KEITH JACKSON'S PNG ATTITUDE

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” - journalist 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” - long-time PNG resident and citizen, Graham Pople

“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” - journalist and blogger, 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” - 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

PNG Attitude’s 2009 - April in review

Events

Australia’s former Governor-General, Major General Michael Jeffery, says that, “without the Patrol Officers performing their policing, legal, agricultural, governance and administrative functions, PNG would simply not have been ready for nationhood in 1975”

On Bougainville the last of the Mekamui rebel groups agrees to join the peace process. Mekamui commander, Chris Uma, asks the government to accommodate his group in the chiefly system under the Bougainville Constitution

ASOPA graduate, ex chalkie, medical doctor and veterinarian, Dr Howard Ralph, receives the Sunday Telegraph nomination for a Pride of Australia medal. He has spent the last 30 years working with injured Australian native wildlife

Quotes

“[I am] totally disappointed and sickened by their work attitudes and inefficiency. Whose interests are the public servants serving? Are they serving the interest of the public, or their own?” - Governor-General, Sir Paulias Matane

"We demonstrated the power of the .303 rifle by lining up five shields, making a dum-dum out of a bullet, and showing how it would come out a great gap on the other side. To these people [the rifles] were just sticks and had no meaning until we demonstrated their power" - veteran PNG politician and ex-kiap Sir Barry Holloway, recalling his first trip into an uncontrolled area

“I have been letting readers know for a month now that their supply of a monthly medication hitherto known as The Mail is about to dry up. Although there has been a proviso: should you advise me that you are alive, compos mentis and capable of absorbing information, said supply will continue” – Keith Jackson, trying to determine whether a newsletter was still required in the Age of Blog [the response was overwhelming and PNG Attitude was born]

“Phil Fitzpatrick’s novel, Bamahuta – Leaving Papua, is a beautiful book. Fitzpatrick is not only a powerful storyteller with a keen eye for the descriptive detail that makes you feel you're there, he writes with a beguiling sense of humour and the ability to draw characters who are real (sometimes because they are real) and who we can sympathise with, even when their personalities are less than appealing” – Keith Jackson

Most commented on

New PNG Attitude newsletter – 15

PNG public servants - 5

PNG Attitude’s 2009 - March in review

Events

Once the pride of the New Guinea Islands region, Keravat National High School faces closure. Anthony Tsora, deputy chairman of the National Education Board, says more than K6 million paid to an East New Britain company for urgent work is under investigation by the Ombudsman Commission

Eighteen refurbished ASOPA buildings are to be available for lease and occupation from early 2010. The Sydney Harbour Trust says the site is important as the location of “Australia’s only training institution established to train administrators and officers for Australia’s overseas territories”

More than two million condoms worth $190,000 paid for with Australian aid money sit in a Port Moresby warehouse for more than 18 months. The condoms are past their use-by date and cannot be distributed. PNG has the highest incidence of HIV in the Pacific

The PNG National Broadcasting Corporation is to rehabilitate a radio broadcasting network unserviceable for the last ten years

David Keating’s ‘Operation Library Books’ for Karkar Secondary School ships 7,000 books and school equipment to Karkar Island

Three young PNG footballers arrive in Ballarat to play Australian Rules with Bacchus Marsh

Diplomat and leading world female poke player Sarah Bilney (aka Aussie Sarah) joins the staff of Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs, Duncan Kerr

The first short course for seconded teachers bound for PNG started at ASOPA 50 years ago, the majority from NSW and Queensland. The focus of the course, apart from PNG culture and an attempt to dilute expected culture shock, was the teaching of English as a Second Language

Deaths

Dr Tony Edmonds, 85, World War II pilot, science teacher, physicist and ASOPA lecturer dies in Mona Vale Hospital after his third heart attack in 18 months

Quotes

“The question I would like to pose is: Is PNG better off now than it was 40 years ago? The simple answer is: No. I am sick and tired of hearing our politicians say PNG is a rich country. I have not seen one toea of these proclaimed riches filtering to my people in the villages. Is this something to be proud of?” - Dr Kristoffa Ninkama, South Simbu

“I have passion and love my nation. I love my country so much; I can’t even find the words to define it… [But] it’s like living in a fairy tale; each year we hear billion dollar profits announced by companies in PNG, but there is no tangible development. May I ask: where is our money going?” - Gelab Piak

“What PNG needs in order to extract itself from the quagmire is neither messiahs nor revolutions. What it needs is steady improvement in the systems that run the business of government. We have time and time again put our faith in new faces into parliament only to see them become different individuals because of the forces that compelled Lord Acton to write that absolute power corrupts absolutely”- Paulus Ripa

Most commented on

Improving PNG governance – 13

PNGAA reform – 6

PNG Attitude’s 2009 - February in review

Events

Sir Michael Somare gives K500,000 to assist PNG’s bid to have a team in the Australian National Rugby League within three years. PNG is the only country to have adopted the code as its national game

Sculptor and artist Hal Holman is awarded the Order of Logohu by PNG high commissioner Charles Lepani, who pays tribute to his contribution to PNG through design, art and sculpture

Despite government commitments to facilitate the acquisition of Australian visas in PNG, applicants are angered and frustrated by bureaucratic delay. “For too long there has been an unbalanced relationship between what is said will happen, and what actually does happen,” said an observer. “Give the people of PNG a fair go!“

The first indigenous Anglican bishop of the South Pacific, Sir George Ambo, excommunicated from the Church after shacking up with a mother superior and setting up a cargo cult, is posthumously reconciled to the Church. “His name was cleared of any taints," says the Bishop of Popondota, Joseph Kopapa

Val Murphy is awarded life membership of the Australian Secondary Schools Rugby League for his major contribution to the game’s development. While teaching in PNG, Val was a leader in the organisation of schools’ rugby league

The grassroots group seeking to reform the PNGAA issues a ten-point program for reform. The statement is sent to hundreds of PNGAA members and other people known to have a close affiliation with PNG

Detailed proposals for constitutional change in the PNG Association are published on the Association’s website. Recommendations of a constitution review committee will be put to the membership in a postal ballot

Quotes

“We want the PNGAA to commit to necessary reform, to be a broad church and to operate in a harmonious way. It is imperative that the Association embrace the interests of all its members” – Phil Ainsworth, PNGAA Reform Group

“The PNGAA has resisted real change for a long time, despite what some of its most worthwhile servants desired… It will take a massive 75-25% majority of voting members to institute even the most modest changes when the constitution comes up for member review in April. If these changes do not succeed – then the PNGAA will remain on furlough. A backwater of pleasant nostalgia and not much else” – Keith Jackson

“It’s one thing to kick the tin when you’re loaded with cash and it’s quite another to do the same when you’re on struggle street... Last week the PNG Government gave $2 million for Australian bushfire and flood relief and this has been followed by various amounts of money raised by groups and communities right across the country” – Keith Jackson

Most commented on

PNGAA controversy - 25

PNG Attitude's 2009 - January in review

Events

Keith Jackson resigns presidency of the Papua New Guinea Association saying that a vocal minority of people within the Association are implacably opposed to change and he has no desire to preside over a voluntary organisation in which such divisions persist"

Long-standing PNGAA member, Nancy Johnston, says people who want to change the PNGAA should create another organisation: “Let [us] be left in peace to enjoy the Association and what it originally stood for - friendship amongst ourselves

PNGAA members in Brisbane establish a group to reform the Association and contest annual elections due in April. The convenor is Phil Ainsworth, managing director of Queensland industrial and commercial property company, King & Co

A survey of the PNG Attitude newsletter and blog shows readers want more current views of PNG and Australia from inside PNG

Deaths

Scientist Carleton Gajdusek, 85, whose research into kuru led to important insights into brain disease, dies in Norway. The Nobel laureate worked mainly in the US until being convicted on a paedophilia charge in 1997 and living the rest of his life in exile

Pioneer PNG Highlands entrepreneur Sir Danny Leahy dies in Toowoomba hospital surrounded by family. “Although he was a physically powerful man, he would never raise his voice in anger or resort to violence,” said Goroka Chamber of Commerce President, Terry Shelley

Ex kiap David Speakman, 71, dies. He was a onetime Deputy Clerk of the PNG House of Assembly and later pursued a successful business career in England

Quotes

“We’ve received an avalanche of commentary in the main supportive of my decision to quit the PNGAA presidency. We Australians who care about PNG, and about its people, and who want to do something tangible to maintain and improve the relationship, will continue along that path. Meanwhile, I no longer have to deal with and try to manage the narrow attitudes of some PNGAA senior members like the one, who, in a recent submission to the Association, observed: ‘I doubt if many members would agree that this Association was for the betterment of the Australia-PNG relationship’” – Keith Jackson

“I walked away from the PNGAA presidency because the conflict was not to my liking. The numbers were there to win, but to use them would have been divisive on my part and I did not want to preside over an Association in this state… I believe I can make an effective contribution to PNG without having to struggle with some pretty ordinary people every step of the way” – Keith Jackson

“Most of the people around here [Duke of York islands] haven’t seen white people before. You imagine if a spaceship landed in your suburb at home and all these funny looking aliens came out with their funny little gadgets - what do you reckon you’d do?” – Craig Tansley, Sydney Morning Herald writer, who seems to believe everything he’s told no matter how preposterous

“I’m aged almost 70, and have spent 50 of those years in PNG, mostly at the coalface of the culture clash between tradition and the West; maddeningly frustrating at times. It has nonetheless been a life full of enjoyment and one which has yielded much of great value in terms of working relationships and personal friendships” - John Fowke

Most commented on

PNGAA controversy - 71

Death of Sir Danny Leahy - 3

Whatever happened to those Kavieng computers?

Back in late August, PNG Attitude appealed to readers for help in transporting six sets of computer equipment to Kavieng Hospital.

The equipment had been assembled over a number of months by Dr Alan Lawford, a general practitioner in the southern Sydney suburb of Arncliffe.

He was responding to a request for assistance from a colleague at Kavieng Hospital.

Within 48 hours over 50 readers provided advice on how this equipment could be transported free or at minimal cost from Sydney to New Ireland.

“I am gobsmacked by the plethora of great suggestions from your friends who are in turn friends of PNG,” said Dr Lawford at the time.

“It is overwhelming that this could generate so much interest in these well wishers of PNG.”

Well, we identified an organisation that could deliver the computers – Rotary International.

And this week nine boxes of equipment left Sydney en route to Kavieng, where they will arrive early next month.

Many thanks to those people who assisted.

Country life: It's all sleet, steins & sentiment

Leiderhosen neatly ironed, stein at the ready, COLIN HUGGINS reports from the nearest hofbrauhaus in Hahndorf

Sunday in Burra is a write off. Sleet and winds from the South Pole mean only one thing. As close to a heater as possible. There are no photos at villages not there except for stones with me looking touristy in yellow pullover and matching beanie. None.

Similar conditions on Monday when Val Rivers and I set sail for the two hour trip to Hahndorf. Val can’t remember where we booked but it turns out to be a comfortable motel behind the Hahndorf Inn, blaring out hofbrauhaus music. Hahndorf is deutsche, deutsche, deutsche, could have been Bavaria.

You buy German beer in steins: Munchner Kindl Hefe Weizen, Hofbrau Dunkel, Hofbrau Pilsener. But unless there's money coming out of your ears you won't even get tiddly - a stein is $10.60.

I had one and did the hofbrau whack on the wooden table and that was that. I also sang the Drinking Song. Mario Lanza wept.

At 2 we presented ourselves at Dr Mary Guntner and Rudi's place. A Lutheran Church retirement village. The talk was Finschhafen, Dregerhafen, Butaweng, tennis, the old club, water skiing, people we could remember.

Mary recalled Gil Cook, Stu Woodger, Merv Dunkin, Judy (Peters) Duggan, Rover Leung plus kiaps and didimen Smith, Hoag, Oates and Hughes.

Val and I are now proud owners of Mary's book Doctor in Paradise. Mine is inscribed ‘With love from your tennis partner - Mary W Guntner’. That made this trip.

Country Life: where time is frozen to the spot

From COLIN HUGGINS in Burra, South Australia

I'm here in Burra North at Val Rivers'  1849 cottage (a mere 17 rooms!) which until 1917 served as an inn. Burra was founded with the discovery of copper in the 1840's and was inhabited by migrants from Cornwall and Wales and Germans from the Harz Mountains.

Burra is three hours drive north of Adelaide. The countryside is lush from recent rains and the merinos are in fine fettle. The town is heritage listed and it seems nothing’s changed since the 19th century. Plenty of stone cottages - B & B's and antique shops. At Pharaoh's Tomb you can purchase, for the modest price of $950, a Shell petrol bowser. There’s also a bullock cart. Perfect for the front porch.

The nearby hotel (1850) serves great meals in front of a log fire - compulsory at present. The poker machines are vintage – they only take coins.

This morning I did the two kilometre heritage walk to Burra Central and purchased the obligatory key rings. The people are friendly, speaking sentences as one word - "Howyagoin".

I am staying in the B & B that Val rents out - bedroom (with heater, thank God), bathroom, sitting room and kitchen with all necessary appliances.

I walked to a stone bridge crossing a dry creek full of coolibahs and peppercorn trees. I was tempted to renew my childhood and climb a peppercorn but on reflection thought otherwise - how would I get down?

If you took the cars off the streets and removed the telephone poles it is 1850. Some properties have cottages minus roofs - something to do with taxes way back. Bullock drays in backyards, horse hitching posts and mail boxes Queen Victoria would have been proud of.

This town has stood still in a time freeze. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Baby it's cold outside!

Country Life: On the trail of the goanna

Paul Oates

There's a sudden commotion down near the large dam. A mob of noisy minors has gathered. They're alarmed at something on the ground. Then a couple of nesting peewees start up, their two-tone alarm harmonising with the minors. Finally two magpies and a pair of crows join in, united as temporary allies. It takes a large snake or a goanna to stir them up like that.

A well-built goanna appears from the mouth of the gully leading to the dam, leisurely bending to the left and then to the right as he ambles along.

He disappears into the top end of the culvert underneath the road, reappearing from the end of the concrete pipe and continuing to the water’s edge to where a couple of ironbarks,  being use as nesting platforms, overhang the dam.

Goanna is doing his rounds, investigating a meal. Eggs, nestlings and young birds are all on the menu, as well as any carrion the crows have left behind. Even a nesting bird is fair game.

With a burst of speed, the goanna rockets up an ironbark to investigate a bird’s nest. It’s either empty or the bird is a a quick scoff because he’s soon back down continuing his amble around the water’s edge. The ducks, ducklings and purple water hens energetically launch themselves from the tall grass and head straight for the middle of the dam.

As the goanna pokes his head into nooks, crannies and woodpiles - looking for small lizards, nests and young birds - the crows and magpies swoop, screaming defiance as they dive bomb. As the diving birds' plunge bottoms out, the goanna half heartedly bends and, with his tail balancing the weight of his head, leaps up and snaps at them.

After a while he disappears into the scrub at the bottom of the dam wall, and the general commotion among the feathered populace dies down. Then the galahs around the cattle pens start screeching. The pens are mouse and rat magnets of spilled grain, and need checking out. A number of galahs and cockatiels, who have been harvesting grain around the feed troughs, hurriedly take to the air.

Goanna moves on.  The cattle pens produced lean pickings today.

Country Life: bush creatures on parade

By now you know Paul Oates, the ex-Kiap who from time to time on PNG ATTITUDE files glimpses of life in rural south-east Queensland. We’ve met a goanna called Gordon, the bull Suvista Captain, who charges at red and flees at yellow, and an unnamed Antechinus whose attempts to invade the Oates’ household are legion.

I’m embarrassed to be the first one to notice, but it seems these animals might be ganging up against the Oates. Let me start with the snake. “We arrived home to be met by this bloke inside on the window sill next to my TV chair,” Paul calmly put it. “I think he may have been waiting to see what was on.”

Well, ‘this bloke’ was a brown tree snake, venomous and aggressive when confronted. Seems he’d wriggled through a hole in the mosquito wire that had been made, wait for it, by an Antechinus biting through to get at a trapped insect.

Meanwhile, Gordon, who one might reasonably have thought to be diligently protecting the household, and who I have previously described as a light drinker, had knocked over his bottle of Fullers London Pride and scurried away. I presume Suvista Captain was standing in the back paddock balefully watching all this through bloodshot eyes.

Enough animal conspiracy theories. The Oates are still in one piece - mercifully unpunctured, unbitten and ungored, and their home is secure. So let Paul take up the story of the Fullers. “I emailed the company about Gordon's activities and received an e mail back from the PR lady [who] was astounded to find out what a goanna was and how big they grew.

“I told her that after sampling the London Pride, Gordon got high (up in an ironbark out the back). She said she’d put the photos and story in their staff magazine and I could have a complimentary tasting next time I’m in London. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to follow up that offer as yet.”

Gordon the goanna makes a house call

 

Gordon the goanna has proved quite a hit with PNG ATTITUDE readers (see Recent Comments), not to mention his becoming the object of an exquisite (or do I mean execrable) series of Martin Hadlow puns, so we're pleased to report on his latest adventure. "Gordon was caught sniffing around our back door and decided to come in for a social call," says Gordon's buddy, Paul Oates. The good news, it appears, is that Gordon is a light drinker.

Photo: Paul Oates

Papers available to PNG Attitude readers

Loch Blatchford, author of the mighty Blatchford Collection and recent gold medallist in his age group (Methuselah class) at the Queensland triathlon championships, has an offer for readers who like to keep abreast of developments in Papua New Guinea.

Loch has two papers available for free email distribution if you'd like to get hold of them. They are Achieving a Better Future: A National Plan for Education 2005-2014 (148 pages) and PNG’s Medium Term Development Strategy 2005-2010 (91 pages).

You can drop an email to Loch here if you’d like him to send you copies.

Country Life: The goanna and the hare

Paul Oates

I was sauntering to the barn when I heard the mickey birds (you may know them better as noisy minors) going berserk. That’s always a sign of a predator.

Racing to the scene, I saw an adult hare behaving strangely and, even though it saw me, it didn't immediately run away. It was then I heard the sound of a young hare in distress.

Arrk, arrrk, arrk!

I took a closer look, expecting the juvenile had caught its leg in machinery or perhaps a fallen branch. The distressed adult hare was rushing hither and thither. At something. I thought: "Snake!"

But what leapt out of the grass, to scurry up a broad-leafed ironbark, was a large goanna with the young hare in his mouth. He wasn't taking any chances I might rob him of his catch, which he carried clear to the top of the tree.

Ex-Kiap, Cocos Island administrator and all round good bloke, Paul Oates, from time to time brings not so serene visions of reality to these Notes.

Tempus fugit and all that…

It’s a melancholy thought, but the death of Syd Neilson is another reminder that we are beginning to lose more of our erstwhile and esteemed colleagues to ill health and the great Behain. All the more reason, I suppose, for a renewed focus both on comradeship and on what may be our legacy.

Taken by this thought, I penned a quatrain:

Away they march, our onetime peers,
Who preceded us by so few years,
And who now inspire this simple text -
There they go, and we'll be next!

Cheers.

French firm rips off the PNG 'bilum'

The Tubuans & Dukduks blog has revealed that a French firm – calling itself Bilum and claiming its creations are “eco-ethical fashion” – has taken out a patent on that working accessory of women throughout Papua New Guinea, the bilum. The firm produces bags and accessories using recycled advertising banners and manufactures straps and handles from recycled car seatbelts.

Unfortunately this so-called “eco-ethicality” doesn’t extend to real life true to goodness ethics, such as the reluctance that might be felt before ripping off a national cultural icon, claiming it for yourself and inducing some patenting authority to go along for the ride. This is poaching pure and simple.

Rick Brittain, a Cairns’ man works in PNG, said: “My original concern was that the name ‘bilum’ has basically been monopolized and has been removed from its PNG roots. I met with Helene [the firm’s owner] earlier this year, and found out that the company she operates is a predominantly non-profit, recycling centre, using people with special needs to manufacture her bilums. Good luck to her, and I have no problem with that, and she is a genuine lady with genuine concerns for our planet.”

That may be the case, but surely Madame Helene went a step too far when she took out the patent on the name 'bilum'.

You can read more on the Tubuans & Dukduks blog at http://garamut.wordpress.com

Country Life: Where's the antechinus?

And now a change of pace. PAUL OATES in rural south-east Queensland writes of some native Australian animals you may never have encountered.

Arriving home after Rotary there was a bettong calmly feeding near the front gate and three hares gambolling in the distance. As I write this, I can hear the metallic 'chink' of a black breasted quail out there in the darkness along with the usual insect noise and night birds.

Occasionally a spur-winged plover's alarm call rings out through the night. Probably a hunting fox or a dingo has disturbed them as they search for nesting ducks down around the large dam.

I helped unload a hay wagon this morning and have to admit I'm not as young as I used to be. We have been receiving welcome light rain and the country is green again. Happy cows and full watertanks.

The phascogales are scooting around outside the windows catching insects attracted by the lights.

Last night my better half spotted a mouse in the kitchen (a big fat one, I was informed). The hunt was then on ... but when 'the mouse' finally emerged from beneath the refrigerator and I’d had a good look, I saw it was an antechinus.

"Oh!" she said, after I explained, "you can't harm it, it’s a native animal."

"Yes," I said, knowing that antechinus eat insects and small lizards and frogs, “and the good news is it won't eat any of our food so there's nothing to worry about. It's just one of our native carnivores."

For some reason, my dear wife didn't seem to be quite so reassured as she went to bed. Probably lost something in translation.

Photo: Top - Dick Arnold with Paul Oates, holding a native beerbi schoonerus. Whistlestop Bar, Brisbane, January 2009 [Diane Bohlen]. Bottom - An antechinus searches for a way through the window [Paul Oates]

What’s hot for PNGAA website visitors

If you haven’t visited the PNG Forum on the PNGAA website yet (it’s right here), you should give it a go – and deliver to it the benefit of your views. With the website today passing 1,000 visitors for the last month, I thought I’d publish the league table of the kind of subjects in the Forum that attract readers. In descending order, here they are:

1 – 164 visitors – Past Times, Something at the bottom of the pool (Nick Booth)

2 - 128 visitors – Missing People, Desmond John Marks (Ross Johnson)

3 – 105 visitors – Past Times, Hot blood (Nick Booth)

4 – 97 visitors – Missing People, John Sutherland Anderson (Keith Jackson)

5 – 95 visitors – Aviation, Jude’s big breakfast (Wendy Booth)

6 – 94 visitors – PNG Issues, Reaction to African Chief Justice (Keith Jackson)

7 – 92 visitors – PNG News, Teachers still awaiting claims (Bob Lawrence)

8 – 91 visitors – Aviation, Yearning for Chinese (Col Booth)

9 – 90 visitors – PNG Issues, Ex PNG patrol officers seek recognition (Ilya Gridneff)

10 – 88 visitors – Aviation, Charter flight (Col Booth)

We’ll reprise the list a month from now and see what’s happening with reader preferences.

ASOPA PEOPLE triumph, 219th in world

A US-based outfit called Blogged.com has rated ASOPA PEOPLE 219^th of 9,086 blog sites it has surveyed globally. Well, 219^th is a lot better than 9,000^th, eh? Amy Liu of the Marketing Department of Blogged.com writes:

Dear Keith Jackson, Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it a 7.1 score out of 10 in the Education category of Blogged.com. This is quite an achievement!

We evaluated your blog based on the following criteria: frequency of updates, relevance of content, site design, and writing style. After carefully reviewing each of these criteria, your site was given its 7.1 score. Please accept my congratulations on a blog well done!

Gee thanks Amy.

Advice wanted on PNG tax deductibility

Siebrand Petrusma

I have been approached by my old PNG school to assist them financially with a library project and am happy to assist in whatever way I can. It would help if any financial support would attract tax-deductibility status by the ATO. Is any reader aware of a tax deductible fund in Australia through which such donations can be channelled? Being an education project, I am sure there must be such a fund somewhere. Can anyone steer me in the right direction?

You can contact Siebrand at 03 6248 1267 or respond directly to ASOPA PEOPLE. By the way, Siebrand authors an excellent blog at www.samtingbilongmi.blogspot.com

The Lord's Prayer in Tok Pisin

This is the 600th post on ASOPA PEOPLE since the blog was inaugurated early in 2006. I believe it has an appropriately reverential tone...

Papa bilong mipela
Yu stap long heven.
Nem bilong yu i mas i stap holi.
Kingdom bilong yu i mas i kam.
Strongim mipela long bihainim laik bilong yu long graun,
olsem ol i bihainim long heven.
Givim mipela kaikai inap long tude.
Pogivim rong bilong mipela,
olsem mipela i pogivim ol arapela i mekim rong long mipela.
Sambai long mipela long taim bilong traim.
Na rausim olgeta samting nogut long mipela.
Kingdom na strong na glori, em i bilong yu tasol oltaim oltaim.
Tru.

Source: PNG Gossip Newsletter

A backward step in a life of progress

   

London, Thursday: It’s my body and I’ll be miserable if I want to. They discharged me from Chelsea’s Lister Hospital today. ‘Regatta’ had docked at Dover early Wednesday (through a Pethedine haze after a week of spinal agony I glimpsed the White Cliffs from our cabin window – they’re grey). At the time I was bedbound, cabinbound and – as things transpired – also bound for the haus sik.

For me it was a day of dubious firsts. First time in wheelchair. First time in stretcher. First time in ambulance [in the lead role, that is: I accompanied Phil ‘Time for Mouth to Mouth’ Charley once to Royal Prince Alfred]. The solicitous Kent Ambulance Service paramedic told me that, in his previous role in the British Army, he’d ministered to Rudolf Hess in Spandau. Which diverted my attention from a spasming back for a short while.

What else? Oh, yes. First time thrown out of hospital (thank you National Health Service). At Ashford Accident & Emergency, extreme agony and an inability to get off the floor do not qualify as quite sick enough. The Nazis got better treatment in Spandau. Ah, nearly forgot, first time to stump up £3,600 in advance for admission to an institution anywhere. But at least I got an MRI.

It was the scan of my lower back that I’d been doggedly pursuing across south-east England. And it was finally made available (for a price, as you’ve observed and will no doubt remind me of) at the Lister Hospital [pictured above] splendidly overlooking the Thames – although it was hard to appreciate the view crawling round the floor seeking a body position to minimise my propensity to chew skirting boards into sawdust. [Historical observation: the hospital was named after Joseph Lister, who promoted the sterile surgery I thought I was about to put to the test.]

Anyway. Now you can relax. The denouement was a let down. No slipped disc; albeit a highly tormented one that managed to compress nerves, turn muscles into knuckles, buckle the body and temporarily send a long planned holiday into freefall. It could have been more awful, though. I could have also had piles.

Highlight of the day? (Please go to the Channel 9 website right now if you’re easily offended.) A Bulgarian nurse in Ashford A & E slipping a delicately rubber gloved finger between my buttocks, asking me to squeeze and pronouncing that the squeeze was powerful enough to take an MRI scan totally off the agenda.

Yes, dear reader, there is still some residual power in this poor, frail body; backward bending though it may be. Better news tomorrow, I hope. May I just put in a plea that, after all this agony and indignity, IAG won't quibble about the insurance.

   

Mi bin mekim wok olsem…..

Jim Moore, who was a kiap from 1965-1974, has created a set of commemorative tee-shirts for all of us who served in Papua New Guinea so that we can actively pursue bragging rights about our well spent youth in those distant times.

Jim asks, I presume rhetorically, ‘Are you proud of your Papua New Guinea service and want to tell the world? Do you want a memento that will be truly unique? Do you want to raise some money for a worthy PNG cause?’ Now I’m assuming the correct answers to each of these questions is yes, yes and yes.

There is another answer that does all this, says Jim: a quality PNG tee-shirt that is emblazoned this text: ‘BIFO, MI BIN MEKIM WOK OLSEM LONG PAPUA NEW GUINEA - KIAP, TISA, POLIS MASTA, LIKLIK DOKTA, DIDIMAN, PABLIK WOKS MASTA, MASTA MAK, MISINARI, PABLIK HELT SISTA [then there’s a space for your avocation of choice, like Nambawan Gavman] - YU OLSEM WANEM?’ Pretty neat, huh?

But wait, there’s more, as the Demtel man would say. Underneath the text are the PNG and Australian flags in full colour. The idea is that the owner uses a permanent marker to tick what their occupation was, or write it in the available space if it’s not there. And there’s still more. On the back are all twenty provincial (district) flags in full colour, again with a tick box that the owner can tick for each district they served in or visited. You can see full colour versions of the flags here.

Jim says he will donate five dollars from each sale to a worthy PNG cause associated with education. “I am open to suggestions as to what cause,” says Jim. “The only criterion is that it must be non-denominational and not linked to political groupings. I heard some time ago of a group organising “a library in a box” for primary schools, which is the sort of thing I have in mind.  Does anyone know of this group?”

So, if you want to order one of Jim’s customised tee-shirts (they’re quality Gildan brand) with black text and full colour flags, you can email him here with all your details (name, address, phone, email) or otherwise contact him at 8 Ewell Avenue, Warradale, SA 5046 or phone him on 08 7225 0521. The shirts cost $45 each and come in a wide range of sizes: Male (S, M, L, XL, 2XL, 3XL0 and Female (XS, S, M, L,XL, 2XL).

You can send Jim a cheque or pay by bank transfer to BSB 805-023, Account 0237-7204, JN & JM Moore. Quote your surname and the last three numbers of your phone number as reference.

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.

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.

The Anzac on the Wall

A poem by Jim Brown

Thanks to Paul Oates for drawing the attention of ASOPA PEOPLE to this elegy marking Anzac Day written by talented poet Jim Brown. Jim lives at 12 Adrian Court, Heathmont. Victoria 3135. He has recorded the poem on CD (the recitation is by Jim) and it’s available for $25 from the foregoing address or contact Jim by sending him an email here.

 

I wandered thru a country town 'cos I had time to spare,
And went into an antique shop to see what was in there.
Old Bikes and pumps and kero lamps, but hidden by it all,
A photo of a soldier boy - an Anzac on the Wall.

"The Anzac have a name?" I asked. The old man answered "No,.
The ones who could have told me mate, have passed on long ago."
The old man kept on talking and, according to his tale,
The photo was unwanted junk bought from a clearance sale.

"I asked around," the old man said, "but no one knows his face,
He's been on that wall twenty years, deserves a better place.
For someone must have loved him so, it seems a shame somehow."
I nodded in agreement and then said, "I'll take him now."

My nameless digger's photo, well it was a sorry sight,
A cracked glass pane and a broken frame - I had to make it right.
To prise the photo from its frame I took care just in case,
'Cause only sticky paper held the cardboard back in place.

I peeled away the faded screed and much to my surprise,
Two letters and a telegram appeared before my eyes.
The first reveals my Anzac's name and regiment of course,
John Mathew Francis Stuart - of Australia's own Light Horse.

This letter written from the front, my interest now was keen,
This note was dated August seventh 1917.
"Dear Mum, I'm at Khalasa Springs not far from the Red Sea,
They say it's in the Bible - looks like a Billabong to me.

"My Kathy wrote I'm in her prayers she's still my bride to be,
I just can't wait to see you both you're all the world to me.
And Mum you'll soon meet Bluey, last month they shipped him out,
I told him to call on you when he's up and about."

"That Bluey is a larrikin and we all thought it funny,
He lobbed a Turkish hand grenade into the CO's dunny.
I told you how he dragged me wounded in from no man's land,
He stopped the bleeding closed the wound with only his bare hand."

"Then he copped it at the front from some stray shrapnel blast,
It was my turn to drag him in and I thought he wouldn't last.
He woke up in hospital and nearly lost his mind,
Cause out there on the battlefield he'd left one leg behind."

"He's been in a bad way mum, he knows he'll ride no more,
Like me he loves a horse's back, he was a champ before.
So please Mum can you take him in, he's been like my brother,
Raised in a Queensland orphanage he's never known a mother."

But struth, I miss Australia mum and in my mind each day,
I am a mountain cattleman on high plains far away.
I'm mustering white-faced cattle, with no camel's hump in sight,
And I waltz my Matilda by a campfire every night.

I wonder who rides Billy, I heard the pub burnt down,
I'll always love you and please say hooroo to all in town".
The second letter I could see was in a lady's hand,
An answer to her soldier son there in a foreign land.

Her copperplate was perfect, the pages neat and clean,
It bore the date November 3rd 1917.
''Twas hard enough to lose your Dad, without you at the war,
I'd hoped you would be home by now - each day I miss you more"

"Your Kathy calls around a lot since you have been away,
To share with me her hopes and dreams about your wedding day.
And Bluey has arrived - and what a godsend he has been,
We talked and laughed for days about the things you've done and seen."

"He really is a comfort and works hard around the farm,
I read the same hope in his eyes that you won't come to harm.
Mc Connell's kids rode Billy but suddenly that changed,
We had a violent lightning storm and it was really strange."

"Last Wednesday just on midnight, not a single cloud in sight,
It raged for several minutes, it gave us all a fright.
It really spooked your Billy - and he screamed and bucked and reared,
And then he rushed the sliprail fence, which by a foot he cleared."

"They brought him back next afternoon but something's changed I fear,
It's like the day you brought him home, for no one can get near.
Remember when you caught him with his black and flowing mane?,
Now horse breakers fear the beast that only you can tame,"

"That's why we need you home son" - then the flow of ink went dry,
This letter was unfinished and I couldn't work out why.
Until I started reading the letter number three,
A yellow telegram delivered news of tragedy.

Her son killed in action - oh - what pain that must have been,
The same date as her letter - 3rd November 1917.
This letter which was never sent, became then one of three,
She sealed behind the photo's face - the face she longed to see.

And John's home town's old timers -children when he went to war,
Would say no greater cattleman had left the town before.
They knew his widowed mother well - and with respect did tell,
How when she lost her only boy she lost her mind as well.

She could not face the awful truth, to strangers she would speak,
"My Johnny's at the war you know, he's coming home next week."
They all remembered Bluey, he stayed on to the end,
A younger man with wooden leg became her closest friend.

And he would go and find her when she wandered old and weak,
And always softly say, "Yes dear - John will be home next week."
Then when she died Bluey moved on, to Queensland some did say,
I tried to find out where he went but don't know to this day.

And Kathy never wed - a lonely spinster some found odd,
She wouldn't set foot in a church - she'd turned her back on God.
John's mother left no will I learned on my detective trail,
This explains my photo's journey, that clearance sale.

So I continued digging 'cause I wanted to know more,
I found John's name with thousands in the records of the war.
His last ride proved his courage - a ride you will acclaim,
The Light Horse Charge at Beersheba of everlasting fame.

That last day in October back in 1917,
At 4pm our brave boys fell - that sad fact I did glean.
That's when John's life was sacrificed, the record's crystal clear,
But 4pm in Beersheba is midnight over here.......

So as John's gallant spirit rose to cross the great divide,
Were lightning bolts back home a signal from the other side?
Is that why Billy bolted and went racing as in pain,
Because he'd never feel his master on his back again?

Was it coincidental? Same time - same day - same date?
Some proof of numerology, or just a quirk of fate?
I think it's more than that, you know, as I've heard wiser men,
Acknowledge there are many things that go beyond our ken.

Where craggy peaks guard secrets neath dark skies torn asunder,
Where hoof beats are companions to the rolling waves of thunder.
Where lightning cracks like 303's and ricochets again,
Where howling moaning gusts of wind sound just like dying men.

Some Mountain cattlemen have sworn on lonely alpine track,
They've glimpsed a huge black stallion - Light Horseman on his back.
Yes sceptics say, it's swirling clouds just forming apparitions,
Oh no, my friend you can't dismiss all this as superstition.

The desert of Beersheba - or windswept Aussie range,
John Stuart rides forever there - Now I don't find that strange.
Now some gaze at this photo and they often question me,
And I tell them a small white lie, and say he's family.
"You must be proud of him." they say - I tell them, one and all,
That's why he takes the pride of place - my Anzac on the Wall.

Photograph: The Australian Charge at Beersheba, Eric George Elliott, Range Finder, 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade, 31 October 1917

Sorry, Mr Wills, but the beer’s off

Noosa calls, so the jottings may be a bit thin this week. Phil Charley tells me there’s a portrait on the wall of the Melbourne Club that carries a strong PNG resonance. It is a representation of a Mr Wills, of Burke and Wills fame, who the accompanying plaque describes as the only member of the Club ever to have died of thirst.

A bush Christmas

Jane Belfield

'Tis the night before Christmas,
And all through the house
Little creatures are stirring -
From cockroach to mouse.

There are moths in the wardrobe
And fleas in the bed;
Angry ants in the breadbin;
Rabid rats in the shed.

There's a snake in the ivy
Outside the front door,
And redback and whitetail
Spiders galore.

There are snails in the lettuce
And bugs in the milk.
The sandflies are biting,
And (more of their ilk)

Ravenous mozzies
Are lying in wait
Under the tankstand
Near the back gate.

Another fat blowie
Just buzzed in for a while...
Ah, well! Merry Christmas,
Australian style!

A merry Christmas from 1967

A special Sunday treat from my rather patchy archives. This cover of the PNG School Paper from November 1967 - the last I edited before joining the ABC - features the indomitable Yokomo and his trusty hound Omokoy. On this occasion the illustrator was Alan Lucas - who then lived on his sloop moored at the Papua Yacht Club and I understand is still piloting boats around the Great Barrier Reef. Yokomo was first drawn by Alan Lucas and then by Hal Holman. Yokomo is still a figure of some celebrity in PNG and, earlier this year, a debate raged about whether he and Omokoy, as schoolday icons, should be honoured with PNG's highest award, the Order of Logohu.

Member for Bennelong fondly farewelled

Clive Troy has been a senior Liberal Party member at branch level, but – as anyone who’s ever read one of his many letters to the Sydney Morning Herald would know - far from an unadorned admirer of local north shore Sydney Liberals like John Howard and Philip Ruddock.

In his younger days, Clive – who now has major trading interests in the Philippines – was a well-known name in PNG. We’d sit in our head teacher’s offices in the bush trying to decipher the latest Treasury circular on native teachers' rice allowances and, more than likely than not, Clive’s name would be at the bottom of it.

In a farewell statement to the outgoing Prime Minister, Clive mounted a one-man demonstration outside John Howard’s electorate office yesterday morning. I think you'll find his message to be pretty clear.

Strictly for the record – class handles

The Brisbane reunion handbook ASOPA Years included some wonderful information and anecdotes from the very beginnings of the School. One of editor Henry Bodman’s clever ideas was to work with contributors to create a catchphrase to characterise each of the fifteen Classes from 1957-58 to 1971-72 whose stories are told in the publication.

For the record, here they are:

1957-58          The original ASOPA chalkies

1958-69          The golden years

1959-60          Chalkies here to stay

1960-61          Last on-campus residents

1961-62          The ASOPA classics

1962-63          The reunion junkies

1963-64          The natives are restless

1964-65          The last of the primaries

1965-66          The first of the secondaries

1966-67          Quality with quantity

1967-68          The Moresby mafia at work

1968-69          Last of the 69ers

1969-70          To be reckoned with

1970-71          The penultimates

1971-72          The times they were a changin’

If you reckon your Class handle can be improved or refined, why don't you share your suggestion in the Recent Comments column. Click through on the Comments link below.

Hell for some is Paradise for others

Walk Into Hell, a two-star rated adventure movie filmed on location in PNG and released in 1957, concerns the cultural clash between Australian adventurers and local tribespeople. Steve McAllister [played by Chips Rafferty] is despatched to supervise construction of an airfield for an oil company. Steve’s hopes for peaceful co-existence with the natives are dashed when white hunter Jeff Clayton [Pierre Cressoy] thoughtlessly kills a sacred white bird.

The highlights include a skin-crawling snake attack and an authentic tribal singsing. Love interest is the beautiful expat medico, Dr Dumarcet [Françoise Christophe]. Fred Kaad, known to many  readers, plays himself in the supporting role of a District Officer. Rafferty both starred in and produced Walk Into Hell, which, in Australia, was released under the more benign title Walk Into Paradise. But the scenes of bare-breasted women, axed from the US version, were mercifully left uncut for Australian audiences.

Australian documentary producer, Bob Connolly, says: "It's an entertaining film and an important one. With its cast of freebooting prospectors, taciturn patrol officers, fiercely loyal native police and the awesome spectacle of 5,000 warriors massing in full bilas, the film is a priceless window back to a frontier era."

Walk Into Paradise, which contains wonderful footage of PNG highlands people and scenery even though the plot is predictable, is available for $40 from the PNG Association at PO Box 1386, Mona Vale NSW 1660.

We’re working to improve media training

I find it remarkable how ASOPA training from 40 years ago continues to be of use. For the last couple of months, a small group of us has been working with the University of Queensland to develop a self-instruction program to build the skills of media trainers. It’s designed to address that well-known problem where professionals, although highly competent themselves, encounter great difficulties passing on their skills to others.

Associate Professor Martin Hadlow, Director of the University’s Centre for Communication for Development, was commissioned by UNESCO to develop a self-instructional CD ROM to meet this challenge. He put together a team comprising my wife Ingrid, Phil Charley and me. We worked with the technical boffins of the University’s Teaching and Educational Development Institute to produce ‘My Media Trainer’ in just three months.

The basic edition of ‘My Media Trainer’ includes content on identifying learning needs, setting the climate for learning, developing media training courses, and module design and evaluation. The kit also includes competency indicators for the five core media areas of radio, television, Internet, print and public relations.

‘My Media Trainer’ guides users in how to teach media skills to others, whether through formal classroom activities, on-the-job or in specialist workshops. Being a self-instructional tool, users can learn at their own pace and in their own location. By the end of the program, users are be able to identify the needs of adult learners, plan courses and implement successful, outcomes-based media training experiences.

"UNESCO approached me with the idea at the end of last year," Prof Hadlow [left] said. "What you tend to see, particularly in developing countries, is mid-career professionals being put into training positions even though they may have no teaching experience. This product is intended to teach people how to teach. It includes information on different etaching aspects such as how to set up a training course and how to evaluate students.

"Prof Hadlow said it was common for people without etaching backgrounds to adopt a school-like approach to adult training. The CD provides a guide to adult learning which is interactive and user friendly," he said.

Martin Hadlow is currently in Paris at the UNESCO General Conference where he has given a presentation on the new kit. “I’ve already had people coming to me asking for copies,” he says. And even though ‘My Media Trainer’ has not been officially launched, its already appearing in UNESCO work plans. We now hope to test the CD in the field before working on a second edition. In the meantime, as Martin Hadlow says, “We feel that we have produced a competent, professional and useful teaching resource.”

PNG expat websites: (2) Ex-Kiap Network

We continue our occasional series on websites developed by Australians who worked in Papua New Guinea in colonial days. Peter Salmon’s Ex-Kiap project was the first of these, launching in February 2003. It has 185 registered users, mostly ex-kiaps, who have posted a total of 2,385 articles on the site. It has developed as a true mine of information about colonial PNG and events thereafter.

Peter [left] is fortunate to have a number of correspondents who post frequently and often controversially, and who offer informative and provocative reading. Arthur Williams from Cardiff in Wales has posted 394 times. And Paul Oates [right], from Boonah in Queensland, with 402 posts, is  a most prolific and entertaining correspondent, as well as being a damn good writer. Try this for size:

"Quickly my young friends called me down to where they stood in about two feet of water on the sandy top of the reef. At first, all I saw was a brown thread, corkscrewing through the water. Then the water was alive with them. As the tide came in and the water came up to my waist, hundreds and then thousands of worms arrived until they clouded the water. Some worms were as long as a foot and some only three to four inches. The worms were about one sixteenth of an inch in width and came in two colours. Some were rusty brown and some azure blue. I could feel the worms sliding around my body and as it was not a pleasant feeling, I joined a young team in a nearby canoe."

The commanding heights of discussion on the Ex-Kiap Network are in a section entitled, in that perfunctory kiap-style way, ‘General’. This is defined as “critiques, commentary, discussion, dissertations, dummy spits, essays, memories, opinions, personal reflections (don't worry about the selective memory syndrome kicking in), public affairs, reflections, sprays, theses, thoughts”. Anything but ‘General’, you’d think. There’s also an ‘Editor’s Corner’ for Peter’s occasional effusions, a useful ‘Books & Publications’ section, obituaries in ‘The Last Patrol’ and plenty of news (mainly about reunions) and photographs (many of them rare and well worth a look).

The tone of the site is conservative, most of the more prolific writers blame many of PNG’s problems on Gough Whitlam and seem to imply Australia should still be in charge today. But this is a vastly entertaining and informative site and is a must-read for anyone with a serious interest in PNG – past and present.

You can click through to the Ex-Kiap Network here.

The ALP and me – a slice of personal history

On page two of today’s Australian Financial Review is this statement:

JACKSON WELLS MORRIS

An article on page 17 on August 24, ‘Contractors lobby for regulator’, referred to the PR company Jackson Wells Morris. The AFR accepts that Jackson Wells Morris are not spin doctors for the Liberal party and that it is a long-standing company policy not to work for any political party.

The AFR also accepts that JWM did not write a report that aimed to persuade Labor to keep the building industry regulator. The client’s requirement was for an honest and unbiased view of industry opinion, which was provided.

There’s a back story to the strength of my feelings about my company being falsely characterised, by a piece of lazy journalism, as a Liberal Party puppet and a skewer of research. And here it is.

In 1971 the late Tom Burns, then general secretary of the Labor Party in Queensland, visited Bougainville with a Federal Parliamentary delegation, which included Paul Keating, not long elected to the House of Representatives.

I had wanted to join the ALP for some time, but wasn’t sure how to go about it. There were no party branches in PNG and, indeed, even to inquire amongst my Administration colleagues – many of whom made Genghis Khan look like Milly Molly Mandy - seemed to me a risk not worth taking. As station manager and news editor at Radio Bougainville, however, I was able to be with the delegation during its visit and seized the opportunity to ask Burns how I could join the ALP. He duly enrolled me in the Queensland head office branch.

Thirty-six years later I am still a member. I’ve been a Federal candidate, conference delegate, electorate council president and campaign director. I don’t always agree with the party and was never enticed into joining a faction. But I stick with it because I regard the ALP as the party of real reform and I like its long suite in social concern. I also don’t approve of the decline in public morality in this country since the Howard government took office in 1996. To make that perfectly clear, I don’t like being deceived and lied to.

I’ve been out of the Labor Party a couple of times. In 1977, when I ran 2ARM-FM in Armidale my party membership conflicted with a local current affairs program I hosted and I stood aside. Then, in the eighties, when I represented the ABC in Canberra and spent a fair bit of my life fronting Parliamentary committees, I thought it would be unhelpful to the ABC to remain a party member, and stood aside then as well. But I always came back. I pick and I stick.

So when the Financial Review referred to my company as “Liberal Party spin doctors” and then sought to suggest we’d cooked a survey to bring pressure on the Labor Party, I choked on my muesli. Then I ensured my company applied the greatest pressure on the newspaper to correct the untruths.

The AFR didn’t want to play at first. A lot of people in the media don’t like to admit they get things wrong. They don't seem to understand the paradox that admitting error builds trust. But our complaint to the Press Council got the editor off his backside. And we got our correction. End of story.

All the info you need if you’re an election junkie

This post is a bit off theme, but since when did a bit of personal publicity go astray. Trevor Cook from Jackson Wells Morris has just produced a comprehensive overview of the forthcoming Australian election. It’s entitled ‘The Jackson Wells Federal Election Guide’. The guide is available free on the Internet right here.

PNG expat websites: (1) The E-Course

There exists a small number of websites developed by Australians who worked in Papua New Guinea in colonial days. From time to time, ASOPA PEOPLE will feature one of these.

The E-Course site was established by Graeme O'Toole on 9 January 2006 and he edits it from Darwin. Graeme was on the 6^th E-Course and there is a fascinating extract from the 6^th E-Course magazine The Magnet, which is alone worth a visit to the site. And there are some irreverent sketches of staff by RJ ‘Spud’ Patterson, also a member of the 6^th, as well as the story of Maria von Trapp - of Sound of Music fame – a member of the 4^th E-Course.

The site provides a selection of historical articles by Dr Sue Gelade - whose contribution to recording the story of education in PNG has been invaluable – and by Dennis McLaughlin and Tom O'Donoghue. As you’d expect there’s a contact list, still capable of further development as the site attracts more visitors, and a rollcall from all seven courses except for some reason the 3^rd.

As you’d expect there are the usual news (Toktok), photos and reunion info sections. And there’s a growing collection of articles by E-Coursers, including some wonderful reminiscences about PNG.

You can click through to the E-Course site here or email Graeme O'Toole here. Alternatively send him a note at PO Box 1666 Darwin NT 0801.

Graeme’s done his former colleagues, and history, a great service by establishing this site. I hope more people will use it and that more of his E-Course comrades can be located.

Download your own Cadet Education Officers' Certificate

I don't know what happened to your ASOPA certificate. Maybe it got eaten by cockroaches during that horror posting on the coast. Maybe your spouse got custody of it after your first divorce. Maybe you donated it as a raffle prize  at a fundraiser for the One Australia candidate for Palm Island.

There are many threats that can overwhelm a proud old certificate over a period of forty years. But never fear.  As a bold experiment in the applications of the Internet, ASOPA PEOPLE is pleased to offer you the opportunity to download a replacement Cadet Education Officers' Certificate.  Download asopa_certificate.doc   Complete it at your leisure. Hang it on your wall. Admire it with teary pride.