Australia and Papua New Guinea set to join military forces including pathway to citizenship

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Australia and Papua New Guinea are set to join military forces as part of a landmark defence treaty. The deal will allow the defence forces from each country to recruit each other's citizens, providing a pathway for Australian citizenship. It’s set to transform the relationship between the two nations while sending a message of unity to the wider Pacific. It comes as the nation marks 50 years of independence.

Transcript

00:00It really is as significant a defence agreement as we've signed obviously with Papua New Guinea,

00:10but if you look at the suite of defence agreements that we have with countries around the world,

00:15it really stands up there as being one of the most significant that we have ever signed.

00:19So it'll be historic in its terms and we are very much looking forward to that moment.

00:25There's more work to be done in terms of walking down that path,

00:29but we certainly are interested in how we can recruit Papua New Guineans directly into the ADF.

00:36This is going to take time to bring to fruition, so it's way too early to talk about numbers yet.

00:42But this is something that we see as a real potential.

00:46I mean obviously PNG is a big country.

00:49It's more than twice the size of New Zealand and there is an opportunity I think here

00:55and it's something that PNG has been interested in.

00:58So we will continue that conversation and we have a sense of optimism about the specific arrangement

01:04in terms of what it will mean for Papua New Guineans serving in the ADF.

01:09What is the ADF?

01:10Let's get started.

01:11Let's get started.

01:12That's the idea of.

01:13Let's get started.

01:14Let's get started.

01:15I'm out of here.

01:16I'm going to talk about the figure.

01:17Let's get started.

01:18I'm not getting started.

01:19I really want to try to plop the 44th of the year.

01:20I'm going to look forward to the general section up,

01:23here but then the idea of.

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