Australia’s attention towards the Pacific has consistently waxed and waned over time, fluctuating between stagnation, neglect and engagement. In 2003, the journalist Graeme Dobell argued (Opens in new window) this cycle of forgetfulness and discovery was due to a mix of policy taboos, political failure and popular amnesia, commenting it was “extraordinary how little impact our long colonial experience has had on Australian collective memory”. He noted Australia’s amnesia was particularly striking outside of Canberra and especially concerning given that, for many Pacific nations, the defining experience of the 20th century was not war but colonialism.
Dobell’s comments were taken up by yet another inquiry (Opens in new window), which reached a similar conclusion to its predecessors: Australia’s media and education failed to secure public interest in the Pacific and continued ignorance would deplete the nation’s influence in the region. The Pacific remained peripheral to an otherwise well-informed and globally aware public but, as Dorney reminded the committee, “if you went to school these days, you would never learn about it”.
These reports made similar recommendations, with a recurring theme being to develop people-to-people connections – a consistent focus of subsequent and current government policy. However, the 1996 and 2003 reviews also recommended greater inclusion of PNG and the Pacific in the school curriculum. Currently, opportunities to teach about the region fall to the discretion (Opens in new window) of individual teachers and the national curriculum only touches on the Pacific in passing. While Kokoda features, it offers an entry into Australia’s military history, rather than an avenue (Opens in new window) to explore how Papua and New Guinea were territories under Australian rule and administration. There are some signs of progress – a Pacific Studies course for year 11 and 12 students set to begin in the ACT next year – but more can be done.
Australia needs a Pacific literacy strategy to help address the stubborn, enduring amnesia surrounding its Pacific history. This idea, too, is not new. In its submission to a 2022 inquiry (Opens in new window), the Whitlam Institute and Peacifica (Opens in new window) suggested Australia promote knowledge about the Pacific and its languages in schools, universities and the media, and develop a “Pacific Capable” strategy. Yet while the committee’s final report identified the usefulness of Pacific literacy and historical awareness for Australian diplomacy, no formal recommendations were made.
Australia’s cycle of forgetting and rediscovering the Pacific cannot be addressed through diplomacy or individual people-to-people connections alone. It requires a long-term investment in knowledge and capabilities that empower ordinary Australians to understand and engage with the region beyond moments of crisis or strategic competition. A recent parliamentary inquiry into Australia’s “Asia capability” provides a workable blueprint, proposing (Opens in new window) a ten-year national strategy to rebuild the language skills, cultural literacy and networks needed to engage with Asia. The government should also revisit the 2009 report (Opens in new window) by the Association for the Advancement of Pacific Studies in Australia, which called for a national strategy to revitalise Pacific studies and teaching. Many of its recommendations remain relevant today yet have been long neglected and forgotten.
A national Pacific literacy strategy should seek to strengthen the teaching of Pacific history, languages, literature, culture and arts in primary and secondary schools. Such an approach would equip the private and development sectors to operate and engage effectively overseas and encourage more sustained engagement with Pacific diasporas and migrant communities within Australia. It should aim, fundamentally, to ensure that Pacific literacy not be a solely technocratic capability but instead a form of civic knowledge, recognising the region as fundamental to Australia’s past and present.