Australia is committed to being a transparent, reliable, trustworthy financier.
This was highlighted by Australia’s High Commissioner to Fiji Peter Roberts speaking at the 2026 Fiji Institute of Chartered Accountants (FICA) Annual Congress in Nadi yesterday.
Mr Roberts told participants he wanted to speak about transparency and integrity because there was a lot of investment in the region.
“There’s an amazing investment pipeline into Fiji at the moment, and into other countries as well,” he said.
“Although I think Fiji is probably a shining light in this regard, and Australia is committed to being a transparent, reliable, trustworthy financier. I think we need to be honest. We have seen some projects in the Pacific that have not been great, particularly in some other countries.
“And we’ve seen projects that have left countries riddled with unsustainable debt. We’ve seen projects that aren’t fit for purpose.”
Mr Roberts said there were projects not delivering the infrastructure that was needed.
“We’ve seen projects that aren’t the right quality.
“And so Australia wants to be very clear that we as a grant supporter of projects, we as a financing supporter of projects, particularly through our financing body, the Australia Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific, are committed to being a responsible supporter, a responsible lender focused on enabling high quality climate resilient infrastructure for the Pacific, and we’ll make sure that our lending is transparent.”
Mr Roberts emphasised that Australia would ensure their lending was sustainable.
“We will make sure that our projects are delivering differences, delivering for the countries and the people that we work with.
“We don’t want to have any projects that lead to unsustainable debt burdens on our neighboring partners or friends.
“And I also want to say in our approach to infrastructure, we’re very committed to economic growth that uses local skills, local employees, the greatest amount of local content possible, and local materials. “Because this is about partnership and trust and respect. This is the way that projects should be done in the Pacific.”
