Tonga
Pacific Engagement Visas: New developments but quotas unknown
Australia is surprisingly low-key about the recent launch of its new subclass 192 Pacific Engagement Visa lottery that aims to welcome 3,000 new permanent migrants …
Tongan attitudes to the world
Geopolitical competition is ramping up in the Pacific. How do Tongans feel about it?
In 2023, Tonga’s Tupou Tertiary Institute (TTI) surveyed more than 1,000 citizens to better…
State of play for Pacific women in 2024
As 2024 rang in, an historical vote was taking place in the Pacific. Hilda Heine, former president of the Republic of Marshall Islands (RMI) and first ever female head of state in…
Tonga walks a tightrope on its Chinese debts
Tonga’s debt burden is set to balloon over the next five years as the deadline looms on loans from China. Repayments will see the country’s debt burden rise to among the highest…
Digital dominoes: Australia’s strategic play in the Pacific
Pacific Island countries, with their sprawling geography, have been caught in a digital divide. Lack of critical, digitally enabling infrastructure slows down development progress…
Japan risks its reputation in Oceania with Fukushima discharge
Japan’s decision last month to begin discharging treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean from its destroyed Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is fairly unpopular…
The US–Pacific Islands Partnership, one year on
Last September, the United States made some big promises to Pacific Island Countries (PICs) at its first ever Pacific Leaders’ Summit. The brief follow-up summit scheduled to take…
Strengthening disaster resilience in the Pacific
Climate change is compounding disaster risk around the world. Recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) make clear that the growing effects of…
The fallout from Tonga’s volcano goes deeper than the ashes
When the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai volcano erupted in January, Tongans living abroad, in a diaspora of well over 100,000 people, were cut off from their loved ones after the…
Commentary
Telstra’s Digicel Pacific challenge
The deal with the government insulates the telco from financial risk. But accepting the role of Australia’s lead business ambassador in the region makes it no set-and-forget…