Organised by New Zealand Institute of International Affairs Auckland Branch, Massey University Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies and the Pacific Cooperation Foundation.

The event is free to attend. Pre-registration is required.

For many decades, New Zealand has strived to build relations with its neighbours in the Pacific Ocean. This effort seems all the more important now, given the geostrategic tensions sweeping the region, the pressing challenges of climate change and other environmental problems, social and economic inequalities, and the fact that Pasifika peoples make up a large and important portion of New Zealand’s population.

But how much do New Zealanders understand the Pacific? And what do Moana Oceania peoples and governments make of the role New Zealand is playing? What are the international threats and opportunities faced by the region? Join our expert speakers as they address these important questions and more.

The event presents new research by the Pacific Cooperation Foundation of New Zealanders’ perceptions of the Pacific, a unique deep-dive into relationships between Aotearoa New Zealand and Pacific Peoples.

The event is chaired by Dr Anna Powles, Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Defence and Security Studies.

About David Vaeafe, Executive Director, Pacific Cooperation Foundation

David has worked for PCF on several occasions, first as a founding program manager to more recently as a board member, project manager leading its recent restructure, and now executive director. A journalist and editor by profession, he has worked for community, business and travel publications, as well as national newspapers and magazines in New Zealand and the Pacific. He has spent two decades in the tourism sector in leadership roles building industry capability and international markets for Samoa and American Samoa, as well as the Pacific region. His governance roles include board appointments in New Zealand, the United States and across the Pacific, including, more recently, Chair of the South Pacific Tourism Organization, Chair of the South Pacific Cruise Alliance and serving as a cabinet member in the American Samoa Government.

About Associate Professor, Sandra Tarte

Associate Professor Sandra Tarte is Head of School and Director of Politics and International Affairs at The University of the South Pacific, Fiji.

Sandra specialises in the international politics of the Pacific islands region. Her publications include Japan’s Aid Diplomacy and the Pacific Islands (1998) and the New Pacific Diplomacy (2015), co-edited with Greg Fry.

She has consulted for the South Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency, the South Pacific Regional Environment Program, the International Development Centre, Tokyo, and Greenpeace Pacific. Sandra grew up in Fiji and studied at the University of Melbourne, University of Tokyo and Australian National University.

About Dr Anna Powles

Dr Anna Powles specialises in geopolitics and security in the Pacific Islands region. She is a Senior Lecturer with the Centre of Defence and Security Studies at Massey University, New Zealand, an Associate Scholar with the MacMillan Brown Center for Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury, and in 2019 held a Senior Visiting Fellowship with the East-West Center, Honolulu. Her research is on New Zealand foreign and security policy in the Pacific and the geopolitical dynamics of the Pacific region. She is the chief investigator on a project on foreign interference in the Pacific and the New Zealand investigator on an Australian Research Council project on the Australia-New Zealand alliance in the Pacific (with Joanne Wallis). She is the author and editor of United Nations Peacekeeping Challenge (2015) and two forthcoming books on New Zealand policy and influence in the Pacific, and private security sector governance in the Pacific. Prior to joining Massey University, Anna spent over two decades working on security issues in Timor-Leste, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Fiji.