The Pacific’s cocaine highway: will Australia’s $600m deal really help?

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a $600 million program to strengthen aerial and maritime surveillance across the Pacific , targeting the narco-submarines and small vessels used to move drugs through the region.

He made the announcement at the Pacific Islands Forum in Palau.

Read more: Leaders missing and China ‘furious’: the Pacific Islands forum off to a decidedly shaky start The Pacific is increasingly becoming a halfway point for transnational drug smuggling.

Its island nations are hard to police and law-enforcement agencies are thinly staffed.

This means it’s a haven for drug traffickers.

Albanese hopes the new initiative will combat the surge of drugs making their way into Australia: in May, Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Krissy Barrett said 17 tonnes of illicit drugs (mostly cocaine), had been seized in the Pacific since January.

In all of 2025, that figure was less than 5 tonnes .

The AFP states most of the illicit drugs being trafficked to and through the Pacific are destined for Australia.

What’s in the deal? The funding sits under the Waqa Moana Initiative (named after a large, sturdy canoe) – a Pacific-led maritime security initiative to counter illicit drug trafficking.

The Australian government said the deal would involve several initiatives, including: $49 million for the AFP to invest in new counter-transnational and organised crime programs across the region (in addition to the $140 million the AFP is contributing over the next four years to support regional security objectives, including Waqa Moana) $312 million for the Department of Defence over the next ten years to support efforts to counter transnational and organised crime in the region.

Minister for Pacific Island Affairs Pat Conroy said : Drug trafficking is having a devastating impact on Pacific communities.

This initiative responds to the calls of regional leaders to do more, and to step up regional coordination to address this scourge.

Beyond drug trafficking, the program also aims to address the erosion of social cohesion and ease the health burden that cocaine and methamphetamine are placing on island communities.

Why is the Pacific a problem for Australia and New Zealand? Two shifts over the past decade explain most of it.