ADELAIDE, South Australia (CU)_The Solomon Islands on Wednesday (20 April), confirmed that a security cooperation agreement has been signed with China, but went on to reassure countries that the pact would not threaten peace in the region. Nevertheless, the controversial deal has been the subject of debate across the Pacific, particularly in Australia, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s administration being accused of having bungled a key security relationship.
The federal government’s handling of the issue has been described by the opposition as the greatest Australian foreign policy blunder in the Pacific since World War II. The party has also questioned by Foreign Minister Marise Payne was not sent to Honiara, instead of Pacific Minister Zed Seselja, who visited the Pacific archipelago last week in an effort to convince the government in Honiara to walk away from the deal. The trip has now proven to be fruitless, as Shadow Foreign Minister Penny Wong criticised PM Morrison for failing to personally intervened to ensure the deal was never signed.
“Securing our region at this time is such an imperative for any government that this should have been something that Mr Morrison dealt with — but he went missing,” Senator Wong said. “I think what this still signifies is that Australia is no longer, for … Solomon Islands, the nation to whom they turn to meet their challenges in every instance. And, instead of taking responsibility and dealing with this as a leader should, in the interests of the nation, he sends a junior woodchuck at the last minute.”
Responding to these allegations, the Prime Minister told reporters in Adelaide that the decision to send Senator Seselja was made deliberately, since his administration took the view that it would be counter-productive to publicly heap pressure on Honiara over the agreement. “The Foreign Minister is a different level to the Minister of Pacific. One is in cabinet, one is not. You calibrate your diplomacy to deal with sensitive issues,” he said.
PM Morrison went on to say that it is necessary to be cognisant of the fact that in the Pacific, there is a history of countries like Australia and New Zealand and several other nations treating small islands like they should be doing what the big countries tell them to do. “I’m not going to act like former administrations that treated the Pacific like some extension of Australia,” he said. “The Pacific Islands are very sensitive to that and I have always had an approach with the Pacific Islands which understands those sensitivities because there is a lot at stake.”
