Senator becomes first to breast-feed on floor of Australia’s Parliament
Australian Greens party Sen. Larissa Waters breast-fed her baby, Alia Joy, during a session in the Senate Chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia.
Australia & Oceania
This archive covers progress stories from Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Island nations. Expect reporting on environmental protection, Indigenous-led initiatives, public health advances, and policy wins that reflect the region’s distinct challenges and strengths.
South Australia heading to 80% wind and solar by 2021/22
South Australia is not just likely to have already met its target of 50 per cent renewables some eight years ahead of time, it is now heading for an extraordinary penetration rate of 80 per cent wind and solar by 2021.
Philippines unanimously votes to ratify Paris Agreement
The Philippines Senate has voted unanimously to ratify the Paris Agreement on climate change, four months earlier than previously expected.
Pacific Island leaders call for global fossil fuel moratorium in Suva Declaration
The Suva Declaration on Climate Change, signed by Pacific Island leaders in Fiji in 2015, was the first time national governments formally called for a halt to new fossil fuel extraction. Nations like Tuvalu, sitting less than two meters above sea level, named the source of the crisis directly. It helped seed a decade of supply-side climate diplomacy.
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Helen Clark apologizes to Samoa
In 2002, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark traveled to Apia and stood before Samoa’s parliament to formally apologize for her country’s colonial harms. She named the 1918 influenza disaster, which killed roughly one in five Samoans after an infected ship was allowed to dock, and the 1929 Black Saturday killings. A rare act of accountability in the Pacific.
Western Australia’s Western Rock Lobster fishery becomes world’s first MSC certified fishery
MSC-certified fishing began in 2000, when Western Australia’s Western Rock Lobster fishery became the first in the world to earn the Marine Stewardship Council’s blue label. Auditors scrutinized its pot-based methods, stock health, and management rules — and it has since been recertified four times, offering early proof that commercial fishing and ocean stewardship can hold together.
New Zealand passes law declaring the country a nuclear-free zone
New Zealand’s nuclear-free law, passed in 1987, turned years of grassroots protest into binding national policy, banning nuclear-powered ships and weapons across the country’s land, waters, and airspace. The push gained urgency after French agents bombed the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour in 1985. A small democracy had chosen principle over alliance, and kept it.
Micronesia and Marshall Islands sign the Compact of Free Association, ending UN trusteeship
The Compact of Free Association became U.S. law in November 1986, ending nearly four decades of UN trusteeship over the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands. After island-by-island plebiscites in 1983, both nations gained full self-governance, UN seats, and the right to chart their own course in the world.
Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Yap ratify the FSM constitution, forging a Pacific nation
The Federated States of Micronesia constitution took effect on May 10, 1979, binding four island groups — Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Yap — into a single federation across a million square miles of Pacific Ocean. Drafted by Micronesians themselves, it protected Indigenous land ownership and laid the groundwork for full sovereignty seven years later.
Howard Florey’s team gives penicillin its first human trial at Oxford
Penicillin’s first human trial took place at Oxford in February 1941, when Howard Florey’s team treated a dying police constable named Albert Alexander. He improved dramatically for five days before the scarce drug ran out, and he later died. The experiment still opened the door to antibiotic medicine, which Florey estimated would go on to save tens of millions of lives.