The announcement today had a few NRL and NRLW players, plus a couple of local NRLWA Womens players all wearing NRL clubs' Hawaiian shirts (notably, at least for me, the 2020 versions as the Knights logo was the new one).
Yeah, the palm fronds are an obscure thing, but I suppose it's the summer reference they're going for, and it keeps it locally-irrelevant, so that it can be moved about from year-to-year without a major rebrand each time. The Auckland Nines had a dedicated name and logo, which would have had to have changed if it had moved to a different city.
This is the NRL Nines and 2020 will be in Perth, but 2021 could be in Townsville or Hobart or wherever and the name and logo stays the same.