By Apps Support,Kevin Doyle
Copyright aljazeera
Australia has failed to secure a defence treaty with Papua New Guinea (PNG) that would have seen their militaries commit to defending each other in the case of an armed attack.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and PNG Prime Minister James Marape signed a “defence communique” in the capital Port Moresby on Wednesday instead of the anticipated mutual defence treaty.
Albanese’s failure to sign the defence deal with PNG, the largest Pacific Island nation, comes on the heels of last week’s failed attempt by the Australian prime minister to secure a security partnership with fellow Pacific nation Vanuatu.
Both security deals are seen as part of Australia’s push to counter China as a rising power in the Pacific region.
Waiting a little longer to sign the treaty with PNG was “perfectly understandable”, Albanese told reporters, adding that he expected it to be signed in the “coming weeks”.
“The wording has been agreed to. The communique today, as signed, outlines precisely what is in the treaty,” Albanese said, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
Joint communique between Papua New Guinea and Australia on a Mutual Defence Treaty, signed today. 🇵🇬🇦🇺 pic.twitter.com/rSUCHPLCJW
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) September 17, 2025
Marape told reporters there was “no sticking point”, suggesting that the mutual defence treaty could be signed shortly.
Marape also said that China had no hand in delaying the signing of the deal with Australia.
The Australian prime minister said earlier that the delay was due to a meeting of the PNG cabinet failing to reach a quorum of members to endorse the treaty.
Vanuatu security partnership also delayed
Last week, officials in Vanuatu said that the government’s coalition partners required further scrutiny of the security partnership with Australia, worth some $500 million Australian dollars ($326.5m), as there were fears it could limit the country’s access to infrastructure funding from other countries.
China is Vanuatu’s largest external creditor and has provided loans for Chinese firms to undertake major infrastructure projects in the country.
PNG’s Marape struck a more optimistic tone on Wednesday, telling journalists that it was in his country’s and Australia’s mutual interests to work side by side on defence.
“I made a conscious choice that Australia remains our security partner of choice,” Marape said, according to the Reuters news agency.
Australia’s delays in sowing deeper defence ties with PNG and Vanuatu in the Pacific region come as the much-vaunted AUKUS submarine deal between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, remains under a cloud amid a review of the original 2021 deal by the Pentagon.
US defence officials have said they ordered the review to reassess if it was in line with President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda.
Despite the review, Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said in June that he was confident that the AUKUS plan to provide Australia with closely-guarded US nuclear propulsion technology, worth hundreds of billions of dollars, to build next-generation nuclear submarines would proceed.
In a tetchy exchange with an Australian reporter on Tuesday, Trump revealed that Albanese would be visiting him shortly in Washington, DC.
When asked whether it was appropriate for a president to have so many business dealings, Trump told the ABC reporter that he was “hurting” relations between the US and Australia.
“You’re hurting Australia. In my opinion, you are hurting Australia very much right now, and they want to get along with me,” Trump told the reporter.
“You know, your leader is coming over to see me very soon. I’m going to tell him about you. You set a very bad tone,” Trump said, before sharply telling the reporter to be “quiet”.
Albanese is scheduled to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week.
