Christopher Luxon speaks to journalists before leaving for the leaders' retreat. Photo: RNZ / Anneke Smith
The prime minister has set off for Vava'u Island in Tonga for the leaders' retreat leg of the Pacific Islands Forum.
The leaders of each of the 18 member states will spend the day on the island together, with no officials or media present.
How to resolve civil unrest in New Caledonia has been a feature of this year's forum, as has the impacts of climate change.
Speaking to reporters before flying out, Christopher Luxon said he was looking forward to his time on the island and more relaxed conversations.
"I think being able to have those conversations and just talk really straight about it all is really good. I'm actually really looking forward to it."
Asked about reports the Solomon Islands was planning to remove Taiwan's observer status in the Pacific Islands Forum next year, Luxon said he hadn't discussed it with other leaders but supported the status quo.
"It may well come up as conversation. Our position would be...we don't see any need to change anything."
Luxon said Pacific leaders will discuss how to strengthen the architecture of the Pacific Islands Forum today.
"I'm a really big believer that the Pacific Islands Forum needs to continue to elevate and evolve so that it becomes the substantive, singular organising architecture that we can then express our views from this part of the world out to the rest of the world.
"If you think about climate change, for example, I think the Pacific can have a disproportionate voice in the global conversation around climate change but a lot of that is about enforcing the centrality of the Pacific Island forum."
He said New Zealand was very supportive of the Pacific Resilience Fund, a regional financing facility, and would be contributing money towards it, though it's not clear when this might happen.
Luxon also confirmed he had a pull-aside with US deputy secretary Kurt Campbell yesterday, after his office refused to confirm this yesterday.
"It's not a secret...it's what you call a pull aside, slash meeting. What's formalised, what's not formalised can be very different. In this case,I was very focused on the PIF members and the bilaterals that I had. My secondary focus was any secondary conversations with partners that to PIF that aren't formalised."
Luxon will spend the day on Vava'u Island before returning to the mainland for another full day on the ground in Tonga on Friday.
