A co-ordination and training centre for Pacific Island police has been opened as Australia seeks to counter China’s growing security influence in the region.
The Pinkenba Hub in Brisbane will act as a central base for deployments of Pacific police when countries request help for major events or crises.
More than 200 officers have already passed through the nearby training centre since July, including 33 who were deployed to assist with King Charles’ visit to Samoa in October.
The hub forms part of the wider Pacific Policing Initiative, designed by 11 Pacific Island police chiefs and supported with $400 million (US$254 million) in Australian funding.
“This is about Pacific security, delivered by the Pacific, in support of Pacific sovereignty,” Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said on Tuesday.
The hub’s official opening came a day after China transferred four boats and 40 other vehicles to the Vanuatu Police Force.
The equipment, worth about 500 million Vanuatu vatu ($AUD$6.4 million), followed Beijing’s security support in Fiji, Kiribati and, most notably, the Solomon Islands.
Australia sees security as a key area where it wants to remain the primary partner in the Pacific, regional expert Tess Newton Cain says.
“The Pacific Policing Initiative is part of their response,” the adjunct associate professor at the Griffith Asia Institute told AAP.
“What we need to monitor going forward (is that) the priorities are Pacific-led.
“Are they responding to the policing needs Pacific Island nations have identified?”
Dr Newton Cain said Fiji was dealing with serious illicit drug issues, the Solomons had a focus on civil order while Papua New Guinea faced serious inter-tribal issues.
Domestic violence needed also to be a priority matter for all nations’ police forces.
“If 50 percent of your population are physically, emotionally or financially harmed by virtue of their gender, it will seriously impede your ability to develop as a country,” she said.
The initiative had been discussed for months before it was endorsed in August by leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum, including Australia and New Zealand.
Standing before a banner declaring the initiative “by the Pacific, for the Pacific”, Samoan Police Minister Lefau Harry Schuster joked its establishment was not strictly done in the Pacific way.
“The Pacific way takes a long time – we talk and talk and talk,” he said.
“This one was put into practice in Samoa at (the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in October).
“It’s the Pacific family coming together to look after itself.”
The state-of-the-art police training and education hub.
Australia has a long history of helping boost Pacific policing capacity, with liaison officers embedded in forces across the region and several large grants to build training centres.
The Solomons raised the prospect of doubling its police force to 3000 officers during talks with Australia in June.
Four regional police training hubs will be established in the Pacific, including one each in Samoa and PNG.
