Time to stop the aid and start the trade

BY PAUL OATES

REGINALD RENAGI has previously commented about the need to promote trade between PNG and Australia.

Other people in PNG have also commented on the need to promote trade so PNG businesses are encouraged to expand and develop trade as a counterbalance to aid.

If the half billion in Australian aid were used to assist and encourage PNG products to be sold in Australia, it would go along way in helping to stop the aid dependency that has built up over the last 30 odd years.

PNG products could be assisted with a 'most favoured nation' clause that would subsidise product price at point of sale in Australia.

This subsidy could be on a diminishing scale, with a guaranteed sunset clause in say 5-10 years after the PNG business has been established and consumer demand proven.

In an address to the PNG Parliament, former prime minister Sir Julius Chan said to Australia: "Are you blind? You call yourselves developed? And yet you provide funds year after year to no effect!"

At the same time, East Timor's President Jose Ramos-Horta has remarked that "Australian aid to East Timor has had no impact on the lives of the (East Timorese) people."

The Australian government must make some tough decisions about our future relationship with PNG: whether it’s a partnership, as would be signified by an emphasis on trade, or patronage.

The choice is not only clear but urgently in need of a decision.

Comments

[Reginald Renagi]

Australia under Julia Gillard is a sea change. The ALP just need three new good policies now to sell to the Australian public and they just might win the election for Julia Gillard:

Cut PNG aid levels to zero and instead increase trade by 100 percent, do more for Indigenous Australians than before, and lastly pull Australian troops out of Afghanistan by Christmas.

Keeping troops in Afghanistan will not make Australia any safer but a very unsecure country in future.

[Peter Warwick]

Its is disappointing that the very substantial amount of workwear (Bisley etc) required for the LNG project will be made in China.

Does not PNG have a tailoring company that can produce high quality workwear for local consumption (and potential export).

Can AusAID help with this, perhaps with some seeding capital, training, and quality management to help the existing PNG owned tailoring companies.

This would be a practical approach to lifting PNG's capacity to clothe itself.

I thought import replacement was a priority.

[Trevor Shelley Sr]

A much better tool to development than the aid package that is in place now. In years gone by, I believe that Longreach Clothing based at Boroko PNG used the most favoured nation clause to supply many Queensland government departments with uniforms.