Applications for the permanent residency visa opened on Wednesday.
Vanuatu had previously been excluded from the “incredibly popular” permanent residency visa, which is available only to Pacific Island nationals.
A Vanuatu special envoy, Glen Craig, hit out at the decision, saying the timing was hard to ignore.
“It is difficult to read the removal as anything other than leverage: a signal that access to opportunity for ni-Vanuatu depends on agreement to terms set elsewhere,” he wrote.
RNZ Pacific asked Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) whether Vanuatu had been deliberately excluded from the visa.
DFAT replied that Australia remained committed to finalising the Nakamal Agreement, which Vanuatu had thus far refused to sign.
It said Australia would “continue to respond to Vanuatu’s priorities and seek to match its ambition”, including on mobility arrangements.
Both sides said that they engaged constructively to get the Nakamal Treaty over the line.
Vanuatu’s reinstatement as an eligible nation for the PEV makes it the 12th nation to join the visa scheme.
