Results for Australian aid to Tonga

Tonga hosted the Australia-Tonga High Level Consultations on 11 February, bringing senior officials from both Governments together to discuss past, ongoing and future cooperation. This year’s talks in Nuku'alofa involved over a dozen ministries across both countries.

The Ngalu Fānifo Regional Project is a Pacific-led project that aims to improve mental health and wellbeing in Tonga and Vanuatu, by strengthening the capacity of health and community providers to provide mental health care. The Pasifika Medical Association (PMA) will led the three-year programme, in partnership with Tonga and Vanuatu Ministries of Health, and funded by the Australian Government.

On Australia Day, we celebrate our nation, its achievements and most of all its people. Today is an opportunity to reflect, respect and connect with all Australians who contribute to our great nation. We acknowledge Australia’s First Nations peoples, custodians of the oldest continuing culture on earth spanning more than 65,000 years. Australia is a successful, multicultural society bringing together people from across the globe with shared values of fairness, tolerance, and diversity. The more than 43,000 people in Australia who identify as having Tongan heritage make invaluable contributions to the fabric of our nation (not only on the sporting field!). Similarly, there is a community of Australians who live and work here in the Kingdom of Tonga. Thank you for the contribution you make to the ties that bind us as people and as nations. - Statement from Australia’s High Commissioner to Tonga, HE Rachael Moore.

New postal equipment was donated by the Australian Government and the people of Australia through Australia Post, to Tonga Post on 31 August.

Team Up, a sports development program, will continue to fund activities that uses sports as a method to develop and instil life skills in the people of Tonga.

Construction of nine ramps by communities in Foa, Ha‘apai, will improve access to community centres and schools for disabled people. The project was supported by the Australian Direct Aid Program with H.E. Rachel Moore marking the official completion at the Foa Health Centre on 9 September, 2022.

After the challenges we have experienced to connectivity as a result of COVID-19, I am delighted the physical links between Australia and Tonga are building back. We are looking forward to greater flight connectivity between Tonga and Australia beginning this June, and I thank the Government of Tonga for taking the initiative to increase the frequency of passenger flights between our countries. While our physical links were temporarily less frequent, the link of friendship has always been strong. As members of the Pacific family, Australia and Tonga share a close relationship, built over more than fifty years of diplomatic relations. - Rachael Moore, Australian High Commissioner to Tonga

All Tongans are appreciative of an outpouring of support received from the Australian community, including Tongan diaspora, and government, in response to the double catastrophe of the Hunga Tonga – Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption and tsunamis on Jan. 15, says HRH Princess Angelika Lātūfuipeka Tuku'aho in Canberra.

Ms Rachael Moore has been announced as Australia’s next High Commissioner to Tonga.