Former Liberal minister Peter Reith will lead an Australian contingent to Fiji to monitor the first democratic election in the Pacific nation in nearly a decade.
Mr Reith will lead the Australian observers, including past and present politicians, to Suva at the invitation of the Fijian government to monitor the September 17 poll.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Mr Reith was an experienced former cabinet minister with a strong interest in global democracy.
Australian officials will head to Fiji in coming days to set up an office and begin work.
Fiji has agreed the multinational observation group - which could see India, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea also participating - can move freely throughout the country and meet all political groups.
The group will also assess the outcome of the election to ensure it represents the broad interest of Fijians.
It will be the first election since Commodore Frank Bainimarama seized power in a military coup in 2006.
Fiji was then suspended from the Commonwealth in 2009 after Cdre Bainimarama failed to meet a deadline to return it to democracy.
The Abbott government is keen to normalise Australia's frosty ties with Fiji, and started by lifting travel bans on senior military and government figures in March.
The first observers will arrive in Fiji in the coming days following the signing of an agreement this week, acting Australian High Commissioner Glen Miles said.
"An important element of any election process is to have an observers' mission participate - it gives everyone the confidence to participate," he told AFP after a signing ceremony in central Suva, the capital.
Fiji has had four coups since 1987 stemming from tensions between indigenous Fijians and ethnic Indians descended from sugar plantation labourers shipped in by the British during the colonial era.
Cdre Bainimarama took power vowing to root out corruption and introduce a one-person, one-vote system that would end racial inequalities in the nation of almost 900,000.
His authoritarian regime did bring stability, but in the process it tore up the constitution, sacked the judiciary and tightened media censorship.
Restrictions have been relaxed in recent years but Amnesty International released a report last week saying Bainimarama was still presiding over a "climate of fear".
Opinion polls in Fiji show 60 per cent support for Bainimarama to be the legally elected prime minister, although he has pledged to accept the result of the election even if it does not go his way.
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