The Albanese government will increase aid to Pacific countries by $900m as it declares next week’s budget will deliver the biggest rise in Australia’s official development assistance in more than a decade.
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, will announce the extra funding during a speech in French Polynesia on Friday, arguing the budget will be “a major step toward the goal of making Australia stronger and more influential in the world”.
And in a separate pre-budget announcement, Anthony Albanese will use an event in Western Australia to promote support for critical minerals, which is expected to be a key issue in talks with the Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, on Saturday.
The budget will confirm a $900m increase in official development assistance (ODA) to the Pacific over four years amid an intensifying competition with China for influence. The figure is 70% more than the $525m increase that Labor promised during the election campaign.
South-east Asia, meanwhile, is set to gain a $470m increase in ODA over four years as promised.
In a clear reference to China, Wong said that “others will continue to fill the vacuum and Australia will continue to lose ground” if the government does not increase such investments.
“Our assistance will help our regional partners become more economically resilient, develop critical infrastructure and provide their own security so they have less need to call on others,” she said in a statement.
The budget is also expected to include $139m over four years to support Pacific security and engagement priorities, including $46m for the Australian federal police’s deployment in Solomon Islands and $19m to set up a network of Australian Border Force officers across the region.
It will also fund Labor’s election promises including $30m to upgrade aerial surveillance across the Pacific, $7m to create an Australia-Pacific defence school and training for defence and security forces across the region; and $32m to expand the ABC’s content and transmission in the region.
The government says it will increase support for infrastructure investment in the Pacific and Timor-Leste through the Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific. It says about $500m over 10 years will be allocated from the existing ODA program to support grant and loan packages from the facility.
The year-by-year breakdown has not yet been released, but the minister for international development and the Pacific, Pat Conroy, said the budget would deliver a significant overall increase in aid funding.
“Our additional investment in Australia’s official development assistance will be the biggest increase over four years since 2011-12 and follows a decade of Liberal cuts,” he said.
Setting out the case for the package despite broader budget pressures, Conroy said the measures would “advance Australia’s interests by tackling poverty and supporting stability, prosperity and security in our region”.
The announcements come a day after Australia and Fiji signed a status of forces agreement, providing a legal framework for the presence of one country’s forces in the other.
Fiji’s defence minister, Inia Seruiratu, told his visiting Australian counterpart, Richard Marles, that the agreement marked “a new height of security cooperation between our two nations”.
Albanese and Kishida are expected to sign a new security declaration between Australia and Japan when the two leaders meet in Perth on Saturday.
On the eve of those talks, Albanese will announce that the budget will allocate $50m over three years to the Critical Minerals Development Program.
The program will provide competitive grants to support early and mid-stage critical minerals projects. The government says this funding comes on top of $50m committed last month to six key projects across Australia.
Labor will also say that the budget will include $50.5m over four years to establish an Australian critical minerals research and development hub, which aims to help unlock Australia’s critical minerals potential.
This is similar to a research and development centre announced by the former Coalition government in March, but it is understood the funding was never allocated. In addition to actually providing the funding in next week’s budget, the Labor government says it has “reframed” the project.
It says the hub will combine expertise from Geoscience Australia, the CSIRO and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation “to work with Australian industry to address technical challenges and support international research and development collaborations”.
In a statement, Albanese said his government was “committed to supporting the critical minerals sector and new clean technologies to reach our target of net zero, and make our nation an economic powerhouse with a clean energy future”.
“Today’s new initiatives will ensure we can create and support local jobs, diversify global supply chains and meet the growing demand for batteries, electric vehicles and clean energy technology,” he said.
The resources minister, Madeleine King, said the measures would “help Australia and its partners to meet net zero commitments”.
“Without Australia’s resources, the world will not reach net zero,” she said.
Australia is Japan’s largest supplier of coal and liquefied natural gas. Kishida is expected to use the meeting with Albanese to seek assurances about the reliability of that supply, while also pledging to cooperate with Australia on the transition to net zero.
Japan’s cabinet secretary for public affairs, Noriyuki Shikata, said Kishida’s visit to Western Australia was “timely” because of the state’s importance as an energy hub. Supply chain resilience would be on the agenda.
