PNG ATTITUDE

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.