Illustration - Hindustan Times

Chris Overland:
Social Stability vs Individual Rights

ADELAIDE - Democracies are both difficult to create and difficult to govern successfully.

First and foremost they require a remarkably self-disciplined population willing to voluntarily conform to a broadly agreed set of ideas about how their society is ordered and governed.

For example, there must be be a mechanism for an orderly change of government, operating to a predetermined cycle that is not subject to political manipulation.

A government which is there with the legitimate consent of the governed, as expressed by free and fair voting in an election.

This may seem self-evident to those of us who already live in such a society but it is manifestly not so in most of the world.

The Economist magazine’s annual Democracy Index tries to measure the state of democracy in 167 countries.

The 2021 index classified 21 countries as full democracies (Australia was ninth), and 53 as flawed democracies (including France at 22th; the cradle of democracy, Greece, at 34th; PNG at 69th).

There were 35 hybrid regimes (not democratic, not authoritarian – Fiji was there at 84th) and 58 authoritarian regimes (Afghanistan last at 167th).

When you look at those numbers, it seems that most people live within less democratic, including authoritarian, political structures, perhaps satisfied with social stability and public order above individual rights and freedoms.

For many such populations, personal rights and freedoms are subordinated to social control because it is believed the state is inherently unstable for some reason.

Perhaps there have been persistent historic inter-ethnic or inter-religious tensions, quarrels over territorial boundaries or they are countries adjacent to actual or potential enemies.

The power of this thinking is evident in so many Russians apparently finding it easy to believe Putin's blatant lies about the supposed cabal of drug addicts and Nazis in charge of Ukraine.

It is also seen in the fact that so many Americans accept that there is a sinister 'deep state' determined to take away their freedoms.

PNG is a flawed democracy in that every five years it elects what amounts to an interchangeable kleptocracy, whose members steal the resources of the state for the benefit of themselves and their cronies.

For these reasons, Australian prime minister Scott Morrison's simplistic binary view of the world is deceptive and misleading. The world does not divide neatly into good guys and bad guys.

At best, as citizens, we can only sometimes confidently identify obviously good or obviously bad behaviour on the part of either our own governments or those of other countries.

Even then, there will often be serious disputation about how some behaviour or decisions ought to be classified, e.g., is Australia's policy in relation to asylum seekers democratic.

There are no easy answers to the questions posed about the flaws and contradictions found within different forms of government because they are products of a society not necessarily expressions of human ideals written into a Constitution.

Illustration - Kathmandu Post

Philip Fitzpatrick:
Kleptocrats Form PNG's Democracy

TUMBY BAY -One bitter lesson we can take from the last 30 years on Planet Earth is that democracy is not self-evidently superior to other forms of government in the eyes of many people.

And it is certainly not readily exportable from one jurisdiction and transplantable in another.

In this context, it is a miracle that the hybrid Westminster system bequeathed to Papua New Guinea by the United Kingdom via Australia continues to function, at least after a fashion.

Whether PNG’s government can ever be more that a rotating, elected kleptocracy or kakistocracy remains to be seen.

I think a point that must be clearly understood when talking about democracy is that historic and social factors such as ethnicity, language, religion and cultural norms are much more important in determining how a nation or state is governed.

There is no generic, one-size-fits-all form of democracy, even if people like Scott Morrison seem to think there is.

British democracy, as practised in the United Kingdom, is quite different to the kind of democracy practised in the United States or Australia, for instance.

The Westminster systems practised in the UK, Australia and Papua New Guinea are all different and dependent on historic and social factors.

The same argument, as noted by Chris Overland, can be made about autocracies.

Those factors that determine what sort of democracy exists in any one country are infinitely malleable.

One of the determinants of that plasticity is quality of leadership. Same goes for autocracies.

In this sense, just as Vladimir Putin has influenced the style of Russian autocracy, Scott Morrison has influenced the style of Australian democracy.

Unfortunately it seems to be the kleptocrats who have influenced the style of democracy in PNG.

In all three cases, the influences of Putin, Morrison and kleptocracy have been extremely detrimental for the population at large.

In Australia, Morrison, just like his hero Donald Trump did in the USA , has poisoned our form of democracy to the point where it is starting to resemble what goes on in PNG.

Dr Joe Ketan - "Foreign consultants who piggyback on development aid have often been responsible for bad advice"

JOE KETAN

PORT MORESBY - A quick glance at Papua New Guinea’s recent history will tell you that there are certain things that you would have done it differently if you had your time over again.

But time does not stop or rewind, although sometimes history seems to repeat itself over and over.

Opportunities for individuals and countries to succeed come along once in a while.

However, not seen or not grasped they are lost, oftentimes irretrievably so.

It is in this context that I want to share with you my thoughts on development goals.

Countries either progress or disintegrate and descend into chaos, there seems to be no middle position.

Whether they move forward or decline depends on crucial decisions taken at the regular crossroads of the development path.

Constitutional independence came quickly in PNG and, for many people, unexpectedly.

And we did not fight for it. It was given to us.

In the 1960s and 1970s, our leaders, despite being inexperienced and mostly illiterate, focused on developing their country.

They were aware of their own limitations, but nevertheless were far-sighted, selfless and committed.

They knew their job they and worked towards undertaking it with purpose.

Particularly through the 1970s, they knew a nation had to be built.

After the first independence decade, perhaps just a little longer, and as our parliamentarians learned the ropes of government, things began to go backwards.

This quickly became the case when MPs took control of sectoral funds, initially in transport and agriculture.

The control of development funds, coupled with the abolition of the Public Service Commission on the advice of an irresponsible World Bank, led to the politicisation of the public service and the growing misappropriation of public funds.

Our leaders thus succumbed to the spoils of office and forgot or set aside their role as custodians of the commonwealth, the people’s wealth.

International development agencies and financial organisations, led or influenced by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, have been mainly responsible for development failure in Third World Countries.

Papua New Guinea has been the recipient of both technical and financial assistance from these organisations.

Foreign consultants who piggyback on development aid have often been responsible for bad advice that has also contributed to poor development outcomes.

A team of researchers operating out of a local think tank advised the PNG government on the reviled OBE - outcome-based education - policy reform.

Over 20 years OBE has contributed towards the terrible state of education in this country.

Similar reform failure in other sectors can also be attributed to poor advice.

The United Nations recently published two important volumes on the global development experience.

Their resounding conclusion is that governments in Africa and Oceania were misled by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Nation states were persuaded to commit huge sums of money and time to fixing governance issues, whilst Asian countries raced away irrespective of governance principles.

Good governance often follows development, not the other way round.

The UN’s Millennium Development Goals are unrealistic.

So too are the PNG Vision 2050 Roadmap and the Development Strategic Plan.

Politicians and bureaucrats, even academics, talk about these and other plans without understanding how they might be applied.

Planning and budgeting without understanding their consequences are legacies of these unrealistic planning methods.

And so PNG has consistently got things wrong. And we continue to go backwards. We have nothing to show for our wealth.

There is a simple reason for development failure in PNG. We have not sought the advice of the people who know best.

Our people know what they need. Why do we always pretend that we know them and their needs better than they do?

Our education does not give us the right to determine what is best for them.

We must ask our people what is good for them. We must learn from them and learn to integrate our skills with their needs, not the other way around.

In this context, I suggest our prime minister and his wayward government spend money on a nationwide stocktake, or a physical audit, of development and governance facilities in all districts and local level governments across the country.

This exercise will provide us with benchmark information for planning and budgeting.

Whilst undertaking this program, we should seek advice from village people using a basic needs approach methodology.

What do we need most? This question should form the basis of planning and budgeting. It should be simplified. Everyone should be involved.

All development planning and budgeting, with annual reviews, should be based on actual rather than assumed data, which will be collected and analysed by trained personnel.

Our personnel. Keep foreign consultants out of this.

We have some good people in the public service: Dr Eric Kwa (Justice & Attorney General), Dr Mange Matui (Constitutional & Law Reform Commission), Dr Ken Nangan (Finance), Dr Alphonse Gelu (Integrity of Political Parties & Candidates), Dr Andrew Moutu (PNG Museum), and many more who are willing to do what is right for PNG.

Let us give these people the opportunity to help turn this country round.

Our own institutions, including the Institute of National Affairs, National Research Institute, University of PNG and other universities, must be invited by our government to participate in setting development agendas.

As pointed out by Dr Lawrence Sause of UPNG, the level of hypocrisy in politics is killing this country.

I hope that after this year’s election, our prime minister and government can rise above parochial politics to set development standards for PNG in coming years.

People like Dr Thomas Webster, Gabriel Pepson, Meg Taylor, Robert Igara and Clant Alok still have much to contribute towards the development of this country.

The East Sepik governor Allan Bird and Oro governor Gary Juffa are doing a good job in parliament and I’m pleased to see the young Eastern Highlands governor, Peter Numu, working with them.

I have not forgotten his role in the change of government.

Hopefully, we will see more good men and women in parliament after the forthcoming elections.

Rwanda has done so well to ensure a strong voice for women in politics: 60% of the Rwandan parliament is made up of women, which has a 40% female quota written into law.

I am well aware that the problems of this country are big, but they are not insurmountable.

Public sector reforms are needed to fix the most glaring problems in health, education, governance, and other areas (again, keep out foreign consultants and their ideas).

We, as a people and as a country, have suffered enough from bad advice and from culturally entrenched patron-client networks of corruption at all levels of government.

We have not been kind to ourselves, so it is now time to make amends.

We must make decisions, initiate reforms and live by the consequences of our own decisions.

We have no other country to seek shelter in if we sink this one.

THANKS TO DR BAL KAMA FOR DRAWING MY ATTENTION TO DR KETAN’S ESSAY - KJ

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - If you want to about the art and demands of writing, then dipping into the autobiographies of successful writers, past and present, is a good way to go.

At present I’m working my way through the two volumes, 1,000 plus pages, of Nicholas Monsarrat’s autobiography, Love is a Four-Letter Word.

Waiting in the wings for me are three volumes of HE Bates’ autobiography: The Vanished World;The Blossoming World; and The World in Ripeness.

Bates delighted the world with his chronicles of the Larkin family (beginning with The Darling Buds of May) and other novels including The Purple Plain and Fair Stood the Wind for France.

Monsarrat’s two novels, The Tribe That Lost Its Head and Richer Than All His Tribe, graced the bookshelves of many an expatriate in Papua New Guinea prior to 1975.

They usually sat alongside Robert Ruark’s two novels of Africa, Uhuru and Something of Value.

Monsarrat’s books are set in a district on an island off the southwest coast of Africa, where a solitary district officer tries to maintain the peace.

When the chief-designate returns from studies in England and tries to accelerate the development of his people, the ensuing political crisis erupts into a ferment of intrigue and violence.

Ruark’s two novels are based on events that took place in Kenya during the violent Mau Mau insurrections of the 1950s.

Despite the books being based on the realities of colonial Africa, the paranoia these books induced among many expatriates in Papua New Guinea were unfounded.

Monsarrat wrote 11 books before he achieved fame with his World War II novel, The Cruel Sea. Until then he had never made much money at all from his books.

After his eighth book he noted: “In thirteen years I had made £1,647 out of writing eight books … £1,647 worked out at £127 a year, a living wage for a starving dog, but not much else.”

This didn’t bother him unduly because he was at the same time carving out a career as a civil servant in South Africa and Canada.

What he did acknowledge, however, was his overwhelming compulsion to write. To Monsarrat, whether his compulsion met with success or not was neither here nor there.

He put down the success of The Cruel Sea to simple luck:

“What makes tens of thousands of people suddenly decide that they want to read one particular book, and no other, and that they won’t be happy until they have bought it and taken it home, is a mystery which has baffled publishers, beyond despair and into bankruptcy, since books were first printed and bound and launched into the market place.

“It does not baffle writers in the same way, since (unless they are harlots or computer-boys) they will write exactly what they want to, and take a chance on success, or failure, or a drawn game.

“I had written exactly what I wanted to, and was already stupefied by the result.”

And to prove his point his next book was one he wanted to write rather than the follow-up maritime story that his publishers urged him to write.

It sold only a few thousand copies, which didn’t bother Monsarrat at all.

I guess his philosophy and eventual luck should be gratifying for all aspiring novelists.

Stick with the literary lottery and one day the prize might be yours.

I’m currently working on book number 13 and am happy with my moderate success so far.

Despite the odds against them, I suspect that most writers, like me, crave at least critical, if not financial, success.

BY PHILIP FITZPATRICK....

You can read free downloads of these Philip Fitzpatrick books here:

Fighting for a Voice: The Inside Story of PNG Attitude and the Crocodile Prize

Inspector Metau: The Case of the Angry Councillor

Inspector Metau: The Case of the Missing Professor

Inspector Metau: The Case of the Great Pumpkin Heist

The Unusual and Unexpected Case of the Rise and Rise of Inspector Hari Metau

Inspector Metau: The Case of the Good Politician

The Floating Island

Crocodile Prize Anthology: 2011-2016 (all edited by Philip Fitzpatrick)

Illustration - History.com

ROBERT FORSTER

NORTHUMBRIA, UK - In 1973, Kaiyer Auwin, a fight leader of Milep village in Jiwaka, let me into his inner thoughts.

Kaiyer, who had once carried a spear against early explorer and prospector Jim Taylor, told me he could scarcely believe the benefits that followed the Kiap Administration’s subjugation of everyday inter-clan fighting.

He described how one outcome was that his Omgarl people had not fought with their neighbours for more than 20 years.

They felt free to walk where they wished, and when they did do they were not harmed.

Kaiyer stressed again and again that, when he thought back to pre-Australian contact days, and considered the freedom his people now enjoyed, he hardly believed such huge changes were possible.

The Kiap determination to subdue traditional tribal warfare in the Highlands was largely effective and, for the people, it was a prodigious change.

The peace was not perfect, but the warring was severely constrained.

For a region also mostly untouched by the traumas of the 1942-45 Pacific War, this was a wonderful platform from which to derive the benefits of peace.

While a patrol officer in Papua New Guinea, I needed to remind myself from time to time that Europe, and my family, had only recently been embroiled in two spectacularly destructive wars.

In World War I, my grandfather had been killed at Passchendaele in 1917) and in World War II my father was wounded at Dunkirk in 1940 and his cousin was killed in Norway in the same year.

Within my extended family many other men also died.

There have been many international conflicts since the end of World War II, but when Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine last month to signal that the tangled tribes of Europe were again taking up arms, it was difficult to watch.

For the first time, in the early 1960s, almost every household in the UK owned a television set.

One of the staple fares was documentary film footage showing the traumatic military struggles of 1939 - 1945.

It was unique because fathers sat with their wives and children to watch the visual record of actions they had taken part in.

One result was that my generation had no illusions about the brutality of war.

We saw thousands of mutilated corpses, we saw the destruction of Stalingrad, Coventry, Warsaw and Berlin.

We saw mile upon mile of weary refugees pushing hand carts. We saw the gas chambers of the concentration camps. We saw the German army retreat from Moscow with dreadful losses. We saw how lucky the British army had been to escape from Dunkirk in 1940.

Some of the most powerful pictures showed the ease with which German tank divisions had swept across the open plains of Czechoslovakia and Ukraine in 1941.

I had thought ours might be a blessed generation who went through a lifetime without experiencing another brutal war in Europe.

But that hope was shattered when Russian tanks and rockets once again flattened the cities and towns of Ukraine.

The political, military and economic shock waves have already been felt Moscow to Moresby.

After truth, the most immediate casualty is globalisation.

Astonishing in this modern world, extended, intricate supply lines are seen to be so vulnerable.

Food and fuel are priorities front of mind again. Maximising self-sufficiency and troops are new national goals again.

Friendly neighbouring countries are suddenly more important again.

And as the Russian invasion of Ukraine seems to have arrived at an impasse, neither side able to immediately outfight the other, another concern arises – of nuclear or biological or chemical weapons.

Russia seems willing to countenance the use of any of them.

National borders suddenly seem disconcertingly fragile. Moldova. The Baltic countries. Poland. Finland. Now frontline states.

Where does Poland (population 38 million) begin. Where does Poland end? Will Poland be allowed to exist? Is it about to be re-absorbed by Russia instead?

Russia’s economy is quite small - no bigger than Spain – and it has a disproportionately large army and quite poor people now getting much poorer. Can that continue?

Putin is willing it to do so. The Russian bear, humiliated by the late 20th century breakdown of it empire is back on the prowl.

And just as alarming to me, I hear German leaders, restrained since their defeat in 1945, talking publicly about taking part in kriég, war.

Kaiyer Auwin, fight leader of Milep, would recognise the implications of historical blood sacrifice, of the need to atone for humiliation, of the constant pressure of power lust, of the necessity to keep on winning.

The European tribes, there were 87 of them - Gauls, Teutons, Saxons, Celts, Slavs, Magyars, Romani, Russ and the rest – may be facing up to each other again.

Nobody is confident about where this leads or how it ends.

Kaiyer understood that strength of arms and cleverness in war bestowed many benefits, personal, economic and sovereign.

But he came to understand that the benefits of peace were even greater.

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

PORT MORESBY - Among the things to be mastered in Papua New Guinean politics are the subtleties and allusions of conversation, figurative speech, presentation and present-giving.

It’s a form of speech known as ‘tok-bokis’ – to speak in metaphors.

On one occasion, villagers gave a provincial governor, since retired, a traditional bilum (bag) full of corn and a tied green lizard during a ceremony he had been invited to witness.

The ignorant governor took the present believing the electorate was happy with his performance.

But the gifts had a meaning beyond the obvious.

The corn (kon in Tok Pisin) signified lies or unfulfilled promises.

The lizard has a tongue that splits in two at the tip.

It signified something similar to kon, a promise not kept.

Best not to be like the green lizard (kundu palai) in PNG. Don’t have a double tongue.

Say what you mean. And mean what you say.

The presents offered to the governor were a way of the villagers saying he had failed to keep promises made during election and that he had changed positions on issues he campaigned on when they became convenient to him.

There’s another popular tok-bokis you hear around this election time: thunder without rain.

This is used to associate a politician who is very vocal in speaking out on national issues while his electorate suffers from a lack of basic necessities.

Note to non-Papua New Guinean readers: PNG voters see the primary role of their MPs as service delivery, not law making.

This means MPs can be vocal on important national issues and still lose voters’ trust if they do not deliver tangible assets like roads, ports, hospitals, schools and suchlike.

The voters cannot be blamed for prioritising service delivery over national issues.

The 1995 reform that abolished provincial representatives brought with it the responsibility of national MPs also running the province and bearing the dual responsibility of service delivery at the grassroots as well as duties to the nation.

If an MP focuses on national issues but fails to deliver services, he is referred to as ‘Thunder Without Rain’ (klaut i pairap nogat ren) or ‘Lighting Without Showers’ (lait bilong klaut nogat ren).

You can see Lightning on television and his name may be frequently in the newspapers, but he never delivers services.

You can see Thunder in the bar, drinking and laughing with his wantoks, but you’ll never see the road he promised.

We’ve had few vocal members in this tenth national parliament of Papua New Guinea who are accused of being a Thunder.

It will be interesting to see how they go in the election scheduled for 11-24 June.

Maybe the pairap na lait will be seen among the voters.

Solomon Islands prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare (SBM screenshot)

ROBERT IROGA
| Asia Pacific Review | SBM Online | Edited

HONIARA – Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare has denied that China is being allowed to establish a military base in his country, which is 2,000 kilometers north-west of Australia.

Sogavare confirmed a security treaty had been finalised with China but said “there is no intention whatsoever to ask China to build a military base.

“Where does that nonsense come from?” he asked.

He stated the treaty was requested by the Solomons and that “we are not pressured in any way by our new friends.”

Sogavare said the Australian media had reported that China had pressured the Solomons to build a military base in Solomon Islands.

“We denied [the story] totally. We don’t know where it came from,” he said.

News of the security treaty was leaked on social media and caused waves of concern in Australia and New Zealand.

“We are insulted by such an unfounded stories and comments,” Sogavare said.

The architect John Amory-designed residence in Warrawee sold to Lynda Babao for K16 million

A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

CANBERRA - In August 2020, the Australian media reported that former prime minister Peter O’Neill’s wife, Lynda Babao, had bought a $6 million (K16 million) house at Warrawee on Sydney’s upper north shore.

A few months before, another Sydney residence associated with the family had been quietly sold for $12.35 million (K33 million).

And three years earlier, in 2017, rumours had begun to circulate that O’Neill owned a plush $35 million (K93 million) house in the upmarket suburb of Point Piper, overlooking the world-famous Harbour Bridge and Opera House.

This property at 2/74 Wolseley road was reported to be occupied by O’Neill’s son, Brian.

A registry search identified the late Sir Theophilus George Constantinou as the landlord.

Sir Theo, as he was known in PNG, owned Rouna Quarries and Monier Cement and was a part-owner of the Airways Hotel and Hebou Construction.

He died suddenly on 10 September 2019 at the relatively young age of 59.

Sir Theo had been buddies with O’Neill long before he became prime minister in August 2011.

When O’Neill was re-elected in 2012, Hebou Construction was awarded major road infrastructure contracts in the National Capital District.

Other construction companies - Global, China Chiangzu International, China Harbor, Dekenai and Phoenix Builders - awarded road and building contracts were told to buy their cement from Monier.

Meanwhile in the Bacchus Bar in the Airways Hotel, many discussions involving the government and private sector entities took place over bottles of beer, cognac, whisky and red wine.

It was not unusual to see top political figures, senior public servants and business executives guided to the private dining room and to emerge much later at three in the morning staggering from the bar.

Over time the O’Neill-Sir Theo partnership blossomed into much bigger deals in PNG and offshore.

Late in his prime ministership, around 2017-18, O’Neill sold three companies - Carson Pratt, Southwest Air and Insurance Partners – to Sir Theo for well over K85 million through an entity called Laraguma Ltd.

O’Neill, who is said to have a healthy ego, leads a multifaceted and complicated life.

There seems little doubt that politics, government and private business and personal and public finance all featured in the O’Neill-Sir Theo friendship.

Insiders who know O’Neill well say he is a consummate capitalist first and a politician second.

They believe politics was just a stepping stone in the pursuit of power and wealth.

It is said there has been Pacific political leader who has wielded more power than O’Neill over public and private sectors.

O’Neill conducted his private business with preferred foreign and PNG partners who were consistently awarded infrastructure, medical, educational material and other contracts.

He was known and admired for his personal attention to and intervention in business matters.

He also took control of major national government decisions, which tended to suffocate Cabinet rule, bypass ministers and personally direct departmental heads and CEOs of state-owned enterprises.

A dramatic case in point was the stunning, and ultimately disastrous, decision of March 2014 to borrow $A1.24 billion (K3.27 billion) from the UBS Bank of Switzerland.

The funds were used to give the PNG government a 10.1% stake in Oil Search.

O’Neill and Treasury Secretary Dairi Vele hyped the deal to Cabinet but, by the end of 2014 just as LNG started flowing in PNG, oil prices tumbled by nearly 60%.

This hit Oil Search shares and less than three years later they had dropped by a staggering 35%.

The PNG government’s K3.2 billion investment was now valued at K2.1 billion.

Struggling to finance the debt, the government was forced to sell the shares at a loss of K1 billion.

A consequent Ombudsman Commission report in 2019 revealed that 15 laws - including the PNG Constitution – had been breached by the investment that had become a financial calamity for the country.

The report found that O’Neill’s conduct as prime minister was wrong and improper because he had committed PNG to purchase the Oil Search shares without Cabinet approval, failed to present the UBS loan proposal to Parliament for approval, and misled Cabinet.

The Ombudsman also made damaging findings of ‘wrong and improper conduct’ against prominent citizens Ben Micah, Isaac Lupari, Dairi Vele, Philip Eludeme, Loi Bakani, Ken Ngangan, Carl Okuk and James Marape, who by this time was prime minister.

The scandal was too big to brush away and in June 2019 Marape announced there would be a Royal Commission to thoroughly investigate the deal.

As the Commission proceeded, O’Neill’s personal involvement in promoting the loan to acquire shares in Oil Search further unravelled.

The lawyer assisting the Commission, Dr James Renwick, said O’Neill was the driving force behind the deal with UBS to the "exclusion of all other ministers".

Former Treasurer Patrick Pruaitch said PNG had been left with a debt burden of K3.2 billion and losses of K1.5 billion.

Moreover, UBS, Oil Search, Pacific LNG and other entities involved in the deal were seen to have considerably benefited but the people of PNG lost out big time.

UBS alone made K620 million which an expert witness told the Royal Commission included K285 million in excessive profits which should be repaid.

Renwick also said the investigation into the deal was being hampered by limited cooperation from UBS and law firm Norton Rose Fulbright Australia, which had advised the PNG government.

The UBS loan and Oil Search investment, which O’Neill had rashly pushed through, turned out to be a disaster.

It was yet another example of what occurs when politicians pay too little attention to the people’s interests.

The Royal Commission is due to present its report to the PNG government today but it is not known whether this target will be achieved.

The report may yield answers that could result in prosecutions and it is likely to pose even more questions about where the millions of kina went, who got it and about the legitimacy of these transactions.

Sir Theo Constantinou - the great business and personal friend of Peter O'Neill  died an untimely death at 57

It is a right of PNG citizens to know how the loan funds and associated fees were spent - K1.5 billion is a lot of money in any jurisdiction and especially in a country whose basic infrastructure is falling apart and where too many people live in poverty without basic health and other services.

There are many other rumours about the deal; many murky relationships; many allegations of possible impropriety.

O’Neill is said to have bragged to close friends of the properties he owns in Ottawa, New York, Singapore and Sydney.

People question whether the funds that supported these purchases were obtained legitimately or at the expense of the PNG people.

It is not possible for the average Papua New Guinean business person, nor the average Papua New Guinean prime minister, to accumulate great wealth through the conduct of normal business in PNG.

Perhaps the forthcoming report of the Royal Commission, a Leadership Tribunal, further court action and Interpol will assist the people of PNG to better understand these matters.

O’Neill remains in parliament, elections come up in June, official reports are emerging and interesting times lie ahead.

His once formidable People’s National Congress party, dominant when O’Neill was re-elected prime minister in 2017, is much diminished in size since James Marape succeeded in removing him in a vote of no confidence in 2019.

Marape’s Pangu Pati has 32 MPs in the 111 seat parliament, while PNC is the second largest with 12 and deputy prime minister Sam Basil’s United Labour Party has nine.

But the numbers in the House of Assembly are always very fluid and a comeback for O’Neill, unless he is barred from standing, is not out of the question.

Happier days. Peter O'Neill and Lynda Babao at an APEC gala dinner in 2013 (WSJ)

On Christmas Eve 2017 a party was held at the Point Piper mansion in Sydney.

Champagne and wine flowed in honour of Sir Theo and O’Neill. Smartly attired waiters provided delicate canapés and more substantial cocktail delicacies. It was a celebration of great power and great success.

But now the Point Piper mansion has been sold, Sir Theo Constantinou is dead, and Peter O’Neill could have some challenging legal battles ahead of him as well as an unpredictable election in which customarily half the candidates lose their seats.

The scheduled release of the report of the UBS Royal Commission may point the way forward to a greater understanding of the roles played by various individuals and entities, who were the winners and who were the losers in the many murky dealings and money flows behind the UBS deal.

Dependency Theory

STEPHEN CHARTERIS

CAIRNS – “We have the local knowledge, we live it -” Dr Momia Teariki-Tautea, PNG Attitude, 29 March 2022

I thank the doctor for his truism, but I would ask whether Papua New Guineans have applied it?

I suggest the knowledge Dr Teariki-Tautea speaks of is ignored by nearly all administrative arms of the PNG government.

Time and again we find public servants ensconced in their offices and rarely in the field where they are needed.

When asked why, the response invariably involves a lecture on their lack of resources. 

If you offer to provide transport on a day convenient to the officer, you can expect to be told it is unable to be accepted because there is an important meeting to attend.

I have experienced this situation on too many occasions to recall.

On one such time, I facilitated an air charter to enable a school inspector to travel to a rural airstrip to visit schools not inspected for 10 years.

I took the gentlemen to the airport for his long-awaited flight to the bush.

Two hours later I was informed he had come back on the return flight.

Naturally I was curious to know why. When confronted, he told me that upon arrival at the destination, he received a phone call telling him to return for an urgent meeting.

This event was more remarkable by the absence of a mobile phone signal at his destination.

So having achieved the right to an office with a desk, a high-backed chair and an air conditioner, too many public service managers act as if the grassroots are beneath their dignity.

There is also a tendency for them to assume that they, and only they, are empowered to make decisions in their area of operation.

No other entity, whether private, non-government or church is permitted to use its own initiative to address unmet needs.

If the officer cares not to act, it is not permissible for anyone else to do so either.

Meanwhile, this perpetual cycle of public service inertia and excuses combines with earnest but misplaced governance and capacity building activities to the benefit of consultants and their companies.

But, frankly, to the benefit of no one else.

Any survey of health or education indicators reveals that the costly development game has delivered no sustainable outcomes at local government, ward or community level.

Dr Ketan and Dr Teariki-Tautea are correct.

By any reasonable measure, development models have largely failed and is true, as they sat, that they “have the local knowledge, we live it.”

It is past time to tap into that knowledge and, with community participation, derive solutions that meet their needs and are sustainable.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - if you haven't made this journey, can you really help us?

PHILIP KAI MORRE

KUNDIAWA – Papua New Guinea needs to reform its outlook on development by changing our behaviour so as to transform our society.

But so much of the planning for us - planning that uses foreign concepts and ideologies - does not work.

A planning matrix needs to be home grown and an integral part of our holistic development.

We cannot accept somebody else's ideas just because foreigners say they will work.

Imposing upon us what consultants think is best and will work for us is paternalistic and usually unrelated to our way of doing things.

Our mode of development is based on spirituality, culture, the environment and kinship.

This is our basis of sustainable development and it needs to be understood.

Our planning should be guided by Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs - from basic physiological needs like food and sleep all the way to self-actualisation – morality, problem solving and acceptance of facts.

I hope development workers and planners have a fair idea of Maslow's humanist model.

Sometimes I think that if they have not travelled all the way to self-actualisation, how can they really help us.

KEITH JACKSON

Manasseh Sogavare and Xi Jinping - security deal caused an Australian meltdown

NOOSA – In late October 2010, then United States’ secretary of state Hillary Clinton was in Honolulu nearing the end of a comprehensive tour of the Asia-Pacific region.

In two weeks Clinton was to visit Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia  and high on her agenda were discussions about military cooperation and action “to respond to a more complex maritime environment”.

Clinton continued:

“We are practicing ‘forward-deployed’ diplomacy. We've sent the full range of our diplomatic assets into every corner and every capital of the Asia-Pacific region…. in an active effort to advance shared objectives.”

“Much of the history of the 21st century will be written in Asia,” she said. “And it is a future in which the United States must lead.

“There are some who say that this long legacy of American leadership in the Asia-Pacific is coming to a close. That we are not here to stay. And I say, look at our record. It tells a very different story.”

But in the Pacific Islands, that has not been the story. In fact the last 12 years has been a tale of American aloofness and Chinese affinity.

And, if the US was expecting Australia – as the regional power - to pick up some of the burden of projecting leadership and assisting with economic growth, regional security and enduring values in the south-west Pacific, it was largely mistaken.

Instead Australia became better known for its repetitive utterance of the patronising term ‘our Pacific family’ and, in an incident that came to symbolise its overall attitude, when Messrs Abbott, Morrison and Dutton addressed the Pacific’s key issue, climate change, with a bad joke and smirks about rising sea levels - beneath a dangling microphone.

So over the full term of Liberal-National coalition government, instead of being a mature, open, generous and steadfast leader in its neighbourhood, Australia became something of a loose cannon.

The deployment last November of 66 Australian army and police personnel “to provide security and stability” in the Solomon Islands’ capital Honiara was an impetuous unilateral decision to help curb civil unrest.

Australian embarrassment was eventually saved by the willingness of neighbouring countries to join the mission and change the optics from ‘Australian intervention’ to ‘regional cooperation’.

But it did not stop the Solomons’ recently turning to China for security assistance in the countries’ rapidly blossoming relationship.

The Solomons’ government had also watched with interest as the Australian government hastily pre-empted Chinese company Huawei from rolling out a submarine cable under the Solomon Sea.

And last year it observed the Morrison government grant telco giant Telstra $1.6 billion (K4.2 billion) to head off China in purchasing the Digicel mobile phone networks in PNG, Fiji, Nauru, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu.

But neither of these interventions caused the Solomons’ government to ask China, with which it had established diplomatic relations only in September 2019, to give Australia’s strategic interests pre-eminence in its decision-making.

Nor would the Solomons have overlooked the tawdry remarks from the Sydney-based Lowy Institute in February last year after the five Micronesian nations threatened to exit the Pacific Islands Forum where Australia and New Zealand were throwing their weight around in the selection of a new secretary-general.

The editor of the Institute’s Interpreter magazine, Daniel Flitton, compared the regional dispute to a “toddler’s tantrum” and said Pacific Island nations had “some growing up to do”.

Flitton’s condescending advice was further inflamed by rants about Nauruan connections to the Kremlin and an alleged link between the Marshall Islands and Hezbollah.

Then his colleague, Jonathan Pryke, who recently left his post as director of the Institute’s Pacific program to take a job with Australia’s foreign affairs department, suggested the root of the problem was that Pacific Island leaders were too constrained by culture to hold effective meetings by video link:

“They are accustomed to seeing each other regularly, getting used to these things taking time, Pryke mansplained to the world.

“The Pacific Islands Forum prides itself on consensus decision-making. Decisions can be contentious, but they always do reach that consensus.

“How that will work over Zoom, with possible internet bandwidth and connectivity issues, we don’t know.”

These views drew a barrage of criticism from PNG and the Pacific. It was clear that the Institute men’s views were considered to have wider provenance than the Sydney think-tank.

Port Moresby businessman Corney Alone said colonial-era sentiments about the Pacific were alive and well in Australia. “Believe them when they tell you [the truth],” he said

Prominent PNG media commentator Martyn Namorong said the article was “typical Australian snobbery” and accused the Institute of being tone-deaf and getting worse.

“I’m glad the Lowy Institute ran this article because it explains how Australians think about us,” Namorong wrote. “They basically think of us as riff-raff.”

And Māori activist Sina Brown-Davis minced no words in her analysis, stating the commentary was “absolutely racist and patronising”.

It is against this background of mindless slights as well as the transcending issue of Australia’s failure to deal effectively with the causes of climate change that has brought the Pacific Islands to a point where they are unwilling to cut it any slack.

To round off a pretty poor year for Australia’s reputation in the Pacific, Australia’s deputy opposition leader Richard Marles published a book entitled, 'Tides that Bind: Australia in the Pacific’, an indictable pun for a title and a startling core thesis.

“Now more than ever, the Pacific needs a champion”, wrote Marles, “[and] “the Pacific desperately wants Australia to assume this role.”

If we are to take Marles seriously, the only obstacle to Australia leading the Pacific Islands like the Pied Piper in slouch hat and dungarees is that we don’t want the job.”

The Morrison government had “patently failed the Pacific on the question of climate change,” Marles wrote.

“And Australia’s development assistance has drifted away from supporting health outcomes. While the talk is strong, the walk is weak”.

Well, if he is deputy prime minister after the forthcoming Australian election, Marles may well have his chance to do better.

But to me, and probably to Pacific leaders, his message that they want Australia to lead is probably very far off the mark and a sign that his understanding of politics in the Pacific Islands is underdone.

And so I come to the recent decision by the Solomons’ government to exercise its sovereign right to enter into a security partnership with China as an element of a much wider set of cooperative arrangements.

A leaked story early this week was more than enough to cause something akin to mass hysteria in the Australian polity, press and so-called think-tanks.

It was if suddenly and unexpectedly we would have the Red Army, Navy and Air Force a mere 2,000 kilometers away from our shores.

Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare confirmed a security treaty had been finalised with China but said “there is no intention whatsoever to ask China to build a military base. Where does that nonsense come from?” he asked.

He vigorously denied claims in the Australian media that China had pressured the Solomons to build a military base there.

“We denied [the story] totally,” Sogavare said. “We don’t know where it came from.

“We are insulted by such an unfounded stories and comments.”

Pondering whether Sogavare may see the agreement as a way of consolidating his grip on political power in the Solomons, opposition leader Matthew Wale wrote in The Guardian:

“The proposed security deal between Solomon Islands and China may appear to be all about security, but it is in fact counterproductive to the security interests of Solomon Islands and the Pacific Islands region.

“There is already an agreement with China on policing support. This new deal therefore has to be seen in light of China’s reach into this part of the Pacific.

“The Solomons’ relationships with its regional partners are not perfect.

“The US, Australia and New Zealand have, to varying degrees, been neglectful in the region over the past decade – particularly regarding the existential threat posed by climate change.

“But the proposed security deal with China is not the solution.”

Wale argued a case for his position that seemed to predicate a virtual Chinese takeover of the Solomons:

The Solomons has traditional partners that are like-minded democracies with shared values.

The deal will affect the regional security balance.

Issues will arise for Australia, New Zealand and the US.

This is an unacceptable way to treat our friends.

China has a different and unfamiliar system of government; individual rights are not regarded in the same way.

The deal will make the Solomons a geopolitical playing field.

And the clincher, the security agreement could impact stability in the whole Pacific.

Mihai Sora, a research fellow at the Lowy Institute and a former Australian diplomat in the Solomon Islands also was given space for an article The Guardian.

Sora, also a former Pacific analyst at the Office of National Assessments, a role my brother had 40 years ago, revealed that the draft security agreement includes Chinese “police, armed police, military personnel and other law enforcement and armed forces” deployments to Solomon Islands.

It also allows China, with the consent of Solomon Islands, to make ship visits and provide logistical support.

“A bilateral agreement such as the one proposed between China and Solomon Islands shows a limited appreciation for security of the region as a whole,” according to Sora.

However he did admit that, while the draft was “further evidence of China’s strategic intent in the Pacific” it was uncertain whether China would be able to establish a permanent military base.

“The Solomon Islands would no doubt seek to narrow the terms of the agreement, walking back some of the commitments that China has proposed.”

The targeting of Chinese nationals during last November’s riots provided some rationale for a Chinese security presence in Honiara and China has since sent a handful of police to train Solomon’s police and some anti-riot equipment:

“The scope of the agreement allows China to provide security assistance to major projects.

“With more than 90% of Solomon Islands’ extractive resources by weight going to China in 2019, and a slew of major infrastructure projects being promised by Chinese state-owned enterprises in the country, such an agreement could be tied to Sogavare’s attempt to deliver on his promise of increased economic benefits to Solomon Islands arising from the switch.”

Sora continued: “Australia will have to be realistic about an increased Chinese security presence in the Pacific.

“The challenge for policymakers in Canberra will be how to respond to an increasingly crowded Pacific without escalating geopolitical tensions in the region.”

My reaction to the story so far is that Australia, which has over many years failed to establish appropriate, equal and equitable relationships with PNG and the Pacific Islands has overreacted to an exaggerated view and plenty of loose gossip of how the Solomons’ is determining its sovereign right to choose the friends it wants.

Australia has a poor track record in its dealings with the Pacific Islands but it, and it and the United States have permitted a lot of drift in the region and if anything abhors a vacuum more than Nature, it is geopolitics.

In The Australian newspaper yesterday, Dr John Lee wrote on ‘How Beijing successfully peddles a dishonest but compelling narrative to the Pacific’, which by comparison makes Sora’s analysis look quite limp, which I do not believe it is.

From 2016-18, Lee was a national security adviser to then foreign minister, Julie Bishop,and he offers some trenchant, even belligerent, views about China and the Solomons that align well with the current right wing rhetoric emerging from the Morrison government and its camp followers.

In a nutshell, Lee’s argument is summed up in the headline, but I think this extract from the article is a fair representation of his thesis:

“We need a better understanding of what China is doing.

“Money clearly has something to do with it [however] it is not the amount but how Beijing has directed and leveraged its financial contributions that is worrying.

“The aid has been used to create privileged entry points for Chinese state-owned and private firms to fund and build projects as part of the Belt and Road Initiative…..

“An effective Pacific ‘step up’ is not just about giving more money to countries.

“We need to win the information and influence war by going on the offensive.”

This latter point concluded Lee’s article, so it was not further explained what this offensive might look like.

Nor was there an examination of how the Pacific Islands nations might react to it.

In an article in the China Daily a couple of weeks ago year, Chandran Nair, CEO of the Global Institute for Tomorrow, an independent think tank based in Hong Kong, offered some ideas that should temper the thinking of people like Lee.

From the other end of the ideological spectrum to Lee, Nair wrote of the “inevitable rivalry” of the two superpowers, the US and China, which “camouflages an uncomfortable truth: that we are moving from a Western-constructed world into a post-Western world.”

Nair sees geopolitical discord as not being just about politics or economics, but also about race.

In doing so he notes that the loudest criticisms of China come from the Anglosphere countries — the US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

I think New Zealand is unfairly included, its approach to dealing with China is far more nuanced and intelligent than Australia’s.

Nair quotes Samuel P Huntington in ‘The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order’:

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion … but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.

“Before condemning China as a dangerous dystopia, remember that the current dominance of the Anglosphere, and other European countries, largely arises from their bloody imperial legacy, much of which was genocidal....

“Instead of clinging to its ideas of national, racial and cultural superiority, the Anglosphere should seek a major reset and broker a meaningful dialogue with China.

"The non-white world also needs to have renewed faith in its own values and judgements.

“As we move into a new world order, this can be a chance for new systems of collaboration and plurality to emerge — by working with China rather than against it."

Well that’s certainly a more positive thought than the one we in Australia are prosecuting at the moment which until early this week was based on ‘China won’t meet with us’ and is now based on ‘we won’t meet with China’ after Morrison spurned the olive branch proffered by China’s new ambassador to Canberra.

Strange politics by a government that never lost its way on PNG and the Pacific because it never had a way. Constant repetitions of ‘our Pacific family’ don’t really hack it.

And in any event, the gulf between Australia’s rhetoric and action on China is steeped in cognitive dissonance.

Australia continues the 99-year lease over the Port of Darwin granted to Chinese company Shandong Landbridge by then trade minister Andrew Robb AO in 2015.

The day after he left parliament in 2016, Robb took an $880,000 a year job as a consultant for – wait for it - Landbridge.

The dissonance continues when we see that Chinese companies are the second largest foreign owner of land (controlling 2.3% of Australia’s land mass).

And we find that the federal government is relaxed about Chinese investments in the services sector of the economy.

In 2020 that came to nearly $530 million (K1.4 billion) representing 21% of investment volume in the sector.

Then, of course, there are the bizarre antics of prime minister Morrison in deliberately not seeking to mend the deteriorated diplomatic relationship between China and Australia despite this week being given another opportunity to do so.

China, as most readers will be aware, is Australia's largest two-way trading partner.

In 2021, it provided our biggest export market, worth $156 billion (K411 billion), and was our biggest provider of imports, at $97 billion (K256 billion).

Hillary Clinton said in 2010, “I would simply point out that since the beginning of our diplomatic relations, China has experienced breathtaking growth and development.

“[We] do look forward to working closely with China, both bilaterally and through key institutions as it takes on a greater role and, at the same time, takes on more responsibility in regional and global affairs.”

Depending on where you are on the ideological spectrum, those words may now seem either alarmingly naïve or providing a positive way through the murk of super power rivalry.

In all of this, I find it hard to blame the Solomon Islands’ government, responsible for running one of the world’s poorest countries, for seeking a better pathway for its future.

It would be much more effective if Australia pulled its weight in PNG and the Pacific and sought a new relational basis with the region instead of free-falling into hysteria at the very mention of the word ‘China’.

JUSTIN KUNDALIN

KANDEP - I believe in books. In fact I’m planning to write a book called ‘BooksLive Longer than Man’.

When people write a book, they speak to people through its pages. But sadly, many people don’t have the guts to put in the pages of a book the knowledge and wisdom they have gathered.

Through PNG Attitude I want to challenge my fellow citizens to become readers and writers.

This is because literature can shape Papua New Guinea more efficiently than politics and money.

PNG is a Christian country and the Bible says of books in Ecclesiastes 12:12 - “Of making many books there is no end”.

In this instance, King Solomon is talking about a time when books would be everywhere and books would outnumber the general populace.

He reached this conclusion because there is something powerful about books.

I love what William Ellery Channing wrote about the power and importance of books:

“It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.

“God be thanked for books. They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages.

“Books are true levelers. They give to all who faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our race.”

I want Papua New Guineans to write more books because books will last and they will impact and shape the future.

I wish our teachers would give the best books to students at the beginning of every academic year so they can read as well as learn things in the classroom.

I want to challenge my fellow Papua New Guineans to write because our literature will benefit and serve our country and inspire those who will become leaders.

Much of the time we read books written by foreign authors and the truth is that  they were mostly written in a context very different from ours as a developing nation.

But if a fellow national writes a book about how they’ve succeeded and managed things in life despite the odds, that will give us best advice to aim high and excel in life.

I wish someone would about how Justin Olam has reached the stars in rugby league. It’s books like this that will inspire our young people.

I wish someone would write a story about Jacob Luke, the entrepreneurial owner of Mapai Transport, that grew from one truck 1987 to become such an important corporation.

To write a book about Jacob Luke’s business principles would bless and encourage people to excel because not every young person can make it through the education system.

We need stories of the successful people in PNG, especially those who were once at the bottom but overcame life’s storms to get to the top.

I believe these kinds of books will impact PNG more than the political ploys of crooked leaders.

Members of Parliament should sponsor local writers to research and interview top people and produce books about their lives.

Napoleon Hill wrote books that influenced many people in America; books that shaped people’s lives for good and helped them to see the other side of failure.

Money will breed more culprits but books will produce people with knowledge who can better serve the nation with honesty and integrity.

Politics will bring more division in our country but books will bring wisdom and direction to people who want to serve PNG with conviction and purpose.

Books will enable us to become better communicators and will produce more effective leaders.

Books containing motivational stories about our national heroes can be circulated in great numbers to every school in the country.

Giving books to young students will shape them from an early age and at least, it will contribute to the wellbeing of this nation.

Today, Papua New Guinea is struggling against corruption and many of those trying to combat corruption are themselves corrupted.

To change the current generation of older people seems a lost cause but if we target younger people through books, I believe 30 or 50 years down the road PNG will be changed.

Books not only inform the mind but change people for the good.

The ANU-UPNG Bougainville referendum observer team in Central Bougainville, November 2019

JOE KETAN

PORT MORESBY - In November 2019, the voters of Bougainville turned out and voted overwhelmingly for independence at a referendum expressly giving them the opportunity to have a say on their political future of their island.

I was in Bougainville for the referendum as a member of the Australian National University’s accredited international and domestic observer team.

We concluded officially that the referendum was peaceful and orderly, which was true.

But what most observers missed was the subtle intimidation in the form of the presence at polling stations of veterans of the former Bougainville Revolutionary Army.

The underlying implications of this was overlooked by the international observer missions.

Then, in 2020, a hardliner was elected president of Bougainville; another strong indication that Bougainville voters wanted to break away from Papua New Guinea.

Outgoing president John Momis claimed there was intimidation and hijacking of the will of voters during this election.

This time however, rather curiously, there were no international or domestic observers on hand.

Constitutional independence for Bougainville means that Papua New Guinea would become a new, somewhat smaller nation-state, losing part of its territory including a big slice of its exclusive economic zone.

The only defined timeframe for the next stage of the independence process is president Ishmael Toroama’s firm intention to have everything settled by the end of 2027.

The final decision on independence or some other form of political arrangement will depend on further consultation between the PNG and Bougainville two governments and then a final determining vote in the Papua New Guinea parliament.

This is the point which will deliver far-reaching implications for both governments and for the people of Papua New Guinea and Bougainville.

"The message is clear - this long journey must end sooner rather than later," Toroama said last year, adding that Bougainville must become a country "no later than 2027".

A hasty decision might have serious consequences for PNG. Fast-tracked negotiations and a vote for Bougainville independence might send the wrong signal to other PNG provinces.

Conversely, protracted negotiations, taking many years and a delayed parliamentary vote, might frustrate Bougainvillean leaders and citizens.

Determining a realistic timeframe agreeable to both parties will go a long way in maintaining peace (and trust) between PNG and Bougainville, and civil order within Bougainville.

However, so far, that 2027 date has not been formally affirmed.

A second factor to consider is the question of whether or not Bougainville is ready for independence as a nation-state with all that it entails.

Among other matters, independence for Bougainville will require an adequate economic base, appropriate physical infrastructure, trained and skilled manpower resources and the establishment of strong public sector institutions.

Australian financial advisers have informed us that Bougainville currently has an internal revenue base of only K20 million.

To maintain itself as a viable nation-state, Bougainville, with a population of about 300,000 people, will require much more money than that to sustain itself domestically and to maintain its activities overseas.

PNG envoys tell me that even our country struggles to maintain its missions in Australia and elsewhere in the world.

Apart from political and economic considerations, I am reminded of a philosophical question Professor Ted Wolfers asked me almost 20 years ago: ‘Are Bougainvilleans more different from Papua New Guineans than Sepiks or Tolais or Engans?’

In other words, do Bougainvilleans constitute a unique ethnic group and, if so, what criteria should we use to distinguish this particular ethnic group from the rest of PNG?

The burden will be on PNG parliamentarians to determine how to appease Bougainvilleans without causing Papua New Guinea to disintegrate.

That said, I believe that parliamentarians should be given the freedom to vote according to their conscience rather than following party lines or bending to some other external pressure to vote in a particular way.

Any member of parliament who would sell his vote would be selling his country. This MP would be just as guilty as the one who grants resource development licenses in exchange for money.

I hope this will not happen when parliament sits at some stage to vote on the future of Bougainville.

Sentimentally, Papua New Guineans should appreciate the fact that at a crucial stage in the history of PNG, Bougainville – through its resources - carried the rest of PNG on its back.

The single copper, gold and silver mine provided enough money to sustain the whole country as it moved towards independence from Australia.

Today, of course, we have so many mines and oil and gas fields. But we probably could not support the country again like Bougainville did because much of the country’s wealth has been stolen by PNG’s leaders.

We would be much better off today had we protected our wealth from our crooks.

Is it perhaps now time to say thank you to Bougainville for its contributions to PNG? Or would an act of gratitude backfire on PNG in a nasty way?

For example, will the granting of independence to Bougainville open the floodgates for other provinces to break away from PNG?

Maybe we can identify some middle ground between where Bougainville is today, a province of limited autonomy, and Bougainville as an independent state.

There must be position of greater autonomy between those two jurisdictions.

And there are cases of countries existing in free association with each other – like the Cook Islands and New Zealand - or having considerable autonomy but maintaining representation elsewhere – like Palau and the USA.

But what we don’t know is whether the people of Bougainville will accept anything short of full Independence.

My personal opinion is that we should let the people of Bougainville form their own nation-state, with our blessings.

As discussed by PNG prime minister, James Marape, perhaps Bougainville could, be farewelled with a commitment of gift of K100-K200 million a year for the first five years.

To deter other provinces from following Bougainville’s example, we should ask Bougainvilleans to give up their PNG citizenship and leave PNG.

We would remove all Bougainvilleans from the PNG public service, statutory organisations, state security agencies and state-owned enterprises to enable them to go home to build their own country.

Finally, we would remove all provisions from the PNG Constitution that contain references to any special arrangements with provinces. All provinces, without exception, must be equal under the law.

Hewago 'Ace' Paul Oea (left) in action for the Gold Coast Suns

DAVID BRIDIE & JARROD LANDELLS
| Wantok Almanac | Edited extracts

Link here to read the full article. Wantok Almanac is a collaboration between Wantok Musik’s David Bridie and The Footy Almanac’s Jarrod Landells. Both share an affinity with our Pacific neighbourhood and its stories

MELBOURNE - On the streets of Port Moresby, there is a fervour and life for rugby league that mimics any passion worldwide.

Think Rio Janeiro’s favelas bristling with Ronaldinho acolytes, or Delhi devotees playing cricket every day to become the new Sehwag in the hearts of a billion people.

On the streets of Moresby, the kids dream of being the next Marcus Bai, Adrian Lam or, most likely these days, Justin Olam.

Justin casts a huge shadow over PNG’s sporting landscape; a shadow acknowledged by another AFL footballer hailing from Papua New Guinea, Hewago Paul ‘Ace’ Oea of the Gold Coast Suns.

Ace is arguably the most talented Australian Rules footy player to have learned the game outside Australia.

At age 16 and living in Port Moresby he played school, club, state, regional and national footy.

Now Ace looks set to play senior footy for the Suns after a couple of NEAFL/VFL seasons playing in the reserves.

“My dream is to work hard on my training and off field to play my first senior game,” he said.

“It doesn’t come easy, I know it’ll be hard to get a game in the ones, but I’m positive about the future.”

And positive he has had to be in trying circumstances for any young footballer living away from home and family and dealing with a pandemic while becoming a professional athlete.

All this burdened with people’s expectations of doing what nobody who learned the game in PNG has done before: play in the Australian Football League, the AFL.

Ace and Jarrod (Jarrod Landells)

“When I first rocked up at the Suns, Jarrod Harbrow, an Indigenous boy and a good fella started helping me a lot with training and socialising with the other boys.

“It was a bit different when I moved here [to the Gold Coast], I was happy to experience a different culture.”

Despite his upbringing in Port Moresby, home to around 400,000 people (slightly smaller than the Gold Coast), Ace has cultural and family links to other provinces of PNG: his mother’s side is from Gulf Province and his dad’s from Central.

“I grew up with my family in Moresby, hanging out with my friends and family. I loved going to my dad’s village, going fishing and it was good to visit my grandparents.

“I was two or three when I lived at my dad’s village…after that I grew up and spent time in the city. I’m a city boy.”

It was in the city that Ace got the chance to pick up a footy for the first time.

“When I was little, about 10, I started playing touch footy and rugby league for my school and with my friends.

“To be honest, rugby league is so big back home. Everyone supports the Kumuls, it’s the number one sport.

“My older brother started playing Aussie Rules while I was playing touch. I thought ‘Maybe I’ll give it a try for school footy’. He told me to make sure I gave it a go.”

Following in the footsteps of an older sibling is a tried and true path for many a footballer and Ace made all the right steps as he entered his teen years in a dizzying fashion:

“I started in Under-12s, then got picked in the PNG Under-14 team. Next I got picked in the South Pacific team against the Australian state sides and was selected for the Queensland Under-16 team.

“I’ve also been lucky to represent my country for the Mosquitoes [PNG’s senior men’s team]; it’s very special to me.

“I flew down by myself, went into the Queensland camp and stayed with the team for a weekend.

“My visa was upgraded for three months and that was the lead up to being picked up by the Suns Academy.

“I played in the local league down here, for the Broadbeach Cats. Then I started playing NEAFL with the Suns in 2018.”

At this level just below the big time, Ace impressed with his ability to get the ball, his athleticism and his clean disposal. But when he was knocking on the door of a top level debut, the pandemic hit.

“When Covid kicked in everything went crazy, so I’m not sure about the boys back home.”

The ‘boys back home’ are former AFL hopefuls and international scholarship holders Gideon Simon and Brendan Beno – both of whom played in Cairns after stints on the extended lists at Richmond (Simon) and Brisbane (Beno).

They are key points of contact for Ace as he tries to go one better.

“They’re back in Queensland now, still playing footy in local leagues and working as well."

Zimmie kicks away against Gold Coast (David Layden Photography)

You don’t see too many AFL Women (AFLW) players with Melanesian heritage, but Zimmorlei ‘Zimmie’ Farquharson’s mother hails from Masingara Village near Daru in PNG’s Western Province.

The family now lives in Dalby, north Queensland, and Zimmie’s dual Australian and Papua New Guinean heritage wasn’t always clear to her.

“When I was little I didn’t know much about my family from PNG – mum never talked about it, dad never talked about it.

“Some people have asked me about my culture and it’s been kind of a shock, because no-one’s ever asked us before.”

Zimmie’s rise in 2022 in AFLW has been swift. In a trademark long-sleeve jumper, she made her debut in Brisbane Lion’s Round 3 win over Carlton and since then has been out of the side only once.

The highly skilled forward from Dalby, who looks set to be a key player in this year’s Lions’ premiership bid, did not come into the world of footy through rusted-on allegiances or generational passion for the game.

“My family’s not really sporty, they’re not sporting people,” Zimmie said.

“I was actually doing other sports - tennis and soccer and I was also a sprinter.

“When I was six, AusKick was going on at our school and my brother took it up.

“I love my brother and have followed in his footsteps, I did my first AusKick with him, then our parents decided to put us into the Dalby Swans.

“It was hard because athletics had the chance to take me so far, but there was no possibility with the AFLW. I didn’t know there was an AFLW.”

“[My PNG heritage] is definitely a big thing for me. It wasn’t really a cultural thing but in 2020 mum decided to take me and my brother to meet the other side of my family, which was really good.

“It made me happy – made me feel like I got a piece of something that was missing when I was younger.

Watching the big game in the village (David Bridie)

On the field, Zimmie is exciting to watch, drawing superlatives from commentators, coaches and fellow players.

Despite being a groundbreaker in many ways, she remains a reluctant figurehead.

“I haven’t really thought of myself as being a role model – I don’t want to put that expectation upon myself .... perceive myself as this ‘great footballer who is multicultural’.

“But I would like to show those who have similar backgrounds that it is possible to make it in professional sport.

If I can be that kind of role model for girls who haven’t had that person who was like them, then definitely.”

“Dad was thinking if I ever finish with football [here] to go back and try and do something with football in PNG.

“My family knows how deeply I want to get into my PNG culture because I didn’t get it when I was younger.

“I want to learn more, I want those experiences; like mum went through when she was a kid. I’d like to be there, live there, for a year or two. Know what happens, about the environment, the culture. Really embrace it.”

In the 1960s and 1970s when Australian football in PNG was on the up and up, several players were invited to train with the then Victorian Football League.

They included the late Herea Amini of the Koboni Demons who ran around with its namesake, the powerhouse Melbourne Demons side of 1964.

But, after many years of growth, support for footy in PNG tanked in the late 1970s and early 1980s because of substantial management, funding and structural problems.

It wasn’t until PNG started to find success on field in the mid-1990s, and local heroes like Koboni’s Vili Maha got the local competitions back on track, footy reclaimed some of its former glory.

Footy in Queen’s Park Rabaul,  1972 (David Bridie)

More recently this resurgence has led to an International Cup win in 2017 and a stand-out performance by the men’s team at the last Asian Games.

The challenges today are different, but PNG is not fighting them alone this time.

The pandemic has forced the International Cup to be delayed by an entire cycle and many players have been left high and dry – either by being excluded from Australia or Covid restrictions making competitions unviable.

Link here to read the full story of Papua New Guineans in Australian footy

ISHMAEL TOROAMA
| Bougainville News

BUKA - It has been a year since my government launched the Bougainville Independence Ready Mission on 1 April 2021.

The mission takes a three-tiered strategic approach to the preparations for independence that must be implemented internally, domestically and internationally.

In marking the first year of implementation, I wish to remind all of us Bougainvilleans that preparing for independence is no easy challenge.

It requires government and people to work together and to work harder to actualise our political aspiration for independence.

We have established constituency-based independence-ready committees across all 33 constituencies and these comprise the internal tier of the mission.

As president, I call on all Bougainvilleans to work collaboratively with these committees to progress nation-building and state-building activities at ward level.

We can only progress through people-participation in development, adopting social responsibility standards, having a progressive mindset and cultivating an attitude of self-reliance in families and communities.

Our political timeline has been set – as we have announced it, ‘no earlier than 2025 and no later than 2027’ - and it requires a whole-of-government approach to independence-readiness.

As Bougainvilleans, we must embrace this timeline and understand as a matter of urgency that it is now time to get our house in order.

In working through independence-readiness, my government will ensure we have the proper systems in place to promote democracy, transparency, accountability, peace and good order in our society.

In the same manner, I call on every Bougainvillean man, woman and child to stand firm with your government in this process.

Our 97.7% vote for independence in the 2019 referendum proves that we are united in this process, so we must not shy away from the challenges that lie ahead.

As we stood united as one people when we voted for Bougainville’s independence, we must stand firm through this journey to deliver independence together.

May God Bless Us All.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE – In his thoughtful exposition, ‘What should we do with Bougainville’, Joe Ketan neatly outlines what is described as a 'wicked' policy problem, meaning one for which there is no good solution.

It is abundantly clear that, if Bougainville's demand for independence is not acceded to by the Papua New Guinean parliament, it is likely a unilateral declaration of independence will be declared by an angry and frustrated Autonomous Bougainville Government.

President Toroama’s report to the Bougainville people below and many of his previous statements make it clear that 2027 is the outer limit of his government’s expectations for independence to be ceded.

While PNG’s parliament has the final say, PNG’s government has no realistic capacity to prevent independence if that is what Bougainville wants.

To attempt to withhold independence will drag PNG and Bougainville into another civil war.

Short of unlikely third party backing, it is likely PNG would lack the resources to win such a war, not to mention alienating a great many of its friends in the south-west Pacific.

In this scenario an independent Bougainville could become yet another impoverished mini-state, of which the world already has abundance.

But PNG’s problems would not end there.

Its approval of Bougainville independence may trigger pressure from other provinces who feel ignored or let down by Port Moresby's ruling elite.

New Ireland and East New Britain have long sought greater autonomy and in July 2018 the O’Neill government signed an inter-government agreement supposed to start a process of granting greater autonomy to New Ireland, East New Britain and Enga.

The risk is that PNG might disintegrate into a collection of mostly landlocked mini-states, all of them incapable of lifting their populations out of poverty.

A fallback position might be the creation of Federation of Melanesian States, with a relatively weak national government having responsibility for foreign affairs, defence, customs and excise and, possibly, tax collection.

The tax revenues could be fairly distributed through a version of the Australian Grants Commission, whereby a process laboriously titled 'horizontal fiscal equalisation' to ensures a relatively equitable distribution of resources across Australian states.

Whether PNG's politicians, almost all of them predominantly self-interested, are willing to work through such complex issues is anyone's guess.

Bougainville is a policy conundrum that would challenge even the wisest let alone the collection of chancers and carpetbaggers that PNG politics typically produces.

Still, you never know, miracles happen from time to time.

James Marape and Joko Widodo meet over tea in Jakarta

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Papua New Guinean prime minister James Marape’s flying visit to Jakarta late last week drew much criticism on PNG social media because of the size of the accompanying delegation.

That fairly cheap criticism obscured the mini-summit’s importance as an encounter where Marape and Indonesian president Joko Widodo were able to meet privately face-to-face.

In fact the brevity of the meeting stood in sharp contrast to its importance.

It turned out that this was a major initiative by Marape to recalibrate a relationship which has been drifting for at least a decade.

Marape emphasised it was common goals rather than the common border that is of greatest importance to PNG.

And, while he did not say this, it seems highly likely that the mini-summit was driven by a new recognition that - with China’s increasing embrace of the Pacific Islands, and the more assertive response this is meeting from an Australia clutching the hand of the USA - PNG requires a friend that is beholden to neither.

That friend is right next door, just a step across a shared 820 kilometer border.

To me, this meeting showed a welcome maturity and strategic consciousness in Papua New Guinean diplomacy.

After all, if the two major world powers are beginning to shadow box in your front yard and you are desirous of remaining ‘a friend to all and an enemy to none’ as PNG says it is, not aligning yourself with either is the most sensible strategic arrangement.

So the ‘look north’ policy of Michael Somare seems to have been retired and replaced by the ‘look next door’ policy of James Marape, with next door being west not south.

The reason for this is, to me, inescapable.

Australia seems to have decided that balancing the China-US relationship was both too hard and ideologically testing, so it has thrown in its lot with the US.

Foolishly, Australia (or more accurately the Morrison government) also thought acting grown up meant it must show fealty to America by deriding China.

That stance could not be less in the interests of Papua New Guinea.

In his meeting with Widodo, Marape referred to a forgotten treaty that PNG and Indonesia agreed in 2013 when Peter O’Neill was prime minister and retired army general Susilo Bambang (SBY) Yudhoyono was Indonesian president.

Peter O'Neill and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Bali, 2012 (Adek Berry, AFP)

The context of that agreement was very much West Papua – both border issues and the continuing guerrilla war and reported human rights abuses against pro-independence activists.

Indonesia's main political goal at the time was to ensure PNG’s support for Indonesia's territorial integrity and its efforts to suppress the rebel Free Papua Movement (Organisasi Papua Merdeka, OPM).

While that goal has not changed - although Indonesia seems to be seeking more creative political rather than military means of stabilising West Papua -the greater global issue of China’s ambitions reshaping Asia-Pacific geopolitics looks like being the big concern for the next couple of decades at least.

In 2014 the Lowy Institute published a monograph, rather snidely titled, ‘More talk than walk: Indonesia as a foreign policy actor’, which concluded that “as a foreign policy actor, Indonesia is not quite the next big thing”.

The analysis, by academic Dr Dave McRae, also concluded:

“By engaging on regional and global issues that are important to Indonesia and help it be seen as a global player, prospective partner countries such as Australia can build trust and relationships that will make their overall bilateral relationship with Indonesia more robust.”

Well, that was in 2014 and this is now, and no current analysis would be certain that Australia could build up that kind of trust with Indonesia – after all, to get too close to Australia’s feckless and unsubtle foreign policy is to move into uncharted reef-strewn waters.

Today, in a rapidly and radically shifting regional strategic environment, both Indonesia and PNG can see many benefits in a closer relationship.

Perhaps the prospect of PNG entering ASEAN, a long held dream, is also much closer now.

As for the Comprehensive Partnership Agreement of 2013, let James Marape tell the short story: “Unfortunately, after nine years, those exchanges have not progressed further.”

And so to the recent meeting….

Thanking Widodo for agreeing to it at short notice, Marape said:

“We have always had a good relationship. Indonesia stood with us in many fronts.

“From when we became formal bilateral partners in 1976 and [when] you were responsible for our admission to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) membership.

“You have always been there for us in some difficult times, as we have struggled as a nation in our crisis days, in our stressful financial days.”

Marape particularly thanked Widodo for the Indonesian Department of Health’s assistance in PNG’s desperate fight against Covid: “We - PNG government, business houses and leaders and public servants - will forever be grateful to Indonesia as we have been in the past.”

And there I was thinking that Australia had all this well in hand. Seems not.

Marape also made a point of emphasising that he had been accompanied on the visit by his ministers and private sector leaders so they could meet their Indonesian counterparts “to get them connected” and ensure the relationships are there “for our two nations to coexist going into the future supporting each other”.

He also said the countries ties must move from a focus on the border to a focus on trade and economic links:

“Some relationships we have are not by choice … but they exist by the design of God,” Marape said.

“For us, PNG and Indonesia, it is a relationship that we cannot ignore.

“We are not just friends, but more than brothers and sisters; our nations have been together and existed since time immemorial.

“For so long, we have held discussions and focused on border issues.

“These discussions today with the president and myself were outside of border and more into trade, business, economy, public service exchanges, health and education exchanges.”

Marape said a Defence Cooperation Agreement will soon be finalised and thanked Widodo for inviting the Pacific Islands Forum to the margins of the G20 meeting to be held in Bali in October.

He also invited President Widodo to visit PNG this year.

It seems Papua New Guinea could teach Australia a thing or two about diplomacy.

A graduation ceremony at Pacific Adventist University in Port Moresby

SIMON DAVIDSON

PORT MORESBY - It is 12 years since I attended Dr Carol Tasker’s class on Spiritual Formation at the Papua New Guinea Union Mission study centre in Lae.

Dr Tasker is an Australian who studied for her doctorate, with a special focus on Adventist pastors’ spirituality, at Andrews University in the United States.

She is now director of post-graduate studies at Pacific Adventist University in Port Moresby.

She is married to Dr David Tasker, dean of the school of theology and education. They have two children, both now young men.

Dr Carol Tasker considers herself a lifelong learner and believes the character of the teacher has an inestimable effect on students

I write this reflection of 2010 about a class of 12 students under the tuition of Dr Tasker. On the very first day we were taught scripture journaling.

After selecting a book from the Gospels, we were to write a journal based on our interaction with the word of God.

Over six weeks, starting with the first verse of the first chapter, we were to make our way through the entire book and maintain the journaling for six weeks

And each day we were required to answer three questions: what does it mean, what does it say about God and what does it say about me?

The first question helped us understand the historical context of the text.

The second enabled us to discover what God is doing in the narrative.

The third assisted us discover the relevance of the story to our lives - to draw spiritual lessons and practical applications to enhance our personal walk with Jesus Christ.

I selected the book of St Mark for my journaling because it was the shortest of the four gospels.

As I worked through this exercise, the Bible became a new and thrilling book to me.

After the six weeks finished and when classes ended I have continued journaling for the last 12 years.

In 2013, with many ideas exciting my mind, I taught myself how to write a book, starting with writing stories and poems.

The scripture journaling had become the catalyst for my creative writing.

My books include short essays on socio-economic and political issues affecting Papua New Guinea.

I often write and contribute to The National newspaper, South Pacific Record magazine, the influential PNG Attitude blog and my Facebook page.

Journaling has done much for me: enhancing my creative thinking and enabling me to read the Bible systematically and so understand it in a way I have not known before.

I have now read and journaled the entire Bible.

After that 10 years, the Bible was clearer and I enjoyed the moments I spent in God’s holy writ, discovering hidden gems from this rich mine.

After an hour each day reading and journaling, I meditate on the word of God and let its power impact my life. I ride on the wings of God’s word.

I always carry pen and paper to record insights as I think and reflect. What I discover from meditation, I share in my lectures and preaching.

After mastering journaling, I began teaching the skill to many of my students. I have taught it to more than one thousand students, and they have taught it to others, creating a ripple effect.

In 2019 I was able to publish my first book, ‘My Poetic Musings’, a byproduct of my scripture journaling.

I had many teachers. My first teacher was my mother. There were my relatives who spent time with me. I learned about village life.

I learned there is a communal obligation to transmit knowledge. In Melanesia, it takes the whole village to raise a child.

I learned from my primary and high school teachers, and then from my esteemed professors at university. And I read their books, books which altered my thinking.

But the teacher who really had a profound impact in my life is Dr Carol Tasker.

Her influence has been unquantifiable. I hold her in the highest regard. And she imparted to me the skills of scripture journaling.

One of the important lessons I learned is the role of consistency. What is done consistently over time can produce gargantuan results and amaze us.

By consistent daily conception, God created the universe in six days. By consistent reading, Booker T Washington acquired such knowledge and became adviser to a president. By consistent innovation, Thomas Edison became the wizard of Menlo Park. By consistently writing 10 pages a day, Stephen King became the bestselling writer of fiction.

As a drop of rain following constantly on a rock can create a hole in the stone, so consistent action compounds over time and produces amazing results over time.

Many times, we shoot our arrows at random, focusing on a gazillion things, we become generalists of everything but not masters of anything.

To me, this represents a waste of innate potential. We need to be focus and be consistent. To master a skill or an idea, to become proficient, to reach excellence, to gain rare knowledge and hopefully to become wise.

So my rule is to be consistent. Read every day. Write every day. Exercise every day. Reflect every day. Do something new every day.

People often underestimate what they can accomplish.

But a year of consistent daily action can accomplish marvels that will amaze us.

And also make the demons jealous. But the angels will dance. And God will be proud.

Final approach Omkolai, late 1960s (PNGAA)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – This photograph and the one below it emerged on Facebook not so long ago.

They brought back many memories of a time now long gone in a place dear to our hearts.

Omkolai airstrip is about 20 km south of Kundiawa. It doesn’t sound that far to me now. But the road from Kundiawa – precipitous and riven with landslides – always made it seem much, much further than that. Still does, I hear.

The strip has a 13.4 degree slope (one in seven gradient) and it’s a mile, about 1,600 metres, above sea level.

Back then, in the 1960s, when I was a denizen of Chimbu, it was said to be the steepest airstrip in the southern hemisphere.

Regional map showing Kundiawa, Mingende and Kerowagi. Gagl school is located near (and indeed my be the same place renamed) as Bogo school

That’s a very Australian thing to say, our culture needs biggests, and - given the number of tiny strips dotted about in all manner of remote and mountainous places in the southern hemisphere - I suppose it’s possible that it was.

It was constructed in 1952, when there was no road access to Chimbu’s southern tribes – dug out from a hill by hundreds of men and boys using the most basic implements.

This masterpiece of civil engineering is variously claimed to have been under the supervision of an American Lutheran missionary, the Rev Bilande, or achieved by the will of the kiaps.

I would guess it was most likely the latter, although the story of the missionary family is more romantic.

Rev Bilande and his family lived in a German-style residence built nearby for them, which was soon followed by a church and then a school for the people of Omkolai village and surrounds.

Not long after, there was a report in a church newsletter that the Bilande missionary family “lived a happy life and people visited them providing local food.

“Every Sunday, everyone goes to church to listen to the white man’s voice and to see their little [white] children playing.”

Talair Cessna overflying Omkolai, 1966

Around August 1966, Sue, who became my first wife and who was completing her teacher training in New South Wales, flew from Sydney to Goroka, where I met her at the airport.

We drove over the Daulo Pass to Chuave, where we overnighted with my dear friends, teachers Murray and Joan Bladwell.

The next morning we motored on to my school at Gagl, up in the hills maybe 6 km east of Kerowagi and 20 km north of Kundiawa in a straight line. This in country, you understand,  where straight lines were unknown.

To find Gagl you drive west along the Highlands Highway so-called and, upon arriving at the famous Mingende Mission, turn right on to the goat track to Gagl, another 15-20 minutes’ drive all going well.

Anyway, enough of time and distance. During this visit to my remote school with its breathtaking view looking across the Wahgi Valley to the Kubor Range, Sue agreed to marry me.

Qantas single-engine Otter parked on the small apron at Omkolai, 1959 (it’s not facing downhill for a reason)

A week later we had the biggest and only engagement party Gagl has ever seen. A dozen vehicles, mainly LandRovers and coffee utes hazarded the bush track. There was only one that did in a sump - the Volkswagen. Totally unsuited to these parts.

The next day Sue and I travelled to Kerowagi, 10km west, to return to Goroka, this time by air.

We would say goodbye in Goroka and Sue would fly back to Sydney and try to explain the surprise engagement to her mother.

The Cessna 185 on the strip at Kerowagi was packed to the gunnels with bags of kaukau and other vegetables, a couple of sacks of rice as well as a cage of chickens, leaving two narrow seats at the rear for Sue and me.

The aircraft hurtled down the Kerowagi strip seemingly glued to the grass and showing no sign of becoming airborne until eventually the pilot gave up and throttled back, the aircraft slowing enough to wheel around just before reaching the deep stormwater baret inside the airfield perimeter.

“We’ll have another go, I’ll get her up this time,” the pilot said with a confidence we hidden at the rear did not share.

On the apron at Omkalai, mid-1960s

This time with an immense roar and amidst clouds of grass and dust, the aircraft lifted off and I could just hear Two Goes yelling through the kaukau and other cargo that we’d be stopping briefly at Omkolai to drop off mail for John Biltris, the kiap at Gumine.

My heart sank. I’d never flown in or out of Omkolai but its notoriety preceded it and was a regular topic of conversation in Kundiawa after the two most popular subjects – whether the Highlands Highway was open and when the next beer shipment was due.

The steepest strip in the southern hemisphere (maybe the world, I was now thinking) was just 550 metres long and dug out of the side of a mountain surrounded by other mountains.

It was a one-way strip, attacked from a narrow valley and ending at an unforgiving ridge-line. On one side it dropped precipitously 450 metres to the Wahgi River.

My late great mate Murray Bladwell and I on leave in Avalon, Sydney, 1965. We are planning what I should say to my future mother-in-law about Sue and my impromptu engagement

At the top was a small flat square of apron, the only level ground in the Gumine Sub-District it seemed, where the aircraft would dock.

Anyway, young Two Goes was better at landings, especially uphill where physics took over to bring the Cessna to an abrupt stop out, causing him to gun the motor violently so as to gain enough motive power to get the aircraft to the small apron.

Biltris wasn’t there to greet us so we gave the mail and a couple of boxes of tinmit to a bloke who assured us that ‘kiap i salim mi long kisim ol samting’.

Take-off was a doddle, the 185 moving forward a few metres from the apron before it rapidly gathered speed and then, halfway down the strip, had the ground plunge away beneath it, The now not quite so-overloaded Cessna 180 took to the air like a bird.

This leg to Goroka passed without event and I saw Sue off in the DC3 to Lae and Moresby and made my way home to my school in the clouds, lonely to be without Sue, excited by the promise of marriage and daunted with the prospect of having to face Sue’s mother when I went on leave in three months.

As for Omkolai, Philip Kaupa told PNG Attitude in 2014 that this “once beautiful and most challenging airstrip is no more to be seen. Today it is another gardening field of kaukau mounds.”

But I’m still able to say, and so is my first wife, Sue, that we once landed on the steepest airfield in the southern hemisphere and, just maybe, the world.

United Nations women candidates workshop, Port Moresby, 2012. If training does not pragmatically address the socio-cultural barriers facing women, it is likely to be a complete waste of time

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

Disclaimer: If your goal is advocacy for women’s rights, please don’t read this article. It will offend you. If you get offended easily, don’t read. But if your goal is ‘winning’ an election as a women in Papua New Guinea read on - MK

PORT MORESBY - There is the idealistic, modern, Western way of doing things. And then there is the Papua New Guinean Way, the Melanesian Way.

In electoral terms, one of these is clearly much more effective than the other.

For those of us who live our lives between both cultures, we learn to act appropriately depending on where we are at the time and what we want to achieve.

If we are women, and want to achieve elected office at national level - where of 111 parliamentarians, none is a woman - then we will need to address some very basic issues about our culture.

I know women who are highly educated, indeed some of them my colleagues and my sisters.

They are the classic modern women. In Port Moresby or Australia, they live the modern women they are.

But when they go back to their villages, they take their place as delegated by hundreds of years of customary conventions.

These conventions vary throughout Melanesia but in general you can take it that men are the head and brothers own the land.

And that they consult their brothers, fathers and elders before making decisions that affect the village.

This is where I’m going with this article: in PNG, more than 80% of the voters are rural-based.

They are based where life is governed more by culture than it is by formal law.

Both those who are educated in the Western curriculum and who remain uneducated have one vote each.

Some 80% of our people live in rural areas. People in rural areas dominate PNG elections.

These are voters who have no frame of reference for a range of concepts, perhaps concepts like ‘equality’ or ‘proportionality’ or even ‘democracy’.

Even those people who are educated in the Western, modern, idealistic ways are still very much internally regulated by their cultural upbringing.

Most everyone in PNG has a village they belong to: whether raised there by parents who grew up in it or who, even though urbanised, still feel strong ties to it.

So to win elections in PNG, one has to think, act, and do what the voters tell you.

And this requires a focus on the rural village.

This means female voters have to go back to their villages and communities long before elections, reinforce the relationship and obtain consent from the tribal elders.

Women need the support of men more than women. Women in rural villages do what their husbands tell them. This is the reality.

It's in rural villages where most elections are won or lost, and even in urban areas the influence of traditional culture is powerful

If women in rural areas made their own decisions - or if their decisions were informed by idealistic, modern, Western concepts - we wouldn’t need this conversation.

Women in PNG don’t vote in female MPs.

That is the strongest truth of the culture women candidates will come up against.

Even if women are free to make their own decisions, they will choose men over women. They actually do that.

In an earlier article, Research reveals insights into women candidates, I wrote of conversations with some current Bougainvillean and former PNG female candidates.

When these women were asked about their experiences, they attributed their success to the leadership and influence of men during the campaign phase.

What you might call toxic masculinity is sometimes an asset in elections if women can learn to use it to their advantage.

There is a requirement to study the prevailing cultural imperatives, align your strategies with them, and campaign accordingly.

Don’t ever raise the equality argument. You will not find sympathisers for equality in rural areas, or even in cities for that matter.

But you can take heart, for very many of us want you to win.

I would also urge you to listen carefully to how Papua New Guineans define leadership.

Many will tell you they trust the person who has lived with them in their communities.

They will trust people with the hanmak, who has implemented small projects to improve the community.

Especially during dry seasons or disasters, go out of your way and buy supplies for your village.

Assist in any way you can. It doesn’t have to be a huge contribution. But it will make you ‘visible’. It will keep you engaged.

You should understand that policies and plans do not matter in rural electorates.

To these people, talk is far less important than action. Doing matters much more than saying.

Winning an election is a long, hard road.

You need to know your people. Know your place. Be one with your people and your (village) place. You need their trust. Only then you are in a position to credibly ask for their votes.

Women candidates who have announced they will run for Port Moresby electorates in 2022 (top to bottom, left to right): Tania Bale (Port Moresby North-East, Anna Bais (Port Moresby North West, Michelle Hau'ofa (Port Moresby South), Sylvia Pascoe (National Capital District Regional)

There is no question that we need more women in parliament.

But to win, we need to follow the cultural imperatives that underpin our Melanesian society

If your goal is advocacy, then you don’t have to follow this advice.

After all, you are an independent individual with equality guaranteed by the Constitution.

You don’t need anyone’s permission to do stuff. Not men’s permission. Not your clan’s permission.

But if your goal is winning an election, you must abide by the norms and practices voters have agreed or, more likely, been acculturated to.

This is a socio-cultural venture where you are at the mercy of voters’ decisions. They decide whether you win or lose fate.

The strength of your advocacy is not a factor; the articulation of your cultural understanding is.

When you win, and have the national platform, you then can advocate for change.

It won’t be drastic change because you don’t want to risk losing next time, but gradual, incremental change.

It will be a long journey before we reach that idealistic, modern, Western form of democracy and equality - especially in popular elections where all can choose and all can vote.

So for now, women will have to take the long route.

Some people will ask what the role is here for corruption, foul play, intimidation or violence - offences committed mostly by men.

The truth is that until we have demonstrably free and fair elections, you need men’s support to help you get past these problems.

And yes, at times, they may even commit these offences for you. A bitter and even frustrating truth.

Urban seats will in all likelihood be slightly different from rural seats.

However the role of men in the prospects of success for female candidates is still very important. Even in urban PNG, culture prevails.

Now this has been my personal take on things but, where I come from, this is pretty much the truth.

Michael Kabuni - "If your goal is winning an election, you must abide by the norms and practices to which voters have been acculturated"

Further reading….

Research reveals insights into women candidates by Michael Kabuni

Ipatas leads charge to get women into parliament by Michael Kabuni

Election ’22: Can their political legacy get women into parliament? by Theresa Meki

The life of a woman in PNG politics by Dame Carol Kidu

Women's political participation in Papua New Guinea by Geejay Milli (free downloadable PDF)

Improving women’s participation in PNG politics by Anthony Swan & Grant Walton

MICHAEL DOM
Ples Singsing - A PNG Writer's Blog

TOK PISIN VERSION FOLLOWS

My moral compass swings
On the freed finger tips
Of the monster I hide

The smiling fiend who haunts my dreams
Whose cold silhouette passes me
By the doorway in the mirror

It swings there just at arm’s length
One step away from horror
One move and I embrace it

I cannot subvert
This weird reflection
To love or hate it

Like a shadow that I cannot outrun
The compass on my own extended arm

Sonet bilong pasin na save
(raitim long Lindsay F Bond)

Kompas bilong makim rot emi hangamap
Long pinga bilong han ibin brukim banis
Em han bilong tewel mi iet haitim istap

Tewel save soim tit long mi long driman
Klaut tutak bilong em mekim sikin i kol
Taim mi sanap long dua na galasim em

Kompas emi hangamap klostu tru long han
Wanpela lek tasol, bai popoaia long en
Wanpela lek tasol, mi holim passim em

Mi no inap stret long sakim laik bilong em
Dispela tewel paulim ai taim mi lukluk
Mi ino save bai mi laikim o nogat

Mi no inap long abrusim klaut bilong em
Kompas i hangamap long han bilong mi iet