When Matthew Wale won a parliamentary vote to become Solomon Islands\u2019 prime minister last month, the questions came quickly. What does this mean for Beijing? Is this good news for Australia? When will the new PM tear up the 2022 security pact with China, sever ties with Beijing and declare Australia Solomon Islands\u2019 best friend in perpetuity?<\/p>\n
This pervasive framing treats a change of government in Honiara primarily as a development in Australia\u2019s competition with China \u2013 a mistake Australia should not repeat when Wale arrives for talks with Anthony Albanese on Wednesday<\/a>. The important question is this: how can Australia be the partner Solomon Islands needs?<\/p>\n Wale\u2019s choice of Canberra as his first official destination is being read as a signal \u2013 proof that Solomon Islands is tilting back toward Australia. But the destination choice is probably less revealing than it appears. Wale\u2019s predecessor, Jeremiah Manele, who was a central figure in negotiating the 2022 security pact and was among Beijing\u2019s most reliable allies in Pacific politics, also made Australia his first stop as prime minister, visiting Canberra in June 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s true that Wale has spent years as a thorn in the side of his predecessors\u2019 China policy. He criticised<\/a> the 2022 security pact as \u201ccounterproductive to the security interests of Solomon Islands and the region\u201d and called for transparency on Chinese police deployments.<\/p>\n But that scepticism has softened considerably. He led a delegation to Beijing last year, his party affirmed the one-China principle, and he has said he will only \u201clook at\u201d<\/a> the pact rather than dismantle it. His appointment of former prime minister Rick Hou as foreign minister over the more openly China-critical Peter Kenilorea points in the same direction: Wale intends to manage the relationship with Beijing, not rupture it.<\/p>\n Australia has been called out by Wale himself for viewing Solomon Islands primarily through a geopolitical lens. When Australia donated rifles to the Royal Solomon Islands police force in 2022 \u2013 widely understood as a counter to China\u2019s own police engagement \u2013 Wale was direct<\/a>: \u201cIt is clear Australia is anxious that if they do not supply guns the China will. Geopolitical interests have surpassed national interest in this country and it is a sad state of affairs.\u201d He had previously warned that Australia risked behaving like an \u201cATM machine\u201d<\/a> \u2013 a partner that expected influence to flow automatically from transactions, rather than one that has invested in genuine trust.<\/p>\n The concern is not that Australia has been too present in Solomon Islands, it is that too much of that presence has been shaped by what Australia wants to keep China out of, rather than what Solomon Islands actually needs. Vanuatu\u2019s PM, Jotham Napat, has made the same point<\/a>, stalling Australia\u2019s long-delayed Nakamal agreement over language Vanuatu feared would undermine its sovereignty.<\/p>\n Australia has demonstrated it is capable of more effective partnership. Australian-supported health programs<\/a> helped drive malaria in Solomon Islands down dramatically in the 2000s and early 2010s \u2013 by focusing on what Solomon Islanders needed rather than what signal was being sent to Beijing. That kind of investment builds the durable trust that security agreements alone cannot buy.<\/p>\n The model Australia should be reaching for is its relationship with Papua New Guinea. The Pukpuk treaty<\/a>, signed in 2025, is the most significant security commitment Australia has made in decades. What made it achievable was not the particulars of the security arrangement \u2013 it was the breadth of the relationship established underneath it, built on partnerships across health, education, infrastructure and sport. When the PNG PM, James Marape, signed the treaty, he described it<\/a> as a product of \u201cgeography, history, and the enduring reality of our shared neighbourhood\u201d \u2013 not geopolitics. That framing reflected years of investment in partnership that PNG felt it owned.<\/p>\n Wednesday\u2019s meeting is an opportunity to start building something similar with Solomon Islands. Wale governs on a slim majority, managing a fractious coalition while confronting pressures that have nothing to do with Beijing \u2013 a young underemployed<\/a> population, a buckling health system, a logging industry in terminal decline<\/a> and a public debt that has nearly tripled<\/a> since before the Covid-19 pandemic. Wale has long advocated for free education<\/a> and improved healthcare as the foundations of a more stable Solomon Islands.<\/p>\n An Australia that shows up ready to engage with that agenda \u2013 on education, health, economic diversification and climate resilience \u2013 rather than to leverage security cooperation against Chinese influence, is one that will earn the kind of relationship it is looking for.<\/p>\n