: Good afternoon. It is my absolute pleasure to welcome Prime Minister Napat and his delegation on what is his first visit to Australia as Prime Minister. Australia and Vanuatu are of course members of the Pacific family, with connections built over generations. And that close relationship has allowed us to progress and today to sign a landmark new treaty, the Nakamal Agreement. It’s not lost on my Government the naming of this agreement. In Vanuatu, the Nakamal is the traditional meeting place where the community and its leaders consult and make decisions with mutual respect, trust and understanding. And this is the bedrock of the relationship between our two nations and of this agreement. Mutual respect, trust and understanding.
Our agreement reflects and confirms Australia’s role as Vanuatu’s largest and most comprehensive economic, security and development partner. A responsibility that we take seriously. Above all, it is built on an equal partnership. We have concluded a balanced agreement that will protect our collective and individual security and our sovereignty. And it will support our interest in a stable, prosperous and secure region that we both call home. Importantly, this agreement advances the consensus that security is the shared responsibility of the Pacific family, the members of the Pacific Island Forum. It encapsulates Vanuatu’s sovereign decision not to permit its territory to be used for any foreign military base or infrastructure and that Vanuatu’s critical infrastructure remains free from militarisation.
Under Nakamal, Vanuatu has committed to continuing to look to Pacific Island Forum members to support its policing needs, including Australia as Vanuatu’s longstanding primary policing partner. Both our countries recognise the threat posed by climate change, particularly in our region. And Australia of course, will play a lead role in the Conference of the Parties that will be held later this year and in the pre-COP meeting that will be held in Fiji and Tuvalu in October. The Pacific is our home and together with Vanuatu, we want a resilient, sovereign and connected region that benefits us all.
I invite Prime Minister Napat to say some remarks and then we have a couple of questions.
JOTHAM NAPAT, PRIME MINISTER OF VANUATU: Good afternoon. It is indeed a great pleasure to be in Canberra today, and I thank Prime Minister Albanese for his warm welcome and generous hospitality. I had the privilege of welcoming Prime Minister Albanese to Vanuatu in September of last year, in the true spirit of the Nakamal, a place of dialogue, respect and consensus. I am delighted to be here in Canberra today to continue that conversation and to further strengthen the friendship between our nations and our people. Today marks a significant step in the Vanuatu-Australia relationship with the signing of the long-awaited Nakamal Agreement. Australia and Vanuatu are close neighbours, trusted partners and enduring friends. Today’s meeting reaffirms our shared commitment to continuing to strengthen the comprehensive partnership between our two countries, founded on mutual respect, trust and our common vision for peaceful, stable and prosperous Pacific. Thank you.
JOURNALIST: Thanks, Prime Minister, and welcome, Prime Minister Napat. Can I ask first on the Nakamal Agreement, Prime Minister Albanese, why does Australia hold concerns about potential third-party investment in Vanuatu’s critical infrastructure? And if Australia believes there are investments that could have negative security implications for the region, what options does Australia have under this updated version of the Nakamal? What options does it have to try and stop those investments happening? And Prime Minister Napat, you said I believe in Parliament last month that the Namele Agreement had now been signed off by your Council of Ministers. Can I ask, do you anticipate that agreement will be signed soon or is it possible it could get pushed back? And you’ve also said there are no security elements in this agreement with China. If that is the case, and given we’ve heard a lot about trust today, is Vanuatu willing to share a copy of that agreement with Australia?
PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: Can I firstly say that this is an agreement that recognises sovereignty. So, we respect the right of all nations to make sovereign decisions about their engagement with other countries. But what this does do is to provide certainty for Australia that there will be no foreign military base, that we will prioritise policing cooperation with Pacific Island Forum members, something that we’ve asked for across the board, and that there’ll be consultation on any third-party engagements in critical infrastructure and that critical infrastructure will be free from militarisation or foreign interference. And therefore, we think this is an appropriate agreement that is a recognition of sovereignty which at the same time recognises Australia’s historic role as well, which is reinforced by this agreement that Australia is the security partner of choice in the Pacific. And that’s an important principle.
PRIME MINISTER NAPAT: Currently, the Namele Agreement is still an agreement that is yet to be signed once I get the clearance from Beijing. So, currently it is not yet signed. We will share the agreement. There’s nothing to hide. Our government is transparent. And I am so grateful that the Prime Minister also given me the clearance to share the Nakamal Agreement.
PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: The Nakamal Agreement will be distributed, available to all of you.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, this was originally discussed as a $500 million over 10 years agreement. This isn’t as strong from an Australian perspective as the Government initially wanted. Will the Government still be paying that same price to Vanuatu? And Prime Minister Napat, on the issue of critical infrastructure, can you explain to Australians about why negotiations around that aspect of the agreement were so sensitive to Vanuatu? Why did this require so many more months of negotiations? And I was wondering, could you also confirm, did Vanuatu cancel the visa of Andrew Tate?
PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: On finances, we’ll be transparent, as we are in these matters. They’ll all be available as part of the MYEFO at the end of this year. But we, of course, are providing support for economic development in Vanuatu. That is in the interests of the people of Vanuatu, but it’s also in Australia’s national interest as well, to have economic development in our region. That is one way in which you ensure that security in the region, prosperity in the region. We have common interests here, so we’re working right across our region to promote security, to promote economic development and to promote in one way, for example, that we very concretely have discussed today, is how do we deal with the challenge that is climate change, which is a major issue in the Pacific, in a way, for example, that provides support for countries in the Pacific to be less vulnerable to shocks such as we’ve seen with the Middle East conflict and the Strait of Hormuz because of the reliance upon diesel. And that’s one reason why the issue of a growth of renewables in the region isn’t just about climate change. It’s also about economic sovereignty and making sure that countries in our region, as well as Australia, is less vulnerable to global shocks.
PRIME MINISTER NAPAT: The issue on the critical infrastructure is an asset that is very critical. It’s a very critical issue strictly on allowing military to have access to the critical infrastructure. So, as a nation, as a country, we have in fact passed an Act in Parliament not to allow any militarisation to actually be used for our critical infrastructure. And we give very strict attention to all our critical infrastructure.
PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: Thank you.
