Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale has declared he will not release a high-profile security pact with China because he cannot legally break a non-disclosure clause buried in the agreement.

The new prime minister faced the press at Honiara’s airport on Wednesday after visiting both Australia and New Zealand on his first overseas trip since taking power in May. Mr Wale has also compared a new treaty which his country will negotiate with Australia to the landmark Falepili Union with Tuvalu and the stalled Nakamal Agreement with Vanuatu, vowing to press for visa-free access for Solomon Islands citizens as part of negotiations with Canberra.

But Mr Wale also indicated he might not release the text of the security pact, despite the fact he repeatedly called for it to be published while in opposition, because of legal restrictions. On Wednesday afternoon he went further, saying it was legally impossible to publish the final document because the government of Manasseh Sogavare had made binding commitments to the Chinese government when it signed the agreement in 2022.

Mr Wale also said Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke had been “very positive” about liberalising visa rules for Solomon Islands citizens, but flagged he would push for more fundamental changes. “They will look at some initial steps to take to make it easier for Solomon islanders to go [to Australia] but we are [also] looking for a long-term understanding,” he said.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has denied having “victimised anyone” as he began closed-door testimony to US politicians over his relationship with notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Mr Gates, one of the world’s richest men and a leading philanthropist, appeared before the House Oversight Committee for a transcribed interview about the disgraced financier, who died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges involving underage girls.

The panel asked Mr Gates to appear after documents released by the Justice Department raised new questions about his contacts with Epstein, whose network of wealthy and powerful associates has fuelled years of scrutiny and conspiracy theories.

US President Donald Trump, who had a years-long relationship with Epstein, opposed releasing the files, prompting accusations of a cover-up that dogged his first year back in office. But Mr Gates said he supported their release and hoped survivors of Epstein’s crimes would receive justice.

The Epstein files include a 2013 draft email in which the financier appeared to suggest he had helped Mr Gates manage the fallout from extramarital affairs, including by seeking antibiotics after a sexually transmitted infection. Mr Gates has called the email fake and denied the allegations, but he acknowledged that Epstein had learned sensitive information about his personal life, including the fact that he had been unfaithful in his marriage.

Republican congressman Tim Burchett suggested Mr Gates appeared “well-coached” and had revealed little, providing no new names to officials investigating Epstein’s associates. But Robert Garcia, the committee’s top Democrat, said Mr Gates had “provided us with information about other folks that were in Mr Epstein’s orbit.”

Aukus will prove to be one of the worst defence and foreign policy decisions ever made by an Australian government and is only being permitted by Donald Trump in order to destroy Chinese nuclear threats to the US mainland, former foreign affairs minister Gareth Evans says.

In evidence to an independent public inquiry into the $368bn nuclear agreement with the US and UK on Thursday, Evans, a cabinet minister in the Hawke and Keating governments, warned the transfer and construction of submarines to Australia from the early 2030s is effectively only an extension of the American military fleet. He says a future US administration would not come to Australia’s aid in the event of an “existential attack” and would only assist in a military conflict if its own assets on Australian soil are threatened.

Evans also calls the government’s expected price tag for the deal “wholly speculative” and says the US views the submarines as primarily supplementary assets, effectively embedded into US military command, for the task of finding, tracking, attacking and destroying Chinese submarines seen as posing a risk to the US mainland.

Thursday’s first hearing of the public inquiry – which is not a parliamentary process and is being backed by trade unions and the Australian Peace and Security Forum – will be led by commissioners including the former Labor minister Peter Garrett and former defence boss Chris Barrie. The foreign minister, Penny Wong, said on Thursday she and the defence minister, Richard Marles, had discussed Aukus with their UK counterparts in regular talks overnight. Labor is pushing back on criticism of the plan, including from its own MPs, before the party’s national conference in Adelaide next month.