Senior military leaders from Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Tonga have visited a Pacific-led police program in Brisbane that provides specialist training to hundreds of officers from 22 nations across the Pacific.
For many of the police men and women undertaking the intensive 24-week course, it is the first time out of their country. And for some, a challenge to travel to Australia.
Two officers from Tokelau, a remote territory of 1500 people, arrived late for their course as poor weather delayed their 24-hour boat ride to Samoa before flying to Australia.
Despite the hurdles, the benefits of the training run by the Pacific Police Support Group (PPSG) are significant. Officers emerge more confident, armed with enhanced skills including public order management, search and rescue coordination, special event planning and close personal protection.
For the senior military chiefs from the Pacific Response Group, a multinational military unit providing humanitarian aid and disaster relief (HADR) across the region, it was a valuable opportunity to see their policing compatriots far from home.
Detective A/Superintendent Adrian Morton, of the PPSG, said it was about a united Pacific, bringing all Pacific nations together.
"It is being driven by Pacific police chiefs across the region to develop their police forces and promote regional stability and security," he said.
"We have a group of people who know how to work together, have connections and are trained in the skills they need to support their brothers and sisters across the Pacific.
"We are showing we are united and we look after each other."
On completion of the current program, more than 100 Pacific police members will have been trained at the PPSG complex, an unused COVID quarantine facility near Brisbane Airport.
The ultimate goal is to create deployable forces to respond to security issues across the region.
'We have a group of people who know how to work together, have connections and are trained in the skills they need to support their brothers and sisters across the Pacific.'
PPSG members on site at the Pinkenba training facility have a 12-hour rapid turnaround enabling a swift response in urgent situations.
The current cohort come from Tonga, Samoa, Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tokelau, Solomon Islands, Nauru, Vanuatu, Guam and Kiribati.
"We want to raise the capability across the Pacific and upskill the police officers who come in to develop their own police forces," Detective A/Superintendent Morton said.
Establishing regional centres of excellence in Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa is also part of the ambitious Pacific Policing Initiative (PPI). These centres will focus on regional capability uplift in investigations (both standard and specialist), recruiting, forensics and transnational and organised crime, where courses will be designed on the PPI's model of 'By the Pacific, for the Pacific'.
"We work under a clear policing mandate but train the PPSG to work in a multi-agency environment including with military experts and fire and rescue teams," Detective A/Superintendent Adrian Morton said.
For the officers, their 24 weeks in Australia is life-changing, instilling enormous pride and unbreakable bonds.
"They become family," Detective A/Superintendent Morton said. "They even chant 'PPSG' during their physical training at the gym."
Each day begins with a devotion, with officers singing and a member saying a prayer.
Every time a new cohort arrives, the existing group prepares a Pacific welcome consisting of a ceremony and dance incorporating each nation's traditions.
"It's like being invited to a village where the local chief welcomes you," Detective A/Superintendent Morton said.
"It's absolutely beautiful."
