A Cook islands beach
[Christoph Burgdorfer / Creative Commons]
AUSTRALIA has pledged millions of dollars to support Pacific island nations deal with the climate emergency.
The new Labour administration also pledged on Friday to provide additional funds for Australia’s police deployment in the Solomon Islands, for regional aerial surveillance and an Australian Border Force network.
Foreign minister Penny Wong is promising to increase the budget for overseas development assistance by 1.4 billion Australian dollars over the next four years, with 900 million of that sum going to the Pacific region.
From 35,000 troops in Talisman Sabre war games to HMS Spey provocations in the Taiwan Strait, Labour continues Tory militarisation — all while claiming to uphold ‘one China’ diplomatic agreements from 1972, reports KENNY COYLE
![A star fish near a beach [Pic: Jakob Owens]](https://msd11.gn.apc.org/sites/default/files/styles/desktop/public/2025-05/jakob-owens-n5wwck8ES4w-unsplash.jpg.webp?itok=eU6ipETC)
ALASTAIR BONNETT reports on the paradoxes of populist attitudes towards protection of the natural world