When Tahlea Aualiitia talks about hosting the ABC's new Pacific-focused news and current affairs TV program, The Pacific, her voice breaks and she becomes emotional. Personally, it's a career milestone, anchoring her first TV show after a decade working mostly in radio, producing ABC local radio programs and presenting Pacific Mornings on ABC Radio Australia. But it's also much more than that.
Aualiitia grew up in Tasmania and is of Samoan (and Italian) heritage. She has strong connections to the country and the Pacific Islander community in Australia. What moves her so profoundly about The Pacific is that the 30-minute, weekly program is being broadcast across the Pacific on ABC Australia, the ABC's international TV channel, as well as in Australia (on the ABC News Channel and iview), and is produced by a team with a deep understanding of the region and features stories filed by local journalists based in Pacific nations.
