Australia and Papua New Guinea signed a mutual defence treaty intended to integrate their armed forces more closely and require both countries to respond if either comes under armed attack. The agreement still needed approval from both national parliaments before taking effect.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape signed the treaty at Parliament House in Canberra. Albanese said an attack on one country would be treated as a danger to the peace and security of the other, with both governments acting to meet the shared threat.
Named the Pukpuk Treaty after the Tok Pisin word for crocodile, the pact gives Australia access to Papua New Guinea's military facilities and personnel. It also covers deeper cooperation in cyberspace and electromagnetic warfare and provides for annual joint military exercises. The two governments agreed not to undertake activities or enter agreements that would prevent the treaty from being implemented.
The arrangement could allow as many as 10,000 Papua New Guineans to serve in the Australian military, with a potential path to Australian citizenship. Supporters said that provision could assist Australia's military recruitment while expanding professional opportunities for people from Papua New Guinea. The agreement was also presented as a way to modernize Papua New Guinea's armed forces and improve the two militaries' ability to operate together.
For Australia, the pact is its only alliance-level security agreement apart from the 1951 ANZUS Treaty with the United States and New Zealand. It is Papua New Guinea's first treaty of that kind. Papua New Guinea, Australia's closest neighbour and a former Australian colony, is also the largest and most populous South Pacific island country.
Both leaders described the agreement as the product of a longstanding relationship rather than a move against another country. Marape said Papua New Guinea retained its “friends to all, enemies to none” foreign policy and had been transparent with China that Australia was its preferred security partner. He said the choice did not compromise other aspects of Papua New Guinea's international relationships.
China had raised concerns after the countries endorsed the treaty's core principles the previous month. Its embassy in Papua New Guinea said a bilateral pact should not exclude cooperation with third countries or target another state's interests.
The criticism reflected intensifying strategic competition in the Pacific, where China has expanded trade, policing and security links. Australia and the United States have also strengthened ties with Papua New Guinea and other island governments. While the treaty formalized an unusually close military partnership, ratification and subsequent implementation would determine how its broad mutual-defence and integration commitments worked in practice.
