Australia just made a high impact treaty with a Pacific Island state that puts a question on New Zealand about climate change

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, November 11th, 2023 - 9 comments
Categories: australian politics, climate change, Environment, global warming, International, Pacific, science, sustainability, uncategorized - Tags:

Two days ago the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Tuvalu Prime Minister Kausea Natano announced a major treaty. The two big significant elements are that Australia is offering permanent residency to people affected by climate change, and is also making a security guarantee that will bind both countries close together.

Before we wave our “oh no neocolonialism” shrouds, we only need a moment reflect on the deep and abiding relationship New Zealand has with the Cook Islands which was laid out with Prime Minister Norman Kirk in 1975, reaffirmed in the centenary of relationship in 2001, and further enhanced in 2022.

The Cook Islands forms part of the Realm of New Zealand. The “Realm” is a politico-legal construct consisting of New Zealand and the states and territories that are constitutionally linked to it, namely the Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau and the Ross Dependency. The Realm of New Zealand unites the states and territories that were formerly British colonies and inherited by New Zealand but remain part of the Commonwealth, retaining the Queen as their Head of State.

But the clear-eyed swap in the Australia-Tuvalu deal is a recognition by a powerful state that it can and will actively re-house up to 11,000 people that are the total population of Tuvalu, in exchange for a potential military presence. The text of the new Treaty is here.

Notably it doesn’t alter anyone’s sovereignty:

[T]he statehood and sovereignty of Tuvalu will continue, and the rights and duties inherent thereto will be maintained, notwithstanding the impact of climate change-related sea-level rise”

And it’s not a license to go set up a great big fat military base. But it is a reasonably strong bind on Tuvalu to formally bind itself to Australian security and defence-related interests:

“Tuvalu shall mutually agree with Australia any partnership, arrangement or engagement with any other State or entity on security and defence-related matters. Such matters include but are not limited to defence, policing, border protection, cyber security and critical infrastructure, including ports, telecommunications and energy infrastructure.”

This to me appears slightly stronger in state influence than New Zealand’s defence relationship with the Cook Islands where the agreement is that “[t]he Government of the Cook Islands has full legal and executive competence in respect of its own defence and security.”

One suspects an item that will come up soon is that Tuvalu is one of those Pacific states that still recognises the nationhood of Taiwan.

For a tiny and subsistence state like Tuvalu, getting their citizens automatic access to Australian education, healthcare, and income support as soon as a family arrives to Australia is a pretty strong incentive – and surely Australia’s most generous recent move for a wave of impending immigrants. Only 280 Tuvaluans would be fast tracked to residency and then on to citizenship per year. So it’s not a tap that will drain Tuvalu dry.

Tuvalu is at its highest about 4.5 metres above sea level. So this is a state highly vulnerable to sea level rise and storm surge that will accelerate in intensity and frequency in the next couple of decades.

Two days ago Prime Minister Natano explained that “It’s my duty as the leader of a country that is going to be under water it that’s the way it continues, to make sure that my people have confidence that they can continue to stay if they want to or move to another home.”

To give a comparator, since 2014, 150 Fijian villages have been forced by storm surge and sea level rise to abandon their villages and move inwards. More than 600 other Fiji villages have been identified for removal.

A natural political question for New Zealand is what more could we do to enable island settlements in the Pacific to be assisted to manage inevitable inundation. We abandoned a major $500m sea rise protection project for Kiribati last year.

Australia is pledging to reclaim land in the nation’s capital of Funafuti, to increase the area’s land mass by 6%. This will generate more space for housing and other essential services, and given them essentially transition time for those who don’t want to leave yet.

Much as I hate to see New Zealand turn up to a Pacific Islands Forum conference without a practical deal to help people, full congratulations to Prime Minister Albanese and Prime Minister Natano for a highly practical exchange of interests.

9 comments on “Australia just made a high impact treaty with a Pacific Island state that puts a question on New Zealand about climate change ”

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  1. barry 1
    11 November 2023 at 11:43 am

    “Tuvalu shall mutually agree with Australia any partnership, arrangement or engagement with any other State or entity on security and defence-related matters. Such matters include but are not limited to defence, policing, border protection, cyber security and critical infrastructure, including ports, telecommunications and energy infrastructure.”

    Does this also bind Australia to consult Tuvalu before joining any other alliances?

  2. Patricia Bremner 2
    11 November 2023 at 12:30 pm

    New Zealand takes 500 Fiji, 500 Tonga, 150 Kirabati, and 150 Tuvalu residents and families as of Oct 2023. Multiply by 5 to reach Australian equivalents offered without military strings.

    • SPC 2.1
      11 November 2023 at 12:53 pm

      New Zealand has an annual quota of 75 Tuvaluans granted work permits under the Pacific Access Category, as announced in 2001. The applicants register for the Pacific Access Category (PAC) ballots; the primary criterion is that the principal applicant must have a job offer from a New Zealand employer. Tuvaluans also have access to seasonal employment in the horticulture and viticulture industries in New Zealand under the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) Work Policy introduced in 2007 allowing for employment of up to 5,000 workers from Tuvalu and other Pacific islands. Tuvaluans can participate in the Australian Pacific Seasonal Worker Program, which allows Pacific Islanders to obtain seasonal employment in the Australian agriculture industry, in particular, cotton and cane operations; fishing industry, in particular aquaculture; and with accommodation providers in the tourism industry

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvalu

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Tuvalu

  3. bwaghorn 3
    11 November 2023 at 12:53 pm

    Wouldn't it be better for Australia to leave the coal in the ground ,there by limiting the chances the pacific islands will get over run by t he ocean

  4. adam 4
    11 November 2023 at 1:00 pm

    Oh my a labour Government that actually does things – who would have thought it.

    Albo got shafted on the subs deal, this seems like a better deal for all parties.

  5. SPC 5
    11 November 2023 at 1:31 pm

    But the clear-eyed swap in the Australia-Tuvalu deal is a recognition by a powerful state that it can and will actively re-house up to 11,000 people that are the total population of Tuvalu, in exchange for a potential military presence.

    So Oz has association with a state that recognises Taiwan in the here and now and is preparing for a time when it declines into an atoll that can be used as a military base …

    Clearly flattery by imitation is not for-bidden, or is it? Blink and miss the pun about an Australasian bird that wants to plant a tail on a quad-bike.

  6. Ed1 6
    11 November 2023 at 5:50 pm

    I have often felt that New Zealand should have been more generous to people from the Cooks, Niue and Tokelau in terms of rights of access, of citizenship after a period of residence, and a right to return with a transfer of citizenship in either direction after a suitable period. It is very complex, but essentially a humanitarian concept, so we have three years to work out details for hopefully a government that respects humanity.