NOOSA – When I quit as president of the Papua New Guinea Association of Australia in January 2009, I decided to continue working on a few projects I had initiated that I did not want to see languish.
One of them was to gain official recognition of the 1,053 civilian and military prisoners interned by the Japanese in Rabaul who had drowned when the prison ship Montevideo Maru was sunk by an American submarine on 1 July 1942 en route to Hainan Island in China.
Toeolesulusulu Dr Damon Salesa … We need to honour … and be connected to our whanau around the Pacific (Radio New Zealand)
KEITH JACKSON
NOOSA – The new vice-chancellor of Auckland University of Technology (AUT), is keenly aware that he has broken through another glass ceiling.
The son of a factory worker, Dr Damon Salesa made New Zealand history last week as the first Pacific person to be appointed to head a New Zealand university.
MELBOURNE - In mid-October Dr Clement Malau, a Harvard-educated public health specialist and former secretary of the Papua New Guinea health department, was alarmed to discover he had gone viral. Only he hadn’t.
TUMBY BAY - When I was a little kid I drove my parents to absolute distraction by regularly staying awake for 24 hours at a stretch and then sleeping for 12 hours straight.
They presumed that my circadian rhythm, a natural process that regulates the sleep–wake cycle, indicated I had a serious problem.
Phil and Marie Charley - "their romance smacked of the silver screen”
KEITH JACKSON
NOOSA – Marie Charley has died in Sydney aged 93. She was the doyen of my favourite family and wife of my great comrade, the late Philip Charley OAM.
Marie, a school teacher by profession, had accompanied Phil for most of his long career in broadcast management, usually taking teaching positions along the way.
"Every drop of Papuan blood leaves a trail leading to the perpetrators, the crime scenes and, eventually, to Papuan statehood"
YAMIN KOGOYA
CANBERRA – Yesterday, 1 December, marked 60 years since the State of Papua came into being.
In the centuries preceding 1961, Ortiz de Rates, a Spanish explorer, renamed the island ‘Nueva Guinea’ (New Guinea)’ on 20 June 1545 and, hearing of his alleged discovery, other Europeans followed.
'David Gulpilil Two Worlds' by Craig Ruddy, Winner 2004 Archibald Prize (NSW Art Gallery)
PHILIP FITZPATRICK
TUMBY BAY - We in the West tend to judge people of other cultures in terms of our own values. We do this because we are conceited and assume that our values are superior to theirs.
This conceit was a fundamental ingredient in Australia’s past colonial experience and still informs how we relate to nations like China and India.
Westpac, ANZ, Bank South Pacific and Kina Bank have questions to answer about their ties with illegal logging practices in PNG
KEITH JACKSON
NOOSA – Banks operating in Papua New Guinea - including Westpac and ANZ - have provided the country’s five largest exporters of logs with at least K300 million in creditover the last 20 years.
But gaps in company reporting and murky funding processes mean the true amount could be three times as high, reaching close to a billion kina.
Pius Tikili - an extraordinary entrepreneur, a notable peacemaker and a Man of God
KEITH JACKSON
NOOSA – The eminent Papua New Guinea businessman and chairman of the National Broadcasting Corporation, Pius Tikili, died early last Saturday morning at Pacific International Hospital in Port Moresby at the age of 64.
A member of the Mogi Komunka KomKui tribe of the Western Highlands, Pius studied at the University of Papua New Guinea and the University of New England in Australia before becoming an announcer with the NBC.
Former patrol officer and academic Anthony English adds to the prolific literary output by PNG kiaps in this intriguing novel
PHILIP FITZPATRICK
Death of a Coastwatcher by Anthony English, Monsoon Books, Burrough on the Hill, 2020, 464pp. ASIN B08LR4YGP8. Available here from Amazon Australia: paperback AU$15.75, Kindle AU$9.35
TUMBY BAY - It may be a product of my advanced age but I have developed a distinct aversion to the depiction of violence and other extremes of human behaviour in literature and film.
My preferred recreational reading and viewing nowadays centres mainly on the gentle and whimsical. This is a genre in which the British excel but seems rare in America and Australia.
Jimmy Drekore, unidentified colleague and Dr Izzard Agua - spearheading a great medical achievement for Papua New Guinea
KEITH JACKSON
NOOSA –One of Chimbu’s favourite sons, Jimmy Drekore - in 2014 selected as Papua New Guinea’s Man of Honour and in 2016 winner of the prestigious international World of Children Award - is still kicking goals for PNG’s children.
Research into childhood osteomyelitis initiated in 2011 by Jimmy and his Simbu brother Dr Izzard Agua soon extended into better understanding methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), the aggressive bacteria that eats penicillin for breakfast.
Natalie (Nat) Whiting enjoys a barbecue with friends at Divine Word University in Madang
KEITH JACKSON
NOOSA - Natalie Whiting, the ABC’s Papua New Guinea correspondent, has won a major media award for her news coverage of the outbreak of Covid-19 in the country.
The annual award is given by the Australian Council for International Development’s (ACFID) to recognise a journalist who reports with skill and understanding on international humanitarian issues.
Foreign minister Marise Payne and prime minister Scott Morrison in Canberra yesterday afternoon announcing Australia's troop and police deployment to Honiara
KEITH JACKSON
NOOSA – As people in Honiara awake to a likely third day of riot, arson and looting , 43 Australian Defence Force personnel will join 23 Australian Federal Police in the Solomons’ capital “to provide security and stability” according to Australian prime minister Scott Morrison, .
Foreign minister Marise Payne says the deployment disagreed the intervention was an intervention and also said it was not to support Solomons’ prime minister Manasseh Sogavere’s faltering government.
New Ireland v Vunakanau Tigers, Queen's Park, Rabaul, 1972 (David-Bridie)
KEITH JACKSON
NOOSA – Now here’s a challenge to readers, especially if you, or someone you know or ought to know, was in and around Rabaul in the early 1970s.
My friend and back fence neighbour, freelance writer and all-round good bloke, Ian Hauser, has brought to our collective attention this spectacular photograph from 1972.
Nick Booth - "A first rate and highly skilled radio presenter with a wonderful sense of how to construct a music program"
KEITH JACKSON
NOOSA – Nick Booth, who died yesterday in Sydney aged 76, was a busy and enthusiastic man, who delighted in being with people and working with people to get things done.
I knew him not in his professional, paid career as a senior public service administrator but in his role as a broadcaster on community radio, especially between 1976 and 1983. I also knew Nick and his wife Lynn as good and kind friends.
PORT MORESBY - Research into prosecutions for corruption in Papua New Guinea reveals that, despite the enormous extent of the misappropriation of public funds, only a tiny number of officials have ever been charged and almost none has been convicted or imprisoned.
This failure is likely one reason PNG shows no signs of overcoming its unenviable reputation as one of the most corrupt nations in the world, and why allegations remain rife of corruption involving political leaders, the powerful and the wealthy.
SYDNEY - One in three people across Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands region paid a bribe when using a public service in the last year, according to a report by Transparency International.
And one in four people have been offered a bribe for their vote in the last five years.
GOLD COAST - Why was Telstra slotted $1.6 billion (K4 billion) by Australia’s Morrison government to buy Digicel, and how is it Telstra shares slumped by one-third during the bull market?
It’s corporate welfare on steroids. Another bizarre intervention in what Scott Morrison and treasurer Josh Frydenberg like to call free markets.
The splendid house for Mana Dau and her relatives begins to take shape
PETER KRANZ
MORISSET - Earlier this year Rose and I discovered that Rose’s mum, Mana Dau, was being abused by some distant and nasty relatives at the place where she was living in Lae.
It wasn’t just verbal bullying either, Mana had some of her teeth knocked out and the whole situation was untenable.
PNGDF cadet pilots after graduating from the RAAF Flight School, Point Cook, Australia, 1988. From left: Captain Ted Pakii (flight instructor), Chester Berobero, Major Kwadi (language instructor), Eric Aliawi and Peter Wanamp
PAUL MINGA | Ples Singsing
PORT MORESBY - Captain Peter Wanamp (‘Captain Sheriff’) Ansphil - a flag bearer for the Jiwaka people and the pride of Senglap tribe - was the first son of the Wahgi Valley to brush aside fear and become an aviator.
His breakthrough as the first person to become pilot from the province broke a barrier in becoming a pioneer pilot for the three ethnic groups, Jimi, Waghi and Kambia – from whose first two letters the name Jiwaka is formed.
Greta Thunberg - telling the world a truth it doesn't want to hear. The longer we wait, the harder it will be
STEPHEN CHARTERIS
CAIRNS - It truly beggars belief that the government of a wealthy, modern nation state, that prides itself on the quality of its education system, cannot comprehend the significance of the most basic laws of nature.
The physics and chemistry of how increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide drive global heating and feedback loops is Science 101 for Grade 6.
NOOSA - I worked twice for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in my 22-year media career.
The first time was in Papua New Guinea between 1966 and 1970, when I wrote and produced schools broadcasts from the ABC’s studios at Boroko, which are there still, tired by age as I am.
SEATTLE - The word arrived quickly that Pambene, a cousin in neighbouring Pumas village in Enga Province, had been assaulted and severely injured by tribesmen over a land dispute.
As expected, my oldest brother Yandapae and two cousins retaliated and forcibly took a large pig from the culprits as compensation.
'I Am What I Am' - Stewy Brown was a serial drunk and on the verge of deportation from colonial PNG when Bob Parer asked the Policemaster to give him one last chance
ROB PARER
BRISBANE – One of the unusual colonial laws of Papua New Guinea when it was an Australian territory was the so-called Dog Act.
Under the Dog Act a magistrate could order that people with an alcohol problem could have their name and photograph posted at all local hotels and clubs for a year.
During that time any premises that served that person alcohol would be fined.
The Lowy Institute thought this blurred photo of a mahjong game was an appropriate image to accompany its survey report on what was presented as the indistinct loyalties of Chinese Australians to their home country, which is Australia
KEITH JACKSON
NOOSA – In February, author Hervey Forsythe wrote in PNG Attitude of how an Australian government-supported think tank, the Lowy Institute, had been accused of racism and ‘infantilising’ Pacific islanders.
In ‘Lowy feels heat over ‘tone deaf comments’, Forsythe told how the Institute faced a barrage of criticism following an extraordinary article in its magazine, The Interpreter.
Delegates pose at the end of COP26. They gave themselves protracted applause. It was not deserved (Pic - Yves Herman Reuters)
CHRIS OVERLAND
COPOUT26 - The ‘Glasgow climate pact’ has just been adopted with the 37-strong Alliance of Small Island States expressing “extreme disappointment” after a last-minute intervention by India to ‘phase down’ rather than ‘phase out’ coal use and a failure by rich nations to agree a mechanism for poor countries to receive 'compensation', a word rich countries say they 'cannot countenance’ – KJ
ADELAIDE - Phil Fitzpatrick, in recent comments on PNG Attitude, has pointed out the true implications of any serious attempt to get to net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
This has been amplified by Paul Oates and Bernard Corden, while Kindin Ongugo has voiced legitimate concerns about the COP26 climate change conference further disadvantaging the world's poorest people.
NOOSA – In 1996, the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary Band was in the middle of its golden age.
It was a splendid band, frequently invited to at festivals in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
But its performance at that year’s Adelaide International Tattoo has been described as sensational in every respect: playing, marching, dress, discipline - and the dancers of the Raun Raun Theatre.
Bonny Kaiyo - "The Green State Vision will make ecocide a serious criminal offence"
BONNY KAIYO
PORT MORESBY - The wealthy countries of the world have agreed on a 'Green State Vision’ at COP26, which ends in Glasgow today.
Indonesia signed up and now has the hard task of navigating what this means for itself and especially West Papua.
It is the restive province of West Papua that carries the bulk of Indonesia’s forest richness, which the country has now ratified and agreed to protect.
NOOSA – I was interested to read that Papua New Guinea’s shadow health minister Elias Kapavore, who represents the good people of Pomio in parliament, has calculated that the PNG recovery rate from Covid is an unbelievable 99%.
The global recovery rate is 90%, which happens to be the same in Australia. So why, with Covid on the rampage through PNG, is the recovery rate so high?
Colonial kiaps brought the law to the people, and often tailored it to align with traditional cultural values and expectations
PHILIP FITZPATRICK
Making Law in Papua New Guinea: The Colonial Origins of a Postcolonial Legal System by Bruce L Ottley, Jean G Zorn and David Weisbrot, Carolina Academic Press, Durham, North Carolina, June 2021, 526pp. ISBN: 9781531005504. Editions: Kindle AU$68.90; Paperback AU$144.75. Kindle edition available from Amazon here
TUMBY BAY - The period just before and just after independence in Papua New Guinea was a time of optimism and promise.
That Pax Australiana - the institutions built by the colonial Administration - would remain intact, as stable and progressive as they were, was never assumed.
NEW DELHI - In September 2019, the Solomon Islands switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
The central government made the decision without public consultation, and it was widely unpopular, particularly in the most populous province, Malaita.
ADELAIDE - I am a severe critic of ‘wokeness’ in its latest manifestation. Beginning its life to signify awareness of social and racial injustice, it has since been weaponised as a term of abuse.
These days it refers to people who have an absurd world view and who ostentatiously hate anyone who disagrees with them. I suppose we needed a word for that, and that’s the meaning I give to it here.
Wilfred Knigge - "As we set course for Wewak, Hagen township was already swallowed by rain"
WILFRED KNIGGE | MAF PNG Facebook
WEWAK - It's Tuesday afternoon and I've landing at Mount Hagen. Andy, a colleague pilot from Wewak, tells me something is going on around a missing boat near the East Sepik capital.
We quickly walk to the operations manager’s office for some clarity. There are hardly any details. All we know is that a boat went from Wuvulu Island to Wewak, but failed to arrive there at the agreed time.
WABAG – I was delighted when an extract from my book, I Can See My Country Clearly Now, was used in the recent English comprehension test for the Grade 12 Papua New Guinea national examinations.
At the time, I wondered if any Enga students noticed they were being examined on an extract from my book.
I’m sure most of them didn’t because they don’t know the book exists.
John Pilger and Julian Assange at a rally in London, 2011
PHILIP FITZPATRICK
TUMBY BAY - In a recent article by Australian journalist and provocateur John Pilger, there is an interesting observation about the state of the world’s media.
Pilger was writing about the trial of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a piece published on the Counterpunch website:
I’m black, I’m white We’re one by blood Nothing separates how hard we try I’ve same blood group as you So we’re one forever Dialects, circumstances, boundaries, Standards, status don't matter here Born same, die same, no difference And we are one forever
See same sun; walk same earth Breathe same air; sleep same sleep So we are one by blood Both feel pain, shed tears, lived life Through life's blessings and curses But still one by blood
KUNDIAWA – I commend Michael Kabuni on his fine article, Do we pay too much reverence to pastors, about the problems we experience every day with some pastors and street preachers.
Most pastors from Pentecostal churches are not educated in either biblical studies or science, and being neither scientists nor medical doctors they are not educated in the causes, effects and treatment of disease or in how vaccines work.
NOOSA - On Monday 25 October, the giant Australian telecommunications corporation, Telstra, announced it was buying Digicel Pacific, the dominant mobile network operator in the region.
Digicel owns the biggest telcos in Papua New Guinea, Nauru, Samoa, Vanuatu and Tonga and the second biggest in Fiji.
NOOSA – For me, the first big cop out of the COP26 climate change conference came with the revelation that Papua New Guinea prime minister James Marape had spent K5 million sending a 62-member delegation to Glasgow.
On Twitter I remarked that this was at the criminal end of reckless indulgence for a country that is literally broke and having to borrow billions just to sustain its basic operations, and which has a health system in tatters.
PORT MORESBY - Do pastors, clergymen and religious authorities enjoy too much respect in Papua New Guinea?
Disclaimer: I’m a Christian. Baptised by a Four Square pastor. I once read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. And I completely read the New Testament twice.
AUCKLAND - The Australia West Papua Association has protested over the “lack of any concern” by Canberra over worsening clashes in the Indonesian military crackdown on pro-independence groups in West Papua.
Joe Collins of AWPA has said in a statement that the harsh ‘behaviour’ of the Indonesian forces would lead to the instability that the Australian government fears.
ADELAIDE - It must be apparent by now to all world leaders that the Australian prime minister and his government are merely going through the motions of committing to the target of net zero emissions by 2050.
Their policy is a confection of aspirational statements backed by no credible analysis, no real plan and certainly no genuine commitment.
Sir David Attenborough and Governor Gary Juffa at the Glasgow summit - “Sir David is so sharp and ever more passionate about our natural environment,” says Juffa
KEITH JACKSON
NOOSA – Scott Morrison’s announcement in Glasgow that “technology will have the answers” to saving the world from climate change has generated widespread disapproval from world leaders.
And his offer to increase Australia's climate funding by $100 million (K260 million) a year for the next five years to cover all Pacific Island and South-East Asian countries also left his audience cold.
Jim Abani on the Great Wall during a visit to China
MICHELLE AUAMOROMORO | Mim's Diary | Edited
POPONDETTA – Jim Abani’s journey in life began at remote Bibira No 1 village in Oro Province, where he was the third child in a family of nine children (two of them adopted).
Jim started his educational journey at Safia Community School and moved on to Popondetta High School in 1983.