Last week was a busy one for gender equality in the Pacific. Yet, what could have been a great opportunity to advance gender equality across the region instead fell on preoccupied ears in Canberra. This speaks to a broader failure of the government to translate its rhetoric to reality when it comes to its Pacific gender agenda.

From 22 to 26 July, the Marshall Islands simultaneously hosted the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women, the 8th Pacific Ministers for Women Meeting and, importantly, the third Pacific Islands Forum Women Leaders Meeting (PIFWLM). PIFWLM gives necessary teeth to the Pacific gender equality architecture. Drawing together senior political leaders, civil-society groups and youth representatives from across the Pacific Islands Forum, the meeting acts as a direct bridge to forum leaders on priority and emerging gender issues.

Unlike in 2023, Minister for Women Katy Gallagher did not make the trip to the Pacific. Instead, she attended the Pacific Ministers for Women Meeting virtually from Canberra and left Australia’s representation at PIFWLM to Australian Ambassador for Gender Equality Stephanie Copus Campbell.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, among Australia’s most successful female leaders, was gearing up to attend the Quad Foreign Ministers Meeting on 29 July. There, she announced a critical project in ‘responding to the Indo-Pacific’s most pressing challenges’—an $18 million ‘cable connectivity and resilience centre’ in the Pacific. On paper, the centre aims to boost Pacific connectivity and resilience; however, it also serves to deny China a stronger presence in critical infrastructure.

The ministerial absence at PIFWLM and the perceived priority on great-power competition fly in the face of Australia’s purported regional identity—the partner of choice in the Pacific, and a global leader in gender equality. Disappointingly, this is not an isolated incident, but is emblematic of a systemic gap between the government’s rhetoric on Pacific gender equality and the reality of its actions.

The most obvious example is Australian official development assistance (ODA) to the Pacific. The 2023–24 Budget allocated $1.433 billion in ODA to the region, 80 percent of it targeted to ‘perform effectively’ on gender equality. On paper, the sum vastly exceeds the contributions of other development partners. However, the breakdown paints a different picture. The proportion of ODA projects with a ‘principal’ objective of progressing gender equality was only 5 percent—a figure that has not increased since 2007. The other projects labelled gender equality as a ‘significant’ objective—the subjectivity of which may induce misinterpretation and tokenistic gender-equality objectives. By comparison, French targets mandate that 75 percent of projects pursue gender equality, and a minimum of 20 percent come from principal projects.

Similar criticism can be directed at the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme. Women make up only 20 percent of PALM participants, hindered by an over-representation of male-dominated industries, inflexible arrangements causing family separation, and the absence of appropriate accommodation and safety measures at employment sites. Furthermore, the ‘win–win’ of PALM often comes at the expense of local women, who are forced to shoulder a greater burden of household work that reduces their ability to engage in paid employment.

To bridge the reality gap, Australia ought to redefine and feminise its approach to Pacific development.

The first step is to engage with Pacific women to determine what development, security and gender equality look like for them. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s $170 million Pacific Women Lead program is a fantastic start on this front, promising to give Pacific women greater ownership of funding initiatives and objectives.

However, there is still a need to boost ‘principal’ investment targets to support transformative change rather than symptom management. As Gallagher said in the Pacific Ministers for Women Meeting, progress on gender equality is rarely the result of a quick win. Instead, investment should include culturally sensitive, targeted and long-term programs to drive meaningful female participation in decision-making, leadership and the economy.

Complementary to this, and where Australia should leverage its expertise, is gender mainstreaming and gender-responsive budgeting. This year’s forum meetings are the first that mainstream gender equality and social inclusion, as mandated by the Revitalised Pacific Leaders Gender Equality Declaration. We should be using the rich capacity within the Australian Public Service, including in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Office for Women and the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, to deliver on that declaration.

As geopolitical competition permeates the Pacific’s waters, perhaps the best way for Australia to remain a partner of choice is to not focus on cables but on women. As aptly put by Vainetutai Rose Toki-Brown, the Cook Islands minister of internal affairs and chair of PIFWLM 2023: ‘Let us see each other, hear each other, understand each other, and lean into each other. Let us make history together.’ Australia owes it to itself, and to the women of the Pacific, to heed those words.