"Who’s going to be the first to say, 'Oh, I’m going to give up that slot that I got through this little consideration'. People want an end to corruption. Getting there is hard and changing that whole philosophy is a lot harder. It’s the work of generations"

Marie Yovanovitch former United States ambassador to Ukraine prepares to address Congress (Erin Schaff New York Times)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – The New York Times provides a first rate briefing each day on the Russia-Ukraine War.

The other morning Marie Yovanovitch, who served as US ambassador to Ukraine from 2016 to 2019, spoke to Times journalist, Yana Dlugy.

NOOSA - As Covid spreads its tentacles to embrace half the Australian population and 50 people die each day, Keith joins the plague-riddled crowd with a series of amazing tweets including this one that has accumulated 13,000 impressions so far: "I dedicate my maiden bout of Covid to the diabolical duo of Queensland premier Palaszczuk & Chief Health Officer Gerrard. Now I get to find out how it blends with my ME/CFS. Ah, what a time to be alive, however temporarily."

This blog will have an even more intermittent quality over coming days. But Keith will fire the odd shot on Twitter (which we also run in the right hand column). Like these three, written  before Keith knew he was ill: "This truculent silence by the authorities is like something we have never seen. It's a form of denial; a group neurosis. The stunned silence rendered by a Covid crisis which should turn into shocked action but in this case has spawned a protracted cowardly muteness."

Or this: "The PNG government has given up on Covid. This is not understood by Australians yet, but so has their government given up. Many more people will die or succumb to chronic illness unless this insane denialism changes. Vaccinations were never enough."

And a demand for scalps: "Queensland Chief Health Officer should be fired & Premier Palaszczuk should step down. They have not only failed in their duty to keep the community safe, their policies have enabled the continuing unchecked spread of  Covid leading to 1,200 deaths and uncountable lifelong chronic illnesses so far in Queensland alone."

“Every man has his good side,” Marape says of O'Neill. “But as time progressed, power got into his head, and his heart shifted away from the main goalpost"

Marape says of O'Neill: "Some of us reached the tolerance rate where we can’t be part of that sort of regime where you make a call and you expect everyone else to follow"

HAMISH McDONALD
| The Saturday Paper

MELBOURNE - As Papua New Guinea’s prime minister James Marape was working the tables at a hotel gathering of his Pangu Party in Goroka, a heavily drunk man was making a nuisance of himself.

Burly police bodyguards moved in for a rough eviction. But then Marape saw the man, walked closer, embraced him, and got him to sit quietly in a corner. The prime minister had recognised an old high school classmate.

“But when they came they hid you in the Book / And said you weren’t from around this place / We searched 'til we had nowhere else to look…”

A young Mengen woman, Matanakaka, bringing food back from the garden to the village (Françoise Panoff)

GREGORY BABLIS

ORO - I wrote this sonnet as I thought about some of the ideas arising from my interviews and other observations while conducting fieldwork amongst the Mengen (or Maenge) people of Jacquinot Bay in East New Britain.

The concept of God was a principle theme of most of my interlocutors. Nutu is one of the central characters in Maenge mythology.

Austal’s vessels have a chequered history, including bad cracking and delays due to the use of poor quality aluminium

MAX OPRAY
| Schwartz Media

MELBOURNE - Major design flaws have been identified among a fleet of Australian patrol boats given to Pacific nations.

The flaws include cracks in the exhaust that allow carbon monoxide to enter a compartment, cracking in the coupling linking the engine and gearbox, and poor ventilation in sick bays.

It's likely the government, particularly under Peter Dutton, acted illegally in limiting the number of partner visa places to an extraordinary degree

ABUL RIVZI
| Pearls & Irritations

CANBERRA - In 2018, I wrote about one of opposition leader Peter Dutton’s lesser known scandals – his action to egregiously limit the number of partner visas.

In 1989 and in 1996-97, parliament voted to ensure partner visa applications (more specifically spouse visa applications) were managed on a demand driven basis.

I'll give you the world my little one / I'll raise you properly-even with father gone / So rock-a-bye baby / Don't you ever cry / Grow child grow, grow up and be a better man

(Photography by Nick Hedges)

STEPHANIE ALOIS

Your father disowned you and I cried
Silently in my heart and swallowed my pride
Isolated from the village and gossip of men
Pain, oh such sweet-bitter pain

Only seven of Papua New Guinea’s 65 government agencies have reported how they have spent billions of public funds provided to them in the budget since 2016

The Money Tree (painting by Channell Arivai)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - The delivery of a peaceful election is a shared responsibility that requires broad-based leadership, says Transparency International Papua New Guinea (TIPNG).

It says a free and fair election will require a concerted effort by the police, defence force, correctional service and some government agencies working alongside the electoral commission.

Legislation will need to spell out the terms of Indigenous Treaties to ensure consistency with Australia's constitution and laws relating to land and access rights. This is not impossible but is bound to be complex and contentious

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - The history of Australian governments in dealing with Australia’s Indigenous peoples is very dismal indeed.

The now departed and unlamented Liberal-National Party government continued this tradition whereby weasel words were deemed an adequate substitute for meaningful action.

The resplendent rugged terrain of Oro does not easily reveal the stories of those ragged bloody heroes, foreign and local alike, who trudged across this landscape 80 years ago

GREGORY BABLIS
| Ples Singsing - A PNG Writer's Blog

GORARI ORO - I wrote this poem sitting in my house in the middle of Gorari village thinking about this beautiful land that is steeped in the history of World War II as well as its own traditional history.

The title of the poem, 'Oro to This Place of War and Peace', points to Oro as knowing war and continuing to know it through its lingering effects and consequent materiality even in this time of peace.

“Wanem kain mit?” I asked. What sort of meat? 
“Bai you kisim sampla han, olsem.” Then you get an arm.
“Bai mi nap kisim displa han lo we a?” Where do I get an arm!

PAUL OATES

CLEVELAND QLD - When stationed at Sialum in Morobe Province many years ago, I asked Councillor Zorika from Gitua whether there were any crocodiles in his area.

I was intending to do some fly fishing for Jungle Perch along the local rivers and thought it prudent to do some background research.

A book does not lose value. Its colour may fade, pages may tear and the covers drop off, but the words, memories, emotions and story live on in those people who have held it and read it

Caroline Evari with some of her books. She is a prolific author, especially of children's books

CAROLINE EVARI
| Ples Singsing

PORT MORESBY - A fellow Papua New Guinean author once told me about the incident that prompted him to take on a major lifestyle change.

“I gave up drinking,” he said, “when I was told by a man that my K50 book was too expensive.

The government's insensitivity to the widows and children continued long after the war until, in 2009, a small group from the Papua New Guinea Association of Australia formed a task force to do address the long official silence

Rabaul's main street as it was just before the Japanese invasion in 1942

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – The family of Philip (Hooky) Street, who died recently in Sydney aged 91, was among the small Australian population of Rabaul just before the Japanese invasion in January 1942.

Most of those families lost their husbands and fathers, who stayed behind while the women and children were hurriedly evacuated.

The ‘designed to fail’ policies that glisten with promises come to nought in delivery because the Whitefella wants to be able to control, constrain and interfere with the Blackfella’s interests

New South Wales Mounted Police attack Aboriginal people, Waterloo Creek, 1838

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY – I’m currently writing a history of the South Australian Aboriginal Heritage Branch, based in Adelaide, where I was employed between 1974 and 1994.

It’s tentatively called ‘Full Circle’ – the title describing a 20-year trajectory in which the Branch went from virtually nothing to journey through a period of high productivity and public recognition before finally looping back to irrelevance and obscurity, buried in a high rise city building.

Despite the setbacks and difficulties, sparkling embers still burn in the fireplace of Papua New Guinean literature. Rait ples, rait papagraun, rait pipol. Right place, right heritage, right people. In Tok Pisin rait is also 'write'

Earlier this year, prime minister Marape learned of the existence of a struggling but rich literature in PNG. He was impressed - and said he would offer a helping hand

MICHAEL DOM

LAE – Around the middle of June, Ples Singsing Writers & Associates held its first writers kivung, Kirapim Paia Long Ples Singsing - Create the Passion of Ples Singsing.

Ples Singsing is, of course, the Papua New Guinea writers’ blog, the spirited lovechild of me and a number of colleagues whose turn it was to seize the waning fire of PNG literature.

A Twitter thread examining the alarming, tragic and unfinished story of Covid in Australia: where the people are now; how we got here; and what we must do to extract ourselves from this shitshow

Image by The Age

COLIN KINNER
(@ColinKinner)

BRISBANE - First, where are we right now? Some facts.

Around 50% of all Australians have had Covid, there have been 9,700 deaths from Covid and about half a million people are suffering from Long Covid.

To put that in perspective, the current death rate is around 50 people per day, and increasing.

Dr Scragg's commitment to public health extended for the entire post-war colonial period and the health system he fostered doubled the average life expectancy of Papua New Guineans from 32 to 64

Dr Roy Scragg outside his iconic home in the Adelaide suburb of Glenelg just before he sold it in March  following the death of his wife, Joy (Dean Martin)

KEITH JACKSON

Dr Scragg’s funeral will be held on Friday 1 July at the Prospect International
Seventh-Day Adventist Church, 7 Ballville Street, Prospect, at 1.30 pm.
The funeral service will be webcast and you can link here to the livestream

NOOSA –Dr Roy Scragg, who died of cancer in the early hours of last Thursday at the age of 98, was a most remarkable man.

The richly honoured and credentialled Dr Scragg AM OBE, DUniv MD MPH MBBS, spent 27 years from 1947 to 1974 developing the health system in Papua New Guinea both as a pioneering administrator and later as a ground-breaking university professor.

Initially only four bookshops around the country stocked Grimmish, but Winkler also sent it to a few ‘influential readers’ who started enthusing about it on social media

Michael Winkler says his book was a difficult one to explain to publishers and bookshops (Justin McManus)

JASON STEGER
| Sydney Morning Herald

Link here to Michael Winkler’s Grimmish website

SYDNEY - Michael Winkler is a bit resigned about his writing career: “It has been one of defeat really, but it’s chop wood, carry water, isn’t it?”

When he finished his novel Grimmish, he and his agent offered it to publishers they thought might be interested.

One key test for PNG’s fragile democracy will be women’s political representation. PNG is one of only three countries to have no female legislators in its national parliament

Election and security officials plan the movement of supplies,  2017 (Commonwealth Secretariat)

TEDDY WINN
| Griffith Asia Insights

https://blogs.griffith.edu.au/asiainsights/

TOWNSVILLE - Papua New Guineans will go to the polls on 2 July - the tenth time citizens have exercised their universal suffrage since the first post-independence election of 1977.

The process started with the issuing of writs on 12 May.  Sadly, the country lost its deputy prime minister in a fatal car accident the day before, resulting in the deferral of nominations by a week.

The ABC has been told that dialogue partners meetings will not be held during the Forum, effectively locking out politicians and officials from countries outside the region

STEPHEN DZIEDZIC
ABC News | Edited extracts

Link here for Stephen Dziedcic’s complete article

CANBERRA - The Pacific's peak diplomatic body looks set to exclude the United States, China and several other major countries from a crucial leaders meeting in Fiji next month.

The move has been analysed as helping to shelter the Pacific Islands from intensifying geostrategic competition in the region.

In Amazon’s early days there was a hint of a benevolent and philanthropic spirit in its business model, but the ogre of profit at all costs has overtaken all other considerations

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Michael Dom and I have just endured an incredibly dispiriting battle with Amazon Kindle over an extremely trivial matter of copyright involving the Ples Singsing anthology of student essays from the 2020 competition.

This issue has thankfully now been resolved and the anthology is available on Amazon as both an eBook and a paperback.

Research suggests that policy-makers now need to focus on the less politically popular aspects of education policy, such as improving teacher quality and oversight and monitoring

NEWSDESK
| Radio New Zealand | Pacific News

AUCKLAND - More than 10 years after it started, big changes are being called for in Papua New Guinea's tuition fee-free education system, introduced by the O'Neill government in 2011.

The National Research Institute (NRI) in PNG has conducted an assessment in East Sepik and Morobe provinces and found that, while fee-free education improved access for many students, the quality of education was undermined.

'Three times a year from 1998 to 2013, I travelled from Mt Hagen to Madang for meetings of the University Council, where I associated with Sir Peter. Quite often several of us would be lodged at his Madang Resort. I only have good memories of those times'

Sir Peter Barter and Sir Michael Somare at a Divine Word University function in Madang (Garry Roche)

GARRY ROCHE

MAYNOOTH, IRELAND - Sir Peter Barter, 82, who passed away in Cairns after a short illness on Wednesday 22 June, was well known and respected as a politician and businessman.

It is widely acknowledged that he achieved much in his time especially for both Madang Town and Madang Province.

Do the people understand exactly what is happening – and how it is happening, and to the benefit of whom? No, too often they don’t. They are not told. These things are not explained to them

PAUL OATES

CLEVELAND QLD –There is an argument put forward that, if everyone knows their taxes and public resources are deployed in a transparent and ethical way, where then is the corruption?

And if people vote on issues that have been fully explained to them by their elected representatives, where then is the ignorance?

"Toss me in the sea, let it swallow me!" /  They threw Jonah into this great tempest /  "God! We're innocent and let us be free!" / And the sea grew calm amidst this great test

RAYMOND SIGIMET

Chapter I 

(I)

The voice of the Lord God came to Jonah 

"Go now and tell Nineveh, the great city.

"Your wickedness, to Me, has climbed higher."

But Jonah fled to Tarshish, near the sea.

The 2022 election is shaping up to be the most violent ever despite the government purchasing armoured vehicles, imposing a ban on the 50,000 illegal firearms in the country and support from the Australian Defence Force

Men queue to vote at a Highlands election (Treva Braun)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - The shooting of a returning officer, 30 other deaths in electoral violence, candidates’ supporters burning rivals’ vehicles and other violence have already marred Papua New Guinea’s upcoming general elections.

In a pointed article for the Asia & the Pacific Policy Society, academics Henry Ivarature and Michael Kabuni have expressed fears that the elections due to start on Tuesday 2 July are shaping up to be as bad as what was said to be “the worst one ever” in 2017

The Solomons both lost and found its way politically and economically. Part of its journey were mismanagement and corruption, and the ‘tension years’, when the nation came to the brink of anarchy

Honiara is a corruption of the Malaitan word, nahona`ara, meaning facing the place where the southeast winds meet the land (Jenny Scott)

CLIVE MOORE
| DevPolicy Blog

Honiara: Village-City of Solomon Islands by Clive Moore, ANU Press, May 2022. More information here. ISBN 9781760465070 (online). Download or read the book free online here

BRISBANE - Like most cities, Honiara is bound by its geography, history and culture. In my new book, I explore these relationships and how they have created the city we see today.

Military bases in the Solomon Islands are in the news, although most people seem to have forgotten that Honiara began as a World War II battle ground and military base, initially Japanese and then American.

The smart move would be to bribe the polling officials and security officers. Less people to bribe so much cheaper. But is it worth spending eight years in jail for that? Not so smart really.

Governor Allan Bird - " I don't believe our voters are stupid. Certainly not in Sepik"

GOVERNOR ALLAN BIRD
| Academia Nomad

WEWAK - I see some smart commentators who, observing transport, food and drink provided by candidates at rallies, say this is wrong and constitutes bribery.

First of all, I don't believe our voters are stupid. Certainly not in Sepik.

“This is who we are, this is what we are. We are on the Jesus trail. We are Jesus’ followers, and we need you to stay with us because this is all new to us. So stay here and keep living with us” - People of Yifki

Yifki airstrip - "We hiked everywhere and finally located the perfect valley in the Yifki area"

JONATHAN KOPF
| New Tribes Mission | MAF | Edited

The Hewa tribe of somewhere between 3,000 and 6,000 people lives in little hamlets scattered over 100 km of rugged terrain in the Papua New Guinea Highlands. In 2000 the New Tribes Mission’s Jonathan Kopf, with his wife and family, began to live and work among these people. This is their story. Photos by Annelie Adsmyr

MT HAGEN -– When we arrived in Fiyawena village, the people were eager to have us there and excited to hear the message of the light.

“We’re in the darkness of the jungle, and we know you have the story of the light,” they said. “We want to hear that story.”

Almost no organisations and government agencies have an anti-corruption strategy - even those responsible for protecting integrity

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - With the help of the European Union, Transparency International PNG (TIPNG) is seeking to persuade Papua New Guinea’s government agencies to adopt and implement explicit anti-corruption and integrity strategies.

It says it is doing this in the knowledge that few government agencies, including those responsible for protecting integrity and fighting corruption, do not have an anti-corruption strategy.

My call alerted the authorities to my existence as a primary trained teacher in a secondary trained position. This triggered a rather drastic chain reaction

Tapini grass airstrip, c 1967 (Bob Grieve)

IAN ROBERTSON

BRISBANE – The Tapini airstrip featured as an oddity during my service in Papua New Guinea.

This has begun in 1959 after I had completed the two-year Cadet Education Officer’s certificate course at the Australian School of Pacific Administration in 1958.

It was Michael Somare’s Pangu that knew the way to independence. Now under James Marape, ‘Pangu ino save lo rot’. Pangu doesn't know the way

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

WAIGANI – ‘Pangu save lo ro’ (Pangu knows the way) is a motto made popular by the late Sam Basil.

It refers to the Pangu Pati that attained independence for Papua New Guinea in 1975 led by the late Michael Somare.

The ABC’S international media development unit supports democratic governance by strengthening public interest journalism capable of holding Asia-Pacific institutions to account

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - Like so many people before him, Daniel Mee stumbled by accident upon PNG Attitude –and liked what he saw.

Not just a treasure trove of information but a network of many hundreds of people who maintain a close affiliation with Papua New Guinea.

The legislation smacks of colonialism and will result in PNG becoming the only country in the world to manage its most popular tourism destination as an environmental resource

HON CHARLIE LYNN OL
Adventure Kokoda | The National

SYDNEY - The proposed Kokoda Track Management Authority Bill is based on a false premise.

It is not a Papua New Guinea bill. It was developed in secret by an Australian aid official from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in Canberra.

Being an agitator can come at a high cost. In many instances, society may not be ready for the solutions the media provides. The media itself may not be ready

Scott Waide - "The role of the media as a guardian of democracy comes to the fore when people go to the polls"

SCOTT WAIDE
| My Land, My Country

LAE - It has been a hectic three months working around the clock running pre-election workshops for journalists in all four regions through the media development initiative of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The most important part of the training for many of those journalists who attended has been the discussion around the role of the media in Papua New Guinea.

The chainsaws had finished their day’s work. Through the silence I heard birds chirping; and the faint sad cry of a bird of paradise

DUNCAN GABI
| Auna Melo Independent Blog

WEWAK - I looked down at my feet stuck in the red clay, then raised my head. Before me a machine was constructing a new road through the thick jungle.

I could see the shape of the mechanical caterpillar munching away the forest.

I took a step and slipped, quickly rebalanced and steadied on my feet.

'John Teosin was a complex personality and an enormously deep thinker. He was ahead of his time in many ways. Among the living dead, John Teosin shan’t be forgotten'

COMPILED & EDITED BY KEITH JACKSON
| With some useful references from Dr Robin Hide

NOOSA - The John Teosin Highway (aka the Buka ring road) connects villages along the east coast of Buka Island with Bougainville’s commercial and administrative centre, Buka Town.

The ring road plays a vital role in people’s lives as well as moving them from one place to another.

'Without you, I’m as a mirror so tarnished / pushed out of sight to the back of the room / awaiting a jeweler to give me my clarity / But, now you’re here, my radiance renewed'

STEPHANIE ALOIS

Time passes swiftly each time we talk
The world disappears when I hear your voice
Even if we both say nothing, it still feels
like the best conversation, it’s never awkward
even a vacuum filled with prolonged silence
For just hearing you breathe keeps me alive
Now I’m wondering ‘what if ‘?

General Austin says the US is prepared to step up to be a leader and a guarantor of a free and open Indo-Pacific. "Big powers carry big responsibilities," he says

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin addresses the Shangri-La Dialogue summit in  Singapore on Saturday  (CNN)

BRAD LENDON & OREN LIEBERMANN
| CNN | Edited extracts

SINGAPORE – On Saturday, United States defence secretary Lloyd Austin called out China and vowed the US would stand by partners after a series of coercive, aggressive and dangerous actions that he said threatened stability in Asia.

"Indo-Pacific countries shouldn't face political intimidation, economic coercion or harassment by maritime militias," Austin said in a keynote speech to the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's premier defence conference.

The identity of the remarkable Huli people of the PNG Highlands is expressed in a bewildering multitude of ways as they adapt to the pressures of change

Men of Huli (Trans NiuGini Tours)

MICHAEL MAIN
| Extract from ‘Until Hela Becomes a City: The Western Encounter with Huli Modernity’

CANBERRA - Although the practice of wearing the everyday Huli wig has long since passed, and what is recognised as traditional Huli clothing has become a ceremonial uniform, the subtle and individual expressions of Huliness are a widespread feature of contemporary Huli life.

The existence of a self-consciously Huli ceremonial uniform was a feature of pre- contact Huli life, especially as worn by members of the haroli bachelor cult when they returned to social view after an extended period in isolation.

Most Pacific Island nations, including Papua New Guinea and Fiji, have not voiced opposition to the China-Solomons agreement and understand its context

National flags of Solomon Islands and China flutter in Tiananmen Square, Beijing (Reuters)

GORDON NANAU
| East Asia Forum

SUVA - A draft security agreement between Solomon Islands and China was leaked on social media on 24 March 2022, sparking anxious reactions locally and internationally.

On 19 April, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin announced the agreement had been signed, and this was confirmed by Solomon Islands foreign affairs minister Jeremiah Manele.

RAYMOND SIGIMET

Chapter I

Out in the sea with his canoe
Wind and darkness came with no cue
And took him away suddenly
Away from land and family
Into the dusk his strength waned
Paddle and sail lost in the wind

While the final few years of Coalition rule saw rapid growth in Pacific labour mobility, they were also years in which policy coherence began to suffer, if not fall apart

The Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme has staggered forward but now promises the prospect of both temporary and permanent migration to Australia

STEPHEN HOWES
| DevPolicy Blog | Edited

CANBERRA - The Coalition government led by John Howard was disastrous for Pacific labour mobility.

By contrast, the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government was very good for it, though at the end the limits and contradictions of its approach were apparent.

From the outset ASPI was a highly politicised right wing think tank. It’s now reached its use-by date & should put down the megaphone

BRUCE HAIGH
| Pearls & Irritations

ORANGE, NSW - The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, ASPI, was conceived as a body to provide the government with the advice it wanted to hear.

It was commissioned by prime minister John Howard in August 2001 to undertake ‘policy-relevant research and analysis to better inform government decisions and public understanding of strategic and defence issues'.

Drivers compete with each other for a few metres of advantage and swap insults with hand signals to assert their rights of domination

Traffic in Port Moresby

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Dervla Murphy, the Irish travel writer who died aged 90 last month, had two particular dislikes. The first was capitalism and the second was motorcars.

In the early 1960s she rode an old fashioned gearless pushbike from Waterford in Ireland to India. She subsequently undertook many more similar adventures on her trusty wiliwil.

The National Geographic, always a product of its time, remains an amazing pictorial record of Papua New Guinea over nearly 100 years

E Thomas Gilliard's 'Miramar children' (or were they?) of 1955 (National Geographic)

PETER KRANZ

MORISSET – The photograph above was taken during E Thomas Gilliard's bird hunting expedition to the Papua New Guinea Highlands in 1955.

The story of the expedition, together with many spectacular photographs, was published in National Geographic magazine in the same year under the headline, 'To the Land of the Headhunters'.

The observer group at the 2017 election was strongly criticised for its perceived failure to identify many  substantial problems around voting

Commonwealth observer speaks with voters in Hela Province, 2012 (Treva Braun | Commonwealth Secretariat)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – A former president of Nauru, Baron Waqa, will lead the Commonwealth Observer Group to Papua New Guinea’s national election next month.

At the invitation of the PNG Electoral Commission, the Commonwealth Secretariat will deploy the Group to observe and report on the country’s national election scheduled to begin on 2 July.

If Australia’s aid program had been better administered and less affected by political influence, PNG would now be reaping the benefits

Australian diplomat Will Robinson hands a box of medical equipment to then health boss, the late Dr Paison Dakulala

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - A cardinal mistake Australia made, and continues to make, in relation to Papua New Guinea is its extremely generous and sustained provision of about half a billion dollars a year in aid money.

Australia’s promise of ongoing funding aid to PNG was originally used as an inducement to accelerate its progress to independence.

'I think the key thing is to build a relationship based on mutual respect. It can't be a transactional relationship where our interest waxes and wanes. A deeply respectful relationship is key'

Pat Conroy MP, wife Keara and their children and prime minister Anthony Albanese after the new Australian ministry was sworn in last month 

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Richard Marles is now Australia’s deputy prime minister and defence minister.

When I met him about 10 years ago, he was the Labor government’s parliamentary secretary for Pacific Islands affairs and I was unimpressed.

Given Facebook’s domination of social media in Papua New Guinea, it was concerning that researchers found strong indications of organised, politically motivated activity using inauthentic accounts to impersonate incumbent politicians

CAITLYN MCKENZIE & BEN CONNABLE
| DT Institute  | Lowy Institute 

WASHINGTON DC - How many Facebook accounts and pages claim to belong to Papua New Guinea’s prime minister James Marape?

Between 20 and 35, depending on the point in time and your definition, none verified by the platform.