Prime Minister Albanese, I'm honoured welcome you on your first official visit which signifies the importance your Government places on our bilateral relations. This will be the second official visit ever by an Australian Prime Minister, the first being in 2019. For Vanuatu, high level visits such as this demonstrate a strong and genuine efforts by both governments to build sustainable, trustworthy and long term relationship. I am therefore extremely delighted that you are taking the time to come over for this very brief visit before we head off to the Pacific Island Forum in Honiara. Over the 45 years or so Australia and Vanuatu have built a strong and enduring partnership founded on mutual respect, trust and a shared commitment to regional prosperity and security. Today our discussions have reaffirmed the deep value both our nations place on this relationship and we are pleased to continue strengthening our ties. The key areas of focus include earthquake recovery, Nakamal Agreement which captures economic development and climate change and regional security, renewable energy and people to people connections including climate adaptation, building resilience against climate related challenges, social development that covers enhancing social services and protecting vulnerable populations. Honourable Prime Minister, I wish to thank you for the valued and constructive discussions that we have today and this is to give you the assurance that the political parties or the coalition members within the party within the government that I'm leading, they welcome Australia's strategic partnership and particularly with the Nakamal Agreement. Nakamal Agreement is still a subject for us to discuss and conclude on, but I appreciate the valued constructive comments that you and I had this afternoon. I thank you again for your visit.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA: Well, thank you very much Prime Minister and thank you for hosting me so warmly here in Vanuatu. This is my first visit to Vanuatu as Prime Minister, my third visit here as a person, a tourist firstly, in 1986 I came here as a very young man, obviously, and at that point in time I had two weeks here and really got to enjoy the hospitality, the warmth and the friendship of Ni-Vanuatu. It was a wonderful time. It was my first trip out of Australia and I chose Vanuatu. Since then I've been back as a parliamentarian. But today my first visit as Prime Minister. And I feel very honoured to be here, because Australia and Vanuatu are family with connections built over generations grounded in our close Melanesian, South Sea Islander and First Nation's ties. And to be considered family is not only a deep privilege, it also carries with it a great responsibility. It's a responsibility that we understood when you went through the terrible disaster of December last year, 2024. And I assure you, Prime Minister, that we will be with you in good times and in bad, because that's what happens with families. Our bilateral partnership is going to go to the next level. And I thank you, Prime Minister, for the wide ranging discussions that we have had. We've listened carefully and learnt from each other. We've done this in the spirit of the Nakamal, a meeting place here in Vanuatu where the community and their leaders come together to discuss important issues and make decisions. The Prime Minister and I confirmed our commitment to keep working towards the upgrade of our relationship through a new treaty level agreement. We've made good progress towards that goal today and I'd like to thank Ministers and officials from both sides who have been taking this forward. Importantly, we approach this endeavour as equal partners with discussions focused on mutual respect, trust and our historical ties on laying even deeper foundations for our shared prosperity, connecting our communities and advancing our economic and development goals. But of course, this agreement would not stand alone. It would build on the decades of cooperation between our countries and our communities. Our deep personal links, such as the over 6,000 Ni-Vanuatu workers currently in Australia under the Pacific Labour Mobility Scheme, making deeply valued contributions to both of our economies, or the large numbers of Australians who visit Vanuatu as tourists each year. So, we will continue to work through. We will travel tomorrow to the Pacific Island Forum which will be important to discuss security issues, to discuss climate change and the challenge that it represents, but also the opportunity that it represents as well. I'm very much looking forward to the discussion with other Pacific leaders. The Pacific is our home. It is where we look after each other. And together with Vanuatu, Australia wants a resilient, sovereign and connected region that benefits us all. Thank you very much. And we're happy to take some questions, I think are organised.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister Napat, why were you unwilling today to sign the Nakamal Agreement in its current form? Are you at all concerned that it could curtail your ability to cooperate with China?
PRIME MINISTER NAPAT: Sorry, come again.
JOURNALIST: Why were you unwilling today to sign the Nakamal Agreement in its current form? Are you at all concerned that it could curtail your ability to cooperate with China?
PRIME MINISTER NAPAT: Thank you. Thank you for the question. I had to allow these Nakamal Agreement to go to different stages within the coalition partners. And some of my Ministers and my MPs, they feel that it requires more discussions to, particularly on some of the specific wordings in the agreement.
JOURNALIST: What are the specific wordings that are of concerns?
PRIME MINISTER NAPAT: When it comes to the critical infrastructure.
JOURNALIST: It could limit your ability to get funding from other countries for critical infrastructure?
PRIME MINISTER NAPAT: Yes.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister Albanese, would you be willing to sign perhaps a less onerous agreement that let Vanuatu strike deals with other countries on critical infrastructure?
PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: Well, let's be very clear. There is agreement on the principles that have been agreed and initialled in the Nakamal Agreement. It's a matter of processes going through. I respect the processes that Prime Minister Napat needs to go through. We, both sides will go through our processes. But we're very confident that the agreement can be reached. And I'm reassured by the discussion that I've had with the Prime Minister.
JOURNALIST: What do you think it will take to solve this? And will you be able to sign the agreement this year?
PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: I'm very confident that it will be able to be signed soon. It's important that processes be respected and I respect the Prime Minister's processes. We have our own, respectively. This is an agreement that will also importantly respect sovereignty of Vanuatu, but one as well that respects sovereignty of Australia. This is in the interests of both of our nations and is a very positive agreement going forward.
JOURNALIST: With the Nakamal Agreement, what provision will undermine the sovereignty of Vanuatu? Can you say what, specifically with the Nakamal Agreement, what exactly in the Nakamal caused the delay in the agreement to its final development?
PRIME MINISTER NAPAT: As the Prime Minister alluded to, it's basically again, just the wordings, some of the wordings that we feel that it's important that we allow officials to have a better, more discussions on that so that it can capture the interests of the two country.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister Albanese, how does your Government respond to concerns that part of the Nakamal Agreement could compromise Vanuatu as a sovereign nation?
PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: No, we respect Vanuatu's sovereignty. Australia was a great supporter of independence for Vanuatu. We respect its processes. We respect its sovereignty, which is why we respect the discussion that we've had together today. If that means people going through processes for a short period of time, then that is absolutely fine by us. And we don't want to either do or be seen, for anything to occur, that undermines the sovereignty of Vanuatu. What we are doing in the Pacific though is understanding that on economic issues, on national sovereignty issues, on security issues, all of this, the Pacific family have an interest in looking after each other. And that is our objective here.
JOURNALIST: Can you provide more details on what conditions and expectation Australia has tied to the $500 million?
PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: Well, we want to see economic development here in Vanuatu. We want to see an upskilling of the workforce here. We want to see infrastructure investment here. We want to make sure that the Pacific look after each other, consistent with what we did at last year's Pacific Island Forum meeting, was we made major announcements about the Pacific Policing Initiative. What that's about is upskilling the policing capacity of nations throughout the Pacific. Also, it's about increasing interoperability. So, that there can be seamless cooperation across nations, because transnational crime, it doesn't recognise national boundaries. It engages more and more across the board in issues such as cybersecurity, for example, which is increasingly a threat in Australia. But throughout the Pacific and throughout the world, that's something that by definition doesn't recognise any national boundaries. That's why we need more cooperation. The Pacific family, we will look after each other. That's what this agreement is about. And that's what at the Pacific Island Forum tomorrow, when the Prime Minister and I travel to the Solomon Islands, we're really looking forward to those discussions going forward. But it's wonderful to be here in Vanuatu and I'm looking forward to further discussions with members of the government over the coming few hours. It is a great privilege to be here and I thank you very much, Prime Minister. I committed to come here upon your election earlier this year. I had to get through an election in between time, in order to fulfil that commitment, but it's wonderful to be here. Thanks very much.
