PNG Attitude’s 2009 - May in review

Events

There are anti-Asian riots in Port Moresby, Lae, Madang and Goroka. Police commander, Augustine Wampe, says thousands of men, women and children rampage around Goroka, outnumbering police and security guards

It is revealed that Chinese workers employed by the Ramu nickel mine were issued work permits despite not meeting labour laws stipulating all non-citizens must be proficient in English

PNG will receive $414 million in development assistance from Australia in 2009-10, an increase 6% over the previous year

Sir Michael Somare heralds a major shift in policy on development aid. A key feature of the new approach will be the recruitment of more Australian judges, doctors and teachers. Sir Michael says the time has come for PNG “to assert and accept more responsibility for our national development. We must forge a new relationship of equitable partnership with Australia”

The head of AusAID in PNG, Bill Costello, says AusAID is keen to work directly with provinces. The reason for the new direction seems to be criticism from Kevin Rudd that AusAID funds have been “misspent" and "not enough delivered to essential assistance in teaching, infrastructure and health services on the ground in villages across the country”

Documents obtained by journalist Ilya Gridneff reveal that 300 advisers consume half of AusAID’s $400 million a year allocation to PNG

Bougainville Copper is prepared to invest more than 11 billion kina to recommission the abandoned Panguna copper mine. The plan includes the creation of 2500 new company jobs, which will generate an estimated 10,000 other jobs in small businesses

The PNG Attitude blog receives its 100,000^th visitor and restates its aims as keeping a weather eye on the Australia-PNG relationship and remaining as a point of contact for people with an interest in PNG

Bob Hawke is made a Chief of the Grand Companion of the Order of Logohu for his services to the development of PNG in establishing the trade union movement, fighting for wage justice and, as prime minister, presiding over a period of great harmony in Australia-PNG relations

Former Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister, Kim Beazley, accepts the role of patron of the Montevideo Maru Memorial Committee, established to gain official recognition of the World War II disaster, determine precisely who was on board the ship at the time and encourage further research into events in Rabaul that led to the tragedy

Deaths

Distinguished ABC journalist Albert Asbury dies in Brisbane aged 69. He was with the ABC for 50 years, including a term in PNG from 1969-75 as political correspondent and the first news editor of the National Broadcasting Commission

Veteran PNG educator and ASOPA graduate, Allan Jones, 70, dies in Adelaide after a heart attack. He retired from teaching in 1999 as principal of Cameron Secondary School at Alotau after 45 years in PNG

Sir David Hay, 92, Administrator of Papua New Guinea from 1967-70, dies in Melbourne. John Farquharson writes in the Sydney Morning Herald: “Hay’s period as PNG Administrator was the one shadow over the urbane proconsul's otherwise serene career path. His high hopes foundered on the obduracy of George Warwick Smith, then secretary of the Department of External Territories, who insisted that all decisions be run across his desk”

Quotes

“There is significant resentment amongst the grassroots and the most visible targets are Chinese shop owners who have come in over the last 10-15 years and pulled the carpet from underneath grassroots Papua New Guineans. No one is angry at Australian businesses nor about old Cantonese” - Ilya Gridneff

“Yes, things are simmering in PNG. I think the big driver is poverty and frustration amongst the young. Only 10% of the population is in the formal economy while the rest are left behind, with nothing but hardship and hunger down the track. Youths are no longer hunter gathers or gardeners. They are unemployed, poverty-stricken urban mobs and, yes, there is more to come” - Terry Shelley

“The recent riots in PNG against Chinese businesses is cited as a symptom of a nation in crisis. The looting has been condemned and the government has vowed to set up a bipartisan team to investigate the riots. As we probe deeper we realise our problems are complex. Our leaders must be prepared to address the issues, and must investigate the recent unrest” - Gelab Piak

“Resentment builds up through the spoken word and is not being publicised. Asians seem to have no respect for our laws and way of life. They seem to think they can do whatever they like and, if they get into trouble, can buy their way out by bribery” - Graham Pople, long-time PNG resident and citizen

“It is the new breed of ‘rogue Chinese’, not those of the old school, who have brought about a feeling of hatred and animosity among indigenous Papua New Guineans against Asians. [The disaffected] are mainly settlement dwellers who are poorly-educated and unemployed and for whom home brew, marijuana and guns are very much a part of life. These people, for too long, have been neglected by the government, and things have now reached boiling point” - Malum Nalu

“We are frustrated with small Asian shops sprouting unnecessarily, selling cheap items around the city. Who is allowing these Asians to come into our country and own small businesses which should be owned by Papua New Guineans? Mipela tait na les pinis long ol Kongkong nabaut ya. Mipela ino wari long polis tu. Inap em inap” – rioter

“Chasing Chinese business people from our city or country will not solve our problems and those who are inciting our people to engage in such cheap and mindless agendas, should stop now” - Port Moresby Governor Powes Parkop

“There are likely to be some more problems coming. Some Asians may close up and leave PNG to find greener pastures elsewhere. We hope not” - PNG Governor-General, Sir Paulias Matane

“It is almost certain that Chinese triads will establish a presence in PNG” - academic James Chin

“Yes, we lack material wealth in rural areas where the vast majority of our people live but they are not short of food and water” - Sir Michael Somare

“The recent events in PNG are explosive and threaten to destabilise our immediate region. There is an inescapable truth gradually emerging here. The Australian government doesn’t seem to know how to respond to the complex political and social dynamics of its nearest neighbour. PNG abuts our nation and, with six million people, has real scale. It’s a saga waiting to unfold. There is high emotion here for Australians, too. PNG was once our territory and our people died there in peace and war” – Keith Jackson

“PNG school students and people in general [are] ignorant of the main forces and motives that shaped their nation” - author Eric Johns

“Papua New Guineans need a consciousness of what they have in common. A knowledge of a shared history is basic to the building of a nation-state. For a country of six million, PNG has one of the world’s poorest distribution of books” – ANU historian Prof Hank Nelson

“As public servants, no one ever asked us what we thought about the fast tracking of independence or whether the people we spoke to at village level thought it was a good idea. We were just expected to do what the government directed. Most people in the villages that I spoke to thought the idea was crazy. They didn't want Australia to throw them out of the peaceful development phase they had only just entered” - Paul Oates

Most commented on

Death of Allan Jones – 26

Australia/AusAID are failing PNG - 16

Comments

[Trevor Freestone.]

Law and order are two important issues in PNG, yet the government's support of the police seems to be negligible.

For example, look at the Watabung police station in the Eastern Highlands. The police station, built out of mud bricks in the 1960s, is dilapidated and provides a terrible work environment.

The hardworking police deserve better. Why hasn't AusAID or the government taken action to make the life of police bearable.

In 2008 I visited Watabung and donated a typewriter to the police who desperately needed it to type their court reports.

Where has the Australian money gone. Certainly not into helping the police to the extent that is required.