PNG leader praises “wonderful” Una Voce

A couple of weeks ago in these Notes, I mentioned that the most recent issue of the PNG Association journal Una Voce was being distributed and suggested you might join the Association (just $20 here) so as to obtain this quarterly publication.

I have just received this letter from PNG Governor-General, Sir Paulias Matane, a PNGAA member and Una Voce reader, which may spur you into action.

We send to you sincere greetings from Government House, Port Moresby.

I write this to express my sincere thanks and appreciation for the wonderful PNGAA journal. I read the various contributions with a great deal of interest because, apart from other things, they bring back memories of the past events in PNG, particularly during the colonial days.

It is encouraging that many Australian former employees still have nice feelings and memories of their times here. Some have written books about their activities. I would like those of you who may have not written books about your experiences here should do the same as people like Dame Rachel Cleland and others.

It is encouraging and gratifying to read that members of PNGAA are going to do something for the catastrophic Cyclone Guba that devastated the Oro Province last year. Congratulations.

When I read the first Letter to the Editor from Alan McLay in the current PNGAA issue about Fred Kaad’s tribute to Harry West, my mind went back to the time when I knew them as District Commissioners. They probably do not remember me. I was also interested in saying that Alan married a Tolai lady, Nellie, in 1982. I mention this because she and Alan helped to organise a fund raising dinner on 15 November (at the Melanesian Hotel in Lae in the Morobe Province) for the Morobe Bikers’ Charity Club, or MBCC. I was the main guest. The vice regal party paid for two tables.

What is MBCC, you may now be wondering. It is a charity club, formed and registered in 2003 by unemployed youths, some of whom were prisoners before but have changed to become useful citizens of PNG. There are over 300 members of the Club.

Some of the routes they had followed since the Club was started were: Madang to Lae; Goroka to Lae; Lae across the mountains to the Gulf Province, to Port Moresby where they worked for 3 months to raise money before continuing to Alotau and back to Lae.

After the fundraising dinner, ten members went by truck to Enga Province. They started riding at Porgera on 17 November, then to Laiagam, Wapendamanda, Mt Hagen, Kundiawa, Chuave, Goroka, Kainantu, Watarais, Nadzab and then to Lae where they will arrive on 1 December, World AIDS Day, to address the crowd.

On the various stops, they carried out awareness on HIV/AIDS; Violence Against Women and Children; Law and Order Problems; Consumption of Alcohol and other Drugs by young people; etc.

I am so much impressed with their initiatives and that’s why I support their activities. I had made a public call for youths in other parts of PNG to do the same as MBCC members. I will continue to raise this issue.

I thank you and the leaders for your plans for the future PNGAA as recorded under What’s Next in the PNGAA – Building on the Legacy. I can only see good things coming.

The other very interesting items include Those Early Days Had Their Moments by Jim Eames; Emirau by Warren Martin; The Murder of Errol John [Jack] Emmanuel by Derek Bell. This really shocked most of the people as this kind of killing was new to many of us at that time. Jack was a very good and peaceful man. We missed him. The other that stands out is Extract From ‘Bilong Gut Taim Bipor by Henry G Eekhoff.