Moving the Office of the Pacific to Far North Queensland makes more strategic sense than ever

Readers may recall a year ago I set out the case for the DFAT Office of the Pacific to be moved from Canberra to Far North Queensland.

Unsurprisingly, it was met with deafening silence in the federal government and the federal opposition. I suspect that as far as the DFAT bureaucracy was concerned they just hoped I would go away!

But events in the last year, and more recently in the last month, simply add to the case for the move, to be undertaken as a major policy shift that is necessary to address the real and growing challenges in our region.

When Australia initially responded to the destructive volcano in Tonga, the only possible criticism of the response could be the "time to get there" factor. HMAS Adelaide had to sail from Sydney to Brisbane to load supplies and then set sail for Tonga, a five or six day trip.

While it is true that our Air Force response was much faster, the fact remains that when major regional disasters occur – and they are occurring more regularly having the best naval vessel based in Sydney means significant delays.

The Australian Government has for some years been upgrading the navy's presence in Cairns, while the Laverack Army Base in Townsville is the key facility when it comes to swiftly moving defence force personnel to the region, as occurred in the recent missions to the Solomon Islands.

It surely makes sense for the co-ordinating agency when it comes to disaster and other regional assistance - The DFAT Office of the Pacific – should be located close to both the naval and the army bases in North Queensland.

Successive Australian Governments have essentially given up on the "decentralisation" of government services. It is not a policy priority for either side of politics, and even the National Party appears to not regard real decentralisation of government agencies as a priority.

The focus is now on taxpayer funded "programs" for the regions with limited on going implementation resources to back them up.

When it comes to the Office of the Pacific it is no doubt comfortable with being located in Canberra. But it no longer makes strategic sense, given the growing focus of the South Pacific to Australia's national strategic interest.

And it is not just China's growing presence and influence which is a factor, important though it is.

Australia must engage more directly with our immediate region at the political, business, and community levels, especially sport.

To do so it needs a regional "hub" that is as close as possible to our immediate neighbours – and especially Papua New Guinea.

And it needs over the medium term to consider where in Australia sporting teams, and other community organisations from our region can be trained and skilled. Cairns and Townsville and the north generally are ideally located, and suited, for that to happen.

No one has really assessed the potential long term damage the Covid-19 pandemic has done to our regions at the people to people level with our neighbours.

But in my view the damage already done is massive – and growing both the month. The exchange of sporting teams between Australia and the region has diminished to almost zero. To its credit the Queensland Rugby League has done an outstanding job in ensuring the PNG Hunters can again take part in the Queensland Cup this coming season.

But it has been a costly and challenging exercise for rugby league both here and in Papua New Guinea. Other sports simply lack the financial resources to resume the exchange of teams.

The business links have unquestionably suffered as well. The flow of business and trade between Australia and our neighbours has slowed, and there are few indications it will be fully revived this year, or perhaps even next year.

The growing number of Covid cases in the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Fiji, and now Kiribati presents real challenges for these small nations. Tourism, business, education and sporting links have been further setback as a result.

What Australia needs to do now is to begin planning for a new and better regional engagement when pandemic conditions allow.

Locating the Office of the Pacific closer to the region may seem to be just symbolic – but it does send a message to our neighbours that we are taking our engagement with them more seriously.

And it unquestionably sends China a message that far from abandoning our region we are stepping up our real hands on engagement with it.

Our health response in our region to the pandemic has been effective – and generally well appreciated.

But now is the time to build on that.

Locating the key agency responsible for delivering on that relationship to the region – and formulating policy on the best way to do so – closer to the region just makes good strategic sense!