Aerial view of the new Maramuni road

DANIEL KUMBON

WABAG - Graham Hardy was posted to Wabag as a cadet patrol officer in 1954 and has recalled that period in an enthralling book, ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’, and in other writing, including a September 2015 article in Una Voce, the newsletter of the PNG Association of Australia.

It is clear that he, like former kiap and magistrate Chips Mackellar, developed a special affection for the people of Enga and related areas of the Papua New Guinea highlands.

JUSTIN KUNDALIN

PORT MORESBY – Is one of our greatest struggles the struggle to stay focused?

Is it a truth that not one of us was born to stay focused?

Staying focused seems to be something we learn in life. Didn’t seem to be born with it.

HILDA DAVID-AIPI

That precious moment
That glorious morning
In that place of worship
My life’s course to change
From being young to now
My life’s destiny, you
You were destined for me

Mt Wilhelm peak, 1974 (Garry Roche)

GARRY ROCHE

MAYNOOTH, IRELAND – The late Francis Nii, quoted in the just released book, ‘Man Bilong Buk’, wondered how many Papua New Guineans might have stood atop PNG on its highest mountain, Mt Wilhelm.

This set me reminiscing back to 1974, when I was based at Rebiamul, the headquarters of the Catholic Diocese of Mt Hagen.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - It is not possible to know everything. This is a truth that often dawns on people only in their older years.

The best we can hope for, and this is rare enough, is to be a polymath; a person of broad general knowledge.

JOSEPH TAMBURE

Have experienced sad and all emotions 
Sometimes faced death, unprepared but conquered 
But will one day return to that faraway place I call home

Sun burned, rain washed, cold wind chilled
Have travelled, tastes of all kinds felt
Seen faces of all colours, heard strange dialects 
One day to return to that faraway place I call home

Inauguration of Ismael Toroama (right) James Marape (left) and former President John Momis (behind) (Bougainville Electoral Commission)

NEWS DESK
| Radio New Zealand

BUKA - Papua New Guinea prime minister James Marape is in Bougainville today to witness the swearing in of the autonomous region's new president.

Ishmael Toroama, a former rebel militant commander, was elected as Bougainville's president last week.

Members of the Akmana gold prospecting field party and local villagers. The party were the first outsiders into Enga in 1929

DANIEL KUMBON

WABAG – The field party of the Akmana Gold Prospecting Company were the first Europeans to set foot in what is now Enga Province.

The Akmana prospectors, trekking south from the Sepik, had penetrated the Maramuni area and into the Wabag district four years before the ill-fated Leahy brothers’ expedition of 1934.

Michael Leahy’s diary stated that 15 tribespeople were killed and an equal number injured in a bloody encounter at Tole village and five more were killed as the Leahy party retreated back to Mt Hagen.

John Fowke

ANNA FOWKE

BRISBANE - My father was a big man, a tall man, a loud man, a funny man. A man with many moods, many strengths, and the usual amount of weaknesses.

He asked me to officiate at his funeral party, and so that means here I am, struggling to express my thoughts about a life lived, a rich, adventurous life.

As I collated my thoughts in the days following his death, I was struck by how many people loved and respected my father, but also how many different people he was to others.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - The situation with respect to Australia’s seasonal workers, deplorable as it is, simply reflects the truth about the so-called ‘gig economy’ that has now been created here and elsewhere in the world.

It is a form of economy that would be immediately recognisable to, say, Charles Dickens or Karl Marx, because its essential characteristics are not dissimilar to those of many workers in the mid-19th century.

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – The production of ‘Man Bilong Buk’ – the tribute volume to the life and achievements of the late Francis Nii – was completed within two months of his death on 2 August and is already available as a downloadable book here.

As usual with PNG Attitude projects, the production of this 320-page book has been a team effort involving Francis’s family and friends, fellow writers, who offer their assessments of Francis’s impact on Papua New Guinea literature, and many of our readers who donated funds to enable the books to be distributed free of cost to PNG.

Nahau Rooney - worked to catalyse the constitutional promises of equality, participation and a focus on rural development

SADHANA SEN & GYNNIE KERO
| DevPolicy Blog

CANBERRA - Trailblazing, hardworking, audacious, always vivacious and at times controversial – some of the descriptions offered of Papua New Guinea and Manus pioneering woman in politics, Nahau Rooney, who passed away on Tuesday 15 September, aged 75.

Nahau Rooney was one of only three women elected at PNG’s first post-Independence elections in 1977 to its 109-member national parliament, where she served as the regional member for the province of Manus.

JUSTIN KUNDALIN

PORT MORESBY - Notice I didn’t write “How to find good books” but “How to find the best books” because no one has all the time required to read both the good and the best.

To me, I like to read only the best books that are most enriching for me.

ISO YAWI

Written for my nieces Fidelyn and Shamalyn

Dear Big Sister
I write this letter to tell you
About my world

It all began
In a little young a soul
Yes, my soul

Deep fear and sadness arise
It filled my vessel with anxiety
Like a mist watering the earth

BERNARD CORDEN

“Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear” - George Orwell

BRISBANE - In the United States on 28 January 1948, a Douglas DC3 aircraft chartered by US Immigration Services crashed at Los Gatos canyon in California.

There were no survivors and the casualties included several crew members and 28 migrant farm labourers.

Pole Kale writes the story of his life and career but also a manual on how a commitment to education is best realised as a family pursuit

ARNOLD MUNDUA

Quest for Education: From Selling Firewood to Yale University, by Pole John Kale, Published by Francis Nii under the imprint of Simbu Writers Association, August 2020. Copies can be ordered from Pole Kale, email polekale@gmail.com. Also available here from Amazon Books

KUNDIAWA - It is not often that you will find an academic success story of a Papua New Guinean intellectual in print form.

Although written CVs or career profiles may give an insight into a person’s academic background, the early childhood experiences that contribute to achieving such success are mostly obscured.

KENNY PAWA AMBIASI

PORT MORESBY - I recall a house built by a young man in the village. It was outstanding in the community.

He developed a unique design, secured a tract of land near the village square and built it using long-lasting materials.

The house was to be occupied by the designer’s younger brother in which to keep the designer’s belongings while he went to a faraway place to complete his studies.

JUSTIN KUNDALIN

PORT MORESBY - I believe distraction is the greatest hindrance to impede human potential to accomplish great things in life.

The world today is encircled by distraction. And no person is immune.

The clever inventions developed to help humanity in some cases take us captive as we become fully absorbed in them.

Bougainville president-elect Ishmael Toroama

NEWS DESK
| Radio New Zealand

AUCKLAND - Former commander of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army, Ishmael Toroama, yesterday won a clear majority to take over the presidency of Bougainville.

In his acceptance speech, Toroama appeared to hit back at allegations from the outgoing president, John Momis, who suggested there had been corruption in the poll.

Chris Overland

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - One of our species’ best inventions is the scientific method, which has enabled us to create and sustain what we call the modern world.

Importantly, science works by discovering and understanding the reality or truth about how the natural world and wider universe operates.

Kwikila District Office

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - If you drive around the older suburbs of Port Moresby you can see houses, still occupied, that date back well before independence.

Here and there old dustbin cages can also be seen, still sitting up on their steel poles out of the reach of stray dogs.

Colonel Siale Francis Diro of the PNGDF meets former foe and BRA commander Ishmael Toroama

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Ishmael Toroama, who has just been voted in as President-elect of Bougianville, built his reputation as a bold fighter and later a commander in the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA).

The BRA was engaged in a 10-year civil war in the 1990s with the aim of closing the Panguna copper and gold mine and gaining the independence of Bougainville from Papua New Guinea.

Phil Fitzpatrick - "This is not a book about a disabled writer. It is a book about a towering figure in the history of Simbu and Papua New Guinea itself"

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – After a remarkably short production time, the Francis Nii collection, ‘Man Bilong Buk’, has been readied for printing and we’re pleased to make an e-book available for free download immediately.

The link to the e-book can be found above this page’s masthead by clicking through the headline ‘The Francis Nii Collection’.

WARDLEY BARRY

I don't take to poetry
For fun or for the thrill –
Not anymore.

I don't take it lightly.
There's a darker feel,

An even darker story
To every line, every jot,
Every ill-gotten thought.

Ishmael Toroama

KEITH JACKSON

MONDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE

NOOSA – The nineteenth elimination count in the Bougainville presidential election was completed this afternoon with the candidate who has led throughout, Ishmael Toroama, maintaining a significant lead.

Toroama is still more than 13,000 votes ahead of the second-placed candidate Fr Simon Dumarinu, while former Bougainville president James Tanis found himself eliminated.

The longer the count continues, the further ahead moves Ishmael Toroama, who seems to have the Bougainville presidency in his keeping

KEITH JACKSON

MONDAY MORNING UPDATE

NOOSA – After the eighteenth elimination count in the Bougainville presidential election, the leading candidate Ishmael Toroama has surged even further ahead of the field.

With the elimination of Wesma Piika and Sione Paasia this morning and the pending elimination of former Bougainville Revolutionary Army commander Sam Kauona, Toroama is now more than 13,000 votes ahead of the second-placed candidate Fr Simon Dumarinu.

The new Royal Adelaide Hospital: K5.5 billion to build and  K2.9 billion a year to operate.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - My first outstation posting in Papua New Guinea was to Baimuru Patrol Post in the Gulf Province.

In 1970 the station boasted a grass airstrip, a native materials office, a small collection of houses and miscellaneous outbuildings.

There was also a rickety wharf decked with Marsden matting left over from World War II.

An early meeting of the Simbu Writers Association. Francis Nii seated left and Arnold Mundua standing above his left shoulder

ARNOLD MUNDUA

KUNDIAWA - The 2014 Crocodile Prize awards were held at the Australian High Commission in Port Moresby in September, as they had been for the previous three years.

President of the Simbu Writers Association, Jimmy Drekore, was there, and so was Francis Nii, who had won the award for essays the year before, Roslyn Tony, Mathias Kin, Jimmy Awagl and me.

It was quite a representation from SWA, in Simbu colours too.

WALLACE PARIMAHI

Port Moresby - Wallace’s story, ‘Project Infiltration’, won the Grades 11 -12 category for Best Language Usage Story in the Paradise College ANIS Writing Competition

DAY FIFTY-TWO BEGAN with fear; the type that kept me awake at night; the type that filled me with disconcerting uncertainty; the type that was present from the beginning.

It had been fifty-two days since my carefully orchestrated escapade and too long since my unfortunate kidnapping. I had seemed to have lost track of time.

Ishmael Toroama has consolidated his position as  front runner in the Bougainville presidential election

KEITH JACKSON

LATE SUNDAY UPDATE

NOOSA – The trend is your friend, it is said, and the trend in counting votes for the next president of Bougainville remains firmly with Ishmael Toroama, who continue to move ahead of the field.

With the elimination of the fourteenth presidential candidate late afternoon it became clear that only the two leaders amongst the 11 remaining contenders can come close to an absolute majority of 71,725 votes.

The release of updated figures this afternoon showed Ishmael Toroama consolidating his position as the likely winner as he moved out to a 10,500 vote lead over second placed candidate Fr Simon Dumarinu.

Arnold Mundua

Francis Nii

ARNOLD MUNDUA

KUNDIAWA – Sometimes great people’s legacy – their influence on and contributions to society - only becomes fully recognised after their passing.

The late author Francis Nii was such a person. His passing on Sunday 2 August at the Sir Joseph Nombri Memorial Hospital in Kundiawa left a huge vacuum in the lives of the many people who knew him personally.

Wallace Parimahi - talented young writer whose winning entry in the Paradise College writing contest, 'Project Infiltration', will be published in PNG Attitude tomorrow

MARLENE DEE GRAY POTOURA
| PNG Paradise College | Innovative School of the 21st Century

PORT MORESBY - I first heard of Paradise College when the principal, Mr Safak Deliismail, contacted me in 2016 to be a guest speaker at their ANIS Writing Competition awards.

I couldn’t make it at that time but three years on I am teaching at Paradise College in the subject I love to teach, Language and Literature.

In the USA much presidential policy is dispensed using Twitter feed. Trump has 86 million followers (PNG Attitude has 7,000)

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - No matter how good an innovation is there will always be people who subvert it and spoil it for everyone else.

This axiom applies from something as simple as people taking undue advantage of a public welfare measure by ripping it off with false claims to the greater complexity of major frauds perpetuated by large corporations taking advantage of loopholes in tax laws.

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – The Bougainville presidential election has moved into its final stage with the end of counting of the 283 ballot boxes and completion of three days of quality checks.

None of the 25 candidates got even close an absolute majority of 72,213 votes so the elimination of lower placed contenders has begun.

Despite the deputy prime minister launching reform recommendations, PNG's informal economy continues to struggle

BUSA JEREMIAH WENOGO

PORT MORESBY - When the first audit of Papua New Guinea’s informal economy was launched in 2019, it generated a sense of optimism for the future of this important sector of the nation’s economy.

But a year later, despite legislation and policy encouraging the growth of the informal economy, its participants remain voiceless – and depressed.

The informal economy is estimated to involve 75% of the PNG population.

SCOTT WAIDE
| My Land, My Country

LAE - If you don't like the state of the country, commit yourself to changing it.

You don't have to be in politics to do it. If there is trash outside your fence, pick it up.

JOSEPH TAMBURE

Another day of black and gold colours 
A numerical addition to continue 
Forgetting hardships and problems 
Just to be out in colours with pride

O arise all you!

Black and gold on bodies
On buildings, cars, alongside roads
All provinces across the land
Just a day’s celebrations

JUSTIN KUNDALIN

PORT MORESBY - I’m not against Facebook fans or anything to do with Facebook but I’m writing this article because of concern for my fellow students because I’ve come to realise Facebook can be a big distraction.

As a result, many students are not performing to their potential in the classroom.

The lineage is strong - Paul Kurai in front of the yar tree at Ela Beach in Port Moresby which his father is said to have planted during colonial times

DANIEL KUMBON

WABAG - Paul Kiap Kurai is probably among just a few Highlands businessman, if not the only one, who has given away a successful business entity to a clansman on a golden platter.

He gave the Neneo Construction company to his Kamainwan people of Kaiap as a gift so they too would benefit from the proceeds of his blessings.

It was an action rarely seen in competitive Highlands society.

White supremacists  empty-headedly claim ethnic diversity is equivalent to white genocide

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Just like Australia, the USA is a migrant nation. In both cases the racial and cultural diversity of both populations has contributed to both the wealth and vibrancy of their societies.

While Australia is home to the world's oldest continuous culture dating back at least 65,000 years it is now also home to a people who identify with more than 270 different ancestries.

Artist Lisa Hilli paid tribute to the FMI Sisters through her art creating a large digital photographic collage of an image of the Sisters and 45 hand-embroidered cinctures.

CLAIRE HUNTER
| Australian War Memorial

CANBERRA - When the Japanese invaded Rabaul on New Britain in January 1942, a group of 45 Daughters of Mary Immaculate (FMI) Sisters refused to give up their faith.

Instead, they risked their lives to help save hundreds of Australian and European missionaries and civilian detainees who were held captive by the Japanese for three and a half years, first at Vunapope and then in the dense jungle of Ramale.

"The biggest challenge ahead as we break with the past is to continue the struggle to decolonise our minds which keeps us in bondage. Those that do not believe that we can own and run a mine like Porgera are influenced and shaped by our past colonial history" - Gabriel Ramoi

GABRIEL RAMOI

WEWAK - The theme of this year’s Independence celebration should be ‘Preserving the positive gains made over the last 45 years of political independence and those made over the last 12 months under PMJM in particular’.

A bit of a mouthful, I know, but it sums up how I’m feeling this Independence Day.

This year as we celebrate 45 years of independence we can feel a renewed sense of nationalism and optimism in the air.

The 9 Mile market outside Lae city (Michael Dom)

MICHAEL DOM
| Diplomatique | Literary Colloquium Berlin

LAE - The global pandemic of Covid-19 has had many repercussions to daily life and keeping abreast with World Health Organisation recommendations, the Papua New Guinea government has also defined the ‘new normal’ for its citizens.

But to thousands of the peri-urban poor, struggling to survive during trying economic times, the impact of policing health measures is just another normal day.

Isaac Lupari - "The system of the PNG public service is broken"

NEWS DESK
| Kalang FM News

PORT MORESBY - Acting Chief Secretary to Government, Ambassador Isaac Lupari says the public service is a threat to national unity and security.

He says the system of the PNG public service is broken.

Charlene Dinipami Nii - Francis was very  ill, but insisted on making the tortuous trip to witness his father's burial

CHARLENE NII

KUNDIAWA - It was on Wednesday 1 April that bad news came to Francis in his hospital bed in Kundiawa.

It was early in the morning when the phone rang. The caller was his cousin Duma Paulus from Diani village.

In broken tones, Duma told Francis that his father, the chief, Nicholas Tura Duma, had passed away.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

So what did you do for a crust?
Oh, the usual, public service and all that
Me too, I was in health administration
Before that I was a kiap in Papua New Guinea
That’s interesting, who do you barrack for?

I walked the high mountains and deep valleys
I reckon the Eagles will make the finals this year
I met men who had never seen steel before
Go on, is that right, is that your car out there?
And I saw men fighting with bows and arrows

Former Bougainville Revolutionary Army commander Ishmael Toroama - presently leading the Bougainvlle presidential count

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Former Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) commander, Ishmael Toroama, was retaining his lead in the Bougainville presidential election after the 280th count this morning.

The Office of the Bougainville Electoral Commission registered 222,333 voters and 446 candidates for the election.

Cuscus and handler at Port Moresby Nature Park

LYANNE TOGIBA
| Guardian Australia | Judith Nielson Institute | Extracts

PORT MORESBY - From the heat and dust of the city’s noisy, crowded streets, the Port Moresby Nature Park is an oasis, for the city’s residents as well as the animals it keeps.

Home to more than 500 creatures and spread over 30 verdant acres, the park has spent years rescuing injured, orphaned or trafficked animals from across the country, and protected and nurtured native species, including the endangered pig-nosed turtle, and the magnificent riflebird.

Worth waiting for - the launching of the Wasa bridge

DANIEL KUMBON

WABAG – Beginning in the 1950s and until the 1970s, Kurai Tapus - the ‘bosboi’ - and his people built Wabag with spades, wooden digging sticks, picks, axes, shovels, crowbars, bush knives and with their bare hands.

It took many weeks for hundreds of men to carve winding roads around the sides of mountains or through rugged terrain or unstable swampy grassland.

John Fowke - astute critic and interpreter of the Papua New Guinean condition

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – John Fowke, an erstwhile contributor to PNG Attitude and forceful critic of what he (sometimes unfairly) perceived as humbug and banality, has died in Brisbane aged 81.

Fowke went to Papua New Guinea as a Cadet Patrol Officer aged 21 in April 1958.

In 1962 he changed career direction when he was appointed a Cooperatives Officer, working in the Goroka region.