Australia and Solomon Islands reached an in-principle agreement on a new bilateral treaty on 7 September 2026, with Canberra pledging more than $980 million in additional funding over coming years in exchange for deeper security and development cooperation. Officials said the two governments were working to finalise the text within weeks, with a signing possible around the UN General Assembly in New York or the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November.
The package includes $280 million over the next two years and a further $700 million after that, alongside specific funding lines such as SI$142 million for a free education policy and improvements to visa arrangements, plus direct payments of several million Solomon Islands dollars to every parliamentary constituency for local development priorities through 2028. Australia’s High Commissioner in Honiara, Jeffrey Roach, described the progress as “terrific” and said both sides hoped to “lock this in ahead of the November budget session.”
A reversal four years in the making
The treaty caps a deliberate Australian effort to rebuild influence in Solomon Islands after the country signed a security pact with China in 2022 that alarmed Canberra and Washington. Prime Minister Matthew Wale, who took office in May 2026, has shown less enthusiasm than his predecessor for the relationship with Beijing, making his first overseas visit to Canberra before Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reciprocated with his own visit to Honiara in July, when the two sides announced they would begin treaty negotiations.
Why it matters
The agreement covers education, health, infrastructure, energy and resource management as well as security, making it one of the broadest bilateral arrangements Australia has offered any Pacific nation. For Solomon Islands, the money and access on offer give a new government reasons to keep its distance from the 2022 China pact without formally renouncing it. For Australia, locking in a treaty with a country it lost ground in only a few years ago is being read across the region as a test of whether Canberra’s chequebook diplomacy can outlast the electoral cycle that produced it, a question other Pacific governments weighing similar offers from Beijing and Canberra will be watching closely.
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