Canberra hosted Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese and Jotham Napat on Monday as Australia and Vanuatu signed the Nakamal Agreement, sealing a new bilateral cooperation deal.
The pact was substantially revised from a preliminary accord signed in 2025 after an impasse over China ties blocked progress on earlier arrangements.
A 2022 security agreement between the two countries was never ratified, leaving both sides to replace it with the new framework.
The signing resets a relationship that had already produced a 2025 draft initialed by ministers atop a volcano in Vanuatu, underscoring how long the negotiations had dragged on.