Labor has vowed to increase foreign aid to Pacific island countries and Timor-Leste by $525m over four years, as it makes an election pledge to “restore Australia’s place as first partner of choice for our Pacific family”.
The opposition is also vowing to reform Pacific worker schemes, ramp up patrols to fight illegal fishing, boost regional broadcasting, and “listen and act on Pacific island warnings of the existential threat of climate change”.
Labor is seeking to intensify political pressure on the prime minister, Scott Morrison, in the wake of China signing a security agreement with Solomon Islands.
The shadow minister for foreign affairs, Penny Wong, who outlined the Labor plan alongside senior frontbench colleagues in Darwin on Tuesday, accused Morrison of dropping the ball in the Pacific.
“The vacuum Scott Morrison has created is being filled by others who do not share our interests and values,” Wong said in a clear reference to China.
Labor’s seven-part plan includes a $525m increase to Australia’s Official Development Assistance for Pacific countries and Timor-Leste over the next four years.
The party argued this funding would “help address the decade’s worth of development gains that have been lost due to the pandemic”.
It would include $5m for a national critical care and trauma response centre “to strengthen regional health preparedness in the Pacific and Timor-Leste”.
Wong has yet to announce planned aid levels for countries outside the Pacific. She told reporters in Darwin that as foreign minister she “would like to have more development assistance” but it was also important to be “fiscally responsible”.
Labor said it would “restore Australia’s climate leadership” and establish a Pacific climate infrastructure financing partnership to support climate and clean energy infrastructure projects in Pacific countries.
It is also planning to address Pacific economic challenges and ease Australia’s agricultural worker shortages by reforming the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme’s Seasonal Worker Program.
The federal government would meet the upfront travel costs for Pacific workers rather than the costs being met by Australian farmers.
Labor said it would also establish a dedicated agriculture visa stream under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme, “creating a robust and sustainable four-year visa, with portability, strong oversight mechanisms, and protections and rights for workers”.
The opposition’s spokesperson for international development and the Pacific, Pat Conroy, said the move would be accompanied by increased compliance activity.
He said that would include “putting a firewall between the Department of Home Affairs and the Fair Work Ombudsman” so that temporary migrant workers would not risk their visa by calling attention to abuses.
Earlier, Labor released details of three other parts of the plan, including doubling Australia’s $12m in annual funding for aerial surveillance activities under the Pacific Maritime Security Program, which helps the region combat illegal fishing.
An Albanese Labor government would consult Pacific countries about options for boosting aerial surveillance, such as increasing flying hours and the number of aircraft, improving sensors, and using drones.
Labor will also pledge to deepen existing links between the Australian defence force and its regional counterparts by setting up a new Australia-Pacific Defence School at a cost of $6.5m over four years.
Another plank of the plan was focused on regional broadcasting, which was seen as a key lever of “soft power”.
Labor would draw up an Indo-Pacific Broadcasting Strategy to “boost Australian content and to project Australian identity, values, and interests to the Indo-Pacific region”.
This would include an $8m a year increase in funding to the ABC’s international program aimed at expanding ABC regional transmission and content production.
Labor would use the strategy to review the potential restoration of Australian shortwave radio broadcasting capacity in the Pacific.
Morrison on Tuesday ridiculed that aspect of the plan, telling reporters in Townsville: “I sent in the AFP. The Labor Party wants to send in the ABC when it comes to their Pacific solution.”
Morrison dismissed the rest of the Labor plan on the basis that it built on existing policies. “What they’re effectively saying is that they’re going to keep doing what we’ve been doing,” the prime minister said.
Morrison has been seeking to project strength on national security ahead of the 21 May election, but that message has been complicated by the finalisation of Beijing’s security agreement with Solomon Islands.
The draft security agreement raised the possibility China could “make ship visits to, carry out logistical replenishment in, and have stopover and transition in Solomon Islands”.
Labor characterised the deal as the biggest Australian foreign policy failure in the Pacific since the second world war, but Morrison said China was exerting “enormous pressure” on Pacific island countries and did not “play by the same rules as transparent liberal democracies”.
Morrison has sought to rely on assurances from the prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare, that Solomon Islands will not allow a military base.
On Sunday, Morrison was asked to clarify what he meant by his statement that Australia shared “the same red line that the United States has when it comes to these issues”.
“We won’t be having Chinese military naval bases in our region on our doorstep,” Morrison told reporters.
Pressed on what Australia would actually do to stop such a prospect, Morrison said Sogavare had been clear that there would be no bases “and so he clearly shares our red line”.
The Coalition has previously bristled at suggestions it had dropped the ball in the Pacific, insisting Solomon Islands is Australia’s third largest aid recipient overall, and the second largest in the Pacific region after Papua New Guinea.
Labor has cited figures showing Australia’s bilateral official development assistance to Solomon Islands averaged $167.5m a year under the Coalition government, or about 28% lower than the $231.6m average under the former government.
But the Australian government said it had offered additional assistance to the Pacific in separate programs, including Covid-related help.
