Pacific Islands Forum: Anthony Albanese’s statecraft on climate winning over resistance

Anthony Albanese’s climate diplomacy is winning over the Pacific. Picture: AAP

Australia has gone from being a pain in the neck for Pacific Island leaders to dishing out back rubs to the region’s heavy-hitters in the space of just a few short years.

Hamming it up for the cameras at the Pacific Island Forum in Tonga this week, Anthony Albanese kneaded Fiji counterpart Siti­veni Rabuka’s shoulders like a beachside masseuse.

Not that Rabuka needed it. Everyone is a lot less stressed out at the annual Pacific Islands summits these days, existential crises notwithstanding.

It’s been quite a turnaround since 2019, when Scott Morrison stared down furious Pacific leaders in Tuvalu, refusing to entertain language in the forum’s final communique that was hostile to fossil fuels.

Rabuka’s predecessor Frank Bainimarama said at the time that Morrison was “insulting and condescending”, describing the experience as one of the most frustrating of his life.

This time, Albanese was talking the talk, if not entirely walking the Pacific walk.

There was grumbling on the sidelines of the summit over Australia’s plan to expand gas production, with Tuvalu’s climate change minister blasting the continued exploitation of fossil fuels as “immoral and unacceptable”.

UN Secretary-General Anthony Guterres also turned up, warning of a looming catastrophe unless rich nations cleaned up their act.

Albanese could say hand on heart that no one complained about the issue to him, thanks to his government’s success in getting Australia’s energy-intensive economy off the forum’s main agenda. Labor’s promised emissions cuts are still a major leap of faith, however.

Acknowledging the seriousness of climate change is the price of entry for Pacific diplomacy. “People still talk about the PIF meeting that was held in Tuvalu prior to my coming to office,” Albanese said on Thursday. “And Australia at that time was certainly in the corner of those meetings. We’re now front and centre.”

Labor has wasted no time using Australia’s improved diplomatic standing in the region to leverage wins on its key strategic concern – China’s surging influence over Pacific Island states.

In a major diplomatic success, Albanese managed to convince his Pacific counterparts to back a new region-wide policing agreement aimed squarely at denying China the chance to expand its security footprint in the region.

Anthony Albanese speaks to Pacific leaders during a family photo at the start of the plenary session at the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Nuku'alofa, Tonga. Picture: AAP

Albanese insists it is a “Pacific-led” initiative, and its true the ­region’s leaders support the plan. But consider who’s footing the $400m bill: Australian taxpayers. That’s a pretty clear indication of which country wanted it the most.

Of course, the US is pretty keen on the idea too, as we learned from top US diplomat Kurt Campbell. In an unexpected twist, he revealed the US had been planning to unveil a major policy announcement of its own at the forum, but was urged not to by Australia’s man in Washington, Kevin Rudd.

“We have given you the lane. Take the lane,” Campbell told Albanese in a hot mic incident that infuriated the Australian PM. Albanese was concerned, no doubt, the disclosure had potential to derail his own cautious diplomacy.

There was a sense he and Campbell had accidentally said the quiet stuff out loud. But things could have been a lot worse.

Labor won’t let Peter Dutton forget his hot mic incident nine years ago when he joked about Pacific Islanders facing “water lapping at (their) door”. Times have changed, and Albanese wants everyone to know it.