The host of this week’s Pacific Islands Forum summit says the region must “revisit” a landmark anti-nuclear treaty, citing Australia’s Aukus submarine deal and Japan’s discharge of treated Fukushima wastewater.
Mark Brown, the prime minister of the Cook Islands and chair of the region’s most important annual political talks, raised concerns about nuclear-related issues on the eve of the arrival of the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese.
Albanese, who has just wrapped up an official visit to China, is due to land in the Cook Islands on Tuesday local time (Wednesday, Australian time).
In 1985, the then prime minister, Bob Hawke, signed Australia up to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, also known as the Treaty of Rarotonga because that was where the deal was finalised.
The agreement, which remains in force, requires its parties to prevent the stationing of nuclear weapons within the territory covered by the treaty. It also bans nuclear testing and includes measures to prevent the dumping of radioactive waste at sea.
Brown, who has previously said the Aukus pact seemed to go against the spirit of the treaty, suggested there was a need to ensure the 1985 agreement was being implemented in a way that reflected the times.
“I think for many of our small island states countries, the Rarotonga treaty is something that we stood by very strongly in 1985 at a time when the tensions, the nuclear tensions in the cold war, were very different,” Brown told reporters.
He said smaller island states had more recently raised concerns about the “storage of nuclear waste in the likes of the Marshall Islands, Japan’s decision to discharge treated water into the Pacific, the legacy of nuclear testing that remains around many of our Pacific island countries, and also the announcement of things like increased surveillance of nuclear-powered submarines through the Pacific”.
“Pacific leaders and Pacific nations have concerns around these specific issues, which is why we feel it’s appropriate that we should rediscover and revisit our Rarotonga treaty to ensure that it reflects the concerns of Pacific countries today, and not just what occurred back in 1985,” Brown said.
Brown did not elaborate, but the secretary general of the Pacific Islands Forum (Pif), Henry Puna, has previously spoken of the need to ensure the treaty’s “full operation, effect and compliance”.
The Australian government has repeatedly sought to reassure Pacific counterparts that its Aukus plan to acquire nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines is “consistent” with its obligations under the Treaty of Rarotonga.
It has also defended US-funded plans to build a facility for up to six American nuclear-capable B-52 aircraft in the Northern Territory.
Japan, meanwhile, has attempted to reassure the region over its decision in August to begin releasing water from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.
The plant operator Tepco is using on-site technology to remove most harmful substances but it is unable to filter out tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen.
The Japanese government points to an International Atomic Energy Agency report that concluded the planned discharge would “have a negligible radiological impact on people and the environment”.
However, the issue is causing ongoing disquiet in the region. Fiji’s prime minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, apologised to other Melanesian leaders on Monday for being too quick to say publicly he was “satisfied” with Japan’s safety assurances.
Rabuka offered his “sincere apology” to the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) caucus “for my statement on the Fukushima plant’s treated water discharge, following the IAEA report”.
“My intent was never to oppose the collective views of MSG nations,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Many Pacific leaders and civil society groups want Australia to take a much stronger stance against fossil fuels but Rabuka told reporters he was “realistic” about the pace of decarbonisation.
Rabuka said Fiji had benefited from Australia’s economic progress and added: “We do not want to quickly kill that cow.”
The climate crisis is one of the top issues on the agenda at Pif, an 18-member grouping of 16 Pacific nations, including Australia and New Zealand, and two French territories.
More than 200 performers – chanting, singing, dancing, beating drums and playing the pu (shell trumpet) – welcomed delegates to the national auditorium for the opening ceremony on Monday night.
“The Blue Pacific Continent – Te Moana Nui a Kiva – is our home. It is our oceans, our lands, our common heritage, and our Pacific people,” Brown told fellow leaders, including the Australian minister for the Pacific, Pat Conroy.
With the region becoming the focus of an intensifying contest for influence between larger powers, including China and the US, Brown also urged all partners to respect “Our Voices, Our Choice, Our Pacific Way”.
“The Pacific way is to respect each other’s sovereignty knowing it was hard fought by our forefathers,” Brown told the event.
Brown is one of three leaders Albanese is scheduled to meet on his first day on the island of Rarotonga, along with the prime minister of Tuvalu, Kausea Natano, and the president of Kiribati, Taneti Maamau.
Albanese is widely expected to use this week’s meetings to announce the size of Australia’s new contribution to the Green Climate Fund, after the Coalition stopped funding it in 2018.
But the leader of the Greens, Adam Bandt, said Albanese “risks becoming a Pacific pariah like Scott Morrison if he keeps backing more coal and gas”.
