PNG ATTITUDE

Make a date for lunch, and help PNG

With time running out and tickets selling fast, it’s time to secure your place at Australia’s premier Papua New Guinea event – the PNG Association’s annual Christmas lunch. This year it’s being held at Sydney’s Killara Golf Club on Sunday 7 December. Guest speaker is the Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs, Hon Duncan Kerr, and former PNG Director of Education (and current Chairman of the Australian Press Council), Prof Ken McKinnon, will also be saying a few words. Both men will also be seeking to meet as many guests as they can.

Only 40 of the 220 tickets remain so, if you haven’t booked yet, now would seem to be the moment to do it. Tickets are $47.50 each and you can obtain them online by booking here.

The annual lunch will also see the drawing of the Oro Project Raffle – with a prize of two return air tickets with Air Niugini between Sydney or Brisbane and Port Moresby. Proceeds from the raffle are being donated by the PNGAA to the Oro Community Development Project, a well managed enterprise controlled jointly by Australian and PNG interests to bring relief to the cyclone-ravaged Oro Province.

You can order tickets online (they’re just $5 each) by clicking through from here.

MAF celebrated at charity film event

A private charity screening of the documentary Above and Beyond, celebrating the work of the Missionary Aviation Fellowship in PNG, will be held in Melbourne next month.

“We are flying into strips that are 12 percent slope,” MAF pilot, Geoff Calder, once said, “That’s good for ski slopes but not so good for airplanes.”

The film, by Nina Christesen and Robert Grigg, is set in Telefolmin, one of PNG’s most remote regions. The hour-long documentary follows the experiences of MAF pilots and their relationship with the communities they serve. The pilots face the challenges of geographic isolation, unpredictable weather and dodgy navigational facilities.

The documentary will be shown at Cinema Nova at 380 Lygon Street Carlton at 6.30 pm on Thursday 6 November. Tickets are available by donation and all costs in excess of cinema hire will be donated to the MAF.

Mike Jelliffe, the former MAF general manager in PNG, who features in the documentary, will answer questions after the screening.

You can email Michael Capon for further information here.

Montevideo memorial unveiling delayed

A plan to unveil a Philippines’ memorial to mark the World War II sinking of the Montevideo Maru – which cost the lives of 1,053 mainly Australian prisoners of war – has been delayed until next year. CLIVE TROY reports from Manila.....

The unveiling and dedication of the memorial will now take place on Sunday 5 July 2009. It is now evident that the logistics required to stage the event on Remembrance Day this year were insufficient and would possibly have resulted in a half-baked event. Such an outcome would not have been appropriate considering the significance of the matter and the need for proper resolution. It must be an event to deliver closure.

I met the committee last Sunday after discussions with the Australian Ambassador to the Philippines, the Senior Australian Defence Attache, the Australian Army Representative and representatives of the Angeles City and Subic Bay RSL sub-branches. We all agree that – with the great interest this event is likely to generate among many Australians – the logistical arrangements must be comprehensive and robust.

I know some people retain the hope that somehow a ship manifest of prisoners’ names might be in the Montevideo Maru’s safe. My own observation of old wrecks which shows how quickly metal corrodes in tropical waters makes such an outcome unlikely, even if the Japanese had compiled such a manifest. If there were records, they would have been on rice paper and dissolved in 30 minutes. Waterproof safes had not been even thought of then, let alone invented.

So 5 July next year is the key date to commemorate the worst maritime disaster in our nation’s history.

Goroka Show recaptures the glory days

The Goroka Show has seen good times and bad over the half century since it was started in 1957 by Eastern Highlands District Commissioner Bill Seale, with sterling support from Harry West (“keep away from the women,” Seale barked at an unsuspecting Murray Bladwell and me at our mercifully brief PNG orientation session in his office in 1963). For that first show, Seale instructed his kiaps to construct round houses representative of each highlands district in which were displayed agricultural produce and cultural artefacts.

The kiaps also organised singsing parties from across the 29 highlands language groups and there were footraces and archery and spear throwing contests in a bravura demonstration of social and economic progress and inter-tribal harmony.

As Harry tells it, at the first show Gerry Pentland, one of the new breed of highlands coffee planters and a World War I fighter pilot, submitted a fine entry for the best collection of farm produce. Unfortunately for Gerry an observant judge turned over an egg to find it stamped ‘Egg Board of NSW’.

In subsequent years, the shows alternated between Goroka and Mt Hagen and they became celebrated and, for participants, consuming events. Bladwell worked on a three-dimensional paper mache map of the Chimbu for months before the 1964 show. It even had flashing lights. I produced a massive Show edition of the Kundiawa News that was a comprehensive guide to the Chimbu. Insurance agent Fred J Cook loved it because it included the name, occupation and location of every expatriate living in the sub-district.

Over the years since PNG Independence, the Goroka Show’s fortunes have waxed and waned. There have been events that were less than the promised spectacle and even some financial finagling. But this year (13^th and 14^th September), the show was back to something approaching the quality of its golden era, assured by an organising committee driven by my old mate, rugby league tragic and coffee planter Terry Shelley, ably assisted by Cynthea Leahy and other members of Goroka Chamber of Commerce.

Photograph: Goroka Show 2008 - John Fowkes

Calling all Sydney Papua New Guineans

Hane Sammon

As we all know there is no PNG Dance Group in Sydney. Therefore, I am starting one. I invite anyone within the PNG community interested in Dancing, or with children who would like to be a part, to come along and join in. Our first gathering will be held at 2 pm on Saturday 11 October at 58 Pemberton Street, Strathfield.

We want to incorporate all PNG and Pacific dance styles, so all are welcome for their input. Please contact me prior to Saturday if you are interested. Hope to see a great turnout.

Call Hane on 0405 305 814 or email here.

PNG Independence Day - 16 September

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It’s Papua New Guinea Independence Day tomorrow – yes, 33 years since that splendid flag was raised (as Nancy Johnston reminds me, first flown in 1971) over cities and outstations in the newly independent nation.

Arguments still rage about whether Independence came too early – a view I never favoured even before Independence. For all her faults – and point me to the perfect nation state, please – PNG has demonstrated a remarkable propensity to stick together. It wasn’t easy to gather 800 tribes under the one flag and hasn’t been easy to maintain that unity. PNG remains probably the world’s most diverse democracy – and that’s a major claim to fame.

Meanwhile, the Australian Government has this year brokered a new and welcome affiliation with the PNG Government while, coincidentally, the PNG Association of Australia is moving to equip itself to strengthen civil relationships between the two countries. [See PNGAA under ASOPA PEOPLE EXTRA at left for a discussion paper on this]

Outgoing Governor-General and former Army chief in PNG, Major-General Michael Jeffery, has agreed to continue as a Patron of the PNGAA and says he looks forward to playing a more active role in its affairs in the future.

In a recent discussion I had with him, Maj Gen Jeffery commented that the changes being proposed to give the PNGAA a greater role in strengthening the Australia-PNG relationship are “excellent”. He believes that the PNGAA should be taking a more active role in building the relationship and he says he's willing to work in any way he can to assist this goal.

Happy birthday, Papua New Guinea.

PNG features in Battle of Australia Day

Tom Neeson, Sydney PNG Wantok Club

Two young Papua New Guineans will feature prominently in the first Battle for Australia Day to be held on Wednesday. The Federal Government proclaimed the commemoration in June, fulfilling an election promise to declare a day of national observance to mark the successfyl defence of Australia in World War II.

Wartime prime minister John Curtin announced the Battle for Australia when Singapore fell on 15 February 1942. It produced a national mobilisation of the entire population of seven million people. Battle for Australia Day - commemorating all who served and died in the defence of Australia in 1942 and 1943 - will be marked on the first Wednesday of each September.

The Sydney ceremony will be held at 11am at the Cenotaph in Martin Place. Papua New Guineans courageously supported Australia in the war and the courage and efforts of these civilians – the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels – will also be remembered and honoured. Young wantoks Morea Vele and Joseph Minei will represent the children of PNG, laying flowers to remember and thank those who gave so much. The public are welcome to attend.

PNG independence day, Sydney event

The Sydney PNG Wantok Club will be celebrating 33 years of PNG Independence on Saturday 13 September. Entry is by ticket only and ticket prices are $60 per person and $30 for children under 10.

You can obtain tickets from any of these people:

Central Coast & Sydney North - Gulea Kila 0423 941 436

Sydney West - Alex Avia 9220 0087(h) or 8849 2436(w)

Sydney West - Liz Corner 9834 2272

Sydney East & City - Margaret Neeson 0438 286 615

Sydney South - Doreka Minei 0411 243 005

The celebration will kick off at 7.30 pm and go till late at at Mykonos, 57 Macquarie Street, Parramatta (on the corner of Marsden Street). There is a door prize of return tickets for two people to Port Moresby, courtesy of Air Niugini.

Return to Mosman High, 45 years on

 

I first entered the gates of Mosman High School soon after enrolling at ASOPA in February 1962. I had just turned 17 and wanted to learn how to type with all my fingers. I ended up typing with two fingers, like I do now. Meeting those nice young Mosman women who proliferated in our typing class destroyed my objective of being the fastest man on an Olivetti in the suburb.

I also turned up at St Clement’s Anglican church where Rev Ray Bomford, who had been my clergyman back in Nowra, was only recently ensconced in his new silvertail parish. He was later to say, during our time at the School when we were staging 'The Natives Are Restless' revue at Mosman Town Hall: “We don’t want our Christian work undone by you people at ASOPA”

Anyway I was back at Mosman High last Thursday to deliver a talk on my time at ASOPA to Year 7 Yellow. And as I just received a bunch of photos of the occasion from teacher, Lorraine Bowan, who herself has PNG connections, I decided to share an extract from the talk with you:

I walked to ASOPA on my first day – being new to Sydney I didn’t know much about bus routes. At the School were about 50 other men and women, ranging in age from 17 to 23, who were to be my classmates. We soon found out that we had a lot of subjects to study – 19.

We did subjects to make us know a lot – because teachers have to know a lot! Like English, Geography, History and Biology. We did subjects to teach us how to teach – Mathematics, Social Studies, English and many more. Very importantly, we learned how to teach English as a foreign language. The third group of subjects we learned were all about what our lives would be like in PNG. Like Government, Anthropology and Health.

The worst part of this was, when you are taught 19 subjects, you have exams in 19 subjects.

I also talked about how I got to go to ASOPA and about my first impressions upon arriving in PNG. The students were especially intrigued by Tok Pisin, and its wonderfully effervescent style that evokes so beautifully the plain talking and good humour of Papua New Guineans.

Re-reading the words, the talk seems banal on paper. But each paragraph generated a flurry of questions and comments from the Yellows. Lorraine Bowan was very kind. “The students were fascinated and amazed by your story,” she wrote.

 

A new newsletter, and Waigani revived

Aust-Pac News is an important new addition to the list of publications about the Pacific. The first 16-page issue of this newsletter has just been produced by the Australian Association for the Advancement of Pacific Studies, and it is jam packed with fascinating information about what might be called the ‘scholarly Pacific’, which seems to be in a superb state of health.

Amongst the many fascinating items is coverage of the first Waigani Seminar to be held for 11 years. The Seminar used to be a highlight of academic life at the University of PNG after it was initiated in 1966 to when it ceased in 1997 (interestingly, at about the same time the Federal Government’s relations with PNG began to wane). But the Seminar was revived this year, running for three days earlier this month.

Aust-Pac News observes, in the context of intellectual exchange between the two countries, that Australian research on PNG is in decline and the flow of students to Australia has slowed: only 135 scholarships were awarded to Papua New Guineans to study here last year.

It was noted at the Waigani Seminar that there are now no bookshops in Port Moresby except for the newly re-emergent UPNG Bookshop. It seems bookshops were selling 5,000 comic books a week in the 1970s. Use of newspapers, TV and radio is poor with only 48% of Papua New Guineans having access any form of media. It was revealed, however, that mobile phone use has jumped from 60,000 users in 2005 to 900,000 this year.

Aust-Pac is edited by Max Quanchi, who you can contact by email here.

PNG Independence Day event in Sydney

Tom Neeson

The Sydney PNG Wantok Club will hold a dinner to mark PNG Independence Day on Saturday 13 September from 7:30pm. The event will be held at Mykonos, 57 Macquarie Street, Parramatta (at the corner Marsden Street). Tickets are $60 for adults and $30 for children under ten. There is a door prize of return tickets for two people to Port Moresby, courtesy of Air Niugini. There will be more information about where you can obtain tickets soon, but meanwhile put this in your diary.

Rare opportunity to boost Papuan culture

These Notes have recorded previously the Australian Museum’s exhibition [until March 2009] featuring Frank Hurley’s photographs from his visits to Papua in the 1920s. Now the PNG Canberra Cultural Group choir will perform at the Museum in conjunction with this exhibition. The special Peroveta performance will be held on Sunday 17 August at 11 am.

The 15 members of the choir, originally from Central Province, specialises in Peroveta Anedia - a style of singing introduced by Rarotongan missionaries to coastal Papuan communities in the 1870s. In a 45-mt performance, the group will also perform traditional kundu drum songs and dance songs, Kitoro and Gaba Mavaru.

Erna Lilje [left], a doctoral student at Sydney University and expert on Papuan culture, comments: “If we can pull a big crowd for a PNG event at the Australian Museum, it may help to increase interest in Melanesian culture. I have become aware that no one beyond the art world, apart from New Zealand, wants to take the initiative with Pacific cultures in museums. The researchers do, but at the museum hierarchy level everyone is saying that it is not their responsibility. The British Museum thinks that Australia should take the lead, but Australia thinks that it should concentrate on indigenous Australians. New Zealand focuses on Polynesian cultures.”

If you’re interested in attending, please call Mure Lilje on 9633 4039. And it would be appreciated if you could bring along some food to share with dancers and organisers after the performance.

 

Wantoks to gather in Sydney

Tom Neeson

The Sydney PNG Wantok Club is having a picnic at Centennial Park this Saturday 9^th August from 10am onwards and everyone is welcome. The Club will meet at the Ash Paddock, between the Randwick Gate and the Children’s Cycle Track. Bring some food and drink to share and, if you want to get into the Olympic spirit with a bit of volleyball, don’t forget your sports shoes. Also bring some money to try your luck in the raffle.

 

PNG kids' photos of how they are

Prague, Sunday: After braving the perils of Heathrow Terminal 5 and surviving with a delay of a mere two hours (a bagatelle compared with suitcases in Capetown), Ingrid and I are ensconced in the Czech capital for a few days and coming to terms with the local Internet, where nothing is as it seems.

Una Voce editor, Andrea Williams, writes that Childfund Australia gave cameras to PNG children aged nine to 14 and the resultant photographic display is on in Sydney until this coming Friday. 'Through Children's Eyes' is a photographic exhibition showcasing a striking collection of photographs taken by children living in the Central and Gulf Provinces of Papua New Guinea, and children from rural communities in NSW and other eastern states of Australia.

A video montage of the project, the children and their communities is shown alongside the photos as part of the exhibition. The documentary was put together by multi-media producer Max Campbell, head of the media unit at the Central Gippsland College of TAFE in Victoria, and film maker Bao Waiko, a mixed race Australian/Papua New Guinean who lives in Port Moresby. You can view the video here.

The children from PNG were nominated to take part in the project with the assistance of local school and community leaders. 'Through Children's Eyes' is open to the public and free to attend at the Sydney International Cultural Centre, 72 Erskine Street in the city. Gallery opening hours: Monday - Friday: 11am - 6pm.

Stunning Papuan images go on display

Frank Hurley is undeniably Australia's most renowned photographer but it is not well known that he made two expeditions to Papua from 1920-23. Now 84 of the 700 photographs Hurley sold to the Australian Museum for £100 in 1927 are about to go on show in an exhibition curated by Dr Jim Specht.

Like everything Hurley touched, the Papua photographs were cloaked in controversy. Moral questions were raised about the circumstances in which Hurley took the photographs. He was accused of theft, bullying, duplicity and unethical behaviour. Specht says Hurley was largely innocent. Not that he minded the accusations. There was always a Barnum and Bailey side to Hurley. And if a bad headline swelled the number of people paying to see his slide shows, Hurley would milk it for all it was worth.

The photographs are extraordinary and include scenes of mission life, landscapes and the first aerial photographs taken of Papua. There is a magnificent a four-frame panorama of a Papuan village which has never been seen before. But mostly there are portraits - dozens of haunting photographs of people who had never seen a camera but were persuaded to pose despite their obvious apprehension.

The cause of much controversy were photographs Hurley took of his party carrying guns in the remote Lake Murray district. “They had been told to carry guns by the Lieutenant-Governor because Lake Murray wasn't under government control,” says Specht. “But a missionary saw a photo and immediately drew the conclusion there had been violence. There was absolutely no evidence of that.”

Hurley’s subsequent slide shows were a huge success, with tours of the US and Britain. His book ‘Pearls And Savages’ became an international bestseller, encouraging him to return to the region to make two feature films, which Specht dismisses as “horrible silent melodramas”.

By 1927 Hurley was going through difficult times, forced to take a desk job. He decided to sell much of his Papua collection of glass-plate negatives and lantern slides to the Australian Museum.

Source: ‘Drama that followed Hurley into the wild’ by Steve Meacham, Sydney Morning Herald, 21 March 2008

‘Frank Hurley:Journey into Papua’ is at the Australian Museum, Sydney, from 29 March 2008 – 15 March 2009. Admission is free after general Museum entry.

Photos: Upper - Expedition party at Lake Murray, where a week was spent photographing and collecting objects. Frank Hurley, centre, holding rifle. Middle - Sago making, 1921. Lower - Tovei village, 1921. Photos: F Hurley.

People, power & politics in anthropology

The politics of early anthropological study in Australia are explored in a new exhibition at the Macleay Museum. ‘People, Power, Politics: the first generation of anthropologists at the University of Sydney’ opened recently and explores the methods and studies of Australia's first wave of anthropologists from 1923-47.

Sydney University’s anthropology department and ASOPA had a very close relationship until the 1960s and next Wednesday the museum will host a special guided tour for a group of former ASOPA lecturers including Dr Ruth Fink Latukefu, Dr Ann Prendergast and Dr Dick Pearse.

The exhibition gives insights into the experiences of the early anthropologists, the politics of their encounters and exposes the influence they had in determining early Aboriginal policy.

The first Department of Anthropology in Australia was set up at Sydney University in 1925 after the Federal government was impressed by the urgent need for the study of Aboriginal and indigenous people of the Pacific region. According to exhibition curators Rebecca Conway and Jude Philp this changed the face of anthropology.

“Anthropology went from being based on armchair theories - the British style popular back then - to active fieldwork where anthropologists spent months and even years studying and working with communities.

"These young anthropologists worked with communities to chronicle whole societies, documenting language, cultural practices and other aspects of daily life. They also documented the effects of European settlement and colonisation on these peoples' lives.”

People, Power, Politics specifically looks at the lives and work of ten prominent and respected Sydney University anthropologists - including Ian Hogbin, AR Radcliffe-Brown, AP Elkin and Raymond Firth - whose work became internationally significant.

The Macleay Museum is located in Gosper Lane near the Footbridge Theatre entrance to the University of Sydney. The exhibition closes on 20 July.

Photo by Ian Hogbin, Ontong Java, Solomons, 1928

AFP's Keelty undermines open society

Ken McKinnon

We do not want a closed society, Mick Keelty. We need more, not less, openness. In a democratic society the public has a right to know what is being done in their name, whether by government, police or the courts.

The views the Australian Federal Police commissioner advocated at the Sydney Institute on Tuesday night, that there should be a blackout on reporting of trials involving terrorism suspects "until the full gamut of judicial processes has been exhausted", reflects similar sentiments about a desire to muzzle the media made during his 2006 Press Council annual address. They are still wrong. Since he continues to express them even more strongly, the council must speak equally strongly in response.

Our freedoms must not be destroyed in the name of defending freedom. We have open courts so that citizens may be assured by attendance or media reports that their freedoms are being preserved. Only in the most extreme circumstances should courts be closed. The public interest is the standard by which matters investigated and reported by the media should be judged.

Source: ‘No need for a media muzzle’, The Australian, 2/3 February 2008. The full text of Ken McKinnon’s article can be found here.

Ken McKinnon [ASOPA 1954], former director of education in Papua New Guinea, is now chairman of the Australian Press Council.

Sydney celebrates pioneer anthropology

Jude Philp

This year from 1 February – 8 June the Macleay Museum at the University of Sydney is holding an exhibition with many ties to ASOPA. It’s called People, Power, Politics: the first generation of anthropologists at the University of Sydney and it looks at the period between 1923 and 1947.

In 1923, the International Pan Pacific Science Congress, meeting at the University of Sydney, resolved that the need for anthropological investigation was both pressing and a necessity for our region. Three years later Prof AR Radcliff-Brown took up the Chair of the first Anthropology Department in Australia.

This was the time when many future ASOPA lecturers learnt their trade, and the exhibition includes aspects of the lives of Camilla Wedgwood and Ian Hogbin. While the ASOPA story, of course, deserves an exhibition all of its own, here we can only touch on the ways that anthropology at Sydney initially focussed on practical and applied purposes of the discipline.

Using images and objects taken by the first wave of anthropologists in the cultures they visited, this exhibition focuses on the department in its early years when its members went into Australian Aboriginal and Pacific Islander communities to investigate and test the latest theories and methods of modern anthropology. No longer bound by ‘armchair’ theories, these men and women divided their time between their work as leaders in anthropological sciences and as initially ignorant, if powerful, recorders of other worldviews.

If there is a group who would like to come on a special ‘ASOPA Day’ I’d be happy to organise a curator’s tour – or perhaps add to the oral history record and record reminiscences.

Dr Jude Philp is the senior curator at Macleay Museum. You can contact Jude on 02 9036 6486 or email her here.

Langmore on Australia in the world

A long time ago John Langmore taught me economics at the University of Papua New Guinea. He’s now a professorial fellow in the Department of Political Science at Melbourne University and president of the UN Association of Australia. Between times he’s been a Federal Labor MP for 12 years (and a nemesis of Paul Keating) and Director of the Division for Social Policy and Development in the UN in New York.

On Tuesday 20 November he’s giving a talk in Sydney on Australia, our neighbours and global governance. A bit heavy for most people, perhaps, but if you’d like to attend drop an email to me for further details. John is one of the most thoughtful people I’ve known and is always worth listening to.

BOOFS AT LARGE

When I was in the Solomons a bit under three months ago, talking a lot with the locals about the mercurial politics of the place, the common compliment to Australia was about how we were trying to give them a hand with their problems. And the common complaint was how some members of the Australian police contingent were stuffing this up. The nub always seemed to be that the police (or ‘agents’ as tonight’s SBS program grandiosely called them) seemed not give a proverbial about local culture, politics, society, sensitivities or much else except the local drop, Solbrew.

If ever a hypothesis got proven through the glory that is television it was tonight. Some genius chose a copper from the backblocks of Western Australia to go the Solomons weather coast and, at least when the camera appeared, act like a goose. His appreciation of local culture seemed limited. His talked childish gibberish when speaking with an educated, English perfect Solomon islander. His understanding of Solomons Pidgin was of the "You fellow must be understand with the justice system or democracy he no can get there" kind. And that’s flattery.

I can’t comment on his policing (I hope it was of Poirot quality) except for noting the pain on the face of his sweet, competent and anguished Tolai woman copper boss whenever he opened his mouth. This guy would probably still be prancing around on the weather coast if it wasn’t for her.

When will the Australian Government learn that, before despatching emissaries to foreign lands, we must educate them a little in the local ways, teach them the elements of the lingua franca and prepare them properly for the task ahead.

Next week’s episode of ‘Australian Coppers Being Boofy in the Pacific’ is on SBS at 8 pm Wednesday.

THE PACIFIC BEAT

Col Booth, back at base camp in Port Macquarie after an arduous summer patrol, tells me of a new TV series on the challenges facing Australian Federal Police as they seek to bring justice and peace to the islands of the Pacific. The first program in the four-part documentary series – entitled ‘Dave’s New Beat’ - goes to air tonight at 8 pm on SBS. Readers may recall that Col and Wendy’s son, Nigel, did a tour of duty in the Solomon Islands with the Australian Federal Police which ended last August.

According to SBS, the TV series follows several Australian Federal agents deployed to the Solomons, “where they patrol the streets of the capital Honiara, the remote and dangerous weather coast and outer islands that rarely, if ever, see law enforcement.” SBS promises “edge-of-your-seat, real-life drama as Australian and Pacific police risk their lives in the battle to end lawlessness in the Solomon Islands and East Timor”. Tonight's episode follows agent Dave Elson, nearing the end of an 18-month tour of duty as a community constable on the Solomon's remote outer islands. “He patrols the weather coast, an area that looks like paradise but until 2003, was a battleground for warring tribes in a four-year cycle of revenge killings, rapes, murders and village raids.”

BACK TO PNG

I’m beginning to get organised for a return to Papua New Guinea after a 30-year absence. In a couple of weeks time Ingrid (who has spent time in the Solomon Islands but has never visited PNG) and I will be departing from Cairns aboard the motor yacht MY Orion. The 100-passenger vessel is equipped for expedition cruising with Zodiac embarkation platforms for wet landings and a tight manoeuvring capability which allows her to get close inshore.

Orion cruises Milne Bay (Alotau. D’Entrecasteux, Trobriands), the Solomons, Rabaul, the Sepik, Madang returning via Tufi and Samarai. In Rabaul we’ll catch up with my old PNG Broadcasting Commission mate, Sam Piniau (he was chairman when I was cutting my teeth as a broadcasting exec), and visit the post-eruption studios of Radio East New Britain, now based at Kokopo.

Here I’ll present manager Terry Lombut and his staff with a rare original program guide (left) for the former Radio Rabaul, which commenced broadcasting in 1961.

Satellite communications permitting, I’ll be diarising the voyage on the Internet through regular posts to ASOPA PEOPLE.

PNG'S REAL ACHIEVEMENT

David Keating probably won't thank me for contrasting his views on Papua New Guinea with those of Australian Prime Minister John Howard. But I will anyway.

At the same time I was enjoying a quiet lunch with David and Ron Antoine [also ASOPA 1962-62] on the Brisbane riverside last week, our PM decided to give PNG a touch up by intimating, as part-justification of an increase in Australia's defence forces, that the former Territory was well on the way to becoming a failed state.

Quite naturally, PNG Prime Minister Michael Somare objected to this characterisation. In fact, PNG  must be tiring of the proclivity of some senior Australian politicians (Alexander Downer is another) to refer to PNG in terms which, not to mince words, are patronising.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, David, Ron and I were discussing the trials and triumphs of PNG since Independence in 1975 when David made the salient observation that, of all that has happened in the 30 years since, and some of that's been pretty ugly, the over-rding achievement has been PNG's capacity to remain as one democratic nation.

Eight hundred tribes came together to form PNG. And, despite all the vicissitudes, they are still together. And they still have regular free and fair elections. These really are great achievements. And the Australian government ought to be mindful of them.

PACIFIC LUNCHERS MEET

Each month, February to December, Ken McGregor and Helen Rousseau maintain a 40-year long tradition as organisers of the Pacific Islands Monthly lunch in Sydney. The lunch is a gathering point for people who, at one time or another, worked in what used to quaintly be called “the islands”.

The lunch is usually held in a private room at the Law Society in Sydney’s CBD and the next event will be held this coming Friday April 7^th. For more information you can contact Helen on 02 9498 1179.

DRIVING TO INNISFAIL

Barry Paterson reports: We drove down to Innisfail today. It was quite a shock, despite having seen the footage on TV. Thousand of trees have been stripped of their leaves. Many, many houses have brightly coloured tarpaulins to keep the rain out.

On a Sunday morning the Army was very busy clearing up the enormous amounts of debris from the cyclone. Our St Alban's Church suffered some damage but the church hall next door was devastated. It will be sorely missed as a valuable community asset.

Thankfully, while the Mourilyan Sugar Mill was destroyed, the South Johnstone (Innisfail), Babinda and Mulgrave (Gordonvale) Mills were saved and the sugar is beginning to stand up again so there will be a harvest. Not so for the bananas - green bunches of bananas litter the landscape.

It was a desolate scene. But people were working hard to clean up the place and seemed in good spirits. Thank God for that. Please keep the people of the whole Johnstone Shire (based on Innisfail) in your thoughts and prayers.

RUGBY DEFEAT RECALLED

The website of the Woollahra Colleagues Rugby Union Football Club, which has played in the 1st Division of the NSW Suburban Rugby Union since its establishment in 1933, may seem an unlikely place from which to derive a reference to ASOPA. Well try this slice of history…..

Regarded as one of the finest Burke Cup teams ever to play for the Colleagues, the 1961 side defeated the Australian School of Pacific Administration 36-5 in the Grand Final played that year at Woollahra Oval.

Team selection for this Burke Grand Final was intense with one position (open side breakaway) being decided by the toss of a coin. Coach, John Corlis and Captain, Nick Sabine selecting Tony Finnmore ahead of Charles Vandervord.

This prompted what is said to be the quote of the decade from Charles Vandervord: “Play a blinder Tony because you’re playing for both of us”.