Inquiry already poses questions for Pacific step-up

Australia’s emergence from the throes of the Second World War as a middle power ensured the nation's place in the region, and secured with it stability in the immediate region; however, as conflicts broke out in Vietnam and Korea, pressures to support American hegemony in broader Asia were brought to bear on Canberra.

The greater Pacific region, stretching west to include much of south-east Asia, includes countries that sit at the geopolitical crossroads of major shipping routes and trade bottlenecks. Not least on the minds of 'Pacific pivot' advocates, such as US ambassador to Australia Arthur Culvahouse jnr, is the South China Sea and American interests in the region.

"We'll be pushing Australia to expand its step-up from the Pacific islands region to south-east Asia and to look north as well," said Culvahouse last week.

Funnily enough, Australia has made similar comments in the opposite direction – for example, when Defence Minister Linda Reynolds used her visit to the US late last year to push for more active involvement on their part.

Though the Pacific island nations are all too often ignored in Western political conversations, it is no great secret that DFAT and Australian academia have been courting them for several generations. Eleven strictly “Pacific island” nations – including Fiji, Tonga and Samoa – combine to a give a total of 2.3 million people scattered across 15 per cent of the globe’s surface; many of whom share close cultural or familial links to Australia and New Zealand. Official reports released by DFAT have even pictured the relationship in ambitiously glossy terms, referring to the area as “our Pacific family.” 

Building on our sustained regional and bilateral engagement with the Pacific, Australia has long helped to promote economic prosperity through ambitious initiatives such as:

• the $2 billion Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific (AIFFP);
• the Pacific Labour Mobility Scheme; and
• the Coral Sea Cable, which will deliver high-speed telecommunications to Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands by end-2019.

Though it may sound somewhat robotic, like all foreign aid, return on investment is really the yardstick against which these commitments are made. $2 billion was not siphoned from the Treasury’s coffers to fund the AIFFP out of the goodness of our hearts. Though that most ambitiously-titled of Scott Morrison’s announcements, “Stepping up Australia’s engagement with our Pacific family", referenced lofty ideals such as historical and cultural ties, the actual text release lays the reasons behind our investment in the region bare for all to see. “We have an abiding interest in the sovereignty, stability, security, and prosperity of the region,” it read. 

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The submissions for the inquiry into Australia's Defence relationships with Pacific island nations closed yesterday, on Monday, 16 March. The terms of reference for the inquiry were as such:

• Current activities and outcomes undertaken by Defence in the south-west Pacific, including the relationship between Defence's longstanding co-operation program and its step-up activities; 
• How Australia's Defence co-operation programs and Pacific step-up activities correspond to the needs, requests, and feedback from partner nations in the Pacific (including consultation with civil society, parliaments, and executive governments);
• Opportunities for closer co-ordination and collaboration between Defence and other government departments on Australian programs and activities across the south-west Pacific; and
• Opportunities for closer co-ordination and collaboration between other nations seeking to invest and engage in the south-west Pacific, including planning and execution of joint activities and preparation for HADR.

Though within its terms of reference, the government never addresses the 'elephant in the room' (return on investment). Several of the submissions received provide an interesting gauge into whether we are getting this. 

Like most parliamentary inquiries, submissions were received from a broad range of voices. These included academic (e.g. Western Sydney's Whitlam Institute, through to the Philippine embassy and prime contractor Northrop Grumman). 

Though one might well expect these commentators to give rise to very different opinions on the matter of maritime security and aerial surveillance investment, submissions to the inquiry were actually relatively unanimous in their support for deepening our regional defence relationship. Adelaide University's Joanne Wallis even suggested including Pacific island militaries under the auspices of regional collective defence agreements such as FRANZ or the Quadrilateral Defence Coordination Group.

Northrop, on their part, joined voices with Air Affairs Australia and PAL Aerospace to call for a deepening of defence investment in the region. While you would be forgiven for thinking these companies would give somewhat biased suggestions in this regard, what they call for actually makes a lot of sense. The timely acquisition of expanded maritime ISR capabilities would not only allow Australia's defence support to be more efficient, but also our disaster response. In the coming years, as the marine environment these countries inhabit is shaped by the effects of the climate crisis, the assistance of HADR capabilities to our "Pacific family" is likely to become an increasingly important role of the ADF.

Calls for increased efficiency in how that money is spent also ring particularly poignant, coming from the very companies who are looking to win contracts off of Defence. Rather than just advocating for an increase in logistics and aerial surveillance support to the Pacific islands as part of the step-up, Operation Solania, the Pacific Maritime Security Program and other maritime security activities, submissions went so far as to outline how this investment could be directed to "engage PICs [Pacific island countries] on the value of additional maritime aerial surveillance". This would include, as Northrop Grumman duly outlines, an attempt to first refine our understanding of their capability requirements, before committing to throwing money at upgrading them.

Though there are many other interesting suggestions buried within pages and pages of submissions that deserve polemics in their own right – for example, the state of logistical information-sharing throughout the region – perhaps the defining characteristic of whether this inquiry is considered successful will be whether value for money is assessed thoroughly on Pacific defence support. Only time can tell whether this will be the case. 

Get involved with the discussion and let us know your thoughts on Australia's future role and position in the Indo-Pacific and what you would like to see from the inquiry into regional defence support in the Pacific. 

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