Foreign Minister Penny Wong has announced a new eight-year partnership with Samoa to help address human development in the Pacific island nation, as well as a new maritime patrol boat for the country.
The human development and social inclusion partnership will tackle the country's most "critical" challenges, Senator Wong said from Samoa's capital Apia.
She also revealed Australia will next year donate a Guardian-class patrol boat to Samoa, after the country's Nafanua II ran aground on a reef in August 2021.
"We do understand how important these maritime assets are to island nations," Senator Wong told reporters at the joint press conference.
Samoa launched a commission of inquiry after the two-year-old vessel ran aground, and has since left a big hole in the country's maritime surveillance capabilities.
Samoa's Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata'afa welcomed the foreign minister's announcement and said the new vessel would be critical to protecting the Pacific nation's maritime security.
"I think it's very generous on the part of the Australian government and people that they are gifting us yet another patrol boat despite the unfortunate circumstances of our last boat," Ms Fiame said.
On climate change, Senator Wong said Australia was committed to reducing emissions and the new government was "elected with a mandate to do so".
Senator Wong's visit to Apia coincided with the 60th anniversary of Samoa's independence, and was her second visit to the Pacific as Foreign Minister after being sworn into office nine days ago.
She travelled to Fiji last week to spruik the new government's renewed focus on climate change and support for continued aid for the region before Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was set to arrive in the country.
After visiting Samoa, Senator Wong will head to Tonga to meet with Prime Minister Hu'akavameiliku and Foreign Minister Fekitamoeloa 'Utoikamanu, where it's expected they'll discuss further aid for the archipelago that was struck by a volcanic eruption and tsunami.
Fiame says region needs to consider China's proposals together
Ms Fiame rebuffed claims Samoa had signed a Pacific-wide agreement with China and stressed that Pacific island nations needed to agree on any region-wide proposals before agreeing to them.
Her comments came as Mr Wang visited the region this week to spruik a region-wide deal with 10 Pacific nations, including Samoa, Fiji and Solomon Islands.
Pacific leaders walked away from the wideranging security, free trade, police cooperation and disaster resilience proposal after they couldn't reach a consensus decision.
Ms Fiame said her country's position was that Pacific nations cannot agree to an agreement if all involved nations hadn't had an opportunity to discuss it.
"To be called in to have the discussion and have the expectation that there would be a comprehensive decision or outcome was something that we could not agree to," Ms Fiame said of China's proposed agreement.
"I think that the region has come to that conclusion, that we need to meet as a region to consider any proposal that is put to us by our development partners that requires a regional agreement."
