 Thank you for joining us this afternoon for the joint media address with the Prime Minister Huakala Meliku, Minister Wang and Minister Otwe Kamanu. This is Minister Wang's first official visit to Tonga and her third Pacific bilateral engagement since being sworn in as Australia's new foreign minister. It is an absolute honour to have you here, minister. There will be a short media question that's opportunity at the end, so I thank you for your patience. And without further ado, I would like to invite Prime Minister to deliver his speech. It is a great pleasure for me to welcome to the Kingdom of Tonga. For the very first time, Excellency Beniwong, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Australia. Minister, once more allow me to congratulate you on your recent appointment. I ask the Honourable Minister to convey his Majesty's Government and my warm congratulations to the Prime Minister of Australia, Honourable Anthony Arpanisi, on his election. I extend it through the Minister and the invitation to him to visit the Kingdom of Tonga in the near future. Australia and Tonga enjoy a deep and long-lasting friendship. Our respective diplomatic missions continue to maintain and enhance the ties between our two countries. The people of the Kingdom of Tonga and his Majesty's Government are deeply grateful for the helping hand the Australian Government extended to us immediately after the Honga Tonga, Honga Haapai volcanic eruption and the tsunami. Australians with response came at a critical chance. Thank you for the assistance, Minister. Whenever we face with the presence of COVID-19, again Australia extended a helping hand to us. Mahalo Australia. This morning the Foreign Minister was received in an audience with his Majesty, King Tuberta VI at the Royal Palace. We also had very fruitful and frank discussions. She also had a bilateral meeting with her counterpart, Honourable Fikita Moelua Utoika Manu. My cabinet and I have just been hosted to a cultural talanoa by the Minister. The Honourable Foreign Minister Wong decided to visit us two weeks into her appointment, this is a clear sign of the Australian Government's strong commitment to strengthening our bilateral relations and engagement with our region. We are particularly pleased with the Australian Government's recognition that climate change is an extensional threat, including to the security of our islands. We are pleased to learn of Australia's effort to reduce carbon emissions and increase the share of renewable energy. We islanders over generation know how it is making us strong. It is only through shared collective efforts as bilateral partners and members of our cherished Blue Pacific region that we can tackle the climate crisis and many other pressing challenges of our times. This includes COVID-19 and economic and social challenges ahead. Australian aid has always played a significant role in the Kingdom of Tonga's development. Today the Foreign Minister reiterated the Australian Government's commitment towards its bilateral assistance to the Kingdom of Tonga. We commend the size and the outreach of the program and look forward to our continued joint efforts to achieve our development priorities including education, health, defense, trade, police and democratic governance. The Minister and I had the opportunity to look at a range of renewed and strengthened areas for our partnership. This includes the increased OGA to the Pacific, the expanded opportunities for Tongan workers in Australia and improving trade through supporting our private sector to export their products to Australia. I thank Minister Wong for the generous assistance of Australia to the implementation of his Majesty's Government Recovery Plan efforts from the Tonga-Tonga-Hungahapai volcanic eruptions. Such assistance does underline Australia's commitment to the long-term recovery efforts of his Majesty's Government to build back better and to build a better future. Yes, there are marked differences between our two countries. More importantly though, there are common strengths that bind us. They include respect for democracy, the rule of law and the rights and freedoms of others. This remains the important tenets of our relations. His Majesty's Government looks forward to continuing cooperation with the Australian Government and pursuing new opportunities. We look forward to further strengthening our friendly and cooperative relations in the years to come for the benefit of our people. I would now like to invite Minister Wong to deliver her address. Thank you very much, Prime Minister. I appreciate very much your kind words. It is a real honour to be received by the King and then the Prime Minister, my counterpart, the Foreign Minister and members of the Cabinet in this visit. And the Prime Minister is right. This is an early visit and the reason is we wanted to be very clear about the importance of our relationship with the Kingdom of Tonga, its people, and more broadly our relationship with the Pacific. Before I go to some of the issues discussed and the broader bilateral relationship, can I say in person how saddened we were and shocked we were by the volcano and tsunami that your people have endured? We have quite a number of Tongan Australians, the Tongan diaspora, who were very worried about family and friends. We had a lot of focus from Australia about what was occurring. Thank you for your kind words about Australian assistance. Can I just say we are grateful or glad that the assistance was of benefit to you. And we hope we can continue to work together on the reconstruction. More broadly, in terms of the new Australian government, we were elected less than two weeks ago and we were elected with a very clear position that we would put in more energy and more resources, bring new energy and more resources to our relationship with the Pacific. We also were elected with a very clear position on climate change and I speak as someone who was once the climate minister for Australia many years ago, that the Australian people have voted for a government and a parliament that is supportive of more ambitious action on climate change and that is what we will do at home and in the world. But I do want to say to you that the experience of your country and the experience of Pacific Island nations, the real present national security, economic and existential risk and threat, which is the climate change that you are experiencing, gives you a powerful voice in the world and in the region on this issue and we have heard that and we will work with you. We also have announced a number of other policies which the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister and other ministers and I discussed and I'm happy to deal with them in questions but in terms of our new energy and more resources into the Pacific we are keen to build on what is already a deep and strong relationship with changes and improvements to the Pacific Labor schemes which I know are of relevance to Tonga as well as climate resilience that is infrastructure recognising the risk of climate change that we are dealing with. I want to say I have learnt a lot in this time I have been here. I am trying to work out how I get a tala noa in the Australian parliament, maybe not so possible. I also was very privileged and I thank them publicly to be an audience for three haka. That was a really wonderful warm colourful Tongan welcome and I thank your people and your government for the welcome we have received. We have a deep friendship it will continue. Thank you very much. Thank you minister. I would now like to invite questions from the media. Thank you for the opportunity and welcome to Tonga. Congratulations on your recent appointment Minister Wong. I am Vyfa Ndobola from the Tonga Broadcasting Commission. Besides the issue of climate change and other policies discussed with the Prime Minister, my question is most of the people in the Pacific and Tonga is included are seeking opportunities to work and live in Australia but filing and completing paperwork for residential visas is quite expensive. Many of our people are overstayers in Australia. How would Australia help our people and enable them to file their residential visas or permits while in Australia? Yes that issue has been raised with me and we are happy to look at are there ways in which we can assist people with the existing processes. But I did want to emphasise a couple of changes. A couple of changes to our labour schemes and migration arrangements which maybe of interest to your readers or listeners, sorry, viewers, everything listeners. The first is we want to put in place a Pacific engagement visa which would be an annual intake for permanent residents from the region. So they could permanently migrate with rights to go backwards and forwards obviously. It's modelled on a New Zealand, similar New Zealand programme and it is about building the people to people links we share with the Pacific. Now that is for the whole Pacific. I said to the Prime Minister and his ministers that we would work with the Government of the Kingdom of Tonga and other countries, other governments around how those engagements are, how those details can be designed to best serve the interests of both parties. We've also said on the Pacific labour schemes for the longer visa that we would allow, we will make changes to allow families to accompany. Which obviously is something that's been raised with us by many stakeholders. So we will work through that obviously. That was an election policy, it's a government commitment and we'll work through the details of that. Welcome to Tonga Minister. Thank you. I'm waiting for, are you going to give him a question? I just want to follow up on your statement. I take it you are a newly elected Minister but just at this stage what are some changes that the Australian Government is looking at addressing or assisting the Pacific region in two or four front issues such as climate change and regional security? Thank you, yes you're right we were elected less than two weeks ago but we did go to the election with quite a detailed policy in relation to the Pacific. Additional development assistance over and above what had been budgeted for. Additional labour scheme, an additional visa class and more I suppose you'd call generous labour scheme places. We also went to the election with a commitment to use some of our existing infrastructure funding for climate resilient infrastructure recognising that the reality of climate change, the reality of extreme weather events and I think this is something Tonga understands. The prevalence of those will increase and so one of the things we can do is work with you on more climate resilient infrastructure. In terms of the security of the region we're very blessed to have a partnership with your government on these issues. As a member of the Pacific family I think what we would say and I think it's the same position that your government has articulated. We want regional security to be dealt with, to be the responsibility of the Pacific family of which we are apart and we will continue to engage with our friends, our partners in the region, we will respect and we will encourage others to respect the regional architecture. There was a reason why my first speech and my first visit, I'm sorry it wasn't to Tonga Prime Minister, but was to Fiji to the Pacific Island Forum and I did that deliberately to make a clear statement about the centrality of that forum and the centrality of Pacific architecture to dealing with a world that is more challenging and what I'd say is my side of politics in Australia, we believe we are stronger together and we will bring that to our foreign policy as well. Thank you. Just a question and thank you for making time to meet us, Honorable Minister. When does immigration to Australia for Pacific Islanders become easier? For instance, it's far more easier to apply for a visa to the USA and get multiple for 10 years than Australia, no matter how many times we've been, we have to go through the process. Marlo? I think your colleague here asked me a question where I touched upon those issues, but just to say again, one of our policy commitments is to a Pacific engagement visa, 3,000 permanent residency places per year from the region because we're conscious of the deep personal and familial ties between people, not just the Tongan diaspora but the Pacific diaspora more broadly and the region and we see that as one of the ways, not the only but one of the ways in which we can facilitate that and build on that. I would also say I think the labour schemes, the longer term labour scheme, people bringing their families to Australia, that doesn't deal with all of the issues you're raising but it does deal with some of them because it does mean that people's families won't have to keep coming backwards and forwards through the pathways you're describing. Just a question Honourable Minister Wong, there are some major areas of concern affecting trade development for Tonga such as shipping, energy cost and decreasing of local labour force due to the seasonal work scheme which a lot of our workforce have and still seasonally work in Australia. What will Australia do differently in the short term to assist? The first thing we'll do is listen because I think each Pacific country, Pacific Island nation will have a set of issues it wants us, wants consideration of in the context of the design of those labour schemes and the Prime Minister has raised with us, if he doesn't mind me saying this, you've got a number of economic and social objectives, you have the economic and social objective of reconstruction and development but at the same time there's an immediate economic benefit to remittances for your domestic economy and designing the scheme in a way that reflects the balance, I think was the phrase the Prime Minister used, you've got to balance those objectives, we're very happy to engage with your government on what that looks like just as we will engage with Samoa and Fiji on their perspective about the best way to design those programs. I've shared with the Minister the challenges that we face like what you raise some of the social issues due to the separation of families and so forth and the commitment, the new commitment from the new government especially about the new visa, hopefully that will address or mitigate some of that issue so that families doesn't have to be separated for six or nine months, they can be together in Australia and return a number of times. At the same time I believe it's not what Australia should be changing but what we both talk in Australia should work together and find what's acceptable for them and us as you raise too, we're having some issues with reconstruction because we don't have the workers, most of them are somewhere in New Zealand or Australia but again I believe it's both government need to actually work together to actually see not only their parents in there but also looking at what is acceptable for both Tonga and Australia. Honourable Wong, you have come to Tonga at the right because we just heard the Prime Minister outline our budget for 2020 to 2023 and there are so many issues there that depends on the bilateral programs between the two government of Australia and Tonga but you mentioned something about the resource energy, is there a specific area that you're going to help Tonga in the resource energy? Well the point I'd make about development assistance in the areas of cooperation is that the approach we will and should take is one where we are guided by the priorities of the nation and we work through those priorities together to work out where it is we can assist or support or facilitate, whether it's renewable energy which is obviously there's an energy policy that the government has which we've provided some support for renewables previously and whether or not we can do more there so we will work through the various priorities that the government's articulated and see where we are able to work together and how support or assistance can be structured. I would say I think this goes to the nature of the relationship as much as to the outcomes. I think we are not a government or a country that wants to come in and tell you what you should do. We want, we see it in our interests as part and part of our responsibility as a member of the Pacific family to work with you and that's the approach we'll take. Can I ask one last question please? Minister Wang. This concludes the event for today. Thank you so much for attending and thank you for your questions. Thank you to the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Foreign Minister for your attendance today and for sharing those wonderful messages to the Kingdom of Tonga and to Australia. Mala apipa of Atom.