ANNA DZIEDZIC & CHERYL SAUNDERS

Abridged and edited from a research report, Institution Building in Post-Referendum Bougainville, by Professor Cheryl Saunders and Dr Anna Dziedzic for the National Research Institute. You can link here to the full report

PORT MORESBY - There will be four key questions facing decision-makers in Bougainville’s post-referendum consultations.

While the primary focus of the consultations will be the future relationship between Bougainville and Papua New Guinea, there are other questions necessarily linked to this relationship.

Dr Fiona Hukula (centre) at her farewell

MEDIA RELEASE
| PNG National Research Institute

PORT MORESBY - The Papua New Guinea National Research Institute (NRI) has farewelled Dr Fiona Hukula, long-serving researcher and advocate against gender-based violence,.

Dr Hukula joined the NRI in 1998 as a project officer and was a senior research fellow and program leader when she left the think tank earlier this month.

Richard Hauser - amongst many other attributes, an urban hunter

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - It is only recently that I have been introduced to the poetry of Richard Hauser; it's poetry that I admire a great deal.

So much so that I felt compelled to share his writing, especially with those many poets of Papua New Guinea who frequently appear in these columns.

Lucy Maino - "The people of PNG should grow to be more accepting of one another" (Daniel Wala)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - A week ago, media in Papua New Guinea and Australia reported that Lucy Maino, 25, Miss Papua New Guinea, had been stripped of her crown after posting a video of herself twerking on TikTok.

The video had been shared on numerous social media platforms whereupon thousands of people verbally attacked Ms Maino.

The late David Wall makes a cameo appearance in ACT Marke's latest Temlett Conibeer book

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

Marooned on Pitcairn by A C T Marke. Frogmouth Press, Low Head, Tasmania. 419 pages. ISBN 9780645029611. $25 plus $5 postage from the author at frogmouth07@live.com.au

TUMBY BAY - This is the sixth book in Andrew Marke’s series featuring his repressed hero, Temlett Conibeer, negotiating the world with his strange Victorian era sensibilities.

I suspect that it might be the last in the series because it traces the history of the hapless Temlett from his childhood in Somerset, England, right through to his final days in a retirement village in Tasmania.

Michelle Rooney - "Women are the target of police and municipal authorities who often resort to violence" 

MICHELLE NAYAHAMUI ROONEY
| Centre for International Private Enterprise

An abridged extract from ‘Papua New Guinea: Centering the ‘People’s Economy’ in Covid-19 Recovery’. You can link here to the full paper

WASHINGTON DC – Papua New Guinean women are the backbone of the PNG ‘people’s economy’, but they face cultural and social challenges that undermine their resilience and ability to sustain their engage in the economy.

They are the primary caregivers for the country’s burgeoning young population.

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

Ted Wolfers: Race Relations and Colonial Rule in Papua New Guinea
Link here for details of how you can buy the book

PORT MORESBY - Ted Wolfers’ groundbreaking book, Race Relations and Colonial Rule in Papua New Guinea, was republished in 2016, 40 years after the first edition appeared in 1975.

Ted Wolfers wrote the substance of much of this book whilst he was in PNG between 1961 and 1971.

Latasha Akane - "Never stop doing what you’re passionate about. Use your gift to inspire others"

LATASHA LALAAH AKANE
| Ples Singsing

PORT MORESBY - Writing is a hobby of mine and I am passionate about it, although people who know me realise how I can never keep anything short.

But they also know that I willingly compile group assignments, edit people’s work and proofread because I find pleasure in writing.

DANIEL KUMBON

FICTION - Delisa was convinced the Old Man would accept her into his now empty life if he knew the real story behind her father.

Her father was not dead, as had been her original invention. She felt it was time to tell the whole truth.

She wanted to avoid disharmony and embarrassment later when they lived together. For Delisa it was ‘when’, not ‘if’.

KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN

DARU - Daru Island has its own honourable and gallant history dating back to the arrival of Portuguese explorer, Luis Vaez de Torres, in the 1600s.

But today it is withering away in misery under the independent state of Papua New Guinea.

Bernadette Yakopa - "Papua New Guineans are resilient people, but this is something different altogether"

BERNADETTE YAKOPA
| Australian Broadcasting Corporation

DARU - Here in Western Province in Papua New Guinea, a stone's throw from the Australian mainland, things are looking alarming.

Cases and deaths from coronavirus are skyrocketing, and we are facing a misinformation pandemic on top of a Covid one.

PNG consumer price index 2018-21

JOHN KURI

PORT MORESBY - Ten years ago, a bag of 10kg rice cost something like K20. Today, stores sell a 10kg rice bag for between K31 and K35.

Ten years ago a live chicken cost K20. Today it’s K40. By the look of things, the price of live chickens will go all the way to K50 - my prediction for 2023. And we probably wouldn’t notice it.

Brittania in Kieta Harbour with Prince Philip on board,   April 1971. It is anchored behind a freighter waiting to dock at Kieta wharf (right) (Terence Spencer)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Early on the morning of Wednesday 17 March 1971, the black-hulled royal yacht HMY Brittania slipped slowly into Kieta harbour through the narrow main channel abeam of Pok Pok Island.

On board was Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, visiting for a two night stay on Bougainville after a voyage through the Panama Canal and the Pacific islands and on to the then Territory of Papua and New Guinea.

Pauline and Sean Dorney. "This book, even though written by an Australian, is the PNG voice speaking to Australia"

TANYA ZERIGA-ALONE
| Academia Nomad

The death of Michael Somare on 26 February renewed interest in the Papua New Guinea about its own history. To advance this mood, Academia Nomad invited reviews of books about PNG – KJ

Sean Dorney: The Embarrassed Colonialist
Link here to details of how you can buy the book

PORT MORESBY – This 140- page book was published in 2016 by Penguin Books for the Lowy Institute in Australia.

The book is short and easy reading but its eight chapters are packed with much insight about the Australia-Papua New Guinea relationship.

RAYMOND SIGIMET

FICTION - I heard the knocking and a call around six just as I was preparing notes for tomorrow’s sermon.

I knew it was Pita, the son of the parish chairman, Mathias. Occasionally he’s one of the minstrels at my Sunday mass.

The way he was rapping on the porch railing and calling out, I figured something must be up.

DUNCAN GABI

FICTION - It was just two weeks before the Grade 10 national exams and everyone was freaking out, especially those like me who weren’t prepared.

Some students collected as many notes as possible and left school three weeks before the exams to study at home.

Hoisting the British flag at Port Moresby, 1888

ALLAN PATIENCE
| Pearls & Irritations

MELBOURNE - Australia’s ham-handed history of colonialism, in what today is the independent state of Papua New Guinea, began in 1883 when Queensland pre-emptively annexed the southeastern corner (Papua) of the great island of New Guinea in the name of the British Crown. (The British were not amused).

Late in the nineteenth century, the Australian colonies were fearful that Germany (Britain’s rival) was about to colonise the entirety of eastern New Guinea, posing (so they imagined) a threat to Queensland’s northern reaches.

Ingrid Jackson on women in politics: "Stay true to your values. Be accessible to the community. Muster your courage. Remain gracious and empathetic"

INGRID JACKSON

NOOSA - At an International Women’s Day luncheon in Noosa last month, I spoke along with seven other women on the topic of ‘Dare to Challenge’, drawing on my recent experiences as the only woman councillor on the Noosa Council in south-east Queensland.

Newly elected in 2016 after a long career as a manager and consultant, I had expectations of a pleasant experience in local government and felt well prepared for the role.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Writing the first book is hard but believe me it’s the second one that is really challenging, especially if the first has been a success.

In that second book you have to live up to the expectations you created with the first one.

You can’t write the same book again but there have to be faint echoes of the first one to please your readers.

Nikolai Nikolaevich Mikloucho-Maclay

BRADLEY GEWA
| Academia Nomad | Edited

Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare’s death on 26 February created renewed interest in a neglected subject – the history of Papua New Guinea. Many people called for this to be taught at all levels of education.

To advance this idea, Academia Nomad invited readers to submit reviews of books about PNG in nominated categories. This review by Bradley Gewa was submitted in the category ‘Racism and Colonialism’ – KJ

RAYMOND SIGIMET

FICTION - I was looking through patient admission records before my evening ten o'clock ward rounds when a vehicle roared into sight.

Its emergency blinkers flashed brightly on the single cabin utility and the engine overrevved as it screeched to a halt.

Michael Yahu in front of his village house in Manus

DANIEL KUMBON

PORT MORESBY – For a while I did not realise that Good Friday was April Fool’s Day and joined my family to cry when I received news that a long-time friend, a retired public servant, had died on Manus Island.

Whoever fabricated the story was senseless to circulate such a joke on social media. He lacked all understanding of human relations and etiquette.

PNG's Rainbo Paita welcomed China’s offer of Sinovac vaccine earlier this year (“a friend in need is a friend indeed”) but later backed away. Did someone in Australia have some words?

PROF JOHN DWYER
| Pearls & Irritations | Edited

SYDNEY - Helping Papua New Guinea with its disastrous Covid outbreak is not pure altruism on our part.

The unbridled, indeed raging, pandemic, known to have infected 100,000 already and likely to have infected a million more within a week or so, provides a perfect ‘incubator’ for wild type more infectious variants of the Covid to develop.

JACK WATERFORD
| Pearls & Irritations | Edited extract

CANBERRA - Our neighbours in Papua New Guinea are heading towards a pandemic crisis, and we are diverting some of our supplies to them.

Some people might wonder why we are not withholding supplies to PNG when we don’t yet have enough for our own purposes.

Rita Flynn Isolation Centre in Port Moresby - scene of the latest rip-off by public servants raises questions about Marape's willingness to rein in corruption

EDDIE TANAGO
| Act Now!

PORT MORESBY - The latest scandal over catering services at the Rita Flynn Isolation Centre highlights the Marape government’s broken promises to break the cycle of impunity enjoyed by senior bureaucrats.

The tsunami of corruption that is drowning our nation can only be addressed through greater transparency and public accountability.

HAZEL KUTKUE
| Sipikriva Girl

FINSCHHAFEN - I always considered doing rural medicine after Dr David Mills gave a talk to us at the University of Papua New Guinea’s Taurama Campus in 2016.

Sitting in the old lecture theatre that smelt of time and old medicine, I seriously pondered the idea. I was twenty-one.

The PNG parliament - 111 seats and exactly zero women

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Those men in Australia’s ruling Liberal-National coalition are currently recoiling at the idea of introducing quotas that would equalise the number of elected women with elected men.

It is reminiscent of the reaction of male politicians in the Papua New Guinea parliament to the same idea a couple of times in the past: full of warm words and frozen action.

ANDREW CONNELLY
| Oceania vol 85 no 1, March 2015

Australians in Papua New Guinea:1960–1975. Edited by Ceridwen Spark, Seumas Spark and Christina Twomey, University of Queensland Press, 2014.

CANBERRA - This volume is a collection of invited essays by, and interviews with, 17 people, Australian and Papua New Guinean, with firsthand experience of the final decade and a half of Australian rule leading up to national independence in 1975.

This period saw Papua New Guinea move with dizzying speed from a late-colonial society, with all the paradoxes of humanism, racism, and paternalism that appellation suggests, to an independent nation full of promise and hope.

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Well here’s a pleasant something for Easter. You can read about it just below or listen to it first by linking to it here.

I recommend you listen first.

https://soundcloud.com/si_jackson/all-together?fbclid=IwAR1wWjWm0Mss_be5CBxN8cGqLeowXCkUsJ_pKzJeW_3XjM7X9ffO8sLEMKU

This 'pleasant something' is a choral collaboration under the guiding hand of my son, Simon, in Auckland, New Zealand.

JAKE JOHNSON
| Common Dreams | Edited

In early March, just before Papua New Guinea experienced a shocking spike in Covid-19 cases, PNG Attitude reported that Australia had joined other Western countries in rejecting a proposal to lift vaccine-related patent protections, which would have made it possible to produce more vaccine.

Now US president Joe Biden is considering whether to throw US support behind the proposal and so allow for a massive acceleration of vaccine production and distribution around the world. As the following article reveals, it could be disastrous for the world if this does not happen soon - KJ

STEPHANIE ALOIS

So I’ve said nothing, nothing at all
about our Celest. Maybe you heard?
My sister’s such a disappointment.
She goes off to school each day
in hope of a future bright and bold,
Then comes home full of complaint
about clothes, stationery, friends, money.

PNG and Australian medical specialists work alongside each other in the Covid response (DFAT)

BEENA DAGAM KULAU
| The Kramer Report

Dr Beena Dagam Kulau is a surgeon at Port Moresby General Hospital

PORT MORESBY - After I fell ill with Covid it came to a point where I could not walk without support and needed to be hospitalised.

What a difficult period it was for my family and I as, at the same time I was admitted, a loved one was also admitted, but to the general ward.

Simon Pentanu's 'first three goers' - therapeutic to paint and relaxing to look at

SIMON PENTANU

Hon Simon Pentanu MP is Speaker of the Bougainville Parliament.
He is recovering from Covid.

BUKA - Stress and distress can be managed without popping pills or smelling Epsom Salts.

Or looking for the nearest pub to drown your worries or sorrows. Or worse, thinking about a noose.

A pandemic of any sort cannot be downplayed. And there is always help nearer than you think.

As the sun set over the low hills of Port Moresby, the Old Man would go to the veranda to read

DANIEL KUMBON
| Edited extracts

FICTION - While the Old Man embraced the notion that he was like the Albatross, committed to one partner for life, he was finding it hard to cope with the agony of acute depression.

He had been so dependent on Rosemary. She had provided him with all the love a man could ever need. He felt her loss immensely. It was a burden too heavy to bear on his own. Perhaps he shouldn’t have loved her too much.

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Last night I received a contribution for publication from a person I respect who is a prodigiously talented Papua New Guinean writer.

The opening paragraph of the piece offered an ostensible quote which provided a foundation for the ensuing polemic.

KEITH JACKSON

Link here to the full submission from Human Rights Watch to the Universal Periodic Review of Papua New Guinea

NOOSA - The Papua New Guinea government has failed to live up to commitments on women’s rights, children’s rights, and police accountability.

This is the headline statement in a recent submission Human Rights Watch has made to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The steep rise in new Covid cases in PNG that has alarmed authorities on both sides of the Torres Strait

MITCH RYAN
| Nikkei Asia

SYDNEY -- Papua New Guinea long appeared to have escaped the worst of the coronavirus crisis. But a surge in cases since February has brought the country’s largest hospital to the brink of collapse.

For the nation's much larger neighbour, Australia, the outbreak is considered a serious threat as well as a critical moment in a broader ‘vaccine diplomacy’ campaign.

KOIVI REX BIWA

Beauty is the word for you, no other can do
I found you somewhere, now I don’t know how,
Your smile, it just made that moment explode
I failed in my choice of the right words for you
Doo dobasi wandkii, oh!

Long lasting nights, full with fragrant dreams
Your countenance lighting my imagination
Your voice feels as gentle as the sweetest of petals
I goose bump all over at the sense of your touch
Ape do dobasi wandkii maa!

Elon Musk has just edged ahead of Jeff Bezos to become the richest man in the world.  Each man is worth nearly $200  billion (K700 billion). PNG's total wealth is K80 billion 

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - It seems that slavery is alive and well in the USA and is being perpetuated by one of the richest men in the world. He is Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon.

What began as Bezos’s innovative online bookstore in July 1995, which later assisted writers publish and distribute books, has morphed into a monstrous retail operation that is trampling all in its path, including its own workers.

Dogs of Manus (Stefan Armbruster,  SBS News)

BEHROUZ BOOCHANI
| Newsroom | Translated by Mohsen Kafi

AUCKLAND - This is a topic that has rarely been written about, simply because few people care about how dogs live.

The story dates to the time I was imprisoned on Manus Island. In 2013, the Australian government exiled me and almost 1,000 other refugees to Manus in the north of Papua New Guinea.

Del Abcede and David Robie at the Pacific Media Centre

TEUILA FUATAI
| The Spinoff | Edited extracts

AUCKLAND - Since 2007, the Pacific Media Centre at Auckland University of Technology has built a solid reputation for its research and reporting on issues throughout the Asia Pacific region.

It has also been a productive training facility for Pasifika journalists and academics.

Literary benefactors Daniel Kumbon and Paul Kurai in their beloved mountains of Enga

CAROLINE EVARI
| Ples Singsing

PORT MORESBY - With only two weeks to go before the awards ceremony for the first Tingting Bilong Mi essay competition, we received a pleasant surprise.

It came by way of a comment on the PNG Attitude story by Pat Levo and Keith Jackson, ‘Women Triumph in First Essay Contest’.

HON SIMON PENTANU MP
| Facebook

For every day I spend confined in isolation
the flowers outdoor grow and glow more beautiful
and extend nearer and nearer to me

I think they are going to stick it out with me
until the last day when I’m primed and paroled
out of isolation indoors into open sunshine

Prof Peter Siba and  Justice Minister Bryan Kramer  - is their disagreement about vaccine safety or just a wounded ego?

HON BRYAN KRAMER MP
| Kramer Report

PORT MORESBY - Last week Professor Peter Siba challenged Dr Glen Mola and me to a public debate on the use of Covid-19 vaccines in Papua New Guinea.

Professor Siba is a virologist, former member of the Institute of Medical Research and current director of Divine Word University’s Madang-based Centre for Health Research and Diagnostics.

Sil Bolkin - "The names I chose for my children are saintly names from Simbu" (Simbu Children Foundation)

KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN

PORT MORESBY - Duncan Gabi must be thanked for raising the issue of 'decolonising the mind'.

I am a practicing Roman Catholic but all my eight children have traditional Simbu and Aroma Coast names.

When I took my first two children to the priest to enrol for baptism, the priest asked for their names.

DANIEL KUMBON

Derived from the short story, ‘The Old Man, His Wife and the Young Girl’, adapted from Daniel Kumbon’s book, ‘Survivor: Alive in Mum’s Loving Arms’ available here from Amazon

FICTION - Rosemary and the Old Man had come across the girl a couple of years before when she sent a random text message to his mobile phone pleading for financial assistance.

The girl claimed to be thirteen and wanting to complete her primary education.

STEPHANIE ALOIS

She smells of Goroka coffee
in the perfume she wears each morning
What a beautiful way to start a day
Made of strawberry and honey
It’s difficult to resist her charms
Hooked on her explosive personality

A taste of wine in her presence
Spending more time with her
Leads to loving her even more
It’s difficult not to laugh at her jokes
Or her wicked sense of humour
She’ll get you thinking, she never cries

Segment of screenprint, 'The life and death of Imbakey Okuk' by Mathias Kauage (1987)

KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN

PORT MORESBY - At the dawn of time, all humans were born to toil the earth for sustenance until they grew grey hairs and died of old age.

But this is not always the case.

Some few dudes and lasses are born into a dome of privilege and have never have sweat on their brows before old age strikes and they dutifully depart.

John Kuri and daughters. "It still amazes me when each year politicians and bureaucrats announce that more than half of school leavers will have to fend for themselves"

JOHN KURI

PORT MORESBY - The newspaper headline late last year said that only 9,000 out of 27,000 Grade 12 leavers would get a place in a tertiary institution.

We’ve all seen headlines like this previously in Papua New Guinea. They happen each year.

Along with a story about the imminent disaster waiting to happen if the government doesn’t do more.

MAJELLA DIULEN SOALILI

A tribute to the Grand Chief
Sir Michael Thomas Somare

In the midst of the battlefield
Stood a Hero
Who had a heart of Gold and
A mind full of dreams.

He fought without fear.
But with the stoutest
Of weapons: Confidence, Courage
and such great Determination