinea frog Xenorhina macrodisca.
Stephen Richards
To repair our relationship with the Pacific, the new government must make swift decisions addressing the climate emergency. But that’s just the starting point.
If you aren’t a fan of holiday shopping, you aren’t alone.
Dave Einsel/Getty Images
First Nations leaders Pabai Pabai and Paul Kabai filed a landmark class action against the Australian government to protect communities in the Torres Strait from climate change.
Papua New Guinea National Department of Health/Facebook
Struggling with a a fragile healthcare system, remote populations and widespread fear of the vaccine, COVID is running rampant in PNG. Australia has done much to help, but is it enough?
Aerial view of the new highway cutting through lowland forest in Papua Province.
Ulet Ifansasti/Greenpeace
David Gaveau, International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Douglas Sheil, Wageningen University
Many are concerned that the highway is being built to benefit powerful commercial interests and not Indigenous people and will accelerate forest loss as seen in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
While most other Pacific nations take a strong abolitionist stances on the death penalty, PNG is moving in the opposite direction – despite not having executed any prisoners since 1954.
Australia has sent help to its nearest neighbour to deal with its COVID crisis. But to really forge the next chapter in that relationship, we need to understand the history between the two countries.
Our neighbour’s stability and prosperity is in our interests. Surely, there can be no better example of this than the current crisis: what is good for PNG is also good for Australia.
With his strong belief in sana – consensus – over insurrection, Somare was central to PNG’s independence and a pivotal figure in Pacific politics.
Women who work outside the home in Papua New Guinea often continue shouldering the same domestic and child care responsibilities as before.
Rachel Gilbert and Gracie Rosenbach, IFPRI