One of the Pacific's most senior leaders says her country "understands" the rationale behind Australia's push to obtain nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS pact with the United States and United Kingdom.
Samoa's Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa made the comment at a Lowy Institute lecture on Monday night, where she also revealed she'd been briefed about the plan by Australian security agencies while visiting Canberra this week.
Fiamē did not directly endorse Australia's nuclear submarine plan when pressed on the subject and drew laughs from the audience when she declared "that's none of my business".
But she seemed to indicate that she accepted the strategic calculus behind the federal government's decision, saying "this is how Australia sees its role in the security aspects of the region, and we understand that".
Fiamē also suggested that Australia's growing political engagement with Pacific Island nations could deepen strategic trust and make it easier to discuss security issues.
"With the further integration of New Zealand and Australia into the Pacific family … we're deepening opportunities to be talking to each other a lot more about those sort of things," she said.
But the prime minister warned that intensifying competition between larger countries created real risks for smaller Pacific nations, criticising the United States and Australia for embracing a new "Indo-Pacific" framing for the broader region without consulting countries like hers.
"The Pacific Islands were never consulted around that new narrative, or had a discussion around it," she said.
She also struck a slightly fatalistic tone about strategic developments, telling an anecdote about the former King of Tonga, Tupou V, who once declared that his country had no foreign policy.
"The [King] said, well, it's our lot in the Pacific that other people have foreign policies. We just navigate our way around them," she said.
"So, I think there's a lot of truth in that."
Still, her measured comments on AUKUS are likely to be welcomed by the federal government, which has worked assiduously to counter regional fears that Australia's nuclear submarine push risks undermining the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and exacerbating an arms race.
The issue is particularly sensitive in Pacific Island nations, which have strong anti-nuclear credentials, and which are – in some cases – still grappling with the catastrophic fallout from hundreds of nuclear tests carried out by Western powers in the decades after WWII.
So far only one significant Pacific Island politician – Tuvalu's Foreign Minister Simone Kofe — has publicly and directly criticised the AUKUS plan.
In contrast, Fiji's new Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka threw his weight behind the nuclear submarine push after a visit from Anthony Albanese last week, playing down the risk of regional conflict and even declaring the massive military project could offer economic opportunities to Fiji.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare also responded carefully to the announcement after being briefed by Australian diplomats in Honiara.
Mr Sogavare's office did not criticise AUKUS, simply saying in a statement that he "reminded" the Australian officials that the Pacific was a "peaceful" and "nuclear-weapons-free zone".
However Pacific nations are continuing to press Australia to take stronger action on climate change as the federal government continues to push to co-host a major Conference of the Parties UN meeting in 2026 with the Pacific.
Pacific congratulates Australia on emission reduction targets
Fiamē praised the Albanese Government's move to ratchet up emission reduction targets, saying the Pacific wanted to "congratulate" Australia for the "significant" new commitments it made.
But she also said there was still an urgent need globally to ratchet up ambition and phase out new fossil fuel projects – something the federal government has steadfastly refused to do.
"We cannot achieve [climate goals] if funding for the root causes of climate change is exponentially greater than investment in the appropriate response to climate change" she said.
Separately, Vanuatu's Climate Change Minister Ralph Regenvanu directly criticised Australia's climate record in an interview with PACNEWS, saying the federal government's decision to press on with new coal and gas projects was "disappointing" to the Pacific.
"We are asking not just for a phase out fossil fuel but to stop new projects and stop subsidising any new projects," he told the outlet.
"These are clear demands that the Pacific needs to make of Australia."
