List of delivered vessels
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- RFNS Savenaca, delivered to Fiji on 6 March 2020 [10]
- RMIS Lomor 3, delivered to the Marshall Islands [11]
- RKS Teanoai II, delivered to Kiribati 18 June 2021 [12]
The Pacific Maritime Security Program is a program initiated by Australia to aid the neighbouring Pacific Island nations, such as Timor-Leste, Fiji, Palau, Kiribati and Tonga. The program includes the maintenance of port facilities, training, and the transfer of 21 Guardian-class patrol boats. [1] [2] The program was initiated under the 2018 Boe Declaration on Regional Security. [3] [4]
According to the website of the Australian defence ministry, the program is aimed towards increasing regional maritime security in the Pacific, and is a continuation of the older Pacific Patrol Boat Program. The allocated spending is $2 billion AUD over 30 years, and will include shipbuilding, aerial surveillance of the region, and improvements to coordinations between the various nations. Australia has pledged 21 Guardian-class patrol boats to 12 Pacific nations and these are planned to be delivered between 2018 and 2023. As of late 2022, 15 such vessels have been delivered. [5] [6]
According to a paper by the Royal Australian navy, the PMSP and its predecessor the Pacific Patrol Boat Program (PPBP) were created in part because of the large exclusive economic zones of various Pacific nations and their lack of ability to properly police them. This led to illegal and damaging maritime activity in the region, such as illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. However, the PPBP induced heavy economic pressure on the island nations, hence reducing their participation in the program. Critics such as Graeme Cheeseman characterised the program as a form of Australian economic coercion. [7]
The PMSP aims to remedy these issues by increasing support for infrastructure, housing, and civilian/contracted aerial surveillance capability. However, there are several shortcomings to the program.
Moreover, in June 2022, defects were discovered in the design of the boats, including flaws that would have allowed carbon monoxide buildup in parts of the ship. This caused some of the involved nations to pause the use of the patrol boats. [9]
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The Republic of Fiji Military Forces is the military force of the Pacific island nation of Fiji. With a total manpower of about 4,000 active soldiers and approximately 6,000 reservists, it is one of the smallest militaries in the world. The Ground Force is organised into six infantry and one engineer battalions.
No. 5 Squadron RNZAF is a squadron of the Royal New Zealand Air Force formed during November 1941 in Fiji. It remains on active duty and logged 2,300 hours flight time in 2007.
The Pacific class is a class of 22 patrol boats built by Australia and donated to twelve South Pacific countries. They were constructed between 1985 and 1997 and are operated by militaries, coast guards or police forces of twelve island nations. These boats are supported by the Pacific Patrol Boat Program and used primarily for maritime surveillance and fisheries protection.
Security in the South Pacific has proved to be one of the most enduring of Australia's security concerns. It was the subject of Australia's first substantial strategic policy initiative, when in 1888 Alfred Deakin took his concerns about French intrusion into Vanuatu to London. Since then, the South Pacific has played an important role in Australian security thinking. Notably during the Second World War in the Pacific and through Australia's responsibilities as a colonial power in Papua New Guinea until that country's independence in 1975. Australia was regarded as having been quite detached from the Pacific Islands during the post colonial period. However this period, until the beginning of the 21st century, was marked by numerous small scale Australian Defence Force (ADF) operations in the region. The notable cases were in Vanuatu in 1980 and 1988 as well Fiji in 1987. The ADF also played an important role in peacekeeping missions in Bougainville during this period.
Australia–Federated States of Micronesia relations are the bilateral relations between Australia and Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). Australia was the first country to start diplomatic relations with FSM in 1987 and is one of the four countries that have resident ambassadors to Micronesia. The two countries are members of the Pacific Islands Forum.
The Guardian-class patrol boats are a class of small patrol vessels designed and built in Australia and provided to small South Pacific Ocean countries as part of the Australian Government’s Pacific Maritime Security Program.
HMPNGS Seeadler (P03) is one of four Pacific Forum patrol vessels operated by the Papua New-Guinea Defence Force.
The Pacific Islands Forum's Forum Fisheries Agency maintains a Regional Fisheries Surveillance Centre in Honiara, Solomon Islands. In 1982, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea gave all maritime nations, including the smaller Pacific Ocean nations, 200-nautical miles Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ). Monitoring their EEZs is a challenge for some of the smaller nations, where their maritime zones dwarf their landmass, making cooperation essential.
RFNS Kula (201) is a Pacific Forum patrol boat operated by Fiji. She was designed and built by Australia. Australia agreed to provide twenty-two patrol boats to twelve of its neighbours and fellow members of the Pacific Forum, after the recently concluded United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea extended maritime nations' exclusive economic zone to 200 kilometres (110 nmi). Australia provided two other patrol vessels to Fiji, Kikau and Kiro. Australia also provided training and infrastructure.
HMPNGS Ted Diro (P401) is the first Guardian-class patrol boat to be completed. Australia designed and provided four Pacific Forum-class patrol vessels to Papua New Guinea in 1987 and 1988, and in 2015 confirmed she would be replacing those vessels with four larger, and more capable, Guardian-class vessels.
RMIS Lomor (03) is a Pacific Forum-class patrol boat operated by the Republic of Marshall Islands Sea Patrol. Lomor is one of twenty-two small patrol vessels Australia designed and built for smaller fellow members of the Pacific Forum, after the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea extended control of a 200-kilometre (108 nmi) exclusive economic zone for all maritime nations.
HMPNGS Rabaul (01) was the first Pacific Forum patrol vessel to be commissioned, in May 1987. She is not the first vessel of the class to go out of service, because her sister ship from Fiji RFNS Kiro was wrecked in 2016. She arrived in Port Moresby, for disposal, on October 24, 2018. The vessel was named HMPNGS Tarangau.
PSS Remeliik II is a Guardian-glass patrol boat in the service of Palau's Division of Maritime Law Enforcement, built, and provided by Australia to replace the Pacific Forum patrol boat PSS Remeliik. In the late 1980s and early 1990s Australia helped its smaller neighbours, in the Pacific Forum by building small patrol boats so they could protect their own sovereignty. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), had extended an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) 200 kilometres (120 mi) off the shores of all maritime nations, and for small Island nations in the Pacific protecting their EEZ would be an overwhelming problem.
RSIPV Gizo (05) is a Guardian-class patrol boat in service with the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force Maritime Department. She was the fifth boat of her class to be completed. Australian officials officially handed her over to representatives of the Solomon Islands on 8 November 2019, at the Austal shipyard in Henderson, Western Australia.
RKS Teanoai (301) is a Pacific Forum-class patrol boat operated by the Republic of Kiribati Police. Teanoai is one of twenty-two small patrol vessels Australia designed and built for smaller fellow members of the Pacific Forum, after the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea extended control of a 200-kilometre (108 nmi) exclusive economic zone for all maritime nations.
RFNS Savenaca (401) is a Guardian-class patrol boat, being built in Australia for Fiji's Navy. She will replace RFNS Kula, a Pacific Forum patrol vessel provided by Australia in 1994. She will be the seventh vessel of the class to be completed, and the second of two to be delivered to Fiji. She will be commissioned in March or April of 2020.
The Fijian Navy was created when Fiji ratified the recently created United Nations Convention on Laws of the Sea. The Convention established that maritime nation had an Exclusive Economic Zone of 200 kilometres, which extended Fiji's waters twentyfold, from 50,000 square miles (130,000 km2) to over 1,000,000 square miles (2,600,000 km2).
RKS Teanoai II (301) is a Guardian-class patrol boat in service with the Kiribati Maritime Police. She was given to the Republic of Kiribati by Australia as part of the Pacific Maritime Security Program, in which Australia donates patrol boats to neighbouring Pacific Island nations in order to improve regional maritime security. She was the eighth boat of her class when launched in April 2020, but became the eleventh to be delivered due to delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. She was officially handed over to the Kiribati police crew at the Austal shipyard in Henderson, Western Australia on 18 June 2021, replacing the 27 year old Pacific-class patrol boat also named Teanoai as the small island nation's sole maritime security craft.
Diplomatic relations between Australia and Tuvalu were established in 1978, with the independence of Tuvalu, and both countries are members of the Commonwealth of Nations which share a head of state. Australia has had a High Commission in Funafuti since 2018. Tuvalu is not currently represented in Australia at the high commissioner or consular level.
RVS Takuare is a Guardian class patrol boat in service with the Vanuatu Police Maritime Wing. She was given to Vanuatu by Australia as part of the Australian government's Pacific Maritime Security Program on 30 July 2021. Her predecessor, the RVS Tukoro, was the second vessel of the first iteration of the Pacific Patrol Boat Program, and served in the same role from 1987 to 2021. The Takuare is currently the only naval or law enforcement vessel operated by the Pacific Island nation.