Labor will today unveil a package of wide-ranging reforms aimed at boosting Australia's diplomatic and military relationships in the Pacific.
It will include increases to the aid budget, more money for climate change adaptation, and an overhaul of Pacific Island worker programs in Australia.
The announcement is designed in part to burnish Labor's foreign policy credential and boost its argument that the security pact signed by China and Solomon Islands represents a broader failure of the Government's Pacific Step Up.
The ALP is billing its Pacific plan as a "whole of government effort" which will combine "defence, strategic, diplomatic and economic power to reassure the region they can rely on Australia."
Foreign-aid policy
As part of the package, Labor will announce part of its foreign aid election policy, revealing how much more Overseas Development Assistance it will dedicate to the Pacific and Timor Leste if it wins government next month.
The Shadow Foreign Minister Penny Wong has repeatedly slammed Coalition cuts to foreign aid over the last decade and has promised to increase overall aid spending, but has declined to give the quantum.
Multiple shadow ministers are expected to join Senator Wong for the announcement in Darwin on Tuesday morning, laying out more details on what Labor would do on climate infrastructure, Pacific labour mobility and diplomatic exchanges in the region.
The ALP has already revealed some more modest elements in the package, including a plan to expand training for Pacific Island defence personnel, an increase in funding for maritime surveillance in the region, and a boost to the ABC's budget to enable it to broadcast more widely into the Pacific.
Under the overhaul, Labor would establish a new Australia-Pacific Defence School which would provide additional training to defence and security force personnel from the region. The ALP has said the school would focus on non-commissioned officers and would complement existing training programs focusing on senior officials and defence leaders.
Boost to Australian broadcasting in Indo-Pacific
It would also expand Australian broadcasting in both the Pacific and the broader Indo-Pacific, partly by boosting the ABC's international programming budget by more than $30 million dollars over four years.
Labor would also explore potentially restoring Australian shortwave radio broadcasting in the Pacific under the plan. The ALP has repeatedly criticised the ABC's decision to cut shortwave transmissions into Northern Australia and the Pacific in 2017, particularly after it was revealed a Chinese radio station had taken over some of the frequencies once used by the national broadcaster.
Finally, Labor is foreshadowing an increase to maritime surveillance in the Pacific, to help the region tackle illegal fishing and other transnational crime. The ALP would do this by increasing funding for aerial surveillance by $12 million a year, which could be used to increase flying hours, improve sensors on existing aircraft or potentially using drone or satellite surveillance.
The Shadow Defence Minister Brendan O'Connor said that Labor's Pacific plan would lay down "the building blocks of re-engagement" for the Pacific.
"They are saying we want to work together with you, in our regional interests, to secure stability, democracy and peace."
While foreign policy didn't feature heavily in the opening week of the federal election campaign, the security pact signed by China and Solomon Islands prompted a furious debate in the second week over the Coalition's record on national security.
Labor has accused the federal government of presiding over a catastrophic blunder and argues that the Coalition's climate change policies have hardened Pacific attitudes towards Australia across the region.
But the Coalition has scoffed at this argument, pointing out that China is the world's largest carbon emitter and accusing Labor of undermining Australia's position in the Pacific.
Both the Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the Defence Minister Peter Dutton have hinted that China may have used underhand tactics like bribery to secure the agreement in Solomon Islands, but not have explicitly made that accusation in public.
