recognition to Beijing in 2019<\/a>. China was the largest spender in Kiribati in 2021 (New Zealand was third) and the third-largest in 2022 (New Zealand was fifth).<\/p>\n![\"Prime]()
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon speaks to media after a photo with other leaders ahead of the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ retreat. Photo \/ Adam Pearse<\/p>\n
In addition to Kiribati, Luxon held another bilateral meeting with Palau President Surangel Whipps jnr. <\/p>\n
Palau will host next year\u2019s Pacific Islands Forum, while New Zealand will host in 2027 \u2013 a decision confirmed by the forum during yesterday\u2019s meetings, which were closed to media.<\/p>\n
Luxon roasts Albanese over shirt faux pas<\/p>\n
The collection of Pacific leaders rose early this morning to take a \u201cfamily photo\u201d in front of an idyllic seaside backdrop at the Heritage Park Hotel in Honiara.<\/p>\n
The leaders arrived one by one and engaged in casual chit-chat ahead of the photo, which had been originally scheduled for last night but was moved after prior events ran over time.<\/p>\n
Much of the discussions included sleep reviews. Luxon told Papua New Guinea\u2019s James Marape he had slept well. No such luck for Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, who confessed to Luxon he had slept poorly.<\/p>\n
The banter ratcheted up at the arrival of Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who Luxon immediately heckled for wearing the wrong shirt to last night\u2019s dinner function.<\/p>\n
![\"Leaders]()
Leaders from across the Pacific come together for a “family photo” ahead of the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ retreat. Photo \/ Adam Pearse<\/p>\n
The back-and-forth between Luxon and Albanese even continued as they sat posing for the photo.<\/p>\n
Luxon, later speaking within earshot of a few Australian journalists, spoke with mock condemnation about Albanese\u2019s \u201cpink\u201d shirt.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were there in our formal attire and I thought that was entirely inappropriate and I let him know.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to reiterate quite a lot to the Australians, what they need to be doing and the rules sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s retreat allowed the leaders to discuss regionally significant issues without the presence of officials.<\/p>\n
Part of that discussion will be about how the forum includes non-Pacific countries, following the decision this year by the Solomon Islands to restrict attendance to forum members amid a stoush over Taiwan\u2019s inclusion.<\/p>\n
Luxon would spend most of the day at the retreat on the island of New Georgia before flying out later tonight.<\/p>\n
Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In March, Newsroom reported the Ministry of Foreign Affairs review had found the funding should not be cut…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[68,17153,17150,2082,4756,13573,738,78,2514,3096,17151,11542,6722,17154,117,111,43,139,69,1118,10711,13572,6729,17152,520,10715,17155,223,3462,810,6728,4576,2963],"class_list":["post-14868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-air","tag-damaged","tag-fate","tag-for","tag-foreign","tag-forum","tag-funding","tag-in","tag-island","tag-islands","tag-kiribati","tag-lastminute","tag-minister","tag-nations","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-officials","tag-pacific","tag-peters","tag-rebuild","tag-relationship","tag-remains","tag-snub","tag-the","tag-unclear","tag-up","tag-winston","tag-work","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}