Senior officials said the French Pacific territory hoped to tap Australian research and expertise to maintain the reef, which rings its main island and is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site.
New Caledonia taps Australia for reef protection
"Australia has long-standing experience in the management of the coral reef," High Commissioner (governor) Yves Dassonville told reporters in Canberra during a visit.
"We would like to seize the opportunity of your experience and exchange scientific information on research projects with regard to those two reefs, which are the largest in the world and which are essentially facing each other across the sea."
Dassonville also said New Caledonia hoped to set up joint management of the Australian and French economic zones which extend across the Pacific from the huge reefs on either side.
"It would be useful to establish a joint sustainable and agreed management approach for those two exclusive economic areas beyond the coral reefs," he said.
The initiatives are part of a new push for New Caledonia to integrate more closely with its neighbours, including moves for full membership of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), ahead of an independence referendum.
New Caledonia President Philippe Gomes said Australia, New Zealand, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea all supported the PIF bid by New Caledonia, which is currently an associate member.
The delegation also proposed holding annual meetings with Australia aimed at boosting trade, education and cultural ties, and sharing expertise at fighting bushfires, which plague both sides.
New Caledonia, a former penal colony which was annexed by France in 1853, is increasingly moving towards independence with the referendum on self-rule due between 2014 and 2018.
The islands lie 1,500 kilometres (900 miles) east of Australia and are home to some 227,000 people and about 25 percent of the world's nickel reserves, creating an industry which exports mainly to Japan and South Korea.
The delegation, at the invitation of Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, was the biggest ever sent to Australia by New Caledonia and the first received by the country's prime minister.
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