From treaty to trust: The next chapter in the Australia–PNG relationship

Now, I wonder if I can jump straight in here and start today by looking at the bilateral relationship as a whole.

From each of you and your own unique, I guess, personal and professional vantage points, how would you describe the state of the bilateral relationship? Sharon, perhaps I can start with you.

Thank you, Sarah.

From my perspective of the current status of the bilateral relationships, you've mentioned that a lot of the agreements and the treaties that I've signed, I would say that it's formal.

And yes, we see that translate into developmental objectives breached in rural communities of Papua New Guinea.

But is it equally translating in Australia? I would say it's a formal agreement from my perspective, but we need to test how this relationship is translated to people so that we can see whether it's existing or is it just some sort of an aid receiving reciprocated sort of arrangement.

Yeah, so interesting.

And what about you, Dom? Could I throw to you here?

Yeah, I think it's something that came up a lot throughout the Emerging Leaders Dialogue this year and something we always are reflecting on.

I do echo some of Sharon's comments there where you do see a lot of the agreements and you do see a lot of the acronyms and the high level treaties.

And so it seems that there's a very strong relationship from that government to government level, which is obviously very important and has been strong for a number of years across successive governments.

But what does that look like from Emerging Leaders perspective, youth perspective, with youth making up such a big proportion of the population in PNG and an important part of Australian society as well so you can see that sport is really starting to come in as a real key driver of the cooperation um security has always been one of those as well but how can we look beyond that and look to some other areas um work across our regional communities as someone from regional Queensland um that's very important for me and I know that's um you know a challenge of PNG too so I think um It's definitely very high level at the moment.

The media does show a lot of those, you know, engagements between Marape and Albanese in today.

But I think there's a lot more going on and there's a lot more that could be going on that we don't necessarily see.

And so the emerging leaders dialogue was a great way to actually learn about that and look forward to talking about that today in the podcast.

Yeah, amazing.

And so interesting.

I think both of you have pointed so well to this almost notable asymmetry in the bilateral.

Like, you know, on the one hand, we've got a very elevated Aus PNG government to government relations.

I mean, we're formally allies now as of this year.

And then on the other hand, there is this need to balance.

bolster social links and the social ties between average Australians and the average Papua New Guinean.

I mean, we're asking questions like what sort of social infrastructure is there to support people-to-people relations? And I think on that note, I actually would like to throw back to you, Dom.

And kind of build on a question around, I guess, growing diaspora communities.

So there is a growing diaspora community across both countries, particularly of Papua New Guineans in Queensland.

Now, I wonder if I can jump straight in here and start today by looking at the bilateral relationship as a whole.

From each of you and your own unique, I guess, personal and professional vantage points, how would you describe the state of the bilateral relationship? Sharon, perhaps I can start with you.

Thank you, Sarah.

From my perspective of the current status of the bilateral relationships, you've mentioned that a lot of the agreements and the treaties that I've signed, I would say that it's formal.

And yes, we see that translate into developmental objectives breached in rural communities of Papua New Guinea.

But is it equally translating in Australia? I would say it's a formal agreement from my perspective, but we need to test how this relationship is translated to people so that we can see whether it's existing or is it just some sort of an aid receiving reciprocated sort of arrangement.

Yeah, so interesting.

And what about you, Dom? Could I throw to you here?

Yeah, I think it's something that came up a lot throughout the Emerging Leaders Dialogue this year and something we always are reflecting on.

I do echo some of Sharon's comments there where you do see a lot of the agreements and you do see a lot of the acronyms and the high level treaties.

And so it seems that there's a very strong relationship from that government to government level, which is obviously very important and has been strong for a number of years across successive governments.

But what does that look like from Emerging Leaders perspective, youth perspective, with youth making up such a big proportion of the population in PNG and an important part of Australian society as well so you can see that sport is really starting to come in as a real key driver of the cooperation um security has always been one of those as well but how can we look beyond that and look to some other areas um work across our regional communities as someone from regional Queensland um that's very important for me and I know that's um you know a challenge of PNG too so I think um It's definitely very high level at the moment.

The media does show a lot of those, you know, engagements between Marape and Albanese in today.

But I think there's a lot more going on and there's a lot more that could be going on that we don't necessarily see.

And so the emerging leaders dialogue was a great way to actually learn about that and look forward to talking about that today in the podcast.

Yeah, amazing.

And so interesting.

I think both of you have pointed so well to this almost notable asymmetry in the bilateral.

Like, you know, on the one hand, we've got a very elevated Aus PNG government to government relations.

I mean, we're formally allies now as of this year.

And then on the other hand, there is this need to balance.

bolster social links and the social ties between average Australians and the average Papua New Guinean.

I mean, we're asking questions like what sort of social infrastructure is there to support people-to-people relations? And I think on that note, I actually would like to throw back to you, Dom.

And kind of build on a question around, I guess, growing diaspora communities.

So there is a growing diaspora community across both countries, particularly of Papua New Guineans in Queensland.