Australia and Solomon Islands move to deepen their partnership through a proposed comprehensive bilateral treaty and cooperation.
Last week I was honoured to host Prime Minister Wale and ten Cabinet members to my residence for a reception, where I had the opportunity to thank over 200 guests – Members of Parliament, senior government officials, business, church, media and NGO leaders, provincial representatives, and many more – for their role in the Solomon Islands-Australia partnership. As I said in my remarks, our partnership is flourishing thanks to the work of so many Solomon Islanders who give vigour and voice and action to the relationship.
When Prime Minister Wale visited Australia in June, he agreed with Prime Minister Albanese that our two countries would negotiate a comprehensive bilateral treaty to set new ambition for our relationship.
The partnership between Solomon Islands and Australia has been built over decades, but this treaty is an opportunity to take it to a new level.
What we already have is significant. Since 2019, Australia and Solomon Islands have worked together to deliver more than 700 infrastructure projects, bringing clean water, classrooms, markets, police posts and clinics to communities across the country. We have supported or created more than 35 000 jobs since 2021. The PALM scheme has enabled more than 13,000 Solomon Islanders to work in Australia, (supporting the Australian economy – for which we are very thankful) while sending home over half a billion dollars each year to families. The partnership is delivering real and lasting results in every province in Solomon Islands, underpinned by an annual development budget of 1 billion dollars.
Our partnership extends across policing, law and justice, health, education, disaster response and climate resilience. For patients and families across the country, it includes support that helps provincial hospitals continue delivering essential care. The partnership is practical and responsive. In terms of the Cyclone Maila response, it meant the Australian Defence Force delivering the first emergency supplies into Solomon Islands within 48 hours.
But underneath this story sits another story: one of steadfast goodwill, trust that together we are better and stronger, and a vision of a shared future. This is what truly animates our relationship.
I learnt this in the waters off Choiseul Province.
Twice I travelled through Choiseul and Western Province following Cyclone Maila, first with then Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele and later with Prime Minister Wale. Those journeys reminded me of something Solomon Islanders know well: the value of tok stori.
True tok stori is not about a specific subject. There is no agenda. It is about listening, reflecting and building a companionship and understanding that underpin everything that comes next.
In communities recovering from loss and hardship, I witnessed the words of Paul in Colossians 3:12: compassion, kindness, humility and gentleness. These are not words we often use to discuss international partnerships, but in a world that has become increasingly hard, with war, conflict, economic challenges and climate disasters, they matter more than ever.
Solomon Islands and Australia face this world together, but we have choices and agency about how we respond.
And as we do this, we need to draw on the spirit I experienced in Choiseul: a steadfast goodwill, trust that together we are better and stronger, and a vision of a shared future.
Solomon Islands is shaping its future through initiatives such as free education and its leadership in Pacific-led regional security architecture. An investment in your most precious resource: your children, and in a stronger region.
The proposed new comprehensive treaty between our two nations is another response to shaping and owning our future.
The goal of both countries is simple: to elevate the bilateral relationship on the basis of mutual trust, respect and open dialogue.
This is a comprehensive treaty, not a security treaty. It will be an ambitious agreement that makes us stronger, both collectively and as individual sovereign nations.
It will build our shared vision of the Blue Pacific as unified, strong, connected and prosperous.
And it will be a treaty that every citizen can read, from Taro to Hobart, and from Mount Popomanaseu to Uluru.
After decades of partnership, the opportunity to go further is before us: an opportunity to build a shared future, one of our choosing.
Lukim iu neks taem!
