Introducing the Pacific Peoples of Australia Project

Hello from Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country! We’re excited to bring you the first edition of our Pacific Peoples of Australia Project newsletter. Every few months we’ll share highlights from the project and keep you up to date with events, programs or collections that you might find interesting or want to share with friends and family.  

A big thank you to all who responded to our survey earlier this year. We heard your calls for community leadership, consultation and respect for the different cultural protocols, languages and community practices of individual Pacific nations and territories. The project has been extended from 3 to 4 years so that we can take our time getting to know communities and working closely with you to make sure that Pacific stories are told by Pacific voices and can be preserved by the National Library for future generations. 

Recording new stories 

We’re working with oral historians and photographers to record audio and visual stories with Pacific diaspora communities around Australia. We’ve only just begun but here are some highlights so far. 

Photographs

Lola’s Island Shop 

Lola’s Island Shop is a Tongan-owned grocery store and catering business providing Pacific Island food, groceries and other unique products to customers across Sydney. Photographer Lisa Maree Williams captured different aspects of the shop, the staff, as well as the process of food preparation. The images show the wide variety of Pacific Island food on offer and the warm community spirit between those working there.

Papua New Guinea 50th anniversary

16 September 2025 marked the 50th anniversary of Papua New Guinea’s independence from Australia, with events taking place around the country. In Queensland, the PNG & Wantoks Association Cairns organised a family and cultural day in Fogarty Park featuring traditional dancing, singing, food stalls as well as arts and handicrafts. Photographer Brian Cassey documented the event for our national collection. 

Oral histories

Oral histories are whole-of-life stories, recorded by a professional interviewer. They’re candid, unedited interviews that can range from 2 hours to more than 10 hours.  

We’ve now completed oral histories with Deveni Temu (Papua New Guinean librarian and former ANU Pacific Librarian), Professor Katerina Teaiwa (Professor of Pacific Studies at ANU) and Dr Ria (Rita) Seumanutafa-Palala (Managing Director, Music Director and Creative Associate of Pacific Island Creative Arts Australia).  

You can hear Rita reflecting on the experience in her public social media post.  

Coming up, we’ll be interviewing Winnie Dunn (Tongan-Australian writer), Junior Issachar (Ni-Vanuatu community leader and spokesperson in Stawell, Victoria), Hani Watson (Australian para powerlifter with Niuean Polynesian heritage) and Jay Laga’aia (actor, singer and children’s entertainer). We’ll also be looking to record more community stories across generations. Keep an eye out as some of these come up online. 

Talanoa: Meetings and visits

In shaping this project, we’re keeping principles of Talanoa in mind and meeting in person wherever possible. 

Last year we visited the Pasifika Summer Festival in Liverpool, sharing a stall with Liverpool Library, then the Pasifika Makers Markets at the Blacktown Arts Centre and the annual Melbourne Pasifika Festival in Melbourne. We spent time with many community leaders and Pacific organisations at these events.  

More recently, we talked with the team at Pacific Kids Learning who are doing amazing work telling community stories through animations for kids. Phillie Julai Marai met with us as CEO of the Pacific Australia Youth Association. Dr Inez Fainga'a-Manu talked to us about her research at Griffith University and her work with Village Connect. We loved hearing about the films she has made, including the migration story of her parents.  

We also had a visit from Twinnies publishing director (and NSW Local Woman of the Year) Ana Tuionuku, who brought a series of illustrated bilingual children’s books in Pacific languages to add to the national collection. Mr Samuelu Laloniu, High Commissioner for Tuvalu, visited our project director at the National Library to discuss how we might work with the rapidly growing Tuvaluan diaspora in Australia.

These are just a few of the many conversations we’ve had during the year. If you have ideas and would like to have a chat with us, we would love to hear from you. 

From the archive

We were delighted to work with Matavai Pacific Cultural Arts to document the ‘Motu of Western Sydney’ in 2022, facilitated by Fijian rapper and singer MC Trey. The photographs document the performances of groups representing the diversity and depth of talent in the Pacific cultural arts in Sydney. MC Trey and the photographers (Liza Moscatelli and Hannah Teau) also provided detailed captions so that the correct cultural information was included in the catalogue record for each photo. You can view more of the fabulous photos on our catalogue.

Want to explore the collection? 

We have a wonderful collection of both physical and digital materials relating to Pacific nations. You can view digital collections on Trove or visit in-person to view items in our reading rooms. We also have online resources including our Pacific Research Guide and a guide to our Pacific collections. More digital collections are available on Digital Pasifik.  

If you would like help researching the Library’s collections relating to Pacific nations and peoples, please contact Ask a Librarian.

Get involved!

Do you have posters or flyers from festivals or events? Have you published a book? Maybe you have your own collections of letters or photographs you think tell a story about the life of Pacific Peoples in Australia? We would love to know! You can send us an email at select@nla.gov.au.

Learn more about the Pacific Peoples of Australia Project