Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese keen to strengthen ties in first visit to Papua New Guinea
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Anthony Albanese will touch down in Papua New Guinea's capital today; the first Australian prime minister to visit the country in more than four years.
Australian flags have been hoisted across Port Moresby, and Mr Albanese's face has been put up on billboards, alongside PNG Prime Minister James Marape's.
At a time when Australia is keen to strengthen ties and push the two nations' "special relationship", COVID-19 and elections in both countries have delayed a top-level visit until now.
Mr Albanese has a busy two-day schedule, which will include giving an address to PNG's parliament — the first foreign leader to ever do so.
"That is an extraordinary honour for Australia and one I regard as … one of the great honours of my life," Mr Albanese told journalists yesterday.
The prime minister will use the speech to reflect on PNG's journey of independence from Australian colonial rule, saying independence "was not Australia's gift to give" but "the people of Papua New Guinea's right to assert".
"Australia and Papua New Guinea are bound not just by a shared past and a shared border but by a common determination to shape our own futures," Mr Albanese will say.
"As two big Pacific Ocean states, Australia and PNG must work as equals with our fellow Pacific states to build a stronger, safer, more secure region."
It will also be Mr Marape's first time hosting an Australian leader since he took on the top job in 2019.
PNG Foreign Affairs Minister Justin Tkatchenko said that with the new Australian government, PNG sees a "brighter light" and expects "more partnership", which he believes will make the relationship "bigger and better than it has been before".
"The prime minister [James Marape] is keen to improve and enhance the relationship with Australia under the leadership of the [new] prime minister of Australia," he said.
"So, it's all about strengthening ties, building independent economic capacity for Papua New Guinea [and] strengthening our security in the region."
Security is set to be a key talking point during the visit, with the two leaders expected to progress a defence treaty between the countries — although it is not yet clear if they will sign an interim document or the final agreement.
Australia and PNG have long shared a close defence relationship, and that was elevated in 2018 when Australia and the US committed to fund the redevelopment of the strategically positioned Lombrum Naval Base in Manus, in a move largely seen as designed to block any potential Chinese interest.
Both Mr Albanese and Defence Minister Richard Marles have made it clear that they would like to expand Australia's training programs for PNG troops.
Australia has also been exploring ways it can help PNG develop its fledgling air force.
Anthony Albanese and PNG Prime Minister James Marape are expected to sign an agreement advancing a defence treaty between Canberra and Port Moresby.
While discussions around defence and security often focus on the broader Pacific, PNG also faces some severe domestic security challenges.
The country has extensive land and maritime borders and large fishing territories which it does not have the capacity to properly patrol.
PNG has also been plagued by significant law and order problems, an issue highlighted during the recent election period when political and tribal violence was estimated to have displaced 89,000 people.
In his speech to parliament, Mr Albanese will declare that the treaty will be "based on deep trust" and "build on the family-first approach to regional security".
He will also say it will "underpin our work together to address PNG's priority needs including law and order challenges, strengthening the justice system and rule of law".
While Australia has said China is not the driving force behind the enhanced defence pact, Canberra has stepped up its military engagement across the Pacific since the revelations about Beijing's security deal with Solomon Islands and its failed bid to secure a broader regional agreement.
Last month Australia and Vanuatu signed off on a bilateral security agreement, with Australia pointedly observing that it would expose the document to public scrutiny by publishing it — in contrast to the China-Solomon Islands pact, which remains secret.
"As nations committed to democracy, accountability and transparency, the agreement will be publicly available," the government said.
That statement neatly sums up why Australian officials remain uneasy about China's influence in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific more broadly. Canberra believes Beijing is quite willing to undermine democratic norms and as it cultivates elites across the region.
And while Chinese aid flows to the region have dwindled, its economic interests are increasingly deeply entrenched across the Pacific.
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Like many other countries in the region, Papua New Guinea rightly sees China as a huge market for goods and a crucial source of future trade revenue.
Recently, PNG's government welcomed the Bank of China's plan to open in the country, while announcing it would open up a trade office in Shanghai.
Australia faces a radically different set of questions.
While its foreign aid budget for the Pacific has grown, trade with its immediate Pacific neighbours remains stubbornly sluggish, and there are even worrying signs that Australian corporates are pulling out of the region.
Mr Albanese told journalists yesterday that one of the things he wanted to discuss on the trip was "how we can improve the economic relationship with Australia and PNG [and] how we can assist the economic development of PNG".
Australia has been quick to provide direct assistance when asked — handing over more than a billion dollars in low-interest loans to support PNG's budget since 2019.
It remains the country's biggest aid provider, with more than $600 million to be spent on development assistance this financial year.
PNG Treasurer Ian Ling Stuckey has just visited his counterpart in Australia, and it is expected more budget assistance will be provided.
But aid, loans and how the money is used remain contentious among ordinary Papua New Guineans, with some worried the money is not well spent.
China's presence in the Pacific has been thrown into the spotlight following a controversial pact with Solomon Islands. But Beijing's involvement in the Pacific is nothing new.
Yesterday, a group was trying to organise a protest for Mr Albanese's arrival with placards calling for foreign aid to stop, and raising concerns about debt levels and corruption in the country, but the plan was abandoned after a meeting with the country's police commissioner.
Australian immigration restrictions and visa-processing times for PNG citizens also rouse considerable resentment in the country.
And while Canberra remains relatively optimistic about its bilateral ties with PNG, officials are much less buoyant about the country's broader trajectory as it struggles with economic malaise, demographic woes and escalating political violence.
A recent preliminary study by the United Nations Population Fund put PNG's population at almost double the government's estimated 9.4 million, which was another powerful reminder of the challenges facing the country.
Some analysts — as well as PNG officials — are sceptical about the estimate, suggesting it is inflated.
But the fact that the government cannot even identify the country's population with any confidence shows that almost half a century after independence, Papua New Guinea's institutions remain very much a work in progress.
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