More than 125,000 people are reported to have been displaced in West Papua as armed conflict escalates, but the real number is likely much higher.

A recent report from the Human Rights Monitor said military operations and armed violence have been particularly intense in the central highlands of Indonesian-ruled Papua region this year.

Indonesian security forces have been in an ongoing fight with small groups of guerilla fighters with the West Papua Liberation Army (TPNPB) in the mountainous interior of Papua.

• READ MORE: Wenda calls on ‘brave’ Pacific to raise West Papua at UNGA after six killed in new Indonesian massacre
• Papuan civilians shot in latest security forces violence in Yahukimo
• Other West Papua reports

A senior lecturer and researcher on South East Asian conflicts said it was the civilians caught in the middle who ended up suffering the most.

Caught in the middle
Hipolitus Wangge, an Indonesian who is currently a senior lecturer at Universiti Sains Malaysia’s Political Science Department, said many indigenous displaced people (IDPs) flee their home villages, and are forced to live in the jungle with limited access to supplies.

He said “the cycle of violence in West Papua” has shown no signs of ending anytime soon and fears that even more people will be displaced.

“So both sides are busy claiming victories and asserting control over the area and its people, which just keeps the tension going,” Wangge said.

“Without any signs of talks or mediations, communications, building trust, people living in these conflict zones will continue to be caught in the middle.”

The Human Rights Monitor report documents dozens of armed clashes during the second quarter of this year directly impacting civilians: with drone attacks, shoot outs between forces, and villages burnt down.

Recent reports from Yahukimno regency show that civilians continue to be victims of shootings by security forces. Wangge said that those not killed or injured in the conflict often have to run away.

“You will find districts like Mimika, Nduga, Yahukimo, Puncak, Intan Jaya — those are the so-called hotspots of the conflict. They have been trying to live outside the kind of major battles.”

As the report explains, once these civilians have been displaced to makeshift forest camps, the lack of healthcare resources in particular results in even more deaths.

“Many of IDPs are still living in jungles. So they have to survive during these constrained situations living in the jungle with very limited basic supplies,” Wangge explained.

Victims on both sides
Wangge said people on both sides can feel trapped between Indonesian forces and the West Papuan freedom fighters struggling for independence.

He noted a particular risk for civilians following reports of Papuans who are suspected of being spies for the Indonesian security forces being tracked down and killed.

“They cannot just choose between one side or the other, because both sides also have some potential or capacity to target these civilians,” he explained.

“So they just have to get out and then try to find some safety because of the fear, because of constant trauma, because of the instability in highlands of West Papua.”

For the indigenous people, the consequences of the conflict are immediate: a home abandoned, a village emptied, a family separated, a community forced into the jungle in search of somewhere safe.

But Wangge notes the exact scale of displacement is impossible to establish as outside access to West Papua is heavily restricted.

The reported figures of more than 125,000 displaced people come from accounts by family members, churches or other stakeholders involved. Wangge believes there are many displaced people unaccounted for.

“It’s even higher than the actual number, the ones that have been reported in the media, but nobody knows in this situations because there is no access.”

Lack of access
For several years, Indonesia has rejected calls from the Pacific Islands region for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to send an independent fact-finding mission into Papua.

The 18 members of the Pacific Islands Forum have repeatedly urged Indonesia to grant access since 2019.

Similar calls have also come from the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), made up of Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia’s Kanak independence movement FLNKS.

But despite these numerous requests, this access for the UN rights commissioner has still not been given, and Wangge is not confident the visit will happen any time soon, despite claims by Jakarta that it is on track.

He said “Indonesia is adamant that the West Papua issue should be dealt with domestically, claiming its not up for regional debate”.

“So, it’s clear there is a need to finally address this long-standing conflict. But from my chats with some Indonesian diplomats, it looks like the UN visit is not going to be a priority.

“Instead, the Indonesian government will probably go for bilateral talks. Indonesia in this regard seems more interested in talking with Pacific countries or organisations than in real dialogue with Papuan political leaders and organisations.”

Hipolitus Wangge said he expects the situation to only worsen as the year progresses, with talks of more Indonesian military infrastructure to be built in the Highlands and southern parts of Papua.

As the Pacific Islands region reels from a series of recent maritime tragedies, a regional climatologist says it is imperative that boat operators take extra caution in a time of turbulent weather.

There have been dozens of fatalities from incidents at sea in recent months in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu among other Pacific countries.

Although an official or confirmed death toll is not yet known for Vanuatu’s MV Matui tragedy on September 11, it is likely that dozens of people died.

• READ MORE: Vanuatu ferry disaster: ‘It’s a miracle anyone survived,’ says rescuer

A common factor in this and other maritime tragedies in the Pacific over recent months has been rough seas and weather conditions, and coincides with a time when the El Niño phase is getting into full swing across the Pacific.

El Niño has caused extreme heat in parts of the world, extensive drought in the Western Pacific and disruptions to ocean currents through the tropical Pacific.

A senior climatologist with the Pacific Regional Environment Programme, Philip Malsale, said El Niño had created a lot of movement of warm waters towards the Eastern Pacific, as a high pressure system moved up closer to the equator, with an active monsoon trough over the Western Pacific as well.

But he told RNZ Pacific that El Niño was not necessarily directly to blame for the rough seas and marine conditions in which various boats had got into trouble.

“Well there is some connection, but not directly. I think it is more related to the weather conditions — but also we need to take into account our season now,” Malsale said.

“We are in the winter season when we have the strong trade winds that are persistent at this time of the year.

“We have the high pressure system move up to the towards the equator, and we have dominant southeast trades (tradewinds), those kind of systems can also cause high pressure gradient over the countries, and it influences a lot of the weather synoptic situations across the countries like Tonga, Vanuatu, Fiji, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea.”

Regional met talks
Malsale, who is from Vanuatu, last week joined regional counterparts in Tonga for the 8th Pacific Meteorological Council Meeting.

A big point of discussion was how to strengthen weather and climate services and make warnings more effective, at a time when some boat operators choose to ignore them and go out to sea, endangering lives.

Malsale and other weather experts are underlining that taking these warnings seriously is absolutely critical for people going to sea.

“We have mandated organisations such as the national weather services in countries. So boat owners or shipowners, captains should reach out to the national met services, find out what the current situation is, before they can plan the trip over to the islands.”

Vanuatu’s government is considering linking marine weather warnings to permissions for which boats can operate under particular conditions.

“Just because the warning is too general, but we can link that up to certain boat size or ships capacity,” Malsale said.

“So you put a certain warning, on which category of ship that is referred to in terms of not sailing or not carrying passengers to other islands.

Climate extremes
Discussions at the Met Council summit also focused on the ongoing wider challenges of climate change and the more extreme conditions it brings.

“There was agreement among all the Met Services to put this as a priority as well on the latest science to help the COP negotiators from the Pacific,” Malsale said.

“This is one area of services that that the national Met services want for our donors to continue to provide funding for.”

Weather experts have warned that the El Niño phenomenon developing in the Pacific Ocean is already the strongest ever recorded.

Malsale said the peak is still to come later this year and into 2027.

“That’s the forecast like to peak between probably November and January 2027. But these are only the indicators that we’re monitoring, but the impact can peak later on during the year.

However, he added that with cyclone season just around the corner, there could be even more impactful weather in store for the Pacific.

Fiji’s prime minister is not giving any hints about when exactly the country will head to the polls.

The island nation is expected to hold its fourth general election under the 2013 Constitution by 6 February 2027 at the latest.

Under Fiji’s current electoral system, the entire country forms a single national constituency, with more than 723,000 registered voters on the electoral roll as of June 30, according to the Fijian Elections Office.

• READ MORE:  Sweeping changes to Fiji’s governance recommended by Constitution Commission
• Other Fiji elections reports

However, a major constitutional review report released publicly on Tuesday has recommended sweeping changes to Fiji’s governance.

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s government has indicated that a potential change to the country’s supreme law is on the cards by Christmas Eve.

In an interview with RNZ Pacific in Savusavu, northern Fiji, Rabuka said he did not yet have an election date.

“No, we have not set a date for the elections,” he said.

Parallel parliamentary work
Rabuka said that once the government settled on a “definitive date”, he would advise the president, who would then issue a writ for the election.

The prime minister said that an election date would need to be considered alongside the parallel parliamentary work being undertaken to amend the constitution.

“[The election date] will have to be worked out considering all the work that is now going to be taken through Parliament … the processing of the amendment of the [2013] Constitution and the preparation time required by our elections officials.”

Rabuka also confirmed that Fiji was due to conduct its national census next year.

“Without the figures from the census, which is due next year, we will have to have an intelligent projection of the census figures from 10 years ago and see if we can work out a map on constituencies etc, if they are going to be incorporated into the determining features of our elections.”

However, he has also told local media that the February 6 deadline remained unchanged.

“There have been suggestions [to extend the deadline for the elections], but it is outside the law as I see it now,” he said in response to a question from fijivillage.com.

Fiji’s Constitution Review Commission wants a new governance system for the country and the coup immunity provisions of the 2013 Constitution repealed.

Its also recommending giving the Great Council of Chiefs constitutional recognition, scrapping the current electoral system, replacing the current parliamentary system, and pushing the military to focus on external defence.

These are among the recommendations contained in a review report which was tabled in the Fiji Parliament and made public on Tuesday.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji constitution reports

The Constitution Review Commission’s 236-page report, which includes a new draft constitution, was endorsed by Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s cabinet last week.

The report rolls back many of the defining features of the Fiji’s 2013 Constitution.

Since gaining independence from Britain on 10 October 1970, Fiji has had four constitutions.

Hinted at Christmas Eve
The cabinet maintains that tabling the commission’s report in Parliament does not mean government had accepted or adopted all of its mission’s recommendations.

However, the Fiji government has already hinted the country could have a new constitution in place by Christmas Eve.

The Constitution Review Commission was set up in March and, after conducting nationwide consultations on Fiji’s 2013 Constitution, it delivered its report to the president on August 30.

Among the most notable features in the report, the commission is recommending the removal of broad immunity protecting people involved in past coups.

The report also sets out the commission’s recommendation of a new constitution and sweeping changes designed to overhaul Fiji’s governance.

Different political system
It has recommended replacing the country’s current single-chamber 55-seat Parliament with a two-house legislature.

The proposal would see the creation of a 60-member bicameral legislature made up of a 41-member House of Representatives and a 19-member Senate.

The commission recommends a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system.

This would be a hybrid model featuring constituency-based, or first-past-the-post, along with proportional party-list seats, enabling both local accountability and national proportionality.

The commission also recommends establishing an independent Constituency Boundaries Commission and abolishing the single national constituency.

Investigative journalist and author Nicky Hager has released a new book called Dirty Work: The Taxpayers’ Union and New Zealand’s Hard Right, an “exposé” of the Taxpayers’ Union (TU) — “the latest front for New Zealand’s radical right,” he says.

Hager argues the Taxpayers’ Union used anti-Māori rhetoric as a political tool — especially during its Stop Three Waters campaign — and shifted the 2023 election campaign to the right.

He claims both Act leader David Seymour and National leader Christopher Luxon pivoted toward this rhetoric to gain votes.

• READ MORE: Journalist Nicky Hager releases latest book Dirty Work on Taxpayers’ Union
• Other Nicky Hager reports

Hager called Dirty Work the third part of a trilogy which began with The Hollow Men. The third part of the trilogy has focused on the TU.

He argued the TU arranged a “multi-million-dollar” campaign that helped move New Zealand’s 2023 election “to the right”.

The key characters were the co-founders, Jordan Williams and David Farrar, and a sister organisation called Hobson’s Pledge, set up by Don Brash, he wrote.

Hager said the book was the story of how a “campaign of racist politics unfolded,” alongside the “continual attacking, mocking and smearing of their political opponents”.

Hager said the story was about democracy. He said the book (and its predecessors) show “how easy it is to spin and manipulate” and how “our defences as a society (news media, electoral laws and so on) are inadequate to protect the public”.

He said the “rise of unregulated social media and dramatic collapse of traditional media have only made this problem worse.”

RNZ has asked those featured in the book for comment.

Taxpayers’ Union says it is under attack
Shortly after the book’s announcement, Williams sent supporters an email saying the book was “full frontal attack” on the Taxpayers’ Union, himself, and Farrar.

“Hager calls himself a journalist. But yet again he has ignored the most basic principles of fair journalism: put serious allegations to the people accused and give them a reasonable opportunity to respond,” Williams said.

He said Hager did not put the allegations in the book to the Taxpayers’ Union, nor did he seek an interview or give the TU the opportunity to “correct errors or provide missing context” before publication.

“Instead, he released his accusations at a carefully choreographed media event, in the middle of an election campaign, knowing that the headlines would be written before we could even obtain a copy of the book — let alone check its claims.”

Williams said the Taxpayers’ Union would work through the book carefully.

Concern is mounting among Fiji civil society over signs the government may extend the length of Parliament in order to push through constitutional changes.

Fiji’s government has hinted that a new constitution could be in place by Christmas Eve.

Cabinet has endorsed the Constitution Review Commission’s report to be presented in Parliament and has supported a request for a special sitting this week.

• READ MORE: Fiji targets new constitution by Christmas Eve as watchdog warns of ‘self-coup’ risk
• Other Fiji constitution reports

In a joint statement, leading civil society groups warn that a rushed constitutional process could amount to a “self-coup” if it delays the next general election.

Elections are due to be held by February 2027, but the Rabuka-led government has not announced a date yet.

The civll society groups have called on MPs across party lines to reject any constitutional timetable that risks taking Fiji beyond the democratic life of the current Parliament.

The groups include the Centre for Democracy and Dialogue, the Fiji Council of Social Services, the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, FemLink Pacific, the Pacific Centre for Peacebuilding, and the Social Empowerment and Education Programme.

They called on the government to guarantee that “if any major change to the electoral system is proposed, it must be subject to a clear transitional provision stating that the next general election will proceed under the existing electoral framework”.

“The people of Fiji will be given adequate time, clear information and a meaningful opportunity to consider any proposed Constitution before any referendum is held.”

Over the years, 21-year-old Siaosi (George) Lavelua (Kolomotu’a, Makave) has often made the trip north to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds with freshly made ‘otai in tow.

His whānau business, Lav’s ‘otai — dealing in the much loved Polynesian drink that typically mixes coconut and fruit — is the longest-serving ‘otai operation in Tāmaki Makaurau.

It has become a familiar fixture at Waitangi celebrations, Auckland night markets and various community events across the region.

• READ MORE: Other Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori reports

“It’s something I’ve grown up around my whole life. Wherever there’s a big event, we’re usually there serving ‘otai and meeting people,” Lavelua said.

Over the years, events such as Waitangi have become extra special for Lavelua — a Tongan who has dedicated over five years of his life learning te reo Māori.

“When I was able to go up there [Waitangi] and then converse with a bunch of different people in te reo Māori, just seeing the connections and friends and people that you can make just through speaking te reo, it definitely, yeah, made me very appreciative to be able to learn the language,” Lavelua said.

Lavelua grew up in central Auckland, speaking Tongan at home with his parents.

Year 9 student
His reo journey began as a year 9 student at Auckland Grammar School, and was initially an opportunity for him to spend class time with other tauira Māori and Pasifika.

“For the first three years of my schooling, in every other class except Te reo Māori, I was the only, like one or two Pacific or Māori people in my classes,” Lavelua said.

“I just wanted to be with other people from the Pacific, and so then I took te reo Māori.”

Lavelua loved it so much that he stuck it out until year 13, and quickly realised the merging similarities between the Tongan language and the Māori language.

“As I started to learn the language, I noticed that there were so many similarities in terms of, like, old Tongan,” he said.

“There was quite a lot of words or the same sentence structure that mirrored exactly what I was learning, what I speak at home. And so it just made my journey a whole lot easier.”

While it wasn’t an ‘easy journey, Lavelua said it was well-worth the investment.

Crossover
Online, he has began sharing content speaking te reo Māori.

People often comment on how impressive his trilingualism is, something Lavelua said reinforced his own appreciation for the Tongan language.

“Since I grew up speaking Tongan, it was always sort of something on like a back burner, it wasn’t necessarily something that I thought too much about,” Lavelua said.

That changed as he watched how people responded to his reo, including Māori who frequently tell him of their desire to learn and speak their own language one day.

“It’s really a deeper love for my own language and my own culture. And just seeing how blessed I was to retain that.”

“Growing up, I’ve always had such a deep respect for the Māori culture and Māori people,” he said.

“I think it’s a beautiful thing what Māori had done here in New Zealand, and Aotearoa, being able to retain the culture and traditions and languages, even all the way up to religion, and that’s something that we certainly didn’t really have in other parts of the Pacific, being very Christianised and things.”

Principles resonate
The values between cultures cross over, too, Lavelua said.

When asked which te ao Māori principles resonate, he landed on whanaungatanga.

“Hospitality and that sort of relationship they have with other people … it’s about the home, it’s the relationships of those around us, the community, the environment,” he said.

And Lavelua said that point is one of the real lessons he came to learn while learning te reo Māori.

“There are some people who very distinctly categorise Māori and Pasifika as two separate categories, or two separate people,” he said.

“But then definitely through learning te reo and learning a lot more about the culture, you really see that overlap and like that true understanding that you actually are one people at the end of the day.”

One of the biggest surprises on his journey so far has been understanding the historical relationships between Pacific and Māori.

Lavelua began reading Pacific history, and came across accounts of Pacific sovereigns — he points to King Tāwhiao, alongside Tongan and Hawaiian royalty — who would write to one another as colonisation took hold.

“They all had actually been writing letters between each other to sort of help each other maintain their own sovereignty,” he said.

“Seeing that back in the day, specifically with these leaders that we had in our communities, it was definitely heartwarming to see and really opened my mind on just how interconnected the Pacific really is, and how interconnected the Pacific should be.”

Journey
Now based in Brisbane, working across marketing and hospitality, Lavelua said distance from Aotearoa has sharpened the meaning of events such as Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori, and what they mean to him.

It’s a good reminder, he said, to celebrate the week, identity, and community.

He also has advice for other Pasifika and non-Māori who are thinking of undertaking their reo journey.

“Just give it a crack, just give it a go. I don’t think that anybody can ever be perfect in a language. I definitely wasn’t perfect when learning te reo Māori, I’m still not perfect at this point, but that’s definitely something that holds a lot of people back.

His favourite whakataukī encompasses this message well.

“Tūwhitia te hopo, mairangatia te angitū! Feel the fear and do it anyway. I think that’s fitting when it comes to learning languages, or anywhere in life.”

• Last week was Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori — Maori language Week

Thousands of people have marched in central Auckland to protest against the New Zealand coalition government’s proposed Conservation Amendment Bill.

The bill is intended to modernise the management of conservation land, enabling more development, but Greenpeace executive director Dr Russel Norman said it would allow the government to sell off conservation land, weaken environmental protections and put short-term profit ahead of the future.

Dr Norman said today’s protest was an unmistakable warning to the government.

• READ MORE: Greenpeace protests Conservation Amendment Bill in downtown Auckland
• Don’t put a luxury resort on Rangitoto Island
• The conservation areas I care most about are under threat
• Other New Zealand conservation reports

With an election looming and political parties in campaign mode, the Fiji government has hinted that a new constitution could be in place by Christmas Eve.

The move has been described by a local civil society organisation as a “grave threat” to democracy and the rule of law, while one of the minor parties in the Sitiveni Rabuka-led coalition government has distanced itself from “any attempt to rush constitutional reform”.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Fiji government said Cabinet had endorsed the Constitution Review Commission’s (CRC) report to be presented in Parliament and had supported a request for a special sitting on 22 September.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji Constitution reports

The CRC, established in March this year, conducted nationwide consultations and received submissions on Fiji’s 2013 Constitution before submitting its report and a draft constitution bill to the country’s head of state on August 31.

According to the government, the commission’s report identifies areas for reform of the 2013 Constitution.

Rabuka and other critics have long argued that the 2013 Constitution was imposed by the Bainimarama administration following the 2006 military coup.

The constitution also introduced equal citizenship for all Fiji nationals and formally adopted “Fijian” as the common national identity for all citizens, regardless of ethnicity.

“Cabinet’s decision to table the report does not constitute acceptance or adoption of all the commission’s recommendations.

‘Detailed consideration’
“The Cabinet Subcommittee on the Review of the Constitution will continue its detailed consideration of the recommendations, including their practical, legal and policy implications, and will report back to Cabinet on the way forward. This will include consideration of any transitional arrangements that may be required.”

It added that the proposed process provides that the CRC’s report will be debated in Parliament during its sitting from September 28.

“Subject to the passage of the Bill and subsequent parliamentary processes, a referendum is proposed to be held between November and mid-December 2026.

“If approved through the required processes, the new Constitution is proposed to come into effect by 24 December 2026.”

However, the Centre for Democracy and Dialogue, formerly known as Dialogue Fiji, has warned that the proposed timeline to introduce a new constitution by December 24 raises serious constitutional, legal and democratic concerns.

The centre’s CEO Nilesh Lal said the government’s proposed timeline would plunge Fiji into a period of “undemocratic rule”.

Lal said the democratic authority of Fiji’s Parliament was time-bound.

“It is derived from the mandate given by voters at a general election and expires after a defined period, 4 years in the case of the current Parliament,” he said.

‘Legally impossible’
He said a constitution coming into force in late December could make it “legally and administratively impossible” to hold a general election within the required period following the dissolution of Parliament under Fiji’s 2013 Constitution.

“If constitutional reform is used to delay the next election, extend Parliament, or allow the executive to govern beyond the life of an elected Parliament, it would amount in substance to an autogolpe, or self-coup,” he said.

Rabuka’s former deputy PM and National Federation Party (NFP) leader Dr Biman Prasad said his party would not support a “rushed process”.

“We have had constitutional upheavals in this country,” Dr Prasad told FBC News.

“In fact, we have had four constitutions and constitution-making process ought to be open, transparent and accountable. It must be the document that has the broad support of our people.”

Opposition: Rabuka ‘acting recklessly’
Fiji’s opposition leader Inia Seruiratu has also weighed in on the issue, urging the government to slow down and explain to the Fijian people “why it is necessary to have a new Constitution in force by Christmas Eve”.

“The people must be given adequate opportunity to understand what is being proposed, what they may gain, what they may lose and how the proposed Constitution will change the way Fiji is governed,” he said in a statement on Friday.

He warned that Rabuka and his Cabinet were “acting recklessly”.

“I am calling on the government to slow this process down,” he said.

The Labour Party is promising visa-free travel to Aotearoa New Zealand for Pacific Islanders.

Deputy Leader Carmel Sepuloni said Pacific Island Forum countries would be allowed in on an NZeTA for three months at a time — like 61 other countries, if the government changes.

She told RNZ Pacific it was a long-overdue decision that recognises cross-border connections.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific-New Zealand travel reports

“We’re talking about seamless travel between Pacific countries and New Zealand … and a recognition of the cost and burden that the current system puts on New Zealand Pacific families,” Sepuloni said.

“Our relationship has matured enough for us to be able to move to a place that they have access to the same electronic system that 60 other countries have. It’s the right thing to do.”

It comes after New Zealand First promised a two-year clemency period for Pacific overstayers last week. Pacific Islanders’ share of the total overstayer population has increased this year, according to Immigration New Zealand (INZ).

In February, Winston Peters accepted a petition by Samoan activist Arthur Anae to make visa-free travel a reality. He said last week that it “possibly could happen in the future”.

“The first thing you’ve got to do is regularise what it means … you leave at the end of that specific time, or before,” he said.

“As I said in that speech months ago in the forecourt of Parliament: cousins don’t rip off cousins.”

The Green Party has also signalled its support for the visa waiver. National would not be drawn on its position, saying the party would announce its immigration policy in due course.

Pacific overstayer rates on the rise
Visa overstayers in New Zealand have decreased over the year, but the share of Pacific Island visa overstayers has risen, according to INZ figures released Thursday.

INZ noted approximately 26 percent of overstayers were from Pacific Island countries, up from 25 percent last year. Meanwhile, the overall overstayer population is down 8.7 percent.

It is estimated out of an overstayer population of 19,153 currently in the country, 2541 are Tongan, and 1462 are Samoan.

Of arrivals on a temporary visa from June 2023 and 2026, 2.14 percent of Tongans overstayed, as did 1.25 percent of Samoans. These figures are well above the average of 0.13 percent for all arrivals.

According to INZ, no Pacific Island countries have been able to enter the country visa-free since 2003, when the waiver for Tuvaluans, i-Kiribati and Dei-Naoero (formerly Nauruans) was removed.

Before then, Tongans, Samoans and Fijians were kicked off the waiver in 1987, less than three months after being added, with more than 5200 arrivals, and fewer than half of those leaving once their visa expired.

Since then, INZ has regarded Pacific nationals as high-risk overstayers, despite the fact the US, China, India and the United Kingdom had overstayer numbers comparable to Tonga and Samoa — only their rates were lower because their total legal arrivals were higher.

Not addressing overstaying
When asked whether it would make overstaying more likely, Sepuloni said the policy announced on Thursday was not meant to address overstaying.

“The expectation is that the rules still apply … and our expectation is that people will follow them,” she said.

“By and large, our Pacific people follow the rules. It’s not like we have our people coming from the Pacific, and they are overwhelmingly choosing to break the rules. It’s the complete opposite, actually.”

As for NZ First’s clemency policy, Sepuloni said she thought it had not been thought through very carefully.

“I’ve dealt with a lot of immigration cases as an electorate MP, and there are always individual circumstances that don’t fit in a box.”

“It worries me that they’re saying they’ll give this two years clemency, and at that point, if you are not regulated, they will deport you, and you will never be allowed to come back.”

Anae: I’m over the moon right now
Despite the Labour policy more closely aligning with its stated goal, Anae said he was still backing New Zealand First.

“What New Zealand First has said is something that we’ve been raising for some time: the unfairness on the overstaying numbers,” Anae said.

“I’ve always treated [Labour] equally as everybody else … I think the problem that I’ve had with them is their lateness in making a statement.”

He said he felt as though there was momentum behind a political consensus on visa-free travel.

“What I’m thinking right now is this: we know Winston’s going to support us. Now we know Labour is there and I’m sure the Greens and Te Pāti Māori will support us, which means we have the numbers.”

He said for Pacific people seeking to attend weddings and funerals whose visas were not processed in time, or for those wrongly deported due to administrative errors by INZ, this could bring closure.

“We are asking for justice. We want to be treated equally as anybody else. Nothing more, just to be the same.”

A US foreign policy think tank is proposing a major shift in America’s military strategy in Asia that would put Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and other Pacific islands at the centre of Washington’s regional military posture.

Defense Priorities, a Washington-based think tank, said the US should move much of its military presence away from the “first island chain”, including Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and the Philippines, and concentrate more forces along the more distant “second island chain”.

The proposal identifies Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands as locations where US forces could be positioned farther from China’s coastline.

• READ MORE: Other US military in the Pacific reports

Under the proposed strategy, Tinian in the CNMI could become one of several smaller air bases used to disperse US personnel and military assets across the Pacific.

In an explainer titled A second island chain strategy for Asia, Defense Priorities researcher Jennifer Kavanagh said the US already has at least 8000 military personnel along the second island chain, most of them on Guam.

Rather than significantly increasing that number, the think tank proposes spreading personnel across Guam, Palau, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and smaller airfields such as Tinian.

It said these locations could host intelligence and combat-support units, air defenses, drones and small groups of Marines equipped with mobile anti-ship missiles.

Specialised planes
The strategy also calls for fighter aircraft and other specialised planes to operate from the second island chain, while submarines would remain based on Guam and naval vessels would rotate through the region.

Defense Priorities argues that shifting forces farther from China’s coastline would make US bases more survivable while reducing the risk of Washington becoming involved in a major conflict with Beijing.

Guam would remain an important logistics hub and base for long-range military assets, but spreading forces across the wider Pacific could make the US military less dependent on the island.

The proposal comes as the US military is already investing in infrastructure in the Northern Marianas, including facilities on Tinian to support increased military operations.

But the Defense Priorities proposal goes much further than expanding military infrastructure in the Pacific.

It calls for the United States to eventually end its mutual defence alliances with South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and Japan and replace them with narrower security partnerships.

It also recommends Washington adopt an explicit policy of non-intervention over Taiwan.

The think tank proposes removing most US Army and Marine Corps deployments from Asia and significantly reducing American air and naval forces in the region.

Defense Priorities said the changes could be phased in over three to eight years, with most completed by 2030 and the transition finalised by 2035.

It argues that concentrating a smaller US military presence farther east would continue to protect American access to Asian markets and trade routes without maintaining large forces close to China.

The recommendations are those of Defense Priorities and do not represent an announced change in US government or Pentagon policy.

A “horrendously high” number of babies in Fiji are dying due to HIV related complications, says a health researcher, as the prevalence of the disease grows there.

The New Zealand government website SafeTravel says people travelling to Fiji should avoid activities that could increase their risk of infection.

In March this year, it was estimated 9000 Fijians were living with HIV and officials said high risk drug use was adding to the rapid rise.

• READ MORE: One in 60 Fijian adults now living with HIV
• Other Fiji HIV reports

Victoria University senior health researcher Sharon Mclennan told RNZ Checkpoint the situation in Fiji was “pretty bad” and had been driven partly by increased drug use.

“You see a lot of needle sharing going on, and that has been the fuse that lit this incredible increase in HIV.

Years of underfunding of the health service had also contributed to the problem, she said.

Mclennan said there had been a rise in mothers testing positive and babies being born with HIV.

“About one baby per week is being born and around about one baby per month is dying of HIV related complications… it’s horrendously high, it’s very high.”

Mclennan said there had been a push to get more people tested for HIV, but there remained issues with the availability of tests and social stigma.

“People don’t want to talk about it, because then they’ll be found out for behaviours that are not socially acceptable and they may get shunned or questioned.”

Fiji did not have a needle exchange programme, Mclennan said, but it was being discussed and planned for.

New Zealand had a role to play in helping Fiji deal with the problem, Mclennan said.

“Last year New Zealand gave $4 million towards Fiji’s Ministry of Health for support for HIV, we can certainly step that up. We can step up technical assistance.”

That included supporting Fijian people and their families living in New Zealand, she said.

“There’s a lot of movement between here and the islands… and so making sure that our Pacific populations know and are aware of HIV testing and treatment services here.”

Most New Zealanders travelling to Fiji were unlikely to be at risk, she said.

“I think the risk if you’re travelling for a family holiday over the school holidays is pretty low. But it’s still good to see that the government is taking notice and providing New Zealanders with some advice.”

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson said New Zealanders travelling to Fiji should get comprehensive travel insurance, and register their details on SafeTravel.

An Australian pilot who helped locate survivors after a ferry disaster in Vanuatu says: “it is a miracle anyone survived”.

After the ferry MV Matui sank in rough seas on Friday morning, two have died and more than 30 people remain missing.

The ferry departed from Santo at 6am on Friday for Ambae, approximately 96 km away. However, it capsized in large waves.

• READ MORE: One dead and more than 30 missing after ferry sinks off Vanuatu coast in rough seas

According to Luganville MP Matai Seremaiah, the vessel sank at about 9:30am.

Tragically, confusion around the vessel’s status and misinformation meant that it was more than 30 hours before help arrived. Reports suggest 15 people survived the sinking.

Although the current confirmed death toll stands at two, more than 30 people remain missing. One body was recovered over the weekend but another could not be brought back due to bad weather.

Dr Mark Turnbull, a pilot and doctor based on Gaua Island in Torba Province, was one of the first people in the air looking for survivors. Turnbull said he was contacted by an individual to help start the search for survivors:

“The government is pretty slow, even the shipowner was very slow, but there was one individual who was particularly motivated to help,” he said.

“The weather was rough and it wasn’t possible for very small boats to go out, and so they had to send fairly substantial looking ‘smallish’ ships.”

Return to refuel
Dr Turnbull would conduct an aerial search, return to refuel, and then resume the search.

From the air, he was able to see debris and objects floating, which had obviously come out of the vessel.

“We saw drums of fuel, we saw flotation stuff, lots of these lifejackets that had been separated from the people somehow, then this big tank they were hanging onto, and some wheels [and] inner tubes some people had been holding onto as well.”

He told RNZ Pacific about the “big black tank”, a 1000L agricultural tank that had fallen off the ferry.

Dr Turnbull said that a group of survivors told him that they had been clinging to the tank, and during the first night 5 people had died. Apparently, the second day they were in the water, the survivors let go of the tank and went separate ways to seek rescue.

The survivors Turnbull spoke to were weak and extremely dehydrated from their ordeal. Almost all of them had swollen eyes from exposure. One of the survivors had very swollen lips and had been attacked by fish “he was feeling wounded and weak”.

Dr Turnbull said that one of the survivors had swum all the way from where the ferry sank to Santo to raise the alarm that the vessel had sunk. Until then, it was believed that it was merely adrift. This raised the urgency level of search and rescue efforts.

‘Dire situation’
He said that the terrible weather conditions would have made survival in the water very difficult.

“It was a dire situation, terrible weather, hard to do search and rescue because the wind was so horrific, up to 30 knots and sometimes gusting to even higher than that”

After talking to survivors, Dr Turnbull said that the vessel was probably hit broadside by a large wave.

This had happened very suddenly, so there was no time to evacuate properly before the passengers and crew found themselves in the water – without proper survival gear.

He said without a working liferaft people were scrambling for “little bits and pieces” to hold onto to stay afloat.

“It’s amazing that anybody survived that, for them to travel such a long distance was incredible, it was truly incredible, the distance they travelled was massive, it was huge.”

“Those conditions through the night, with the waves pounding at them , it’s really amazing that anybody survived.”

Dr Turnbull said he hopes this will be a turning point for search and rescue procedures in Vanuatu because the initial effort to locate and rescue survivors in this instance was very poorly coordinated. Private citizens had to step forward and coordinate the rescue attempts before official rescue efforts were organised.

“I hope this is an opportunity for the leadership of that area of Maritime search and rescue. That they will come up with a much more coordinated plan. We were not sure exactly who reported the ferry’s GPS coordinates, as things were poorly organised.”

Dr Turnbull, who operates the Wings of Hope Flying Doctor Service, said most of the search and rescues have since been called off, but he was aware of some still happening.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters says he was under no obligation to consult with Cabinet before making an offer to Pacific Island Forum (PIF) member nations to host the annual leaders meeting in 2027.

It comes after Treasury released documents showing, in March, they advised Finance Minister Nicola Willis to gut Peters’ NZ$30 million proposal to fund PIF, saying the “value for money of the bid is not clear”.

It was noted that this, in part, was because “Cabinet approval was not sought before announcement of the hosting initiative,” and therefore it was “more difficult to assess the strategic alignment” with the government’s wider ambitions to cut down the size of the public service.

• READ MORE: Pacific Islands Forum leaders in Koror — heavy on reaffirming but light on tasking
• Other Pacific Islands Forum reports

The offer to host PIF was made to Pacific countries in August.

Peters told RNZ Pacific that he gave Prime Minister Christopher Luxon a mid-year heads up, and had no reason to tell Cabinet at that point.

“Treasury can write what it likes,” the minister said.

“You don’t know whether or not [PIF] are going to be taking up your offer. So, what would you discuss with Cabinet, unless the Forum first agrees?”

Hosting obligations
He also noted that hosting obligations were on a rotating basis between PIF members, and that it was New Zealand’s turn.

“Every Cabinet minister should understand that, even if they weren’t told.”

Documents showed Willis had sought an “inflation adjusted” figure to host PIF, and offered Peters NZ$10 million — comparable to the cost of hosting in 2011. A figure of $20 million was ultimately agreed by May.

“Treasury can write their papers as they do about every other portfolio, but in the end it’s about the ministerial negotiations, minister by minister,” Peters said.

“They’re not in charge of foreign policy, we are – and our reach overseas depends upon the skills of our foreign policy team, and the resources we give it.”

RNZ Pacific reported in July that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) had planned for operating costs of $30 million – the same as the original bid.

This was noted as a specific fiscal risk in MFAT’s submission, but was not disclosed in Treasury’s Budget Economic and Fiscal Update.

Cutback not specific
Peters would not say what was likely to go as a result of the cutback.

“We were always going to be very cautious about our expenditure … you can easily waste money in these circumstances.

“Our plan is to have a very efficient, very meaningful PIF hosting experience in this country using all of our past knowledge, and make sure that when it’s over, we have done our responsibility to the max.”

Treasury wrote that the final amount was ultimately agreed on “to reflect that the Forum has increased in scope and importance since 2011”.

A historic cemetery in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, has been vandalised devastating families and local community members.

An Australian-based researcher, who has led the restoration project at the Nikao Cemetery in Rarotonga for 10 years, says those responsible for vandalising the headstones need to be prosecuted.

It was reported this week that a number of headstones were knocked over, including the headstone of researcher Cate Walker’s mother.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific vandalism reports

Walker was notified by the Cook Islands Investment Corporation this week, who sent pictures of the damaged headstones.

Speaking to RNZ Pacific Waves, Walker said the vandalism was something she never expected could happen in the Cook Islands.

“Cemetery vandalism has never happened before,” she said.

“We were just completely shocked and hurt and devastated because everybody there knows the amount of work that we have put into that cemetery over the last 10 plus years.”

Largest burial site
Nikao Cemetery, facing the Rarotonga International Airport and sitting right along a beach, is the largest burial place site for Cook Islands soldiers who served in the First World War.

It is also the final resting place of expats, tourists and cancer patients, including Walker’s mother Gloria Walker who lost her battle to cancer in 1978.

Walker took an interest in the cemetery over a decade ago when she noticed that some of headstones were being washed away and needed saving. Since then a group of volunteers have regularly kept up the site’s maintenance and restoration efforts.

The restoration project has also prompted Walker to research the Cook Islands’ role in military history.

She said when she started her research, she had no prior knowledge of Cook Islands wartime history but from clearing the cemetery from overgrowth she has identified around 200 soldiers. The veterans buried in Nikao are mostly from the Pa Enua, or the outer islands.

Following its clean up, the cemetery has attracted families to visit and reconnect with their loved ones. In July, Walker and her husband Paul Morrissey were awarded Honorary Permanent Residence in the Cook Islands for the project.

Walker suspects there was more than one person involved in the vandalism. Among the damaged headstones was a soldier whose photograph that had been installed by his family was destroyed.

Mortified by desecration
The desecration of the photograph had mortified Walker.

“Someone has defaced that soldier’s picture, that photo of a soldier on that headstone. That’s a sign of someone who is very sick in my opinion, to do that and to desecrate soldiers in general,” she said.

“I mean that just goes against everything that everyone has learned about respect and respect of our veterans in particular.”

Walker said she had not heard whether the Cook Islands Police had launched an investigation but said they needed to find who was responsible.

“This is not the culture of the Cook Islands, I am highly doubtful that it’s someone who was born and raised in the Cook Islands. So if the police can find these individuals, they need to be dealt with hard by the law.

“They need to be assessed and get the help that they need to move forward with their life, apologise to families and the community, actually the whole community.”

Despite the incident, Walker said the response from the community had been heartwarming and a working bee was planned for the weekend.

She said she hoped there would be a large turnout to help with the cemetery’s team of volunteers and that the vandalism would never happen again.

Naoero, formerly known as Nauru, has opened its embassy in Jerusalem, becoming the third Pacific Island nation to do so.

Naoero’s Vice-President Lionel Aingimea said it sent a message to the world about where the island nation stood.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Israel had committed to sending Naoero medical equipment and water purification systems.

• READ MORE: Why most Pacific government’s stand with Israel
• Other Pacific and Israel diplomacy reports

Sa’ar visited Suva in June after the Fiji government opened its own embassy in Jerusalem last year in a ceremony attended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Papua New Guinea opened an embassy there in 2023.

Sa’ar said earlier this year that Samoa was also expected to open its Jerusalem embassy this year.

Aingimea said opening an embassy in Jerusalem was a “major political decision”.

‘Strengthening of Israel ties’
“We see opening an embassy here in Jerusalem not only as a strengthening of our ties with Israel, but also as a message to the world of where we stand,” he was quoted as saying in a statement released by the Israeli government.

“There was never a thought in the minds and hearts of Naoero that we would open an embassy here in Jerusalem this year,” he said.

“What changed it? It was born in discussions between myself and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar in Fiji. I took it to Cabinet, and Cabinet endorsed it. It was an easy decision to make.”

He added that Naoero’s support for Israel had been “unwavering”.

“Naoero is historically one of Israel’s most reliable and consistent diplomatic allies at the United Nations.

“The United States stands at 93 percent of its votes supporting Israel, the Federated States of Micronesia at 88 percent, and Naoero at 71 percent. Mark my words: that 71 percent will increase very quickly.

“True friends stay consistent through both good times and hard trials, and that is who Naoero is to Israel.”

On the second day of the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting in Palau, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was asked about the potential participation of Torres Strait Islanders in the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) — one of the forum’s three sub-regional groups.

Albanese, alongside his ministers Chris Bowen and Pat Conroy, was holding a press conference at the leaders’ meeting venue in Koror. Bowen holds the climate portfolio while Conroy is Australia’s Minister for Pacific Island affairs.

Conroy responded on behalf of his prime minister.

• READ MORE: West Papua: The Pacific’s new test of Indonesia’s sovereignty narrative
  
• The Pacific’s cocaine highway: will Australia’s $600m deal really help?
• Other Pacific Islands Forum reports

“I was honoured to be the first Australian minister to attend a Melanesian Spearhead Group as an observer in Fiji [in June 2025],” Conroy began.

“Obviously, there’s a process that is going through where the Melanesian Spearhead Group consider whether Australia would be an observer at the MSG. We’re obviously keen to make that happen because we see value in having the people of Australia as an observer through the Australian government at the Melanesian Spearhead Group.”

No mention of the people of Torres Strait Island was made, even after the reporter attempted a follow-up question.

The MSG, which as a starting point acknowledges Torres Strait Islanders as part of its Melanesian family, holds a different view.

The group’s newly appointed Director-General Dr Anna Naupa, speaking to reporters the previous day, said the MSG’s preference was for Australia to include its Melanesian communities, like Torres Strait Islanders, when engaging with it.

“Because of our attention to our Indigenous Melanesian peoples, very much that is the preference, is that we bring and we connect our communities with each other,” Dr Naupa said.

It is a difference in outlook that reflects some of the wider challenges to Australia’s engagement in the Pacific region.

Sometimes the subtleties and nuances of regional politics can be lost or completely dismissed by the Australians.

Climate contradictions
Other times it feels like Australia does not fully appreciate — outwardly at least — how closely watched it is by smaller Pacific nations.

For example, one of the major developments at the leaders’ meeting was the release of a report from the UN Environment Programme, which stated that overshooting the Paris Climate Accord goal of 1.5C was now unavoidable.

It came a day after Albanese’s government supported the opening of a new fracking project in the Northern Territory.

It was also confirmed during the week that Albanese’s government had approved the expansion of an open-cut coal mine in Queensland.

Vanuatu’s Climate Minister Ralph Regenvanu, fresh from a climate media briefing on the UN report release, pointed the finger squarely at the Forum’s largest member in Koror.

“Australia is a great partner for the Pacific in helping adaptation and renewable energy pathways, and that’s all good,” he said.

“But as I said … in the press conference, fossil fuels remain the primary driver [of rising temperatures]. And if you expand fossil fuels, you’re not recognising the declaration you signed up to yourself, which is Boe, which says it’s the greatest single threat to the peoples of the Pacific.

“So that is a contradiction that Australia needs to find a way out of,” Regenvanu said.

Climate featured heavily
Similar to previous years, climate change featured heavily in the leaders’ meeting communique this year.

Leaders signed off on the Belau declaration for urgent and inclusive climate action to keep 1.5C within reach through it. As part of that, the Boe Declaration was recalled.

Leaders also reaffirmed that “climate change remains the single greatest threat to the security, livelihoods, wellbeing and future of the peoples of the Pacific”.

For his part, Albanese did not miss a beat when questioned about whether his government’s commitment to the climate crisis was geniune.

“We all need to do more,” he told reporters.

He also made the point that Pacific leaders understood Australia’s current reliance on fossil fuels and “have respect for the position that we’ve taken” — directly contradicting Regenvanu’s words.

“They also understand with the transition [away from fossil fuels] — because they’re dealing with it as well — that the transition can’t happen overnight, that it requires strategies and policies to be put in place,” Albanese said.

It’s not new for countries in the Pacific to have different outlooks — but when it comes to these regional big issues, there’s a gap between the Australian view and those of the Pacific islands that may suggest a lack of understanding of the latter by the former.

Security arrangements
In regard to traditional security, Australia’s been building an array of treaties and bilateral agreements with different partners across the region over several years and particularly in recent months.

These include the Ocean of Peace Alliance or Veitacini Treaty with Fiji, which other parties may eventually join, the Nakamal agreement with Vanuatu, the Pukpuk treaty with Papua New Guinea, the Nauru-Australia Treaty and the Falepili Union with Tuvalu.

Despite that, it will likely have come away from this year’s forum feeling slightly short-changed because there were signs of a handbrake being applied on this security stuff, amid concerns from Pacific islanders about where it’s all heading, and how quickly it’s going that way.

As part of the Forum’s peace and security agenda, the Joint Heads of Pacific Security (JHOPS) which is headquartered at Australia’s Department of Defence, has been tabled under the review of the regional architecture.

The JHOPS brings together the heads of police, military, customs and immigration agencies from across the region. Japan and the US are observers.

Civil society group Pacific Action Network on Globalisation (PANG) has raised serious concerns about the insertion of JHOPS and a regional deployment framework into the forum-led security architecture.

Its main concern is the lack of scrutiny over the process, and the potential legal structures that may result which lock Pacific nations into security arrangements they hadn’t foreseen or agreed to.

Further consultation needed
In Koror, PANG along with the Pacific Regional NGO Organisations Alliance was represented by Joey Tau.

He told RNZ Pacific he was pleased leaders had only agreed in principle to recognise JHOPS as part of the Forum-led security architecture, noting in the communique that further consultation would be needed.

Similarly, the Waqa Moana maritime security initiative targeting illicit drug trafficking, backed heavily by Australia, was only agreed to in principle by leaders, with the overall decision seeking more consultation.

To add to that, the proposal from the Solomon Islands for a regional security treaty, which Australia’s said it was open to, has been kicked down the road. Leaders chose to note the proposal and acknowledged further consultation among members.

Overall, as Tau, pointed out, there are still major questions over the direction of the reform of the forum’s regional architecture, and the processes and people guiding it.

“We’re in a state where, not only external parties, but member states who are part of the whole architecture are driving security agreements, compacts, initiatives, without proper consultation,” he said.

For Australia, which has steadily increased its activity and engagement in the region, particularly around security, it may be questioning where exactly the speedbumps emerged at last week’s Forum leaders’ summit.

The resourcing it brings will always afford it a seat at the table, and there is no doubt its investment in the Pacific in areas such as sport, particularly rugby league has gone down well.

But understanding how to discuss contentious issues and negotiate in Pacific circles are not skills that come automatically with “big ticket” agreements and promises — they are honed through relationships, experience and being in the room.

Time in the region will also let you know that more often than not, decisions turn on a dime, as the absence of several leaders from the forum showed last week. It’s all part and parcel of politics in the Pacific region.

Labour is calling the government’s stance on Israel an “embarrassment” to the country, and says it is failing to meet its responsibilities under the Genocide Convention.

Britain, France and Canada are set to ban imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, with British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband saying Israel is turning a blind eye to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

However, New Zealand has not followed suit, with Foreign Minister Winston Peters saying New Zealand has not traditionally used trade measures to address foreign policy issues.

• READ MORE: Peters’ ‘hot air’ over Israeli settlement trade ban rules out of step with world
• Palestine Forum condemns NZ for talk, no ‘meaningful action’ over illegal Israeli settlements
• NZ joins call to end Israeli settlement expansion, but not import ban
• UK, France, Canada to ban imports from Israeli settlements — NZ critical but stops short of joining
• UK bans goods from Israeli West Bank settlements in ‘comprehensive reset’: What that really means
• Other Gaza, Palestine reports

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said that if Labour was in government, New Zealand would be joining the sanctions against Israel.

He said the government’s position on Gaza had also been “weak for the last three years” and it was failing to fulfill its responsibilities as a signatory to the international protocol against genocide.

“The current government’s position on Israel is an embarrassment to the country,” he said.

“We should be sanctioning Israel along with like-minded countries like the UK, Canada, and France. These are our friends who are now saying that what Israel is doing is wrong and they should be sanctioned for it.”

He said Labour would also be formally recognising Palestine.

“New Zealand’s missing in action when it comes to taking a principled stance on what’s happening in Gaza. There is an unfolding genocide happening.”

A spokesperson for the Prime Minister said the foreign minister’s statement was the government’s position.

‘There is an inconsistency in what we’re saying’, says academic
Waikato University law professor Alexander Gillespie said the government was wrong not to join the trade sanctions, saying there was an inconsistency in New Zealand’s approach.

“The Europeans have it right. New Zealand’s response is that we don’t like blanket bans, and that with the 38 settlers that we’ve got travel bans on, that that’s a targeted approach,” he said.

He said when it came to Russia and Ukraine, it was justifiable to do so with an International Court of Justice opinion to support it, and New Zealand did use trade to influence foreign policy.

“So there is an inconsistency in what we’re saying right now.”

He said imposing sanctions on Israel would take “a considerable amount of work” but “if they want to do it, they can do it”.

“You’ve just seen that with 12 other countries that have joined together to do it, but where New Zealand’s positioned itself is with Australia where we’ve decided not to do that right now, and there will be political reasons for that.

“Partly it’s got to do with the non-recognition of Palestine, because if you recognise Palestine, you ultimately agree to the self-determination of the Palestinian people, and that would mean you’ve got to do more against illegal annexation than other countries.”

He said New Zealand had good rhetoric around supporting a two-state solution but the measures taken against Israel were “nowhere near as strong as … other countries”.

He pushed back on the suggestion that imposing sanctions could escalate the situation for those in the Palestinian Territories, saying “I don’t think you could escalate the situation much more than where it is now”.

Where it might get complicated was if US President Donald Trump decided to back Israel and introduce further trade tariffs against countries sanctioning the occupied territories.

‘Remember what happened last time’, says ACT
ACT leader David Seymour noted while the government was concerned about settlements that breached international law, New Zealand was “a trading nation — we don’t generally use trade bans to make political points”.

He said the conflict in the Middle East “changes at such a rate of knots I don’t think anyone really knows where it’ll be at next week”.

“We’ve got eight weeks before the next election, but it does remind me that just before the last election, we saw that absolutely barbaric and disgraceful attack by terrorists of innocent people at a music festival, and if we’re going to talk about the run-up to the election, sometimes we should remember what happened last time.”

Govt ‘just find excuses not to do something’, say Greens
The Greens’ Foreign Affairs spokesperson Teanau Tuiono said the government’s statement was weak, and trade sanctions would be a good step forward.

“What has our government done? Nothing. All it does is follow what the US does, and as Israel’s strongest ally as well, and we don’t hear anything from this government as well.

“There was an opportunity for the government to do something meaningful when other like-minded countries were recognising the state of Palestine, and this government dipped even though the official advice to the Minister for Foreign Affairs was to recognise the state of Palestine — and he didn’t.

“It’s a weak statement. It’s a pattern of behaviour of weak non-action from the government, and it’s disappointing.”

Greens co-leader Chloe Swarbrick has had a member’s bill in the ballot since December 2024, and has been pleading for support on it from across the aisle — which would see it skip the biscuit tin ballot — for well over a year.

With Labour promising its support, Swarbrick a year ago was punished by Parliament’s Speaker for a week after saying if they could find “six of 68 government MPs with a spine we can stand on the right side of history”.

An Australian senator says the release of terms for a controversial deportation deal between Australia and Naoero (formerly Nauru) raises more questions than it answers.

The Australian government has released an agreement to deport more than 350 refugees and asylum seekers to Naoero, known as the “NZYQ cohort”.

Shrouded in secrecy, the government has been hesitant to release the deal, offering details in bite-sized pieces over the course of last year.

• READ MORE: Other Australian offshore refugee reports

One such revelation came from Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke in August 2025, when he said the deal gave Naoero AU$2.5 billion over 30 years.

Green Party Senator David Shoebridge, who has led efforts to hold the government to account for grievances over the NZYQ affair, told RNZ Pacific the release only scratches the surface.

“The government has been far from forthright,” Shoebridge said.

“[It has] resisted and made multiple privilege claims for basic information that we have sought about not just this agreement: there’s another whole memorandum which sets up the financial arrangement … they are continuing to resist producing that document.”

High Court ruling
Australia turned to Naoero and its long-standing offshore processing arrangements with the Pacific country to solve a problem created for it by a High Court ruling in late 2023.

A stateless man who had been in Australia for more than a decade — known anonymously as NZYQ — had sued the Federal government for his treatment in a detention centre where he had been held indefinitely.

The court found that the government had no legal right to detain a stateless person within the country: that was the job of the judicial branch. It resulted in around 150 detained refugees being automatically freed — the “cohort”.

The deal with Naoero thus became a work-around: keep the cohort off Australian streets, without the use of detention.

The Australian Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC), which represents deportees traumatised by their experiences in offshore processing, said the deal was not worth the paper it was written on.

“The Nauru deal has been in effect for just over a year, and we have already learned about the involvement of organised crime in propping it up,” HRLC director Sanmati Verma said.

“[Australia’s] willingness to scapegoat migrants shows they have no real solutions to offer.”

The details
As per the agreement, signed in August of last year, Naoero is under obligations that can be sidestepped only with Australia’s consultation. But as the only country contracted to process Australian detainees, Naoero may have some leverage.

Under the terms, Naoero is only able to unilaterally refuse a “proposed person” under exceptional circumstances, accepting them “without any reservation in relation to age, past offences, health conditions or other characteristics”.

If somebody is declined, it has to be due to “a serious and immediate risk to the public health or national security” of the country.

Once there, it is agreed that the person would not be detained, separated from the community, or generally restricted in movement, with the right to leave at any time. They are given work rights and an oligation to “modest” cost of living support.

Once they have received a long-stay visa, which has a 30-year term, they would become a “settled person” with a commitment from Naoero not to send or return them to another country where they would be in danger or at risk of chain refoulement.

But their status as a “settled person” depends on their having that visa, which Naoero could work with Australia to amend.

Shoebridge said if Naoero had a change of heart, this could kneecap the protections as given.

“[Deportees] are just protected as long as Nauru feels it’s in their interest to protect it,” he said.

“As soon as another Nauruan government comes in and decides they want to remove work rights, or they want to take away any obligation to provide basic sustenance, or they want to create a detention camp to put people into … it just has to give the Australian government notice and an opportunity to consult.”

He said the lack of connection that the deportees have with Naoero could make this more likely.

“The idea that we’re deporting people who we’ve found to be refugees to a country to which they have no connection, which has almost no economic capacity to deal with them, and which gives them almost no future to hope for: this is a new level of bastardry from Australia.”

Nothing new
The released document reveals nothing new about the broader arrangements outside of NZYQ

Environment Minister Murray Watt wrote last week that the government had reconsidered withholding the document “due to recent events”, with it being an “action to mitigate the potential harm.”

“The Minister [Burke] is now satisfied that the public interests weigh towards releasing this document,” he wrote in a cover letter, the government having argued the opposite for months.

Officials have been scrutinised by the senators, including Shoebridge, under an inquiry into offshore processing that kicked off earlier in the year.

It canvassed the legacy of the old Manus Island offshore detention facility in Papua New Guinea, and the long-running opaque arrangements with Naoero that continue today.

The inquiry heard testimony from traumatised detainees, who recalled the harassment and constant danger they faced in these offshore processing centres throughout the 2010s.

“It’s disastrous for their physical health, or their mental health, we’ve seen man epidemic of self-harm and tragically some people taking their lives,” Shoebridge said.

“We know what happens because past experience has told us this, and in order to deal with a political problem that the government thinks it has here, they’re willing to do that harm to yet more people.”

Australia also deports individuals to New Zealand under Section 501 of the Australian Migration Act.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders summit in Palau last week that that this, and the NZYQ deportations, had in no way contributed to a transnational organised crime crisis in the region.

“If people who aren’t Australian citizens commit crimes in Australia, we’re entitled to implement Australian law, just as other countries are,” he said.

“The objective here is to do everything we can, working with out partners and neighbours, to reduce crime… including with our friends.”

A leading West Papua pro-independence group has questioned Indonesia’s assertion that a proposed visit by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to West Papua is “on track”.

The West Papua National Committee (KNPB) is urging Indonesia to put its words into action on the proposed visit with a clear date, genuine access and meaningful engagement.

This comes after Melanesian countries last week urged Jakarta to facilitate the long-requested visit or have Indonesia’s status as an associate member of the Melanesian Spearhead Group reviewed.

• READ MORE: West Papua: The Pacific’s new test of Indonesia’s sovereignty narrative — Ali Mirin
• UN human rights commissioner visit to West Papua on track, says Indonesia
• Other West Papua reports

A request for the visit was made by Pacific Islands Forum countries back in 2019, but it has still not gone ahead, despite ongoing armed conflict and human rights violations in Indonesian-ruled Papua region, known internationally as West Papua.

In the intervening years, frustration has built up among the Melanesian countries in particular that Indonesia has not yet allowed the visit to take place.

In response to last week’s statement from the MSG, the Indonesian government told RNZ Pacific that the visit was on track, without elaborating on details.

“We are always in constructive discussion on the issues deemed important by other members of the MSG, and we can also confirm that the said proposed visit is on the right path,” an Indonesian spokesperson said.

Concrete, verifiable action
The KNPB’s international spokesperson, Victor Yeimo, said that for the Papuan people, Indonesia’s statement about the visit being on track must now translate into concrete, verifiable action.

“If the visit is genuinely on track, we respectfully ask: What is the timeline? What practical arrangements are being made? And when will the High Commissioner be able to visit West Papua and engage directly with the Papuan people?” he asked.

“The question is whether the United Nations’ highest human rights official will now be given meaningful and independent access to assess the wider human rights situation.”

Yeimo said that in Papua the High Commissioner should be allowed to engage freely with Indigenous communities, victims of human rights violations, displaced persons, civil society, churches, human rights defenders and other affected communities.

“Such engagement should take place without intimidation, surveillance or reprisals, and without restricting who communities are able to speak with or what concerns they are able to raise.

“The Papuan people do not ask the international community simply to accept our narrative. Nor do we ask it simply to accept Jakarta’s narrative,” Yeimo said.

“We ask the United Nations to come, listen directly and assess the situation for itself. That is the purpose of an independent human rights assessment.

For 20 years, West Papuan activist Paula Makabory has not set foot in her ancestral homeland. Her family still lives in West Papua, but she has not seen them since she left in 2006.

Speaking to RNZ Pacific Waves from Melbourne, Makabory said she did not know what would happen if she attempted to return.

As Pacific leaders push Jakarta to allow a long-awaited United Nations Human Rights Commissioner visit to West Papua, Makabory, who is an executive member of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), said the leaders needed to apply more pressure on Indonesia.

• READ MORE: West Papua: The Pacific’s new test of Indonesia’s sovereignty narrative
• UN human rights commissioner visit to West Papua on track, says Indonesia
• Other West Papua reports

In 2019, Pacific leaders requested that Indonesia allow a team from the UN Human Rights Office to visit West Papua to conduct an independent investigation into the alleged human rights abuses in the region.

Seven years later, the request for the visit has been unfruitful.

But this year during the Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting in Palau, the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) stated that if Indonesia did not allow the visit to happen, they would review its associate membership status in their 2027 summit.

In a statement sent to RNZ Pacific, a spokesperson for the Indonesian embassy in New Zealand said there had been no discussion of a review on its membership within the MSG. They also stated that the UN visit was “on track”.

Makabory said she would believe the visit was happening when Indonesia made good on its commitment.

“I think it’s going to be great news if it comes to action for real, because it has been a couple of years that Indonesia is still not talking or even inviting the United Nations human rights commissioner, or her office to visit West Papua to conduct an independent investigation,” she said.

Makabory said the prime ministers of Fiji and Papua New Guinea needed to negotiate a firm timeline with Indonesia for the visit, otherwise Indonesia would “never open the door”.

Melanesians ‘need to stand up strong’
Makabory said the situation in West Papua was worsening, with humanitarian and environmental concerns at a crisis point.

According to Makabory, there are more than 125,000 Indigenous Papuans who are internally displaced across multiple regencies, including Nduga, Intan Jaya, Puncak, Yahukimo, Pegunungan Bintang, Jayawijaya, Maybrat, Teluk Bintuni, Yapen Islands and Tambrauw. The displacements, she said, was the result of military operations, aerial bombings and armed conflicts.

There are more than 80,000 Indonesian security forces operating in West Papua who Makabory alleges are responsible for extrajudicial executions, civilian shootings and disrupting peaceful protests.

Makabory also raised concerns about the expansion of the Merauke food estate and mining operations, saying they are destroying Indigenous land and contributing to deforestation and environmental damage.

In addition to the UN human rights office, Indonesia needs to allow other international groups, such as humanitarians and foreign journalists, to enter, Makabory said.

She added that this could only happen if the MSG used its influence with Indonesia rather than signing deals.

“I think the MSG countries or leaders as guardians of our region, they need to stand up strong. They need to see that West Papua belongs to Melanesia, and they need to protect their own kind.”

A review of Indonesia’s associate membership in 2027 on the condition that no visit would happen was not strong enough, according to Makabory. She said the MSG should take it a step further and suspend Indonesia.

Despite being barred from returning to West Papua, Makabory told Pacific Waves it is her homeland and nothing compares to it. She said she believes that the spirit of the Melanesian brotherhood and Pacific islanders will lead to a path that will “save West Papua”.

New Zealand’s Tibetan community said it was shocked to see the devastation caused by last week’s catastrophic flash flood near the Nepal-China border.

The community said the disaster had also highlighted ongoing concerns about the impact of increasing infrastructure construction and deforestation on the Tibetan Plateau.

“It’s absolutely shocking and very sad but it also reminds us how fragile our environment is, especially in Tibet,” said Gadhen Paljor, president of the Auckland Tibetan Association.

• READ MORE: Rescue efforts continue as Nepal-China flood death toll rises to 1280
• Not if, but when next? — Nepali Times editorial
• Other Nepal reports

Paljor was born in the Himalayan mountains while his parents were fleeing Tibet.

He has been living in New Zealand for the past 25 years.

Paljor said Auckland’s Tibetan community held special prayers for the victims of the flash flood.

He said a Tibetan refugee settlement in Nepal had been washed away in the floodwaters.

“One of the settlements had about 11 households, and it has all been swept away sadly,” he said.

Construction impact
Paljor was worried about the impact of increased construction and deforestation in the Tibetan region.

In late 2025, China approved construction of what is set to become the world’s largest hydropower dam on the Tibetan Plateau.

The South China Morning Post said the dam would be situated in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo, where the river drops 2000 metres over a 50 km stretch, creating immense hydropower potential.

Paljor said he had not heard much news from Tibet since the flash flood because information was reportedly being tightly controlled.

Concerns about access to information had also emerged before the floods.

Nepali and Chinese officials met in Kathmandu three months ago to discuss the risks posed by floods, glaciers and weather hazards.

The May 27 meeting called for stronger cooperation, including joint monitoring, glacial lake inventories and hazard mapping.

Limited risk data
But two Nepali officials told Reuters they received less information than they wanted from China about glacier risks and water levels, raising concerns that limited data sharing could hamper disaster preparedness.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Nepal rejected the allegation, saying China had been providing Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology with key data daily.

“China has always upheld the spirit of humanitarianism, fully supported Nepal’s disaster response decision-making, and taken concrete actions to safeguard the lives and property of our two countries,” the spokesperson said.

“China will continue to help Nepal to overcome the difficulties and rebuild our homes.”

State news agency Xinhua said on Thursday that 21 deaths in China had been reported in the disaster, with another 541 missing.

Meanwhile, rescue teams in Nepal have recovered more than 1250 bodies, and more than 5000 are missing, according to media reports.

Five missing from NZ
Five New Zealanders remain among the missing in the disaster: Dejan Kuzmic, Shweta Mhatre, Mihir Patel, Kinnari Patel and Suhasini Reddy.

However, more than half a dozen New Zealanders narrowly escaped the deadly flash floods after their Auckland-based tour operator decided to cross the Nepal-China border a day earlier than first planned.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said on Friday there had been no change to the status of the five missing New Zealanders.

“Challenges on the ground mean that new, verified information is going to take time to emerge,” the spokesperson said, describing the situation on the ground as being “very bleak”.

On Thursday, a spokesperson from the ministry said New Zealand had extended an offer of technical expertise to aid Nepal’s response effort, in addition to humanitarian assistance worth $2 million announced on August 28.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has announced more financial assistance for New Caledonia to assist the financially-embattled French Pacific territory.

The announcement follows a three-hour meeting with a bipartisan delegation led by New Caledonia’s President Milakulo Tukumuli this week.

Lecornu said this was to serve as a lifebuoy to help New Caledonia overcome its most urgent challenges, including a near-collapse of the French territory’s pension scheme and medicare, which are both described as being on the verge of collapse.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

Its other aim was to help New Caledonia conclude its 2026 financial year (11 million euros) and balance its 2027 budget (50 million euros).

A major part of the announced assistance was also quoted as amounting to “400 to 600 million euros”.

He also spoke about consultations to coordinate the package’s implementation during a “Prime Minister’s mission” team at a date yet to be determined.

Since his election in July 2026, Tukumuli has expressed serious concerns regarding New Caledonia’s financial situation and the risk of what he termed a “shutdown”.

High debt level
He also expressed serious concerns at New Caledonia’s high level of debt, following loans contracted with the French government as a result of the covid crisis and, more recently, the civil unrest that took place in May 2024.

The unrest and its related effects caused 14 deaths and significantly impacted New Caledonia’s economy, with an estimated €2 billion in material damage (mostly to local businesses) and an estimated drop of 13.5 percent in the Gross Domestic Product, as well as over 12,000 unemployed.

New Caledonia’s recurrent request was also, in the face of record debt, to obtain that current loans (and its interests) be converted into into non-refundable grants.

Lecornu said most of this fresh assistance would be in the form of grants.

Apart from Lecornu, New Caledonia’s group of politicians, since Monday, have held meetings in Paris with top officials from the Finance ministry, French minister for Overseas Naïma Moutchou and both Presidents of France’s Parliament chambers, the Senate (Gérard Larcher) and the National Assembly (Yaël Braun-Pivet).

They are also scheduled to meet French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday this week (Paris time).

The announcement was also understood to come with strings attached, in the form of assurances from New Caledonia’s government that “urgent reforms” will be carried out.

Cautious satisfaction
Reacting to Lecornu’s announcement, New Caledonia’s Congress President (Speaker) Virginie Ruffenach, who is part of the delegation, expressed cautious satisfaction.

She acknowledged the response was “very good news” and met “about 90 percent of our request” for an initial plea of 540 million euros.

But she remained cautious and said the announcement now required “clarifications”, especially on how much will be disbursed in the form of grants and how much through loans.

“We don’t want to bring more debt to New Caledonia,” she said.

She assured that New Caledonia had already passed a significant number of reforms resulting in savings of “365 million euros”.

“It’s a lot, but it’s not enough. We’re just beginning to recover. Our fiscal revenues are slightly increasing … But this needs to be accompanied for at least two years,” she told reporters in Paris.

Tukumuli earlier stressed that more loans for the French Pacific territory was just “untenable”.

“Between 2020 and 2026, we have borrowed 1.5 billion euros,” New Caledonia’s President elaborated.

“And now we have arrived at a totally unreal situation whereby in 2026, we have borrowed again to repay the 2025 loan”.

The announced commitment will however have to receive the French Parliament’s approval, as part of the French 2027 budget debates.

Throughout the week, New Caledonia’s delegation has also held lobbying talks with French MPs from caucuses across the political chessboard, only months ahead of France’s Presidential and general elections, starting in April 2027.

Indonesia’s government has indicated that a visit by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to West Papua is on track.

This comes as Melanesian Sperarhead Group (MSG) countries agreed to push Jakarta to facilitate the visit, after years of apparent inaction.

A request for the visit was made by Pacific Islands Forum countries back in 2019, but it has still not gone ahead, despite ongoing human rights violations in Papua.

• READ MORE: Melanesian countries to review Indonesia’s status at MSG if no action on West Papua visit
• West Papuan leader calls on Pacific Forum to ‘break its silence’ and denounce Indonesian military violence
• Other West Papua reports

A statement issued by MSG states from this week’s Pacific Forum leaders meeting in Palau appeared to reflect frustrations that the visit has still not been facilitated.

The statement said that if a visit by the UN Commissioner’s office was not facilitated by Indonesia in order for a report on human rights issues in West Papua to be produced by their next summit in 2027, then Indonesia’s associate member status in the MSG will be reviewed.

The full members of the MSG are: Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia’s FLNKS Kanak Movement. The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) has observer status at the MSG, and Indonesia has associate member status.

‘Constructive discussion’
In a response to RNZ Pacific following the statement, a spokesperson from Indonesia’s Embassy in New Zealand said there was “no discussion to review our membership within the MSG”.

“We are always in constructive discussion on the issues deemed important by other members of the MSG, and we can also confirm that the said proposed visit is on the right path.

“As you may have [been] aware that on July 2025, we already facilitate[d] a visit from UN Special Rapporteur [for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Albert Kwokow] to Papua,” the spokesperson said.

“We can agree that this shows good intention from the government of the Republic of Indonesia to the advancement of prosperity of all Indonesians.”

Ongoing conflict in Papua
The long-running conflict between the West Papua Liberation Army and Indonesian military forces in Papua has escalated in recent months, causing mass displacement of some Papua village communities in the region around Highland Papua province.

In the latest reported violence, human rights workers told RNZ Pacific that four members of the Liberation Army had been arrested and killed by Indonesian forces in Yahukimo Regency in recent days, and another member seriously injured, while six civilians were also arrested during the incident.

The spokesperson for the embassy said that during the 62nd Session of the Human Rights Council, the High Commissioner assessed “that force must not be used to pursue territorial claims or political demands”.

“The sovereign equality of States, territorial integrity, and non-interference remain the foundation of the international order; respect for international law and the principles of UN Charter is non-negotiable.”

The spokesperson said Indonesia supports “a cooperative and non-confrontational approach to human rights issues, based on mutual respect and national ownership”.

Leaders in the Pacific have registered their concern over a nuclear-capable missile test conducted by China in July, calling on all states to provide advance warning ahead of any testing.

Nauru – one of the 18 Pacific Island Forum (PIF) members – noted its dissent from the statement.

Partners to the Forum will also be split into two tiers in future, and member states agreed to a declaration for urgent and inclusive climate action to keep 1.5 degrees of warming within reach.

• READ MORE: China risks exploding Pacific goodwill in one fell swoop of a nuclear capable missile

The Pacifc Islands’ Forum in Palau has concluded, with leaders taking part in a daylong meeting on Thursday to discuss various issues, releasing a joint statement outlining their conclusions.

Specifically, the Forum noted an intercontinental ballistic missile test that had “overflew” a number of members “without adequate notice”.

The members called on all states undertaking testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles to provide transparency and reassurance, including advance notification of at least 24 hours.

Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr, who read the statement, concluded by saying: “I might note that the Republic of Naoero [Nauru] has dissented.”

Overshadowed by tensions
The Forum has been overshadowed with the tensions between China and Taiwan.

One local told RNZ all he had been hearing about was “China, Taiwan, and how the outside world, outside countries are … making certain nations either afraid to talk or not standing up boldly.

“All I hear is about just drama, and that defeats the whole purpose.”

He said he wanted to hear more about what other countries were going through, whether that matched up with the problems facing Palau — like outmigration, cost of living, and drugs — and see what could be done by working together.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said on Thursday that China-Taiwan had not been a focus inside the PIF.

“It’s a piece of a conversation, but it’s not the dominant conversation.”

But another geopolitical issue was the lingering desire by many in the Forum to reach consensus on condemning the intercontinental ballistic missile test by China.

Full consensus blocked
It is understood Naoero and Kiribati, both closely aligned with China, stood in the way of full consensus on a statement earlier in August.

Even as the meeting on Thursday was taking place, China’s Foreign Ministry made accusations toward Palau, after the host of the Forum urged the group to condemn China’s launch.

“Palau has repeatedly raised this issue in an ill-intentioned attempt to hijack the position of other member states of the Pacific Islands Forum. It will not have its way,” the ministry said.

Luxon himself felt strongly about the matter, telling reporters later it was important to push back so the behaviour was not normalised.

“Given all the history in our part of the world with nuclear testing… that’s just not something we want to see.”

Luxon described Naoero as being “in the room”, and wanting to be “disassociated with the statement”.

“We said, look, that’s great, but we’re not going to not make a statement as a Pacific Island Forum because of the objection of one country, and you’d have to ask them as to what their rationale for that was.

“Suffice to say, everyone else was fully on board.”

No Kiribati representation
When pressed on whether Kiribati was also on board, Luxon said Kiribati had no representation in the room.

Even stranger was the delayed recognition during the closing ceremony of Kiribati’s representative to the Forum, David Teaboo, well after all the other leaders had received applause.

The Forum also confirmed it would run a tiered system next year, splitting around 30 partners into two streams: one for strategic partners, and one for sector partners.

“Everyone’s a partner, but we just need to make sure that we can manage it well going forward,” said Luxon.

“We have to acknowledge that as we go forward, we can’t treat them all the same or give the same sort of effort.”

Taiwan remains a development partner, and while its Foreign Minister, Lin Chia-lung, was attending the Forum this year after being invited by Palau, New Zealand’s Foreign Minister indicated on Thursday that would not be the case next year.

New Zealand adheres to the One China policy, which means it does not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

Foreign Minister not invited
That would prevent the Foreign Minister being invited — instead representation at a lower level would be likely at next year’s forum.

Despite the geostrategic tensions at play throughout the Forum, Luxon said PIF was at its “strongest”.

Before setting off to Palau, Luxon denied PIF was being weakened as a mechanism for resolving region-wide difficulties.

“No, I think it’s about strengthening it, though,” Luxon said.

After his hours’ long meeting on Thursday, he said he wanted to see PIF “continue to evolve and strengthen and move — it’s the arc of progress that we’re focused on”.

That work will continue into next year, as New Zealand readies itself to host the forum.

Sacked Solomon Islands Finance Minister Gordon Darcy Lilo says further resignations from Cabinet are imminent, as Prime Minister Matthew Wale gears up to fight a no-confidence motion.

The motion of no confidence is expected to be tabled on Monday, September 7.

Lilo — who shares a political party with the motion’s champion, Manasseh Maelanga — was removed from Cabinet by Wale this afternoon.

• READ MORE:  Solomon Islands PM sacks minister, accuses rivals of opportunism as no-confidence vote looms
• Peters blasts Solomon Islands cabinet ministers for move against PM Wale
• Other Solomon Islands reports

Speaking to RNZ Pacific on the day he was fired, Lilo denied any involvement in planning against Wale, but said he now felt obliged to support the motion.

“I’m caught in between,” he said.

“I cannot move [away] from a party member because there are only two of us, so we have to be together in this whole proposition.”

Mealanga resigned as Wale’s Home Affairs Minister on Monday, joined by Justice Minister Clezy Rore and Commerce Minister Harry Kuma. Lilo did not reveal who he knew, or expected, to quit next.

Backbench MPs elevated
Wale elevated three government backbench MPs to Cabinet within the week to replace them, rather than pulling from the opposition. Those MPs — Rexson Ramofafia, Nestor Ghiro and Alfred Tuasuila — had joined the coalition in June.

It means the government’s 33-member majority is drawn down to 29. Rore and Kuma, both People First Party (PFP) members, may be able to sway fellow party members to back the motion.

As a result, Lilo predicted that a swing against Wale was highly likely.

“I think there are valid reasons as well.”

“It boils down to the way that Cabinet has… there seems to be an absence of an operation of a Cabinet government and that raises a lot of concerns.”

Lilo noted that Wale’s coalition, formed in the rubble of Jeremiah Manele’s government in April, had never formalised terms through a signed agreement.

“It could be that the Prime Minister might have decided to run [the government] himself… in the absence of that coalition agreement.

Situation underestimated
“Then, maybe he underestimated the fact that this kind of a situation might arise.”

The motion forced Wale home from Palau on Sunday, where he was attending the Pacific Islands Forum leaders summit.

The Prime Minister has vowed to fight on, calling the defectors political opportunists with a “disturbing willingness to put petty political interests ahead of national interest”.

“The people deserve the opportunity to see whether the GREAT Coalition can deliver,” Wale said in a statement.

“The bigger question is whether ‘lack of consultation’ is being used as a convenient political justification for a move that may have been contemplated well before the current dispute emerged.”

RNZ Pacific has asked Prime Minister Wale for comment after the motion of no confidence was filed against him.

The Solomon Islands is asking its fellow Pacific Island Forum (PIF) members to reconsider the presence of dialogue partners at the regional body’s annual leaders meeting, RNZ Pacific understands.

The issue was raised at a closed meeting of the PIF on Wednesday morning in Palau, with the Solomon Islands asking members to consider whether the leaders meeting should be separate from the dialogue partners’ process, RNZ Pacific understands.

The presence of partners at the annual leaders’ meeting has been a contentious issue over the past few years.

• READ MORE: US expected to announce major fuel security deal at Pacific Islands Forum
• Pacific leaders urged to be united behind 2050 climate action vision
• US pushes critical minerals agenda in Cook Islands with Penrhyn ‘lifeline’
• Peters blasts Solomon Islands cabinet ministers for move against PM Wale
• Solomon Islands ‘dangles over the edge of political instability’ as three ministers quit
• Missing leaders won’t derail Pacific Islands Forum outcomes, says secretariat
• Vanuatu Special Envoy calls for PIF to ‘reopen’ issue of Pacific access to West Papua
• Solomon Islands PM Wale rushes home from Palau after confidence challenge launched
• Other PIF reports
• Other West Papua reports

Each year, a partners dialogue meeting is held as part of the leaders’ meeting week. In total, 21 countries are PIF dialogue partners, with key regional players like the United States, China, Japan and France among them.

Taiwan, which also has a delegation in Koror, is a development partner.

However, last year, then-host Solomon Islands banned partners from attending and deferred the dialogue partner meeting to Palau. It was held on Tuesday in Koror.

As interest in the region has grown, the presence of partner delegations, as well as NGOs and observers has increased substantially. The current leaders’ meeting was expected to bring 2000 people to Palau.

Extensive meetings, sideline events
While interest and investment in the region are welcomed by members, the sheer number of people, countries and organisations now attending the leaders’ week has resulted in an extensive list of bilateral meetings and sideline events that sit outside the official PIFs agenda.

RNZ Pacific understands several delegations from Pacific nations have struggled to keep up with the demands of the week. It is understood that a separate partner process could offer more time for members to speak directly with one another and focus on the PIF agenda.

Despite that, support for the Solomon Islands proposal among the membership is unlikely to be clearcut. The Solomons’ decision to stop partners’ attending last year divided members.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters made it clear at the time he believed partners needed to be at the leaders’ meeting because of the investment role they played in the region — a sentiment he repeated this year.

While Sāmoa, represented by previous prime minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, and Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr supported the decision from then-Solomons Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele.

The Solomons proposal also comes as the 18 PIF members have been deliberating on a new partnership structure. The proposed structure would divide partners into two tiers, with the top tier having greater access to member states.

Geopolitical competition
With large delegations from China, the US and Taiwan present, geopolitical competition around the PIF has dominated headlines.

The absences of six leaders, including Solomons Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale, has also been reported extensively. Wale had to return home after landing in Koror due to a motion of no confidence in his leadership.

As a result, his Foreign Minister Rick Houenipwela will be attending Thursday’s leaders’ retreat in his place. Only the heads-of-delegations from the 18 PIF members are permitted at the retreat, which is being held at the residence of President Whipps Jr.

Melanesian countries are pushing Indonesia to facilitate a long-requested visit to West Papua by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights or have its membership in their regional bloc reviewed.

A request for the visit was made by Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) countries back in 2019, but it has still not gone ahead, despite ongoing human rights violations in the Indonesian-ruled Papua region, known internationally as West Papua.

Frustration has built up among the Melanesian countries in the intervening years that Jakarta has not yet allowed the visit to take place.

• READ MORE: West Papuan leader calls on Pacific Forum to ‘break its silence’ and denounce Indonesian military violence
• Other West Papua reports

Now the members of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) say that if a visit by the Commissioner’s office is not facilitated by Indonesia in order for a report on human rights issues in West Papua to be produced by their next summit in 2027, then Indonesia’s associate member status in the MSG will be reviewed.

The full members of the MSG are: Papua New Guinea, FIji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia’s FLNKS Kanak independence movement. The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) has observer status at the MSG, and Indonesia has associate member status.

The MSG has issued a statement from the current PIF leaders summit in Palau, saying Melanesian leaders “urged continued engagement with Indonesia to facilitate access by the end of Indonesia’s term as President of the Human Rights Council on 31 December 2026”.

MSG members requested the bloc’s current chair, Fiji, to write to Indonesia to allow the visit of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to West Papua to produce a report on human rights issues in Papua, and to have the report delivered for consideration at the next MSG summit in 2027.

2027 MSG Summit review
Leaders “affirmed that if these actions are not undertaken the Associate Member status shall be reviewed accordingly at the next MSG Summit in 2027”.

They also requested MSG member country embassies in Jakarta to “support appropriate follow-up and engagement on this matter”.

The members are also considering a proposal for MSG leaders to meet Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York last this month.

Since taking office last year, Prabowo has overseen an increase in Indonesian military deployments to West Papua where a long-running conflict with the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) has escalated in recent months, causing mass displacement of some Papua village communities in the High Papua region.

Authorities in Fiji are offering contradictory accounts of a nationwide effort to remove beggars and street dwellers from public spaces, with questions over warning notices and what support is available for those affected.

The agencies involved have been unable to clearly identify what those services are and who is responsible for providing them, or what happens to people after they are moved from their public places.

The ongoing lack of clarity has raised concerns among civil society organisations that the enforcement effort may be getting ahead of the support systems needed to make it work.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji homeless reports

Last month, The Fiji Times reported that city rangers were serving warning notices to individuals soliciting alms in public areas. The notices stated that behaviour such as persistent begging or obstructing of footpaths were offences and could lead to “enforcement actions”.

The operation has been advertised as a joint effort between the Lautoka City Council, Fiji police, and the Women, Children and Social Protection Ministry.

RNZ Pacific has repeatedly sought clarification on how the operation works in practice, on what would trigger a warning notice, what happens when someone refuses to leave, what support programmes are offered for street dwellers, and what role each agency plays.

The office of the Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection, Sashi Kiran, declined to comment on the ministry’s role in supporting street dwellers or on what programmes being offered to people being moved from public spaces.

The office of Police Commissioner Rusiate Tudravu would only say police were there to “ensure the safety of all parties” and would “use necessary force” if required.

When RNZ Pacific asked what that meant in practice, and what powers police would use if people refused to leave public spaces, no detailed explanations were provided.

RNZ Pacific’s specific questions to both the ministry and police remain unanswered.

‘No forced relocation’
The Lautoka City Council chairman and acting CEO Ratu Tevita Momoedonu, however, was more forthcoming, and rejected suggestions people were being forcibly removed from streets.

“There is no forced relocation here. We can’t force anybody,” he said.

He described the initiative as welfare-led, saying street dwellers were being profiled and offered relocation to shelters and rehabilitation services.

“We don’t warn people. We profile them, and we call them in meetings, and then we suggest to them the importance or the benefits of being relocated,” he added.

When asked about the support programmes being offered by the ministry, Momoedonu said they could not help.

“I can’t help you either, because the [Lautoka City] Council, we have our own jurisdictions here. We only help social welfare in profiling,” he said.

“The rehabilitation part, the relocation part, it is their (ministry and police) responsibility, not us. If they are not answering to you people, then [they] neither do us.”

Directives may be issued
While Momoedonu denied that warning notices were being used as part of the relocation effort, he did acknowledge that council notices could be issued for breaches of bylaws, and that people involved in criminal activity could be removed.

“If there are bylaws that are violated, then we can issue directives? When there are criminal elements — drinking in public place, taking drugs in public place, disturbing the peace. These are criminal elements.”

He said police assist the Lautoka City Council and welfare officers when street dwellers resist engagement, although he commented that police do not “enforce relocations”.

In Nadi, Fiji’s international gateway, a similar operation is underway.

A pamphlet from social worker Mohenesh Singh describes “Operation Loloma” as an effort to take beggars off the streets, profile and screen them, and provide “alternative means of livelihood”.

“Together, we can create lasting solutions that address the root causes of begging,” the pamphlet reads.

“The information collected will see an an individual case plan drawn up for each beggar so that the welfare of the disadvantaged individuals are taken care of by the various networks we have in the country.”

RNZ Pacific contacted Singh for comment, asking what street profiling looked like, and what support was offered for street dwellers. He declined to comment about their operation.

FCOSS ‘caught by surprise’
Civil society groups which are also involved in working on the issue say they have been left in the dark about the Lautoka initiative.

The Fiji Council of Social Services (FCOSS) executive director Vani Catanasiga said she first learnt about Lautoka City Council’s warning notice enforcement when contacted by RNZ Pacific.

“We were caught by surprise, so, I just heard that it was happening in Lautoka,” Catanasiga said.

“I was aware about it in Suva, sort of, efforts or clean up… but I wasn’t aware about Lautoka.”

Catanasiga said Fiji’s civil sector has repeatedly raised concerns around the lack of co-ordination between Fijian agencies that are working with vulnerable people.

The Lautoka operation, she said, could serve as a “case study” in what happens when co-ordination between involved parties breaks down.

“Unfortunately, in this case, it has to do with a vulnerable group. They’re already vulnerable, they’re already confused, they’re already in need of support, compassion,” Catanasiga said.

“When we don’t address persistent coordination challenges, it really just does a lot more harm. It exacerbates the harms that they already face.”

Absence of communication
In this case, Catanasiga said the issue is an absence of communication, and clarity in roles between the different agencies involved.

The additional lack of publicly available detail is concerning for organisations who are meant to be working with vulnerable people, she added.

She described the operations as “optics-led” and said while sympathised with the relevant authorities and people in authority trying to make a difference, the lack of transparency was concerning.

“It’s not to penalise those who want to do something about it. It’s about [asking], ‘okay, have we applied the right processes?’

“Sometimes in our effort to to do this, we miss the more essential work of doing the due diligence. And sometimes we react … a lot of our approaches are reactionary because it looks bad.

“It’s not an excuse to miss the essential steps of safeguarding [and] due diligence that we must apply to our work, particularly around social protection [and] checking on the social safety nets that are supposed to be there.”

‘Unsustainable’
Catanasiga also suggested authorities were relying on Fiji’s long-dormant law on minor offences to justify moving beggars and street dwellers from public places, targeting activities such as begging, loitering and drunk or disorderly behaviour.

“I understand there is a Minor Offences Act that was never operationalised. It was never applied.

“So, I think that they’re using that to justify the removal of people from the streets. So begging, all those sorts of activities, loitering, it’s covered under that act.”

While Catanisaga said she fully supported efforts to move homeless individuals into dignified work and safe housing, the current operations will be unsustainable.

“I’m just concerned about the back end processes that are supposed to be in place, the support system. If not, our efforts to get people off the streets is not going to be sustainable,” she said.

Moving forward, Catanasiga said the agencies involved to deal with the issue need to come together to complete the programme they have started.

“We always talk about dignity-centred approaches [to deal with vulnerable people]. This [initiative] is not dignity-centred approaches,” she said.

“We want to support our government, and more importantly, we want to support people who are in vulnerable positions.”

The United States is set to announce a fuel security deal worth US$60 million for the Pacific region, RNZ Pacific understands.

Details are yet to be finalised, but RNZ Pacific understands it was discussed at a closed dialogue partners meeting at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ summit in Palau on Tuesday.

US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau is in Koror for the annual meeting. His trip to Palau comes after a raft of engagements in the region this year as the Trump administration’s point-person for the Pacific.

• READ MORE: Pacific leaders urged to be united behind 2050 climate action vision
• US pushes critical minerals agenda in Cook Islands with Penrhyn ‘lifeline’
• Peters blasts Solomon Islands cabinet ministers for move against PM Wale
• Solomon Islands ‘dangles over the edge of political instability’ as three ministers quit
• Missing leaders won’t derail Pacific Islands Forum outcomes, says secretariat
• Vanuatu Special Envoy calls for PIF to ‘reopen’ issue of Pacific access to West Papua
• Solomon Islands PM Wale rushes home from Palau after confidence challenge launched
• Other PIF reports
• Other West Papua reports

The US is one of PIF’s founding Dialogue Partners, alongside Canada, France, Japan and the United Kingdom.

The PIF currently has 21 Dialogue Partners, which comprise external countries and organisations that have formal relationships with PIF and support Pacific regional priorities through political engagement.

Landau made a funding announcement with NZ Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown about a new port in Penrhyn Atoll, the Cook Islands’ northernmost island.

Penrhyn, or Tongareva, is a former US military base. The US has committed US$50m to the major port upgrade, while New Zealand is contributing US$10m. The two countries are co-funding the infrastructure project.

Port plan discussed in April
Peters said the idea of a new port for Tongareva was first discussed in April, when he met Landau and his boss, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington DC.

A potential fuel security deal was also raised as part of those meetings, he said. And while the financial contribution for the Tongareva port upgrade has been finalised, the fuel security deal, which is set to be worth US$60 million, is subject to congressional approval.

The Pacific region relies heavily on diesel for power generation.

A recent study from the UNSW Institute for Climate Risk and Response identified about 80 percent of the region’s energy relied on imported oil products. Collectively, it estimated Pacific Island countries spent US$6 billion each year on imported oil products.

It also found that Palau, which is hosting this years PIF leaders meeting, spent 13 percent of its GDP (gross domestic product) on importing oil products, compared to about 10 percent of GDP on health, and 3 percent on education.

Other Pacific nations spent similar proportions of their GDP on importing oil products, the study found.

As a result, the surge in diesel prices due to the Iran War has left many Pacific nations economically exposed.

Emergency fuel measures
After the Strait of Hormuz closed, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands announced emergency fuel conservation measures, while governments in Vanuatu, Cook Islands, Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, Solomon Islands and Nauru passed national response measures.

Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr, who has now taken over as chair of the Forum troika, has been championing a push for the Pacific to be the first region in the world to be completely powered by renewable energy.

“The high cost of fuel, freight, and food shows how quickly events far from our shores and far from our reach affect every Pacific household, and our dependence on imported diesel fuels is an economic risk as well as a climate one,” Whipps said in his opening ceremony address.

“The transition to renewable energy is therefore part of our sovereignty. It lowers our exposure and keeps more of our scarce resources working in our own economies.”

Significant investment is critical to that transition. The UNSW study found to replace diesel generation with a renewable option, about US$650 million each year is needed for the region.

Peters said his ongoing work with the US, and other countries from outside the region, was a big part of ensuring incoming investment into the Pacific.

In regard to the US, he said discussions began about six months around its potential role in investing in the region.

‘Good, hard look’
“We talked about them having a good, hard look at where they should be making investments and giving some substance to what they were saying… because they were having an investment conference in Honolulu to which not many Pacific Island countries went.

“And so we were looking around for some real initiatives, and here comes this one here [Tongareva port].”

The PIF leaders summit is in its second official day. The leaders’ retreat, where leaders of the Forum’s 18 members spend a day alone together, takes place tomorrow.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters has blasted Solomon Islands cabinet ministers who moved against their leader on the eve of the Pacific Island Forum Leaders Meeting in Palau.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale has been forced home to deal with a motion of no confidence from his Home Affairs Minister Manasseh Maelanga.

Three Cabinet ministers, including Maelanga, have resigned from his GREAT coalition government.

• READ MORE: Solomon Islands ‘dangles over the edge of political instability’ as three ministers quit
• Missing leaders won’t derail Pacific Islands Forum outcomes, says secretariat
• Vanuatu Special Envoy calls for PIF to ‘reopen’ issue of Pacific access to West Papua
• Solomon Islands PM Wale rushes home from Palau after confidence challenge launched
• Other PIF reports
• Other West Papua reports

More ministers are rumoured to follow suit, including Finance Minister and former Prime Minister Gordon Darcy Lilo, potentially tipping the numbers against Wale’s favour.

Speaking to reporters in Palau ahead of the summit’s opening ceremony, Peters struggled to hide his disdain.

“To think that a motion of no confidence was moved when you’re at a critical Pacific event concerns me about the people who moved the motion,” he said.

“For goodness’ sake, could you possibly have waited until your brothers, sisters and cousins have sorted out the Pacific in the meantime, just for these few days?”

Returned within hours
Wale, who reportedly first learned of the motion after landing in Palau, was on a plane back home within hours.

Peters said that the departure weighed heavy on fellow leaders, considering several heads of government had opted not to go.

“He had to get the next plane, and President [Surangel] Whipps Jr had to take him. That shows how saddened Whipps was by that, we all were, that Wale had to go home. But at least they’re trying.”

The leaders of Kiribati, Samoa, Vanuatu and New Caledonia are also sitting out the summit. Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka may stay at home, despite earlier plans.

Peters is in Koror for the next two days before swapping out with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. He refused to speculate on why so many Pacific leaders were not present.

However, reasons for their absence could include health, he noted.

Rabuka’s absence would mean a planned bilateral with his New Zealand counterpart on Thursday morning would not go ahead. Luxon said on Monday that he was not deterred.

Wale faces the fire
Barely three months into the job, Wale now faces a challenge strikingly similar to the one he had helped orchestrate against his predecessor, Jeremiah Manele.

It began with a mass resignation: 10 ministers in one fell swoop, complaining that then-Prime Minister Manele made too many decisions without consulting Cabinet.

While Manele refused to call parliament, a group of MPs wore him down, and he gave way on 7 May. In the aftermath, Wale was elected prime minister by 26 MPs in a parliament of 50. It would take that many to oust him.

Maelanga, an early contender against Wale in the PM stakes, has now made a claim nearly identical to Manele’s challengers, saying Wale had made unilateral decisions “on matters of national importance” while neglecting “proper consultation with, or the approval of, Cabinet”.

Solomon Isands journalist Lisa Osifelo told RNZ Pacific Waves that the situation was fluid.

“We might be expecting more resignations from ministers in the next couple of days,” she said

“There were probably a lot of things that have come out in the media… political appointees, the termination and the non-renewal of contracts [in] various ministries, that has probably contributed to what we’re seeing now.”

She said it was unclear how large or influential the rebel group is — but Maelanga is likely a front-man.

Wale ‘will be regrouping’
“I know [PM Wale] will be regrouping a few of the members … maybe get back to the drawing board, renegotiate, and bring their grievances or whatever they have back to the table.”

It is unclear whether Maelanga’s grievances about “unilateral decisions” include the government’s foreign policy platform.

Since Wale took office, he pledged to review the controversial security deal signed with China in 2022, reset the Australian relationship, signed a shiprider agreement with the United States, and deepened ties with Japan and New Zealand through MoUs — promising that the Solomons was a “friend to all”.

Speaking as PIF chair in July, Wale said there was “growing consensus” among Pacific states for a regional security treaty.

At the leaders’ summit this week, Winston Peters speculated that the idea would be discussed, but that Wale’s absence was a “setback.”

The first of PIF’s leaders meetings began last night.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale’s Government for Reform, Empowerment, Accountability and Transformation (GREAT) coalition appears headed for a major test after three of his most senior ministers formally quit on Monday.

This comes after Wale, 57, who was elected to the top job just over 100 days ago, cut short a trip to Palau after East Malaita MP and Home Affairs Minister Manasseh Maelanga launched a surprise leadership challenge.

He was elected prime minister on May 15 by 26 votes to 22 against Peter Shanel Agovaka.

• READ MORE: Solomon Islands PM Wale rushes home from Palau after confidence challenge launched

State broadcaster SIBC is reporting the three cabinet ministers who resigned are Justice Minister Clezy Rore, Commerce Minister Harry Kuma and Maelanga.

Solomon Islands Governor-General’s deputy Private Secretary Maxwell Banyo confirmed the resignations to SIBC on Monday.

RNZ Pacific has approached Wale’s office for comment but has not received a response.

Solomon Islands media have described the turn of events as an “internal coalition revolt”, while regional political watchers have called it “deeply unfortunate”.

According to Maelanga, the reason for the no-confidence motion is that Wale “has repeatedly made decisions on matters of national importance without properly consulting Cabinet”.

‘Complicated’ reasons
Solomon Islands academic Dr Tarcisius Kabutaulaka said the reasons for the motion of no confidence against Wale were “complicated”.

“The fundamental questions for Solomon Islands are these: If the motion were to go through, what can a new government do in the remaining period of this Parliament?” Dr Kabutaulaka wrote for In-depth Solomons.

“How would a change of government benefit the Solomon Islands? How would it further erode Solomon Islanders’ already low confidence in Parliament and its members?

“And how would it address the country’s chronic problem of instability?”

“While Solomon Islands’ members of Parliament tussle over who rules, Solomon Islanders watch — many with disappointment and anger.

“The country once again dangles over the edge of political instability.”

With the final list of leaders attending the 55th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Leaders Meeting in Palau still unconfirmed, the regional body’s policy hub is moving to emphasise the robustness of potential decisions and outcomes from the week.

The annual summit is supposed to bring together leaders from the Forum’s 18 member states to discuss and progress major regional issues. However, as of Monday morning, five members were going to be in Koror without representation at the top level.

Kiribati President Taneti Maamau and Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale are the two late withdrawals.

• READ MORE:  Vanuatu Special Envoy calls for PIF to ‘reopen’ issue of Pacific access to West Papua
• Solomon Islands PM Wale rushes home from Palau after confidence challenge launched
• Other PIF reports
• Other West Papua reports

Maamau has reportedly been unable to arrange travel in time for the meeting and also had a parliamentary sitting he needed to attend. His absence has raised a lot of concerns over cohesiveness of PIF following tensions over a lack of agreement among members at the PIF Foreign Ministers Meeting earlier this month.

Members failed to reach consensus on a statement [condemning China’s missile test at that meeting. The dummy warhead landed in Pacific waters near Tuvalu last month.

Naoero (formerly Nauru) and Kiribati, which have strong ties to Beijing, were understood to be the members which did not support a statement on it. Both those countries were also understood to be isolated from the wider collective for their stance in Suva.

Naoero’s President David Adeang confirmed this morning he would be in Koror.

Wale forced to return home
Meanwhile, Wale did make it to Palau, however he was forced to return home after a motion of no confidence was filed against his leadership.

Samoa, Vanuatu and New Caledonia are also not represented in Palau at leadership level. Instead, their delegations are being led by deputy leaders or senior ministers.

There is also uncertainty over Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s attendance. He has had to remain in Suva due to urgent domestic issues It sounds unlikely that he will make it.

The absence of several leaders at the meeting is being described by Australian and New Zealand media as a “regional turmoil” and a “blow to regional unity”.

But, despite the reduction in leadership-level representation, the PIF Secretariat — which is the engine room of the PIF — says progress at this week’s meeting would be significant and enduring.

Secretariat deputy secretary general Esala Nayasi told media this morning issues being tabled at the leaders’ meeting, which officially kicks off tonight, “have gone through [the PIF] officials’ meeting, and also [the PIF] Foreign Ministers’ meeting.

“So they have been quietly deliberated on, [and] their national positions that have been shared.

Come with a mandate
“We would expect, for those that are in the room — whether leaders or represented at ministerial level — they would come with also mandate to speak on their issues.

“We have comfort in our processes to deliver outcomes that is consistent and aligned on key issues.”

Nayasi was asked whether Kiribati’s decision not to send a minister could be characterised as a boycott. The Micronesian island nation is being represented by David Teaabo, the Director of Foreign Service and the former Ambassador to China.

Nayasi said that was not the view of the secretariat, and pointed to the fact Maamau was joining in a session today virtually.

“There’s no view or thought whatsoever of any case of that,” he said.

Nayasi also told reporters he would have an updated list on Tuesday morning of confirmed attendees.

Meanwhile, the meeting’s opening ceremony will be held at the Palau National Gymnasium this evening.

The week will build up to the leaders’ retreat on Thursday, where the heads of the 18 members’ delegations spend the day together without any outside parties, including their own advisers.

The 55th Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting officially kicks off tonight in Koror, Palau.

The runway leading in is already proving eventful, with at least one partner withdrawing its leader last-minute.

For those who are not acclimatised, the mugginess of Koror’s 30 degree heat is stifling.

• READ MORE: Solomon Islands PM returns home before PIF meeting to face no-confidence motion
• Pacific Elders call for climate accountability, stronger regional unity
• Vanuatu journalist denied entry to Palau while traveling to cover Pacific leaders meeting
• Other PIF reports

After five minutes in the sun, you’re sweating and whatever you’re carrying feels a few kilos heavier. Finding relief, even if it’s momentary, quickly becomes a priority.

The fury at which geopolitics is wrapped into this year’s Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ meeting is a lot like Koror’s heat — even though you can’t see it, it’s all-encompassing and impossible to avoid.

Already, questions have been raised over the last-minute withdrawal of Kiribati President Taaneti Maamau. Now, it is also uncertain whether Naoero (formerly Nauru) President David Adeang will be attending as planned.

Maamau’s late withdrawal, and the current lack of certainty around Naeoro’s President Adeang, goes to the heart of problems around unity and outside interference in the PIF.

Lack of agreement
At the end of the PIF foreign ministers’ meeting in Suva earlier this month, the lack of agreement from members over a statement condemning China’s missile test dominated headlines.

The dummy warhead landed in Pacific waters near Tuvalu last month.

Naoero and Kiribati, which have strong ties to Beijing, were understood to be the members which did not support a statement on it. Both those countries were also understood to be isolated from the wider collective for their stance in Suva.

The lack of agreement means the issue of a statement on the missile testing was deferred to Koror. In the last few weeks, officials across the region have been working on a statement that is due to be submitted and considered this week by leaders.

Despite that, four PIF states — Australia, New Zealand, Palau and Marshall Islands — decided to go their own way after the Suva meeting and sign a joint statement released by the US government criticising China for the missile testing.

Palau and Marshall Islands, alongside Tuvalu, are the three PIF states which have formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters, who is representing his government in Koror before Prime Minister Christopher Luxon arrives, made his displeasure over the lack of a result in Suva clear at the time.

No reasons laid out
“They didn’t actually lay out any reasons, apart from their disagreement, and not wishing for us to make the clear statement such as ‘we are opposed to missiles being fired into the Pacific.

“That’s what the statement should have said, and we’re still waiting for that to get laid out.”

It seems that disharmony has rolled straight from Suva into the beautiful islands of Palau.

Maamau’s decision not to attend this week, and instead send David Teaabo, his Director of Foreign Service and the former ambassador to China, means any potential statement on missile testing will not have sign-off from Kiribati’s top representative or an elected official.

It also sends a clear message over Maamau’s current discontent with the PIF. And if Naeoro’s Adeang also withdraws, there will be concerns over unity and stability of the PIF — particularly as that will leave the week short two leaders from the Micronesia bloc.

Furthermore, alongside a potential missile statement, there are high hopes for leaders to agree on the specifics of the partnerships policy which was endorsed by leaders in Solomon Islands’ last year.

The policy means the PIF partners, currently 21 dialogue partners and a group of development partners, would be divided into tier one and tier two, with the top tier having greater access to member states.

Key dialogue partners
Unsurprisingly, the behemoths-in-the room on this agenda issue is where China and the US would sit. Both are dialogue partners under the current set-up and have high-level representation in Koror.

China has its Special Envoy for Pacific Island Countries Affairs, Qian Bo, on the ground, while Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau is leading the US delegation.

Taiwan, which is currently a PIF development partner, will also be jostling for a place in the tier system. It has sent its Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung to Koror, along with a large delegation to Palau.

Notably, Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has also withdrawn from his planned schedule in Koror last-minute due to urgent domestic issues, however he may still arrive later in the week for the leaders’ retreat.

Early yesterday, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale also left Palau after less than 24 hours after a motion of no confidence was tabled back home against him. Wale is the current Chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, who was supposed to hand over the chairmanship to Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr in Palau.

Sāmoa, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu have also decided not to send leaders, however this was signalled in advance, and the states’ delegations are headed by deputy prime ministers or senior ministers.

With such significant issues due to be discussed this week, framed and threatened by the burgeoning geopolitical tension between the US and China, a lack of appropriate representation from PIF members does not bode well.

Genuine consensus and open debate among all members is critical in the current climate, particularly as outside interests continue to exert influence in pursuit of their own agendas.

New Zealand says its connections to its Realm countries remain strong and stable, after the first of a series of annual “family reunions”.

Christopher Luxon met with Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown, Niue’s Prime Minister Dalton Tagelagi and the Ulu-o-Tokelau Alapati Tavite in Government House this yesterday, ahead of the Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting in Palau next week.

The Realm countries will ride together this weekend to Palau for the Pacific Island Forum leaders summit next week.

• READ MORE: Other New Zealand Realm reports

“We’ve got a 140,000 Cook Islanders, Niueans, Tokelauans, living here in New Zealand,” Luxon told reporters.

“We’ve got deep connectivity between our four countries, and so it’s really important, in a volatile and uncertain world…  what more [New Zealand] can be doing.”

When the year began, the relationship between New Zealand and the Cook Islands was frosty. The Cooks had struck out in late 2024, signing a security deal with China that New Zealand had not approved of.

Amidst a myriad of issues, a breakdown in communications led to a breakdown in trust, leading to a cut in aid only restored earlier this year. Now, Prime Minister Luxon said it has been sorted.

‘Normalised our relationship’
“We’ve normalised our relationship, and we sorted the issues of the last year or so out,” he said.

Brown said one of the earlier sore points, a Cook Islands passport, has been laid to rest.

“That’s no longer part of our discussions at the moment,” he said.

“The Cook Islands has pretty well established itself internationally as a country, and as citizens of New Zealand and increasingly Australia, that’s where our status is right now.”

Prime Minister Tagelagi echoed this sentiment for his own country.

“If anything, we are so grateful for the New Zealand support, but the Pacific needs to reach out further,” he said, “so we don’t always have to rely on New Zealand.”

For it’s part, the Cooks are fielding an unprecedented level of interest from another global superpower — the United States.

No deep sea mining secret
The US has made no secret of it’s deep sea mining ambitions in the Clarion Clipperton Zone. Where this leads their relationship with Aotearoa remains to be seen, but Prime Minister Brown insists he will ensure his country benefits from any future activity.

“Decisions made on our seabed and our resources are made by the Cook Islands for the interest of Cook Islanders only,” he said.

“The Cook Islands is looking very closely at how we as a country would benefit if we moved down the road of extraction.”

In a far less fortunate position is Tokelau.

The territory was expelled from the lucrative Parties to the Nauru Agreement Vessel Day Scheme in February, and estimates of the ensuing revenue losses are massive. RNZ has previously reported that New Zealand may have a played a role in getting Tokelau kicked out, thanks to interference in Tokelau’s fisheries.

Prime Minister Luxon denied this, saying that between them, they were “putting a full court press” to get them reinstated, particularly with an appeal to PNA members in Palau next week.

Following the meeting, only Tokelau’s leader was unavailable to speak to media.

After an historic day in which the result of Bougainville’s independence referendum was finally tabled in Papua New Guinea’s national Parliament, an eventual decision on the matter is at least months away.

The Parliament adjourned after debate on Thursday on the tabling of the Bougainville referendum result from 2019 in which 97.7 percent of Bougainvilleans voted for independence

PNG’s members of Parliament will have the final say on whether to ratify the result, although it is not clear when that vote will be taken.

• READ MORE: Long time coming: After decades of struggle, is Bougainville on the brink of statehood?
• Other Bougainville independence reports

A delegation from the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) sat patiently in the gallery and watched on as MPs offered different takes on what everyone agreed was a difficult decision for them to have to make.

As the Joint Consultation Report and the Melanesian Framework documents were also newly tabled, PNG’s opposition leader James Nomane pointed out that the MPs could hardly be expected to make informed decisions when they had only just received these documents.

“I ask that the government be very, very clear about when this vote will take place, and make all effort to inform all leaders of the House about: yes, what happens; no, what happens?” Nomane said.

PNG’s Prime Minister James Marape said his government had a plan for the way forward for either outcome of the vote, affirmative and negative.

Setting the vote date
After the adjournment, he issued a statement saying the PNG and Bougainville governments would meet in October to set the date for the Parliament vote on the referendum.

Earlier, he told MPs to go away and digest the report documents before deciding how to vote, and to ponder the Bougainville viewpoint, while also urging Bougainvilleans to consider the perspective of PNG.

“This is not simply a constitutional or political issue. It concerns the lives, hopes and futures of our people, especially those people whose lives have been shaped by the Bougainville crisis and the Bougainville peace process,” Marape said.

Minister for Bougainville Affairs Manasseh Makiba, who tabled the referendum result and relevant consultation documents, noted that the Melanesian Framework provided for a structured pathway and orderly transition for Bougainville to assume greater powers, in the event of an affirmative vote by Parliament.

“At the heart of the framework is concept of a transitional phase that is being termed as self-government,” he said.

“Under the Melanesian Framework, an affirmative decision by the national Parliament would not result in the immediate independence of Bougainville.”

Makiba acknowledged that in the consultations, the national government and the ABG had been unable to reach consensus on the pathway in the event that the parliament does not accept the results.

But he said PNG’s government still believed a constructive pathway forward was possible.

“The first element of the pathway would be the completion of the drawdown and effective exercise of all remaining autonomous powers available to Bougainville under Part 14 of the national constitution.”

‘The real seed’
Meanwhile, a senior MP who oversaw national consultations over Bougainville, described arguments that giving Bougainville independence undermined PNG’s sovereignty as reductive.

Dr Allan Marat, the chairman of the Bipartisan Parliamentary Committee on Bougainville Matters, said the referendum issue attracted considerable debate on the issue of PNG sovereignty.

“This in turn has attracted considerable debate, and especially on the sovereignty issue of Papua New Guinea, that if we vote in favour of the 97.7 percent and grant Bougainville independence, then some of the other provinces might want to leave Papua New Guinea as well,” Dr Marat said.

“I want to express my personal belief … that this fear is an uninformed knee-jerk reaction and lacks human understanding.”

He said it was more useful to bear in mind the development of a particular political mindset of the Bougainville people, “developed from the Paleolithic period during the last Ice Age period, the early European explorers, the missionaries, the colonial period leading up to independence and on to the 10 years of armed conflict, and eventually the peace process and the referendum until today”.

“This human history and facts among the Bougainvilleans were the basis of their reasonings, giving rise to, ‘the real seed’, of discontentment in the minds of Bougainvilleans.

“This exploded into the armed conflict resulting in thousands of deaths, culminating in the conducting of the referendum and achievement of the referendum results.”

We could be about to find out whether a part of the Pacific Islands will become the world’s newest nation.

After a seven-year wait, Papua New Guinea’s Parliament is today (Thursday, August 27) expected to finally table the question of whether to approve of independence for the country’s autonomous region of Bougainville.

In a 2019 referendum, an overwhelming 97.7 percent of Bougainvilleans voted for independence — but the referendum was non-binding and PNG’s national Parliament has the final say in whether to ratify this result.

• READ MORE: ‘This is a difficult task’: PNG parliament to finally address Bougainville vote
• Flashback: Bougainville: New Zealand’s part in a guerilla war — David Robie
• Other Bougainville independence reports

They are to debate the matter from today, before later putting it to a vote, with support from a three-quarters majority of MPs being the threshold required for ratification.

The decision is no small thing. Bougainville is around 2 percent of PNG’s total landmass, or 2.7 percent of PNG’s total population.

It may seem small, but in the New Zealand context, this would be a bit like giving up, in land mass terms, the Auckland region or, in population terms, like letting go of Dunedin City.

So it is a big call for a bunch of MPs to make.

Brutal civil war
No country is comfortable with ceding some of its territory. But in this case, the context is the legacy of a brutal civil war and ensuing crisis that played out during the 1990s, which brought not just Bougainville to its knees, but PNG too.

New Zealand played a central role in mediating a lasting peace — 2001’s Bougainville Peace Agreement ultimately provided for the referendum that took place in 2019, in which over 200,000 people from an overall population of around 300,000 cast their vote.

The tabling of the referendum result in Parliament has been a long time coming, and follows a series of consultations over the years between the PNG government and the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) over how the result would be processed.

It is already clear there is some reluctance among PNG MPs to set a precedent for other parts of the country to look to break away. But it is not easy to ignore the clear call for independence from almost 98 percent of Bougainvilleans.

However, PNG’s Prime Minister James Marape has pointed out that without economic independence, Bougainville would not be able to stand on its own feet. He has hinted at allowing for a period of time in which the region works on developing that economic self-reliance before the Parliament might then revisit the question of political independence.

In the eyes of many, economic self-reliance means re-habilitating Bougainville’s large Panguna copper mine, conflict over which sparked the civil war in the first place.

Development of Panguna
ABG President Ishmael Toroama is already pursuing the development of Panguna, and has signalled Bougainville’s intention to declare independence in 2030.

The Burnham Accord, signed by both parties last year in Christchurch, included an agreement for PNG and Bougainville to be bound by any decision of the Parliament and to maintain dialogue after that over the way forward.

So if Bougainville is not granted independence now, it does not necessarily mean it will not get independence at a later point. Either way, it could be the world’s next new country.

Mark Brown’s governing Cook Islands Party (CIP) is set to return to power for a historic fifth consecutive term after securing an absolute majority of 13 of the 24 parliamentary seats following final count of the 2026 general election.

The Democratic Party, the country’s main opposition in the previous Parliament, has been wiped out after losing all its seats, with its outspoken leader Tina Pupuke-Browne and deputy leader Vaitoti Tupa both defeated.

The Cook Islands United Party secured four seats, one more than in 2022, while independents won seven seats, including three from Mangaia, two from Atiu and one each from Mauke and Manihiki.

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Brown, who was first elected to Parliament in 2010, will serve his fifth consecutive term as an MP. He is currently in his second term as prime minister, having taken office in October 2020 and led his party to victory again at the 2022 and 2026 elections.

According to Cook Islands News, Brown’s CIP is expected to form a government for a historic fifth consecutive term on its own.

In addition, the CIP had already received support from six independents, the newspaper reported.

“This brings the incoming government caucus to 19 seats in the 24-member Parliament, giving them an unprecedented supermajority.”

Brown told CIN on Tuesday local time, that according to advice from Crown Law, “the Prime Minister has held his warrants because he’s won his seat and now commands a majority”.

He also confirmed that all Cabinet ministers who retained their seats would remain in their positions.

Brown said once the chief electoral officer issued the official Gazette with the final count, the successful members of Parliament would be named, formally “endorsing” the government.

Final results:

• Tupapa Maraerenga: Tamaiti Maru Willie (CIP) – 617, Rota Tama Williams (CIUP) – 227, Edward Victor Drollett (Demo) – 117
• Takuvaine-Tutakimoa: Mark Brown (CIP) – 312, Davina Hina Te Raurea Joan Hosking-Ashford (Demo) – 115, Venetia Mere Jacqueline Tuara (CIUP) – 91
• Avatiu Ruatonga Palmerston: Albert Taaviri Kaitara Nicholas (CIP) – 376, Teina Rongo (CIUP) – 226
• Ruaau: Tim Tunui (Shadow) Varu (CIUP) – 370, Arama Joseph Wichman (CIP) – 301, William (Smiley) Heather (Demo) – 44
• Akaoa: Robert Stanley Heather (CIUP) – 324, Teakaau Tex Tangimetua (CIP) – 68
• Murienua: Teariki Heather (CIUP) – 344, Nooroa Baker (CIP) – 169, Samuel Mataroa (Demo) – 17
• Titikaveka: Sonny Williams (CIP) – 363, Elizabeth Iro (CIUP) – 238, Sholan Ivaiti (Demo) – 189
• Ngatangiia: Tutaka Ama (CIP) – 272, Mapi Ioteva (CIUP) – 241, Itinga Maoate (Demo) – 65, Chris Denny (Progressive) – 18
• Matavera: Taneao Ngamata (CIUP) – 240, Vaitoti Tupa (Demo) – 231, Aneru Tautu (CIP) – 166
• Amuri-Ureia: Toanui Isamaela (CIP) – 165, Nicholas Henry (IND) – 98, Terepai Maoate (Demo) – 106, Tumutoa Nicholls (CIUP) – 25
• Arutanga-Reureu-Nikaupara: Tereapii Maki Kavana (CIP) – 179, Maitoe Henry (CIUP) – 113, Tekura Bishop (IND) – 91
• Vaipae-Tautu: Teokotai Herman (CIP) – 241, Teariki George (Demo) – 139, Teariki Tangua (CIUP) – 81
• Teenui-Mapumai: Rose Toki Brown (IND Enuamanu) – 81, Charles Amaru Koronui (IND) – 23
• Tengatangi-Areora-Ngatiarua: Te-Hani Brown (IND Enuamanu) – 95, Puai Wichman (IND) – 47
• Oneroa:Rimmel Poila-Mokoroa (IND) – 77, Wesley Kareroa (Demo) – 64, Teina Tearii (CIP) – 66
• Tamarua: Tetangi Matapo (IND) – 34, Ngatamaroa Ngatokorua (CIP) – 23
• Ivirua: Agnes Armstrong (IND) – unopposed
• Mauke: Stephen Matapo (IND Party) – 175, James Beer (IND) – 21
• Mitiaro: Tuakeu Tangapoto (CIP) – 60, Makara Murare (CIUP) – 35, Paul Allsworth (Demo) – 2
• Rakahanga: Levi Teinaki (CIP) – 32, Tina Browne (Demo) – 27
• Penrhyn: Vaine Wichman (CIP) – 71, Sarakura Tapaitau (IND) – 50
• Pukapuka-Nassau: Tingika Elikana (CIP) – 146, Dr Kirianu Nio (IND) – 140
• Manihiki: George ‘Maggie’ Angene (IND) – 56, Akaiti Puna (CIP) – 51, Puapii William (IND) – 15

New Caledonia’s President Milakulo Tukumuli on Monday outlined the urgent issues facing the French Pacific territory.

In a special address at New Caledonia’s Congress, Tukumuli, who was elected president of the collegial multiparty government on July 31 following provincial elections, said he gave his government six months to tackle the most pressing issues facing New Caledonia.

After this, he said his government would start to focus on other issues.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

He said the most immediate urgencies included necessary efforts to salvage the territory’s pension and health insurance schemes, currently facing a short-term risk of total collapse.

He added, if nothing was done, more than 40,000 New Caledonian pensioners could find themselves pensionless “within a few months”.

New Caledonia’s healthcare system was also under direct threat with a cumulated current deficit to the tune of US$420 million.

Another urgency was to examine the local political system’s expenditures in order to reduce costs.

First ‘fix the canoe’
“The fall is now receding, but recovery has not started yet. When a canoe is taking water, it’s not time to take stock of what is onboard. You begin by fixing the hull and restoring the course,” he told local Congress members as part of his general policy speech.

“I did not request this position just to manage impotency,” he said, stressing that New Caledonia was still recovering from the damage caused by the 2024 civil unrest.

On the crucial nickel mining sector in New Caledonia, where most of the stakeholders and operators are still searching for new investors, Tukumuli said his government would support any “coherent” offer by “solid” and “durably engaged” stakeholders.

But he said New Caledonia’s economy also needed to reduce its long-term dependency on nickel through other economic sectors such as tourism, agriculture, the blue economy or digital-based projects.

“Let’s make sure that a future New Caledonia remembers us as those who have chosen to put it back on its feet”.

He said economic recovery must include “social justice”.

“These are the two sides of the same coin: wealth without justice does not hold. And justice without wealth cannot last”, he told the Congress, saying one of his priorities was to bring New Caledonians a “dignified life”.

Mending the multiethnic social fabric
Being the first New Caledonian government president of Wallisian heritage, he also mentioned the need for all citizens of all ethnic heritages to “feel at home”.

“Our country is made of all these components, the Kanak people, first inhabitants of New Caledonia. But also women and men who came from Europe, Tahiti, Wallis and Futuna, Asia, Vanuatu and elsewhere, and who, generation after generation, have also made this land theirs and know no other one.

“The events of May 2024 have reopened fractures that we knew were there, but preferred not to see.”

He said New Caledonia’s social cohesion cannot be dictated, but “is built also within our institutions, through the words we use and the way we speak to each other”.

Political reactions
Reactions from across the political chessboard were generally positive, including in the pro-independence ranks.

Pro-independence member for Kanaky-NC (mostly consisting of members of Union Calédonienne) Omaira Naisseline said the speech was “responsible”, but that her political group remained “attentive”.

On the pro-France side, Congress members (who have struck a coalition pact with Tukumuli’s Eveil Océanien party), hailed Tukumuli’s “truthful and responsible” roadmap.

“It’s a make or break situation. We’re up against a wall,” Congress member for pro-France Les Loyalistes-Rassemblement told the media after the speech, saying his party would support Tukumuli’s government reform efforts.

Congress President (Speaker) Virginie Ruffenach (pro-France) said the address was “very pragmatic” and “tough”.

Bipartisan delegation in Paris next week
Tukumuli also confirmed he would lead a bipartisan delegation to Paris next week, with the main objective being to renegotiate with the French government the terms of massive loans contracted in the past few years.

This included loans contracted as a result of the covid crisis, and later following the massive damages incurred during the May 2024 unrest, which resulted in 14 deaths, more than 2.2 billion euros (NZ$4.3 billion) in material damage, thousands of jobless and a drop of some 13.5 percent in New Caledonia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Despite French assistance packages, New Caledonia was still short of over 100 million euros (NZ$196 million) just to finish the 2026 financial year.

The delegation (which will consist of Tukumuli, some of his government members, Congress members and New Caledonia’s two MPs from the French National Assembly) mainly aims at convincing the French government to turn the massive loans into non-refundable grants.

“The loans have avoided total collapse, but they have also generated a debt course that we cannot sustain. Our debt has now reached a level New Caledonia has never seen before”, Tukumuli said on Monday.

Speaking shortly after his election in July, he described the situation as a very real short-term risk of “shutdown”.

“We’re not asking for charity … New Caledonia will not pass 2027 without fresh financial support from the French State,” he said on Monday.

New Caledonia’s Congress has to vote its 2027 budget before the end of 2026.

“This budget will have to be sincere and balanced. It will greatly depend on France’s financial support. What we are proposing is a contract of responsibility with known amounts and reciprocal commitments. New Caledonia will pursue its reforms”.

Even though the delegation’s trip to Paris does not include further negotiations on New Caledonia’s future political status, Tukumuli also called on politicians to remain mobilised in view of future institutional talks with France about the French territory’s future political status.

“Uncertainty about tomorrow does not authorise us to remain motionless today”.

The general feeling among the current majority of New Caledonia’s politicians is that those talks, which have currently stalled earlier this year due to a rejection from the French National Assembly, would be likely to resume after France’s presidential and general elections, starting in April 2027.

Papua New Guinea’s prime minister has urged the nation to appreciate the gravity of the decision on Bougainville that Parliament is to debate this week.

The PNG Parliament resumed on Tuesday and from Thursday MPs will debate whether to ratify the 97.7 percent vote by Bougainvilleans for independence in their 2019 non-binding referendum.

PNG’s national MPs have the final say, in adherence with the 2001 Bougainville Peace Agreement (BPA), which was signed following Bougainville’s civil war and related crisis of the 1990s, and ultimately provided for the referendum.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville independence reports

“The referendum was legitimate, peaceful and overwhelming in its result, and we respect the voice expressed by the people of Bougainville,” Prime Minister James Marape said in a statement.

As the referendum result is finally to be tabled in Parliament, Marape cautioned MPs and the public not to create division over the issue through threats, fear, regionalism or hostility.

“Every member of Parliament will have the opportunity to speak. Every member will ultimately have to exercise his or her responsibility according to conscience, guided by the Constitution and the interests of our country.”

‘Not an ordinary debate’
“This is a difficult task but duty demands that we do this,” Marape said, while also praying with other MPs for wisdom to guide their deliberations on the issue.

He said Papua New Guineans should appreciate the gravity of the matter because the decisions on Bougainville will have implications for future generations.

“This is not an ordinary parliamentary debate. It concerns our Constitution, our sovereignty, our national identity, the aspirations of the Bougainville people and, above all, the peace that our people have worked so hard to maintain.”

It remains uncertain whether this week’s debate will culminate in a vote on whether to ratify the refendum result as soon as the debate finishes, or whether it will be scheduled at a later point.

Earlier this year, the Parliament set a three-quarter majority threshold requirement for ratification.

The Autonomous Bougainivlle Government (ABG) has said it plans to declare independence in 2030, while it works to prepare for independence in the meantime.

Larger audiences across radio and digital platforms have combined with stronger trust in RNZ than other outlets, new data suggest.

RNZ’s results in the closely watched GfK radio survey were released on Tuesday morning.

After a fall in the first survey of the year, RNZ National bounced back up to 509,200 listeners. Commercial talk station Newstalk ZB dropped fractionally to 656,900 in the same survey. Music stations The Breeze (597,100), and More FM (521,900) both had higher audiences than RNZ National.

• READ MORE: Other RNZ media reports

RNZ Morning Report still trails Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking Breakfast in the hotly contested weekday morning slot, but the gap between the two shows closed in the latest survey. While Hosking shed 14,000 listeners, Morning Report gained 6300, leaving it still 101,700 adrift.

At the other end of the weekday schedule, both RNZ’s 4pm-6pm Checkpoint (down 3000 to 226,400) and ZB’s 4pm-7pm Heather du Plessis Allan Drive were marginally down (down 1700 to 272,500).

RNZ Concert was slightly up to 163,800. Commercial radio as a whole was down 65,000 to 3.43m on the same survey.

Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith has demanded an improvement in RNZ’s radio audiences. RNZ’s newly-appointed board chair Brent Impey has also stated the public broadcaster is “coming after” Newstalk ZB, in a much more aggressive stance than his predecessor Jim Mather.

Results slow to move
GfK results are, by their methodology, relatively slow to move. RNZ’s improvement against the industry trend in this survey mirrors results from the same time last year, which preceded a fall back again in the first survey of this year. A long-term trend of sustained audience growth for RNZ is not yet evident. Total commercial radio audiences have also not consistently grown in recent GfK surveys.

RNZ’s website, however, has had much stronger and more consistent audience growth. After a redesign of its homepage, the audience in July according to Nielsen was 1.78 million, up 8.3 percent on June and the highest ever recorded for rnz.co.nz.

The result put it 69,000 unique users shy of nzherald.co.nz, which trailed Stuff (up 3 percent to 2.2 million).

RNZ’s website audience has more than doubled in three years from 880,000 in July 2023 to the record 1.78m result last month. Growth on social platforms has been strong too, with over 1.1 million followers across RNZ’s main accounts engaging heavily in a mix of investigations, daily news, current affairs, culture and sport.

The audience growth has come at the same time as RNZ consolidates its position as the most-trusted news source for New Zealanders.

A survey by Verian for RNZ asked people if how strongly they agreed they could trust different media brands.

• 57 percent agreed they could trust RNZ
• 53 percent agreed they could trust TVNZ
• 48 percent agreed they could trust NZ Herald

Following brands
Stuff (45 percent), Whakaata Māori (39 percent) and Sky TV (36 percent) followed. All brands scored higher for trust than in most previous surveys dating back to 2020.

RNZ chief news officer Mark Stevens said the results confirmed RNZ’s approach to delivering quality, original and relevant news, information and entertainment across platforms was working.

“The news media is under regular attack from politicians and commentators trying to undermine the public’s trust in what we deliver every day,” Stevens said.

“But at RNZ, we’re focused on our core job of delivering the kind of public interest journalism our audiences value.

“We know we have to work hard to earn and keep the trust of our audiences and we have more to do. But it’s very pleasing to see RNZ continuing to set the standard for trust.”

Papua New Guinea’s Central Province is feeling the brunt of prolonged drought caused by the El Niño weather phase.

Central and the National Capital District which is located within it, is extremely dry, its communities struggling with damaged crops and water sources in short supply.

Port Moresby communities meanwhile have been experiencing frequent water outages due to malfunctioning of the city’s water infrastructure.

• READ MORE: Other El Niño and the Pacific reports

There has also been at least one bad bout of frost, which has worsened the crop damage.

The ongoing weather disruptions have prompted the Central Province government to conduct an assessment of the scale of the province’s food and water security problems.

The National Disaster Centre warned months ago that the El Niño phase could increasingly impact many parts of the country, and other regions such as the Highlands and Western province have been suffering for months.

Fires common sight
Now much of PNG’s central region is tinder dry, and fires are a common sight in the arid hills around the capital

And further into Central Province, many water sources have dried up, forcing closures of schools.

The Central Governor Ruffina Peter said the provincial executive has allocated 5.3 million kina (NZ$2 million) to respond to the drought and help communities.

But she indicated that 40 million kina would be needed to begin to respond in full.

A whale-watching boat carrying several New Zealand Anglican Church delegates capsized and sank in Tonga on Saturday.

RNZ Pacific understands several passengers were briefly hospitalised, but there were no serious injuries.

Paramedics from New South Wales, who were in the country for a Rotary International training event, led the rescue.

• READ MORE: Questions swirl after NZ church delegates’ unlicensed whale-watching boat capsizes in Tonga

“Before leaving, the bishops, chaplains and leaders of the group led a prayer, thanking and blessing the team for the help and support they had provided,” a Rotary statement read.

“It was a very special and humbling moment for our team, and certainly not something we expected when we started the day.”

The Diocese of Polynesia had recently finished their General Synod in Nuku’alofa, with delegates present from across New Zealand and the Pacific.

Fiji is now in a generalised HIV epidemic, which means the virus is firmly established and spreading within the general population.

The number of people living with HIV in Fiji has risen sharply over the past decade.

Fiji’s Health Minister Dr Ratu Atonio Lalabalavu declared an HIV outbreak in January 2025.

• READ MORE:  ‘We’re doing something about it’ – Fiji’s health minister defends HIV response
• Other HIV in Fiji reports

The number of Fijians living with HIV had risen to at least 9000, or nearly 1 percent of the population, as of March, according to the head of Fiji’s HIV response.

The figures indicate that Fiji has a higher HIV prevalence rate than Australia and New Zealand, where the rate is estimated at 0.1 percent.

In Parliament this week, the Health Minister revealed that new infections continued to rise, with an estimated 1700 in 2025, roughly three times the level in 2018.

“2026 UNAIDS estimates indicate that about 9100 people were living with HIV in 2025, and possibly as many as 12,000, up from fewer than 700 in 2010,” he said.

“[For] adults from 15 to 49 years, prevalence has reached 1.6 percent, crossing the threshold that defines a generalised epidemic.”

Dr Lalabalavu said his ministry had increased testing and treatment, but Fiji had not yet reached the point where new infections were declining.

He said the government was expanding HIV testing, treatment and prevention, including PrEP, a daily medicine that helps prevent HIV.

The minister noted that high-risk drug use, in particular sharing of needles and syringes, was playing a significant role in the rapid rise of new HIV infections in Fiji.

“We have not yet reached the turning point,” he said.

Papua New Guinea’s Foreign Minister says he expects the issue of West Papua will be discussed at the upcoming Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders meeting in Palau.

This comes as the issue of human rights abuses and conflict in Indonesian-ruled Papua region, often known internationally as West Papua, appeared to have slipped off the regional agenda.

After the PIF foreign ministers met in Suva earlier this month, there was no mention of West Papua in the meeting’s outcome statement.

• READ MORE: Other West Papua reports

Most of the talk was about regional security arrangements and the region’s response, or lack thereof, to a recent Chinese nuclear-capable interballistic missile test into Pacific waters.

West Papua is a standing item on the Forum’s agenda, but has generated a decreasing amount of discussion in the past several years as Indonesia strengthened ties with Pacific Island countries.

However, PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko has indicated to RNZ Pacific that the West Papua issue will be discussed by Pacific leaders in Koror next month.

There has been little to no apparent progress after Forum leaders last year tasked the Forum Secretariat to work constructively with Indonesia on a proposed visit to West Papua by PIF leaders envoys in 2026, in consultation with the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) Secretariat.

Stalled PIF progress denied
Tkatchenko denied that Indonesia had stalled progress on a proposed visit by Forum leader envoys to West Papua.

“No, I don’t think [Indonesia had stalled progress] at all,” he said.

“Indonesia is very open to the situation now. I think it’s just making a time and date and making it happen. I’m sure it can be brought up in the next meeting in Palau by the leaders, and if they need to work on that, so be it.”

However, there has also been a clear lack of action on a PIF resolution in 2019 to request Indonesia grant access to West Papua for the UN Human Rights Commissioner to come and look into alleged abuses.

Tkatchenko said Indonesia’s government under new President Prabowo Subianto has been open about Papua issues.

However, he said the escalating violent conflict between Indonesian military and West Papuan independence fighters in recent months had not came up for discussion in Suva.

“Well nothing was mentioned at the Pacific Island Forum Foreign Ministers Meeting in that regard, but I did make it clear that we respect the sovereignty of Indonesia, and we did elevate them for the leaders to ensure that Indonesia was in a strategic relationship with all Pacific Island Forum’s members.”

The Foreign Minister suggested Indonesia’s role at the Forum could be a growing one, “as they hold 20 million Melanesians in Indonesia, which is bigger than all of the Pacific Islands and us put together”.

“So, they hold a very important place when it comes to the representation of Melanesians in the whole of the Pacific, and especially in the Pacific Island Forum. So, that was put forward and mentioned, and the leaders will discuss that in Palau in the next coming weeks.”

PNG relationship with Indonesia
Tkatchenko said that from a PNG perspective, they had made it clear to their neighbour that they were willing to help Indonesia address its problems in Papua, if they would like help.

“And we have the indications through the new president of Indonesia and the Foreign Minister’s discussions with myself that things are moving forward for the betterment of West Papuans now and into the future.

The PNG minister was reluctant to point fingers at Indonesia over the unrest in its Papuan provinces, particularly Highland Papua.

“We have our own issues, too. I mean, we’ve had massacres and very unfortunate tribal wars and conflicts between our own people in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea that would equal or outdo what is happening in Indonesia.

“So we have our own law and order problems that we are also trying to address in that regard.

“But any human rights violation, of course, is always a worry, depending on what the circumstance is. And you know, they are our brothers and sisters, and we are concerned. And if the Indonesians need our assistance, so be it.”

Pacific Islands Forum leaders are due to meet in Palau at the start of September.

Cross-border help
Meanwhile, Tkatchenko said PNG Foreign Affairs officials had been in Jakarta finalising a cross-border treaty, which allows for help to PNG’s Ok Tedi mine in Western Province near the international border.

“The Ok Tedi mine at the moment’s in a bit of strife where the river has now basically dried up and has now gone from a river to a creek. So, the freight, bringing all the freight and goods and fuel to Ok Tedi has now ceased because of the river not being able to access proper water depths to flow the boats and barges up to the appropriate points.

“We have now got a road going through and bridges going through Indonesia for them to access fuel and goods and everything in from Indonesia.

“We have all agreed, and and this is also working with all the West Papuan landowners and the Indonesians, and of course our agreement that we have signed just recently.”