A day after landing his Pacific Policing Initiative, Anthony Albanese has denied a senior United States official's claim that Kevin Rudd convinced the Americans to call off plans for their own regional force.
Mr Albanese won support from the region for the initiative at the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Nuku'alofa, Tonga, this week.
Australia is spending $A400 million ($NZ435 million) to set up the multi-national police force, which will have the capacity to deploy across the region during strife or major events.
It will also include a coordination hub in Brisbane and "centres of excellence" in Papua New Guinea and up to three further Pacific cities.
It is not uncontentious. Melanesian officials, including Solomon Islands diplomat Collin Beck and Papua New Guinean official Leonard Louma, have both offered guarded criticism prior to its announcement.
The policing initiative is widely seen as an attempt to keep Chinese security and police out of the region under the forum's "by Pacific, for Pacific" mantra.
On Wednesday, a New Zealand journalist took a video of Mr Albanese in discussion with US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell at the forum summit.
"We had a cracker today getting the Pacific Policing Initiative through. It's so important. It will make such a difference," Mr Albanese said.
Mr Campbell replies: "It's great. I talked with Kevin about it. We were going to do something ... but we did not. So you've given you the whole lane. Take the lane."
"You can go us halvies on the cost if you like. It will only cost you a bit," Mr Albanese replied.
The video is significant as it suggests Australia is acting on Pacific policing either in coordination with the US, or after US efforts failed.
Nations across the Pacific hold different geopolitical positions - from firm allies of the US like Australia, to warmer relations with Beijing like the Solomon Islands.
Speaking on Thursday morning, Mr Albanese said it was a "private conversation" and denied the US would be joining Australia in footing the bill.
"Kurt Campbell's a mate of mine. It's us having a chat," he said.
Mr Campbell is US President Joe Biden's point man on the Asia-Pacific region and is viewed as an architect of AUKUS, the trilateral pact with the US and United Kingdom that will see Australia obtain nuclear-powered submarines.
Mr Albanese denied Mr Campbell's suggestion the US had plans for their own Pacific police force, or that Mr Rudd - now Australia's ambassador to the US - talked him down.
"He didn't say that. He didn't say that," he insisted.
"He said he'd had a discussion with Kevin about it ... chill out people."
The journalist was accredited and allowed to be in the forum where the video was taken, but Mr Albanese attacked her for behaving inappropriately.
"It's up to them, to whoever did that, to think about their own ethics when it comes to journalism.
"People are coming up behind, trying to try and take conversations ... I myself, if I were a journalist, I would not do that."
Radio NZ Chief News Officer Mark Stevens said: "RNZ stands by its reporter and its reporting".
"Having spoken to our reporter, there is nothing to suggest they acted unethically or outside of our rigorous editorial policies."
On the second day of visit to Tonga, Mr Albanese flew to the northern island of Vava'u for a forum leaders retreat.
There, he will join the leaders of 17 forum nations in an all-day closed-door retreat to discuss the region's thorniest issues: New Caledonia, climate change and more.
Mr Albanese said a forum fact-finding mission to Noumea - planned before the summit but scotched by colonial power France - would go ahead later this month after talks in Tonga.
