KEVIN SWEENEY
| Refugees Off PNG Working Group

FOOTSCRAY, VIC - The Australian Government needs to immediately reinstate basic support for refugees and asylum seekers that it sent to Papua New Guinea.

If it is not able to do this, it should bring them to Australia as a matter of urgency so they receive basic support and adequate medical care while awaiting resettlement.

JOSEPH TAMBURE

Hello Keith - Longpla taim mi no rait. Bikpla Papa
God iken lukautim yu. God Bless - Joseph Tambure

Money has roots
It spreads out under cover
Money has a trunk
It's strong and sturdy

EDDIE TANAGO
| Act Now!

PORT MORESBY - Prime Minister James Marape spoke of the importance of preserving Papua New Guinea’s tropical rainforest in his address to the United Nations General Assembly last Friday

Yet  his government is doing nothing to stop widespread illegal logging, in particular the abuse of agricultural clearing licences.

Marape has described PNG’s rainforests as vital to PNG and to the global community.

PAUL OATES

Maslow's hierarchy of needs (CNN)

CLEVELAND - A few years ago, I read a report of some well-meaning people who tried to motivate youthful Papua New Guinean criminals, locally referred to as ‘raskols’, to change their ways and become more law-abiding.

The audience’s general response was, perhaps predictably, ‘So what’s in it for us?’

EDDIE TANAGO
| Act Now!

PORT MORESBY - While the Papua New Guinea government has been dramatically increasing the amount of funding pumped directly into each District, there is an appalling lack of transparency about how those public funds are being used.

An analysis by community advocacy group Act Now reveals that just 24 of 96 Districts have lodged financial acquittals for 2022 or 2023 and none of those acquittals are publicly available.

PETER O’NEILL
| Academia Nomad

Extracts from a speech to the Australian Institute for Progress by former Papua
New Guinea prime minister Hon Peter O’Neill CMG MP on 16 September 2024

The Papua New Guinean flag is raised for the first time on 16 September 1975 (PNG Association of Australia)

BRISBANE – Forty-nine years ago, the Australian flag was lowered and the Papua New Guinea flag was raised in Port Moresby. Independence had been granted, not fought for.

Many argue that independence was given too quickly but, given that it was, my country’s leaders at the time did an incredible job of setting the young country on its independent feet with help from Australia.

Steven Gagau

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - Last week I received a request from Steven Gagau via my good friend, and one of the best friends Papua New Guinea ever had, Andrea Williams.

Steven is a researcher, academic and president of the Sydney Wantok Association. Last year he assisted to curate the Bilas: Body Adornment of PNG exhibition at the Australian Museum in Sydney.

BERNARD CORDEN

Traffic lights, road signs & billboards clutter drivers' vision at this  busy Brisbane road junction

 This is the full text of a letter from Bernard Corden which has just made its way to the desk of the Honourable Bart Mellish MP, Queensland Minister for Transport and Main Roads, and Minister for Digital Services.  I feel sure the Minister will never before have received a letter composed with Bernard’s awe-inspiring literary flourish and precise application of the English language - KJ

BRISBANE - The Queensland Government is currently promoting its Road Safety Week, which it officially launches on Monday 26 August 2024.

The state-wide campaign includes numerous warnings displayed on electronic signs installed over Brisbane’s busy inner-city bypass and implore motorists to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the steering wheel.

BORANA BONNEY

19-year old Keith Jackson and the complement of his Kundiawa Primary A School, 1964

WESTERN HIGHLANDS - Leading and operating educational institutions inevitability pose ethical dilemmas which represent a constant challenge for leaders because of the great variety of issues encountered daily.

It was stated by Mihelič (2010) that “values have a profound effect on a leader’s performance”.

Simply put, ethical leaders are guided by personal moral convictions that fuel their motivation and inspiration in decision-making.

PAUL OATES

‘When everyone is dead the Great Game is finished.
Not before. Listen to me till the end’ - Rudyard Kipling

CLEVELAND – Are you one of the history buffs who still remember reading about the days when Rudyard Kipling held sway.

When the world map on the schoolroom wall contained innumerable blotches of red or pink to designate the colonies of the British Empire (“this vast empire on which the sun never sets” – George Macartney, 1773).

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - On most mornings of the week, weather permitting, a parliament of silly old buggers convenes for coffee and to discuss the woes of the world at a picnic table under a shady canopy near the Tumby Bay jetty.

Of late, the prognostications have become darker and darker.

The resident biblical eschatologist is now talking about the end of days, and both history buffs are competing in their comparisons of the present to the 1930s and the bleak days prior to World War II.

PAUL OATES

CLEVELAND - It appears in the minds of a few detractors that the recognition of those who died in the service of Australia and Papua New Guinea has yet again been conflated with accusations of desire for personal aggrandisement.

The issues of recognition and aggrandisement or glory could not be clearer in my mind and they have always been separate.

At an event at the National Archives some years ago, we paid tribute to those many dedicated people who went before us and who continued to work to help Papua New Guinea progress into the modern world.

WEDFINE DAI

MADANG - If heaven had visiting hours, I would be the first one there waiting in line to visit you.

I would be the first person there waiting to see your beautiful smiling face again, to touch your hand, and to feel the warmth of your comforting hugs.

I would be waiting there in line with a heart full of love and longing. I would wait eagerly counting the moments until I could see you again - my better half, my beloved twin sister.

SARAH KANOWSKI
| Australian Broadcasting Corporation

BRISBANE - It was when Carolyn Blacklock's passport was confiscated at Port Moresby International Airport that she realised how much trouble she was in.

Carolyn, who headed up the national power company in Papua New Guinea, had faced charges of corruption after a change in government.

Despite a court clearing her of all wrongdoing, she was detained in PNG.

CAROLYN BLACKLOCK
| East Asia Forum

Carolyn Blacklock (Ipsum Pacific)

BRISBANE - Political and economic pressures are rising in Papua New Guinea, with escalating social tensions suggesting a need for focused regional support.

Critics argue that given ongoing civil unrest, political instability with Rainbo Paita’s challenge to prime minister James Marape and substantial economic challenges such as a stagnating minimum wage and increasing poverty, financial aid and strategies should be directed towards supporting the PNG populace rather than bolstering the political elite.

MARK PALM
| Samaritan Aviation Newsletter

WEWAK - One of our amazing stories is about the first patient Samaritan Aviation ever flew in 2010.

Her name was Antonia and she had been in labour for three days. She was unconscious when we got the call on Good Friday from the Timbunki Health Centre, located along the Sepik River.

NOOSA - A blue screen with a phony 'survey' form and three purported 'questionnaires' appeared on screen when you try to access PNG Attitude. 

This was some geniuses way of indicating I had not renewed the blog's domain name.

With some help from the USA I've now got on top of this, parted with a few bucks and we should be back in business.

Nobody was hurt in this process, although my feelings are telling me they were shamed.

BOB LAWRENCE

Tim Bowden reviewing tapes in the process of producing Taim Bilong Masta

SYDNEY - Hobart born author, radio and television broadcaster, producer and oral historian, Timothy (Tim) Gibson Bowden AM, who was part of the trio who produced the book, tapes and radio program ‘Taim Bilong Masta: the Australian involvement with Papua New Guinea’, died in his sleep on Sunday aged 87.

While the people may remember him as compere of the ABC television program, Back Chat, most of his media work included reporting the Vietnam War, as the ABC foreign correspondent in the USA, founding the Current Affairs programs This Day Tonight on television and PM on radio and heading the ABC's Social History Unit.