Big dollops of gloomy news are on the agenda when leaders from Pacific nations fly to Cairns this week for a summit with Kevin Rudd. As host of this year's Pacific Islands Forum, Rudd has listed the impact of the global financial crisis as a key item for discussion. To help their discussions, Rudd sent Pacific leaders two reports on the impact of the economic slump and what they can collectively do about it.

But the headline topic looks set to be climate change and, since Kevin from Queensland likes to say he is ''here to help'', the visitors hope he will intersperse the gloom with good news, for instance, by handing out more money from the $150million fund for climate change in the Pacific.

They are expecting to hear that good news in Rudd's opening address. There will be a sense of urgency at the meeting because some of the tiny atolls to Australia's east are being swamped by rising ocean levels.

Many of those Pacific communities subsist in Third World conditions but their living standards are being eroded further by the global financial crisis. On top of that, Australia wants these poor countries to open their economies to free trade that is, allow in cheap imports under the so-called Pacer Plus scheme.

And the much-touted plan for fruit pickers to come to Australia from the Pacific and send money back to their families almost didn't happen because of the economic slump.

Welcome to the world of the struggling (and sinking) countries on our doorstep.

Outwardly, the visitors to the Cairns summit will be all smiles. No leader will be asked to remove their shoes at the airport X-ray.

In fact, they will probably be high-fiving Rudd because of the huge change in relations between Australia and its neighbours after the defeat of John Howard.

The Moti affair badly damaged relations between Australia and Papua New Guinea, and Howard's scepticism about climate change shredded what was left of relations with the Pacific.

For more, pick up a copy of today's Canberra Times