ASOPA PEOPLE

PNG 1958: Goodbye Bill; Hello Geoff

1958 was a volatile year in PNG Education. Bill Groves, Director of Education since the end of the war, departed, with Territories’ Minister Paul Hasluck’s imprecations ringing in his ears. Groves' really never overcame his earlier association with former Administrator JK ‘Kanaka Jack’ Murray, a Labor appointee despised by the Menzies Government. Nothing Groves did ever satisfied Canberra.

Geoff Roscoe, in the Territory since 1947, took over from Groves – and, while he seemed to interest Hasluck in his ideas, Roscoe's Port Moresby peers were far from impressed by his tactics in circumventing them. But ’58 was the year when a choice had to be made between universal primary education and a greater concentration on secondary schooling – and Roscoe came down in favour of the former. A critical decision. All in all, 1958 was arguably a vintage year, except perhaps for those involved.

January. ‘Considerable Advances in Education, Minister Claims’. Paul Hasluck says since 1949, pupils in Administration schools have increased from 2,670 to 13,841. [South Pacific Post]

February. “The short answer [to why the Education Department was not achieving] was the administrative incapacity of Groves.” [Paul Hasluck in his book ‘A Time For Building’]

February. “Due to retire from here in August of this year, and looking back over the twelve years I have spent here in sheer hard work against many difficulties and frustrations immediately after the war, I feel that we have no reason to be satisfied with what we have managed to accomplish. In any case I am pretty certain that the powers-that-be at Ministerial level at Canberra do not think that we have accomplished anything like what they had expected.” [Personal letter from WC Groves to FH Gwilliam]

May. ‘Failure in Education’. “We educate natives in the belief the bent pen nib is mightier than the shovel - turn them out after grade 4 believing the bent nib is the key to the cargo. They are spurning labour because they have advanced beyond it.” [South Pacific Post]

July. ‘Russia Claims Trusteeship Council Under an Illusion’. “The Russian delegate, Mr Lovanov says there has been no progress in education in the Territory over the past few years.” [South Pacific Post]

August. ‘Hasluck Contradicts Himself’. “In his budget notes released recently, Hasluck announces that steady progress has been made by the Department of Education within recent years. This is in direct contradiction to statements he has made over recent years to the Administration. Mr Hasluck was bitingly critical of the Department of Education’s progress at a Canberra meeting this year. He criticizes the Department’s senior officers for lack of initiative and planning.” [South Pacific Post]

September. ‘New Director Gives Aims in Education’. Hasluck appoints GT [Geoffrey Thomas] Roscoe Director of Education. Roscoe: “While secondary schools are necessary, our principle aim should be to educate all those children who want to be educated. That means the emphasis must be placed on primary education”. [South Pacific Post]

Hasluck on Roscoe’s appointment. “In 1958 Groves reached retiring age. It was decided to advertise widely in the hope of obtaining an outstanding man as his successor. The response was more numerous than exciting. The committee appointed to interview the final panel of applicants found two who were better than the others but was divided in preference between them and enthusiastic about neither. I received no firm recommendation. I decided to appoint the most senior man already in the service, GT Roscoe, partly on the ground that none of the others was ‘so far superior as to warrant the passing over of a man already in the service’, but largely because Roscoe only had two years to run before retirement and this would give us another chance to find an outstanding man... What I had seen personally of Roscoe also impressed me. He was a school-teacher and was aware that the work of an Education Department had something to do with getting more and better schools and teachers.” [Paul Hasluck in his book ‘A Time For Building’]

Roscoe on Roscoe’s appointment. “Of course I was too old. They all said that. I was 58 when Bill retired and it left me only two years to go before retirement. Groves had recommended against my appointment. Groves was always against the man he had. The man that hadn’t come up yet, he was better than the one he’d got. And the Secretary of Territories had recommended against my appointment.” [The handling of Roscoe’s appointment as Director of Education was a fiasco.] “I had no warning [that I was to be appointed]. The morning I got to know, there was a call on the telephone from the news announcer at 9PA and he said, ‘Mr. Roscoe, I have the news here. Have you been informed that you have been appointed the Director of Education?’ ‘No.’ ‘I suspected it would be something like that. I didn’t want it going over the news without you knowing. Well I’m telling you now.’” [Letter from GT Roscoe to Loch Blatchford, 27 April 1982]

More: See ‘The Blatchford Collection 1958 ’in ASOPA PEOPLE EXTRA

Reject tough postings: ASOPA lecturers

The 1958 papers in the Blatchford Collection, just posted on ASOPA People Extra, include an indignant repudiation of some ASOPA lecturers by a young acting District Education Officer in the swamps of the Western District.

  “When speaking of the Territory,” Ken McKinnon [left] wrote to PNG Director of Education, Bill Groves, “lecturers at ASOPA invariably speak disparagingly of the Western District and of Daru in particular. Much of this is, of course, merited, as there are many bad features in this District.”

But he added: “There are instances of comment going so far as to suggest that postings to stations in this district and to some in the Sepik District are in the nature of ‘punishment postings’ and that they are ‘horror stations’. One lecturer even suggested that an officer should resign or refuse the posting if he were sent to Daru.

“There is every chance that the same careless comment could prejudice future staff expansion so it is thought necessary to make some remonstrance.”

My old mate Joe Crainean (seen here with wife Kathryn), who spent time at Oiyarip, Lake Murray and the Oriomo River, is living proof that three years in the Western District marshes didn’t do anyone too much harm. Although a recent remark by Joe that Tasmania's Arthur River "reminded me somewhat of the Oriomo near Daru" seems to indicate that, for old hands, the Western District looked more like civilisation every day.

PNGAA committee hits ground running

The first meeting of the new PNGAA committee was a great success. The 15 members present got through a lot of business and struck a new direction for Association activities over the next 12 months.

The first issue addressed – the committee’s own structure - may seem bureaucratic but, to achieve its ambitious goals, the PNGAA must be capable of bearing the load of increased activity. To this end, five sub-committees were established, each with its own convenor to provide leadership, in these areas: Fellowship and Caring [Rbecca Hopper]; Papua New Guinea Relations [Robin Mead]; Publications and Communications [Andrea Williams]; History and Scholarship [Riley Warren]; and Finance and Membership [Ross Johnson].

Any reader interested in assisting with a specific area of sub-committee activity can contact the Association by email at admin@pngaa.net and indicate your willingness to participate.

The committee meeting also agreed to establish a task force to review the PNGAA constitution, including how to the incorporate State and Territory branches in the formal structure of the Association. In due course constitutional change will require agreement from the entire membership, and there will be ample opportunity for discussion and deliberation before changes are instituted.

In terms of the Association’s external activities, the committee passed resolutions that have already generated action on a number of important matters, as readers of ASOPA PEOPLE will have seen:

▪          The committee agreed to support the initiative of Chris Viner-Smith to seek Commonwealth Government recognition of former District Services personnel ['kiaps'] for their exemplary service to Papua New Guinea over a period of 75 years culminating with National Independence. I have written to Chris indicating this support.

▪          I was asked by the committee to write to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd urging the Federal Government to financially support the search for the Montevideo Maru, the declaration of the site of the sinking as a Commonwealth War Grave and the erection of a monument commemorating the tragedy. I have done this and issued a news release expressing the Association’s views, which was reported by Channel 9.

▪          The PNGAA has also supported a proposal from Paul Oates and Norm Richardson that the Federal Government establish an exchange scheme to enable young officers from the Commonwealth and PNG public services to exchange jobs for short-term assignments as a means of building understanding and transferring expertise between the two countries. I have written to the Duncan Kerr, the Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Islands Affairs, on this matter.

▪          I have also written to Duncan Kerr urging the Federal Government to redevelop the former ASOPA site on Middle Head, Sydney as an Asia-Pacific institution dedicated to exchanging knowledge about important regional issues and improving relationships between peoples in the region.

The new committee has hit the ground running in terms of its own affairs and that it is also moving to occupy a more strategic position in PNG-Australia relationships by engaging productively in proposing how the Australian Government may itself be able to do more and do better. As each sub-committee builds its own momentum, the scale and scope of the Association’s activities will intensify and broaden.

Remembering the pugnacious Jim Leigh

  I was leafing through the Pacific Islands Monthly for May 1963 when I happened upon this photograph. It shows the then station manager of Radio Rabaul, HH ‘Jim’ Leigh, posing in a studio with some staff members and two tape recorders. Jim was to become a rather bellicose and impetuous Controller of Broadcasting with the Department of Information. He plucked me from the ABC and into his managerial ranks in 1969.

One of my tasks as the new manager of Radio Bougainville in 1970 was to recruit and train young Bougainvilleans to work as announcers and producers. I was under special orders to hire people from the dissident (secessionist) villages around Kieta.

Jim Leigh, who later became general secretary of the Queensland National Party, called me on the radio-telephone from Port Moresby to proffer some unsolicited advice on how to conduct selection interviews.

“Father,” he said (he called everyone father), “there are only three rules for selecting staff, and I want you to note them carefully.

"One. Be rational not emotional. Got that, father? Over."

I agreed I had got that.

"Two. Put ‘em under pressure, real pressure. Know what I mean, father? Over."

I affirmed I knew what he meant by real pressure.

"Three. Check their references. Over.”

As chance had it, Jim was in Kieta for his annual inspection of the station at the time I’d scheduled a number of interviews.

The inspection included intense scrutiny of the S-bend of the toilet, since Jim had recently had hepatitis and blamed unhygienic radio station latrines for this misfortune.

He’d been unsettled by his arrival in Bougainville. The DC3 undercarriage warning light had triggered and there was some anxiety before an ultimately safe landing at Aropa airstrip.

"Head between my legs, father. Thought I was gonna kiss my arse goodbye. Know the feeling?"

I stated that, while the feeling was not known to me personally, I had a vivid imagination.

Early next morning was interview time. The first was with a young hopeful from one of the dissident villages near Kieta.

Jim reminded me of his three rules for conducting effective interviews - rationality, pressure and references – and told me he'd sit in to see how I conducted the session.

I was unimpressed by this, but he was the Controller and I was his subordinate and that was that.

The first applicant was a strikingly beautiful 18-year old woman.

As she walked into my office, Jim simpered, “And what's your name, my dear”.

“Perpetua Tanaku,” she replied, “but my friends call me Pepi.”

Then she added, “You can call me Pepi.”

“Pepi,” Jim sighed.

“Pepi is short for Perpetua,” she breathed. “It comes from the English word 'perpetual' which means ….. everlasting."

References on my desk in front of me, I was just about to ask the first rational question that I hoped would put Miss Tanaku under real pressure when Jim leapt to his feet.

"You're hired," he said.

Photo (left to right): Matthais Tiamani, Jim Leigh, Nellie Exon, Joe Gohan, H Vue and Danes Tagi.

PNGAA backs exchange scheme proposal

The PNG Association has written to Duncan Kerr, the Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Islands Affairs, supporting a proposal by two former patrol officers to improve governmental relationships between PNG and Australia.

At its recent meeting, the Association backed the proposal from Paul Oates and Norm Richardson that the Federal Government establish an exchange scheme under the auspices of AusAid to enable young officers from the Commonwealth and PNG Public Services to exchange jobs for short-term assignments as a means of building understanding and transferring expertise between the two countries”.

The exchange scheme - if appropriately developed, managed, branded and promoted in both countries - will provide the basis for the creation of peer to peer relationships based on mutuality not patronage.

The Oates-Richardson plan is that the scheme must be reciprocal and involve the Government of PNG in the total process – from design to execution and evaluation - not as mere recipients of Australian largesse, irrespective of where the bulk of the money is sourced.

Oates and Richardson emphasise the need for proper mentoring to support officers of both countries. They say this must be planned well in advance and preferably overseen by a committee made up of government and non-government members.

The committee must ensure that time spent outside working hours does not drive participants into 'cultural ghettos' of their own country people resident in the host country. The entire program must aim for maximal learning about people and culture and seek to develop appropriate networks and long lasting contacts within and outside government.

The PNG Association, through Paul Oates and Norm Richardson and other members, is willing to provide support for this initiative and to engage other entities, such as Rotary International, that may be able to assist.

Was there a Rabaul atrocities cover-up?

Ross Wilkinson

I read with interest the article on the loss of the Montevideo Maru and wish to share the following regarding one of those presumed to have been lost on the ship - Harold Hillis Page [left] who was acting Administrator in Rabaul at the time of the invasion.

I was a kiap from 1968 to 1981 in a range of positions across the country. I went there to see what my father had done during World War II with the 2/14 Battalion. As secretary of the Battalion’s post-war Association, I was contacted by Albert Speer, formerly Deputy Director of Health in the pre-Independence administration. He was enquiring after the verification of facts behind a wartime photograph of a temporary cemetery of 2/14 Bn soldiers at Gona.

Albert had been a medical orderly required to visit the coastal region after the Lamington eruption to investigate possible resettlement sites for survivors of the eruption. He came across a cemetery similar to the one in the photo that he was advised contained the bodies of approximately 12 Europeans who were alleged to have been brought over from Rabaul with the initial invasion fleet. Whilst it is well known that many Rabaul nationals were brought over to act as carriers for the Japanese troops, Albert's source who was one of the survivors and had become a policeman, advised him that there were about a dozen Europeans brought across as well to advise the Japs on conditions, tracks and locations on the route to Port Moresby.

One of these was alleged to be Page. Apparently they refused to cooperate and were executed at Gona and their bodies left in the bush. The Gona villagers then quietly buried them for the duration of the war until the Japanese were defeated and then formalised the cemetery. The various temporary military cemeteries in the area were mapped when created and, at the end of the war, the bodies disinterred and relocated to Kokoda first then Bomana by the War Graves Commission. Our Association could not help Albert as my father considered the photograph was that of the military cemetery it claimed to be. He had very vivid memories of Gona and the cemetery.

As a military historian, I have read much on the fall of Rabaul and it is well considered that the Japanese used the loss of the Montevideo Maru to cover up many of the war crimes committed in the weeks after the fall of the town. It is alleged that many soldiers and civilians executed at Tol and other locations had their names added to the manifest of the ship after it was sunk in an attempt to cover up the war crimes.

Harold Page is alleged by Albert to be one of those names due to his belief in the veracity of what he saw and was told after the Lamington eruption.

Photograph: Major Harold Page (Pacific Islands Monthly)

PNGAA backs School of the Pacific idea

  The Papua New Guinea Association has formally come out in support of the former ASOPA site being redeveloped as a regional institute in which Asia –Pacific participants, including Australians, seek to examine and develop solutions for critical issues facing the region.

The heritage listed buildings on Middle Head are about to be refurbished but, as yet, no future purpose has been identified for them.

The PNGAA has written to Duncan Kerr, the Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Islands Affairs, saying it supported “the proposal to redevelop the former ASOPA site on Middle Head, Sydney, as an Asia-Pacific institution dedicated to exchanging knowledge about important regional issues and improving relationships between peoples in the region”.

The PNGAA management committee has no illusions about how difficult this challenge is, but felt it was imperative that it have a go.

We’d like you to join the PNGAA and the many ASOPA PEOPLE readers who have written to Duncan Kerr in support of this proposal. If you haven’t done so already, why don’t you do this now? You’ll find a two-page summary of the proposal which is downloadable here. Download sotp_proposal.pdf   And you can send your letter of support to Mr Kerr at this address:

The Hon Duncan Kerr SC MP
Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Islands Affairs
Parliament House
CANBERRA   ACT   2600

Channel 9 on PNGAA Montevideo plea

Ninemsn, the online presence of the National 9 News, today features coverage of the Papua New Guinea Association’s appeal to the Australian Prime Minister to instigate a search for the wreck of the Montevideo Maru.

The Papua New Guinea Association of Australia has urged Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to commit the government to a search for the sunken warship Montevideo Maru and the 1053 men she carried.

The sinking of the Japanese war vessel by an American submarine off the Philippines coast in 1942 remains Australia's worst maritime disaster.

"The sinking of the Montevideo Maru has special relevance for anyone associated with Papua New Guinea,” PNGAA President Keith Jackson said.

"Most of the 208 civilians who died were Australians who considered the Territory of New Guinea ... to be their home.

“The PNGAA has asked Mr Rudd to financially support the search for the Montevideo Maru, declare the site of the sinking a Commonwealth War Grave and erect a monument at an appropriate place on the Philippines coast as a permanent memorial."

You can read the full article here

Bush poet tells story behind Anzac poem

Jim Brown

When ASOPA PEOPLE published the poem ‘Anzac on the Wall’ on Anzac Day, we set off a chain reaction amongst readers, who are still accessing the poem on the website two weeks later. I’ve been in touch with the poet, Jim Brown, and here’s the story of how the poem came to be written - KJ.

The story behind the Anzac on the Wall is that I was a TV journalist and, in 1990, went to Gallipoli to cover the 90th anniversary of the Anzac landing.

Before I went, I visited the Military archives in Canberra looking for photos for a documentary film, and a lovely old man put a cardboard box in front of me which contained letters written to and from the war front. The letters could not be identified, and therefore could be returned to the families.

I made notes at the time and later in life became a bush poet. The trigger for the poem was the photograph of the Anzac on the Wall, which I have in my possession and carry it with me when I perform the poem. The photo led me to incorporate the information I had gleaned from the letters. The suffering of those waiting at home had not been written about enough, and time and again it seemed that those close to the land knew the very instant they had lost a loved one on the other side of the world. From those letters I wrote about the lightning storm, the horse bolting etc.

I am humbled by the fact that so many people have been moved by the poem, especially around Anzac Day.

I have recorded the poem on CD, with other Australian classic and original poems. The cost is $25 which includes postage etc.

You can contact Jim by emailing him here.

PM asked to fund Montevideo search

The Papua New Guinea Association of Australia has asked Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to commit the Commonwealth Government to an expedition to locate the last resting place of the Montevideo Maru and the men she carried.

The sinking of this vessel in the South China Sea off the Philippines in the early hours of July 1942 claimed the lives of 1,053 Australian troops and civilians who had been interned in Rabaul. It remains Australia's greatest ever maritime disaster.

The sinking of the Montevideo Maru has special relevance for anyone associated with Papua New Guinea. Most of the 208 civilians who died were Australians who considered the Territory of New Guinea their home. Whilst women and children were evacuated, the men had to remain at their places of employment in the New Guinea Islands leading up to the Japanese invasion.

They came from all walks of life, administration officers, school teachers, planters, missionaries and traders; they were of all ages (the youngest a youth of 15); and many had seen prior service in World War I before moving to New Guinea.

The PNGAA has asked Mr Rudd to financially support the search for the Montevideo Maru, declare the site of the sinking a Commonwealth War Grave and erect a monument at an appropriate place on the Philippines coast as a permanent memorial.

I've provided Mr Rudd with a list of the civilians who died aboard the ship. As I found, merely to read their names, ages, occupations and places of work, personalises the tragedy in a most poignant way. Along with the PNGAA media release, you can find the list here [Download Montevideo Maru.pdf].

Source: PNGAA Media Release, 5 May 2008

Vale John Biltris – friend of the Gumine

John Mansell Biltris died on 20 March 2008 in Melbourne. He joined the PNG Administration as a Cadet Patrol Officer on 27 February 1961 and served at Gumine in Chimbu thence in various parts of PNG in local government positions. He became town clerk of Lae in 1972 and returned to Australia in 1974.

John was diagnosed with bowel cancer three years ago and underwent treatment. The cancer had unfortunately spread to his lungs and liver, and he was due to commence further treatment at the start of 2008. He decided to make a farewell visit to Gumine first.

The people of Gumine, south of Kundiawa, were a big part of John's life. He had visited them a couple of years earlier and then financed a reciprocal visit to Melbourne of John Dai, the son of traditional leader Kuman Dai, and his wife Helen. Between them, the two Johns organised some small civic projects around Gumine. John was regularly shipping books for the school and clothing to the area.

During his retirement, John enjoyed indulging in one of his favourite pastimes, garage sales, and never ceased to amaze his family with the treasures he scored. It was at garage sales that John collected many of the books and other items he sent to the people of Gumine.

John returned to Melbourne from his last visit on 13 January and was admitted to hospital the next day. He was courageous in his battle and was determined to overcome his illness, but unfortunately remained in hospital until his death.

John is survived by his wife of 42 years, Barbara, his two children, Andrew and Fiona, and two granddaughters, Jaymie and Danielle.

Graham Pople writes: “John’s loss is a huge loss for the people of Gumine. He will not only be missed by his peers, he will be missed by the people of Gumine who held him in high esteem. On his last trip to PNG, John was in agony and couldn’t sleep well due to his cancer but was determined to complete his trip, stating that he knew it was his last.”

In touch with the Sydney Wantoks

The Sydney Wantoks club was largely instigated by Papua New Guinean students at the University of New South Wales who would gather at weekends to socialise. As numbers grew, it was decided to formally establish the Club at the end of 1993. It was first registered with the Students Union of the University of NSW and, in 1995, began to operate independently. The club was incorporated in 2003.

The objectives of Sydney Wantoks are to assist new residents, students and their families to settle into Sydney and to maintain contact between them. This includes assistance in locating suitable accommodation, providing essential household items, advising on medical treatment and assisting socially, financially, spiritually and in times of emergency.

The club organises social functions, promotes cultural awareness through dances, traditional food tasting and craftwork and sends goods and money as emergency relief when PNG is affected by natural disasters.

You can find the website here. It has a range of features including a photo gallery with some alluring pictures of a pig feast, Sydney style. I’m sure the Sydney Wantoks would welcome you as a member if you want to get in touch through their website or by sending an email through this link.

Photo: The PNG flag is flown proudly at a Sydney Wantoks Independence Day event in the city's Centennial Park.

There was a special ethos about the place

"Amongst the bushland and spectacular views of Headland Park are nestled former military buildings with surprising stories to tell. Today the rambling bungalows and tropical plants give little hint of the important role played by a modest complex of buildings on lower Middle Head. But for 50 years this place was at the forefront of Australia’s role in the Pacific.”

So begins an article, with this exceptional accompanying photograph of the ASOPA grounds, in the most recent issue of Mosman Magazine. The story [right] reports that the Harbour Trust is to soon begin to refurbish the buildings and is currently investigating the history of ASOPA through its oral history program, in which I and a number of readers have participated.

“It gave you this feeling that you’d been involved in something unique,” said Dr Ann Prendergast, a former ASOPA lecturer. “There was a special ethos about the place that I think must have come from the administration and it filtered down through the staff to the students.”

If you have a story to tell about ASOPA or ITI, contact Eunice Sarif on (02) 8969 2100 or email her here.

Proposed exchange scheme pitches in slot

Paul Oates and Norm Richardson’s proposal that the Federal Government establish an exchange scheme to enable young officers from the Commonwealth Public Service and the PNG Public Service to exchange jobs on short-term assignments will be discussed at tomorrow’s meeting of the management committee of the PNG Association.

It’s a great idea that, if accepted, will go a long way to building understanding and transferring expertise between the two countries. While there are a couple of existing schemes that look a bit like this one, the Oates-Richardson scheme is much more comprehensive. The New Zealand government will run a program for PNG diplomatic officers starting this month. And the National Judicial College of Australia will train PNG’s 100 magistrates in a program that will start later in the year.

But both of these initiatives, useful though they are, are straightforward programs in which New Zealanders and Australians train Papua New Guineans. They lack the reciprocity and mutuality of Oates-Richardson. The two ex-kiaps have proposed a scheme that pitches right in the slot and it’s to be hoped the PNG Association can give it the support that will help build a bit of momentum.

Former teacher elected PNGAA president

Port Moresby: Friday 2 May, 2008

The Papua New Guinea Association of Australia (PNGAA) has elected former PNG teacher and NBC executive Keith Jackson as its new president.

Mr Jackson taught in Simbu from 1963-66, worked with the ABC and the department of Information, managed Radio Bougainville from 1970-73 and finally was the NBC’s first head of policy and planning.

“I feel strongly that the association should be active in strengthening relationships between the people of Australia and Papua New Guinea,” Mr Jackson told the PNGAA annual general meeting.

He was awarded the PNG Independence Medal in 1976 and the Order of Australia (AM) in 2004.

Some thoughts on a new PNGAA agenda

There’s a truism about new organisations, and about new leadership in old organisations. And it is this. The way you begin tends to be the way people believe you are. It’s all about perceptions. The first meeting of the new committee of the Papua New Guinea Association of Australia is to be held this coming Sunday – and I hope the association will be, and will be perceived as being, a 'can do' outfit.

My desiderata for Sunday's meeting fit into two categories:

▪          Adapting the PNGAA’s structure for the job ahead.

▪          Take some early policy decisions in areas where the PNGAA’s weight may make a difference.

Structurally, as I’ve mentioned here before, I want to establish working groups in each of five key areas: fellowship & caring; PNG relations; publications & communications; history & scholarship; and finance & membership. We’re in the process of appointing competent convenors to lead each of these groups. On Sunday, it’s expected that each group will develop a work plan to guide its activities in 2008.

I also want to start a process of constitutional review, especially to determine how State and Territory branches may be better linked with the parent PNGAA organisation but also to refine the structure of the Association to equip it for an expanded future role.

In policy terms, there are four decisions I’ll be asking the committee to make on behalf of the Association:

▪          To write to the Prime Minister urging the Federal Government to financially support the search for the Montevideo Maru, declare the site of the sinking a Commonwealth War Grave and erect a monument on Subic Bay to mark this maritime tragedy. This project has great meaning for many Australians and expecially for people associated with Rabaul, from where the ship departed on its last tragic voyage.

▪          To support Chris Viner-Smith’s initiative that former PNG District Services personnel [‘Kiaps’] be formally recognised by the Commonwealth Government for their exemplary service to the people of PNG over a period of 75 years culminating with National Independence. Some ex-kiaps are a bit embarrassed by all this fuss, but as an ex-chalkie I reckon they deserve some recognition by our Government.

▪          To support a proposal that the Federal Government establish an exchange scheme to enable young officers from the Commonwealth Public Service and the PNG Public Service to exchange jobs on short-term assignments as a means of building understanding and transferring expertise between our two countries. This idea came from Paul Oates and Norm Richardson and I reckon it’s one of those good practical suggestions that can make a difference.

▪          To ask the PNGAA to lend its support for the ‘School of the Pacific’ proposal – to reinvigorate the old ASOPA site with a new and relevant purpose to strengthen Australia’s relationships with PNG and the Asia-Pacific region. I’ve been banging on about this for a while [see ASOPA Site under 'Categories' at right].

I invite you to offer a comment on these or any other matters so PNGAA committee members and ASOPA PEOPLE readers can share your thoughts.

You can join the PNGAA and make it a stronger organisation by clicking through to the application form here. Membership is only $20 a year.

Experiences of a lifetime – a kiap’s story

Chris Viner-Smith’s book, Australia’s Forgotten Frontier, reminds us that, in addition to many other duties, the Kiap was also a commissioned officer of the Royal Papua & New Guinea Constabulary, with the rank of Sub Inspector; although with no uniform or badge of office. Viner-Smith was 19 years old in 1961 when he responded to an Adelaide newspaper advertisement for the position of ‘Cadet Patrol Officer, Territory of Papua and New Guinea – Training Provided’. His application was successful and his experiences in PNG until 1971 provide the basis of this book.

“[These experiences] could be described as the origins of international deployment of Australian Police to overseas countries,” writes reviewer Mick Barnes. In 1964, the PNG-West Irian border. Smith details his experiences of having to confront large groups of Indonesian troops who had crossed the border and attacks on his police patrol by local tribes.

Reviewer Nancy Johnston writes: “In the chapter ‘Seeking Recognition for all Kiaps’, the author tells how he challenged the Federal Government, without success, [to acknowledge] that Kiaps were different to the expatriate regular police and that they should be recognised for the rather amazing things they did in the early post war years including controlling the International border with the Indonesians and maintaining law and order in an Australian Territory under extreme conditions; thus assisting Papua New Guinea towards Self Government and ultimately Independence.”

Both reviewers agree that Viner-Smith has written an interesting book that makes enjoyable reading.

Australia's Forgotten Frontier by Chris Viner Smith, ISBN 978-0-646-47541-7. Price $14.95 incl p&p. Available from PO Box 394, Curtin, ACT 2605 or email chrisviner@netspeed.com.au

Sources: Nancy Johnston, ‘Una Voce’; Mick Barnes, ‘Queensland Police Union Journal'

A job well done should be a job recognised

“The kiaps gave exemplary service to the people of TPNG for 75 years,” says ex kiap Norm Richardson. “They went where others feared to tread and did so without unnecessary bloodshed or disruption of the life of the people, frequently to the detriment of their own health and well being. The country was changed from a state of constant fear and predation, village upon village, to one of free travel, cooperation across language groups and peace between long standing tribal combatants.”

They are eloquent words, and they are all true. Now another ex-kiap, Chris Viner-Smith, author of the book ‘Australia's Forgotten Frontier’, is preparing a submission to the Federal Government seeking recognition of the outstanding contribution that District Services personnel made to the development of Papua New Guinea.

I believe a good case can be made for recognition and, while I cannot speak for the Papua New Guinea Association, I believe it should strongly support these representations. Kiaps had a unique pioneering and leadership role in PNG's evolution to nationhood and I don’t believe for a moment that others of us, and we also played our parts, would begrudge official acknowledgement of the special nature of the kiap’s role.

Chris Viner-Smith already has the support of the Australian Police Association, the Australian Peacekeeper and Peacemaker Veterans Association, ACT MP Annette Ellis and ACT Senator Garry Humphries. He says he has “partial support from the PNGAA who say they cannot give full support as they represent all expats not only kiaps.”

Norm Richardson has pointed out that, in 1942, the 2/12, 2/31 and other battalions could not have carried out their defence of Australia on the Kokoda Track without the active participation of patrol officers. In addition, coastwatchers were, in the main, kiaps.

Robert Cruickshank, an ex-kiap who also served as a member of the Papua New Guinea Volunteer Rifles, says his “duties as a Patrol Officer were far more onerous, and at times more dangerous, than most of my military service".

At the first meeting of the new PNGAA executive committee this coming Sunday, I will move that the Association give its wholehearted support to this initiative. It’s an excellent proposal, and it deserves to succeed.

ASOPA, TPNG and then the world

In the half decade after Papua New Guinea attained national independence in 1975, thousands of Australians voluntarily relinquished their positions and moved to other locales and other roles. Most of them too young to retire, they went on to have second careers. Most of their stories are interesting and some are spectacular, and occasionally we relate one of them on ASOPA PEOPLE.

When Chris Owner left PNG in 1977, he decided to live and work in the United States. He returned to university and obtained a PhD from the University of Washington in Seattle. He now lives and works in Virginia, is married with four children and a grandchild, with another on the way.

He's now the Clinical Sciences Director of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington DC. The AFIP is a US government institution concerned with diagnostic consultation, education, and research. The unique character of AFIP rests in the expertise of its diagnostic pathologists, whose daily work involves cases that are difficult to diagnose owing to their rarity. AFIP was very busy, for example, during the anthrax scares post 9/11.

“Life has been very kind to me and my brood,” Chris says.” The only downside is that I don't see [brother] Mike often enough. His eldest son Tim lives near me and plays for the Virginia orchestra. I hope that if any of the ASOPA folks make it here they will let me know and will come and see me.”

If you’d like to get in touch, you can email Chris here.

A convivial evening with the Bergmanns

Paul Oates

On patrol out of Kabwum in late 1971, or was it early 1972, I visited the Bergmanns at Ulap. We had just walked through a cloudburst and the patrol were drowned rats. It was like swimming upright. Rev Bergmann said the station received nearly 10 inches in 4½ hours that day.

The Bergmanns gave me dry clothes to wear, while my khakis dried, and put me up for the night. During the evening, Rev Bergmann excused himself and conducted a reception test of a shortwave broadcast from Germany, saying he was required to report on reception strength. He was very official during this listening test and appeared to almost sit to attention. He took readings and notes that he said he had to send back to Germany.

Mrs Bergmann showed me where I was going wrong with my bread making. My bread improved significantly after that. Rev Bergmann gave me home made beer before dinner and home made wine during dinner. He produced the beer and wine using his wife's bread making yeast. From memory dinner was a very nice meat stew.

Not long before I left next morning, Rev Bergmann allowed me to admire his home made Rosella liqueur. He held the bottle up to the sunlight and it was a lovely purple red in colour and tasted exceptionally nice. I can still remember the wonderful taste on the back of my tongue.

You can help find the ‘Montevideo Maru’

Australia’s greatest ever maritime disaster, the sinking of the Montevideo Maru in the South China Sea off the Philippines in 1942, has special relevance for anyone associated with Papua New Guinea. The tragedy claimed the lives of 1053 Australians - 845 prisoners of war and 208 civilians who had been taken aboard the ship on 22 June after internment at Rabaul. The vessel was bound for Hainan.

In the early hours of 1 July, Montevideo Maru was intercepted and sunk by USS Sturgeon about 100 km west of Cape Luzon. The submarine commander, Lieutenant William ‘Bull’ Wright, had no way of knowing the ship was carrying allied troops and civilians. His log makes chilling reading.

30 June 1942: At 2216 sighted a darkened ship … after a few minutes observation it was evident he was on a westerly course, and going at high speed. Put on all engines and worked up to full power, proceeding to westward in attempt to get ahead of him. For an hour and a half we couldn't make a nickel. This fellow was really going, making at least 17 knots, and probably a bit more, as he appeared to be zig-zagging. Determined to hang on in the hope he would slow … sure enough, about midnight he slowed to about 12 knots. After that it was easy.

1 July 1942: Proceeding to intercept target … Altered course to gain position ahead of him, and dove at 0146. When he got in periscope range, it could be seen that he was larger than first believed. At 0225 fired four-torpedo spread, range 4000 yards. At 0229 heard and observed explosion about 75-100 feet abaft stuck. At 0240 observed ship sink stern first. He was a big one.

Among the missing were many members of the Rabaul community, the uncle of former Opposition Leader Kim Beazley and the grandfather of Federal Minister Peter Garrett.

David Mearns, the renowned wreck hunter who recently found HMAS Sydney and Kormoran, says the 3.7km sea depth at the sinking site does not prohibit a search, “it just ensures that the expedition will be costly and run into the millions of dollars”.

The Rudd Government is considering providing funds to find Montevideo Maru. But there is no guarantee. In 2003 the Howard government rejected a petition to support a search.

The editor of the PNGAA journal, Una Voce, Andrea Williams, a relative of some of the victims, wants the site of the sinking to be located and then commemorated as a war shrine. “It is important that the loss of the men from Rabaul in 1942 is acknowledged and has a special place in our Australian history," she says. “I know that there are many descendants of those men who will like to see some closure on the events that led to their disappearance".

It would be great if each ASOPA PEOPLE reader could add their names to an online petition asking the Federal government to fund the search. The petition can be found by clicking through here - you can add your name in the space entitled ‘Write A Comment’, which is about halfway down the page.

Despatches from the front – that AGM

Yesterday’s annual general meeting of the Papua New Guinea Association recognised it was time to pass on the baton to the next generation. In my view, it was very appropriate that this happened at a contested election – the first in the Association’s 57-year history.

I say this because the election provided a clear choice to members between an Association that would continue in its present state and one that would seek a new and more expansive direction. Members chose the latter.

While the returning officers merely announced the result of yesterday’s election, not the precise count, I understand the policies I espoused secured the overwhelming support of members who voted at the meeting and the overwhelming number of members who voted by proxy. The new committee therefore has been given the clearest mandate for change by those members interested enough to vote.

Change, however, does not mean disregarding or disrespecting the inheritance and history of the Association. On the contrary, the committee will be seeking new ways to honour the past and the senior members of the PNGAA, who care for the organisation so passionately.

Yesterday was also an opportunity for members to pay fitting tribute to outgoing president Harry West, stepping down after 25 years at the helm.

Harry’s PNG experience began as a young Lieutenant in the Australian Army and saw him tasked with many exacting roles including representing the then Territory at the United Nations Trusteeship Council and, when District Commissioner in Rabaul, leading the Administration’s response to the Mataungan uprising on the Gazelle Peninsula.

Harry was honoured by his peers yesterday by being given life membership of the Association. I also intend to ask the new committee to create a position of ‘President Emeritus’ that Harry can occupy at his pleasure.

I encourage readers of ASOPA PEOPLE who are not PNGAA members to join the Association. The excellent quarterly journal, Una Voce, which is only available to members, is alone worth the membership fee of just $20 a year. You can click through to the membership form here.

PNG election offers mandate for change

The tumult and the shouting died, the captains and the kings departed, and now the real work begins. The annual general meeting of the Papua New Guinea Association of Australia elected me President today and I’m going to spend the week between now and the first committee meeting next Sunday pondering how to begin implementing an ambitious agenda while protecting the many good things about the Association that must be maintained.

In my pre-election address I committed myself as follows:

First, I want to emphasise fellowship and caring: not only organising social events but also focusing on the needs of senior members of the Association.

Secondly, I feel strongly that the Association should be active in strengthening relationships between the people of Australia and the people of Papua New Guinea. There seems no reason why it should not evolve as the leading civil body to protect and advance such relationships and I see this as a great opportunity for the incoming committee.

Thirdly, it is clear that the communications activities of the Association are integral to its effectiveness. Arguably the publication of Una Voce is our most important continuing function and I would like to see more people working with Andrea Williams and Ross Johnson on this important project. I also believe we can make the Association’s website a more vital channel of continuing communication. And I see a role for the Association in organising talks and seminars on Australia-PNG affairs.

Fourthly, I’d like the Association to play a role in history and scholarship: collecting manuscripts and documents, including those in private collections, recording oral histories and keeping an eye on revisionist historians. Some of you are aware that I’m trying to persuade our Federal politicians to develop the former ASOPA site on Middle Head as a regional centre and as a continuing symbol of Australia’s contribution to PNG. I’d like to see the Association join this challenge.

Finally, the financial, administrative and membership responsibilities of the Association must continue to be managed effectively. One of my goals is to increase the membership of the Association including establishing a corporate membership category to help strengthen our finances.

It’s clear the Association will need to restructure itself in a fundamental way to cope with the weight of these aspirations. I look forward to the task ahead. The vote is in. The mandate is clear. It’s time to get on with it.

Read Keith Jackson's address in full here.  Download election_remarks.pdf

When history is not all that it seems

I’ve known Bill Brown for more than 35 years and I know he doesn’t mince words. In ASOPA PEOPLE last August  I wrote: “It’s been called ‘one of the most impressive pieces of historical scholarship to come out of PNG’... ‘It’ is My Gun, My Brother, the story of the PNG colonial police in the years between 1920 and 1960... The author, Dr August Kituai is an academic historian at the University of PNG. A reviewer has written “If [it] sounds a rather wooden topic, a dry administrative history, don't be fooled. This is a book full of rich stories….”

Well, ‘stories’ seems to be the operative word. Tall stories. Bill Brown has drawn my attention to a major deficiency in Prof Kituai’s scholarship. But more about this shortly. Bill also highlighted another major error in an official Foreign Affairs document, an error relating to an incident in Bougainville of which Bill had first hand experience, and has the documentary evidence to back it up. Bill’s point is straightforward - that errors of historical fact are unacceptable and, when the evidence is adduced, they must be fully corrected. In both cases - Kituai and DFAT - despite the proof being tabled there has been no correction.

In 2001, former District Commissioner Bob Cole identified at least 25 errors in just three pages of My Gun, My Brother. Cole said that substituted words and deleted paragraphs “completely distort[ed] the meaning of the original documents”. And, in warping the facts, Kituai had “cast a slur on the character of a particularly fine field officer, Mr Roger Claridge”.

The brief background is that Claridge’s patrol ran into trouble five hours walk from Mendi in November 1955. The patrol came under arrow attack from a party of 30 warriors, one of whom was killed by Claridge returning fire. Claridge was later exonerated by a coronial inquiry, which Kituai – adding to his other errors of fact - managed to translate into a reprimand.

In the interests of historical accuracy, Bob Cole’s full documentation of this case can be found here in a link to the Ex Kiap website.

The other matter Bill refers to is official Australian documentation that claims then PNG Administrator David Hay personally directed police operations during the Rorovana incident on Bougainville in August 1969. In fact, Hay was not on the island at all. While Bill has received official acknowledgement of what is a significant error, there has been no rectification. Bill is concerned the misrepresentation will become entrenched mythology as a result of "all those copies of the book donated by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to all the major libraries, archives and the universities ... left uncorrected for researchers and students to perpetuate the nonsense”.

In order to place on the Internet the real story of the Rorovana incident, not the one recorded in Documents on Australian Foreign Policy, Australia and Papua New Guinea 1966-1969, we offer Bill's evidence in a downloadable document here.  Download Rorovana.pdf   

I agree with Bill that it would be great to see the perpetrators of these errors take positive steps to correct them. I also know that correcting the record in ASOPA PEOPLE is second best. But it will have to do for now.

We can take some solace in the fact that every person googling 'Kituai' or 'Claridge' or 'My Gun, My Brother' or 'Rorovana' or 'David Hay' or 'DFAT' or 'Australian Foreign Policy' will alight upon this page. And be alerted to both corrupted interpretation and the cleansing strength of hard evidence.

Over to the historians.

How Bob Menzies got interested in PNG

On 2 April 1957, the PNG Deputy Director of Education, GT Roscoe, wrote a plaintive letter to the District Education Officer in Wewak. “I used to think,” said Roscoe, “that the Department was passing through a temporary crisis and some day we would be functioning normally, but I know now that crisis is the normal state of the Department and if it is ever to be any different, it will be after I am gone.”

In the straitened circumstances of 1957, Roscoe could hardly be blamed for his despondency, but in fact government education in Papua New Guinea was on the threshold of explosive growth: a rapid expansion, which just the following year he would begin to oversee when he took over as Director.

In 1957 there were between 300,000 and 500,000 school age children in PNG, of which less than 14,000 attended government schools with another 15,000 in registered mission schools. “It is accurate to say that only 10% of the native children of this Territory of school age are under effective instruction,” said Director of Education, Bill Groves.

The Australian Government had been under increasing pressure from the United Nations to accelerate educational development in the Territories but, as The Blatchford Collection reveals, progress in the first half of the 1950s was painfully slow. Then, in late April 1957, Australian Prime Minister Bob Menzies arrived for his first and, so far as we know, his only visit to Papua New Guinea.

Speaking at Ela Beach, Menzies said: “I shall in future provide a much more intelligent audience for [Territories Minister] Mr Hasluck than perhaps I have provided in the past. There is hardly a week in the year in which I don’t find a peremptory knock on my door and my friend Hasluck coming to see me, ingratiatingly, quietly, smoothly, explaining to me by fine logic what ought to be done, and before I know what happens I’ve cost the Treasurer another half million.

"This great Territory represents the greatest single experience that the Commonwealth has ever made outside its own immediate boundaries. We will be judged by it. It is because we know that we will be judged by it that year after year we pay more and more and closer and closer attention to it.”

Perhaps frustrated by the lack of any meaningful budget response to Menzies’ words, and emboldened by the imminence of his own retirement, Bill Groves decided to act. As the South Pacific Post reported in October: “Groves startled the Legislative Council last week with a plea to keep most native secondary students in the Territory and for ₤10 million a year, apart from the normal budget to meet the Territory’s education requirements. Hasluck told the House of Representatives that he believed Mr Groves had not been reported accurately. Groves said, “I can provide plans for the use of that money (₤10 million) tomorrow, and they won’t be elaborate or extravagant. Most will be spent on buildings. We need buildings, buildings and more buildings.”

This was too much for Federal Treasurer, Sir Arthur Fadden [left], who, arguing that his approach to PNG was ‘progressive’, “angrily threatened to close a news conference following press questions about more money for the education of natives in the Territory. He said that they could not get more money for the simple reason that the Commonwealth did not have the money.” An editorial in the South Pacific Post took Sir Arthur to task, suggesting “the Director of Education should be turned loose on him”.

“The Director of Education who is an erstwhile teacher should be encouraged to take his backward pupil, the Treasurer, by the ear and explain in