BY KEITH JACKSON

CUTHBERT OSWALD (Bill) Harry AM OBE (VX24800), who escaped from the Japanese invasion of Rabaul and became a leading figure in the Returned Services League, died in Victoria on 4 January at the age of 94.

Bill was a quiet man with a wonderfully dry sense of humour. He was a committed Christian and churchman, and a devoted family man.

After joining 2/22nd Battalion on 10 June 1940, Bill was sent to defend Rabaul in 1941. After Rabaul fell on 23 January 1942, he was one of the comparatively few who escaped, spending some time in the jungle before being rescued. During this time he coordinated escaping stragglers into larger groups.

Bill was subsequently posted to ANGAU, being discharged with the rank of Warrant Officer (2nd Class) in March 1946. After the war, as a passionate believer in the people of PNG, he made around 20 return visits - including the Return to Rabaul 50th anniversary commemoration in 1992.

Bill was State Honorary Treasurer of the Victorian State Branch of the RSL for 38 years from 1956-94 as well as a member of the State Council from 1951-94 and the State Executive from 1954-94. He was one of the longest serving office bearers in the RSL’s history.

He had joined the RSL in September 1947 and was on the staff of the Victorian Soldier Settlement Commission. He held the position of Deputy Chairman until 1981.

His central role in the 1956 appeal ‘Operation Gratitude’ raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for the building of hostels and independent living units for war veterans and war widows. At the same time the RSL War Veterans’ Homes Trust and the RSL Widows’ and Widowed Mothers’ Trust were formed with Bill as the Honorary Treasurer of both until 1994.

He also performed considerable voluntary work with the Salvation Army Red Shield Citizen Committee, the Corps of Commissionaires, Anti-Cancer Council Appeal, Springvale Necropolis Trust, Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and the Mlebourne Lord Mayor’s Fund.

Bill was awarded RSL Life Membership with Gold Badge in 1963 and the RSL’s highest honour, the Meritorious Service Medal, in 1983.

Spotter and additional material: Max Hayes

BY MATTHEW MORRIS

MOST PAPUA NEW GUINEANS are simply trying to get by: earn a living, pay school fees, get medical care for loved-ones.

Many will also be wondering how, or if, their government will deliver critical services to help them along. The 2011 Budget provides some indications.

The budget of $3.5 billion is the country’s biggest yet and is equivalent to about K1,500 for each person in PNG. How confident are you that the government will use taxpayers money wisely? The rest of this article is based on publicly available data from PNG Treasury documents.

Economic growth. Before looking further at how to spend K1,500 per person, let’s take a quick look at the economic growth forecasts.

The good news is that the growth numbers in the budget documents are more or less consistent with the targeted 8.5% p.a. average growth between now and 2015 – making PNG probably the fastest growing economy in the Pacific.

But averages can be deceptive, and this average depends on the LNG project proceeding on schedule and a consequent 23% growth in 2015. Moreover, this growth will only benefit most people indirectly. And there is very little in the way of LNG tax revenues flowing by 2015.

So, from an individual perspective, it’s probably more relevant to focus on what is happening to non-mineral growth. The news is good. With forecast growth 4.6 % p.a. between now and 2015, non-mineral GDP per person that was just over K3,000 last year would reach K4,000 by 2015.

Mineral revenues. Turning to mineral revenues, the picture is mixed. The government collects revenue from the mineral sector through taxes and dividends, both forecast to fall sharply over the medium term. This is partly a reflection of Treasury’s tendency to be conservative in its forecasts, but there are other factors in play.

It is possible that the financing of the LNG project will impact on receipts, or perhaps Treasury is assuming the Ok Tedi mine will close. That might explain why mining and petroleum dividends, about K300m this year, disappear in 2013 and 2014.

Government spending. There are two perspectives on the level of spending. One is that spending is too high, and PNG should be running a budget surplus to mitigate the risk of revenue losses later and to deal with capacity constraints. The second view is that, with LNG revenues expected to come in 2018, and pressing development constraints, PNG needs to spend more now.

Both views have merit. The critical issue, though, is not whether to save or spend but how effectively to spend.

Additional recurrent spending is welcome given the chronic underfunding of basic services in PNG, but are the extra resources getting to where they are needed?

Education. Education is a key basic service and accounts for 15% of total spending. The biggest increases were for non-teacher recurrent spending and the Development Budget, while the allocations for teacher salaries and provincial function grants got only a small increase.

While there was more money allocated to teacher salaries, this was only a tiny increase and falls a long way short of what the government has previously estimated is needed. Moreover, adjusted for inflation, funding for teacher salaries is flat, and lower than in previous years.

Based on this analysis, it is not clear where the funding will come from to pay for the extra teachers the government plans to recruit. Though, in the past, Treasury has pulled money for pay increases out of its miscellaneous allocation.

School fee subsidies, a topical issue at this time of year, will provide a 11% (real) boost for parents in 2011, but there are no increases thereafter. Given the challenges of service delivery in PNG and sharing mineral wealth, school fee subsidies are arguably the most effective way to indirectly reach the majority of Papua New Guineans.

Budget analysis. As the government prepares for a $31 billion inflow of LNG revenues, it is everybody’s business to check on how it is managing taxpayers money – starting with the K1,500 for each Papua New Guinean that will be spent this year. Will it deliver the services that people need?

Matthew Morris is a Research Fellow at the Crawford School and Deputy Director of the Development Policy Centre.

Source: Development Policy Newsletter, January 2011

BY REGINALD RENAGI

A RECENT PNG media report entitled Who is the next PM? was nothing more than National Alliance Party propaganda at the people’s expense.

Many citizens of this country cannot wait to see Prime Minister Michael Somare finally leave politics.

People feel tired of his old style of leadership that has been around these past 35 years.

The citizens feel he is too old and is past his retirement date.

The man himself has been in politics too long, has made a lot of costly mistakes that have taken their toll on citizens and seems to take no real responsibility for the many bad decisions.

They believe his long time in politics has not made any difference in improving the quality of life for the citizens of PNG.

What’s worse, the newspaper report have a one-sided view. No big deal here, I guess. We should not just take a newspaper report at face value because it says nice things about a certain politician, let alone a prime minister.

It is time the people stopped seeing the PM, and all politicians here, like pampered royalty or some aging rock star.

The sooner the people stop looking at them with reverence and awe, the better it will be for PNG now and in future.

Only the ignorant and poor rural villagers whose lives have not changed much since self government constantly fall for such tricks.

But not the educated intelligent Papua New Guineans.

Will it be an emotional farewell? Who cares!

The newspaper is already assuming PNG may see an emotional farewell unlike for any other leader in recent times.

So what?

We should see this as just another event when a long-time politician leaves his job. The prime minister should be no different to any other MP in the country.

The people of PNG should not be conned again by media hype leading to another expensive and useless extravaganza of a farewell party.

A farewell party that will not improve their life one jot.

Yes, it’s no big deal at all!

BY KEITH JACKSON

THE PNG GOVERNMENT has decided not to put forward Paulias Matane as a candidate for another term as Governor-General, despite having favoured him in a parliamentary ballot last year.

The legitimacy of that vote was later overturned by the PNG Supreme Court.

“The PNG Government had just made a decision NOT to sponsor me as the candidate for the 9th GG’s elections this week,” Sir Paulias wrote in a plaintive letter to family and friends, obtained by PNG Attitude.

“They have their reasons. I support them because I want to go back to my village to continue with my work there for the communities, provinces, the nation and globally when I still have a bit of energy in my old aged body, mind and spirit,” he said.

Sir Paulias thanked people for their support “during the busy period when I was there, working mostly from 2 am to 7.30 pm seven days a week!

“With all those hours of hard work, I am surprised I still have a lot of energy. What I know is that the Lord had always been with me,” wrote the distinguished former Governor-General (motto: to the nation with love).

In his departure, the 79-year old Sir Paulias has shown a great deal more loyalty and grace than those who have so peremptorily rejected him.

BY PAUL OATES

“Populations always increase until they are limited by war, disease or famine” - Thomas Malthus (1766-1834)

PNG’S NATURAL RESOURCES have supported a fairly static population for thousands of years. Sure warfare, disease and the occasional famine naturally helped keep populations fairly stable, however traditional birth control practices also helped.

The other reason preventing overpopulation was traditional agriculture being coupled with a hunter-gatherer regime.

The traditional PNG culture that evolved over thousands of years failed to deplete the available resources. It didn't encourage a large, unsustainable increase in the resident population as almost everyone had to be constantly involved with food production and collecting.

Since Independence in 1975, PNG’s population has doubled and, with a natural increase of at least three percent, is due to double again in less than 30 years.

Research scientist Dr Sergie Bang of the National Agriculture Research Institute says that social indicators for PNG do not look favourable, especially when malnutrition in children and deaths at birth for women are rampant.

PNG faces a huge challenge: population growth of three percent; agriculture productivity growth of one per cent.

“This is a serious problem,” says Dr Bang. “It means PNG is not growing enough food to feed its growing population. Unless we lift agriculture production by three percent or more, we will not be able to feed our population.”

If families have more children than that required to replace the natural death rate, a bubble or bulge is created in the nation’s demographics.

This bubble causes a ‘youth bulge’ of frustrated young men who have few options for the future and tend to turn to violence.

If all this sounds familiar, shouldn’t PNG’s leaders be planning now for the inevitable tsunami that has already started to affect the nation?

An up to date Census would greatly assist planning. Surely that would be a worthwhile exercise for AusAID?

BY PHILIP FITZPATRICK

HISTORY IS AN incredibly boring subject, ask any school kid.

Unless you have an avid interest, it is usually dry and lifeless.  I’ve found the only way to effectively enliven it and to get the message across is to mix in a liberal but considered dose of fiction.  Then, of course, history loses its authority.

How does a history of the resident magistrates of British New Guinea, presented in 488 pages with maybe a dozen fuzzy black and white photographs, inspire you?  Imagine having to slog through that for a week.  It has the appeal of a dead fish.

However, Jim Sinclair wrote about that topic in 1979-80.  I don’t know whether he tried to get his book published then but, if he did, I suspect the publishers entertained the same thoughts.  Who on earth is going to read and buy this stuff?

That was before he had cemented his reputation as the pre-eminent chronicler of things colonial in Papua New Guinea.  It was written quite sometime after Behind the Ranges, The Outside Man and Wings of Gold but before the crowning glory of Kiap and that incredible series on the aeroplane in New Guinea, Balus.  Jim Sinclair has since filled up nearly a whole shelf in my little library.

I guess it was on the basis of such success that Tony Crawford decided it was time to finally publish Gavamani: The Magisterial Service of British New Guinea.

If you’ve read any of Sinclair’s works, you know that his research is always meticulous and that he is a dab hand with a camera.  He also seems to have a wonderful collection of historical photographs.  When he combines those things with his workman-like prose he really hits his stride.  This one, however, is mainly words.

Strangely enough it is riveting.

I think the reason for this is that the Kipling-esque characters are so big and bizarre and out of the ordinary and because they are allowed to speak for themselves.  The book is liberally sprinkled with great chunks taken verbatim from their reports, letters, official correspondence and books.

There is the Administrator, William MacGregor, with his iron will and mind like a trap. He reminds me of that other dogged and determined Scot, John McDouall Stuart. MacGregor was just the man to quell the savagery of Papua and drag it to the brink of the 20th century - and on a shoe string budget to boot.

And of course there is Resident Magistrate, Charles Monckton, the trigger happy and opinionated Kiwi with a perchance for village maidens and a very wry turn of phrase. 

And poor old Christopher Robinson who blew his brains out on the front lawn of Government House after being unjustly hounded over the Goaribari affair by missionary Charles Abel after James Chalmers, Oliver Tomkins, Nagari and ten of their young students were killed and eaten in the Gulf.

The resident magistrates became known to the Papuans as “outside men” and their lonely graves litter the countryside; mostly the victims of malaria and blackwater fever but also the occasional spear or arrow and, sadly, sometimes their own hand.

Ironically, the first outside man was Frank Lawes, the son of the pioneer missionary.  Frank liked a drink and sometimes discreetly dallied with Papuan ladies, but he was an effective and dedicated officer who, unfortunately, died young.

Alongside the outside men are the graves of their loyal police. The Armed Native Constabulary began with men brought from Fiji but by the turn of the century they were all Papuans.  Some of the Fijians stayed on; the influential Tabua family on Daru are the descendants of a Fijian policeman for instance.

With their antiquated Snider rifles and deadly bayonets the police carved their way through history with such renown that they earned the epithet “Royal” before their name. 

They were with MacGregor when he sailed headlong into the massed canoe fleet of Tugeri headhunters from Dutch New Guinea and routed them in a decisive blow, they manned lonely police posts everywhere and they were on the Yodda and other goldfields protecting villagers and miners.

Even those tough men were moved to tears when they came across the depredations of some of the tribes.  William Armit RM described one incident thus.

The bones of the leg had been excised and the pelvical bone removed.  The ham had been neatly cut off.  The boneless leg was wrapped carefully round a three foot stick…

The girl’s left side and arm and hand presented a heartrending spectacle as it lay on the ground  … the head had evidently been removed, the spine cleft, and the side cut off below the diaphragm ... the partly developed mama remained in situ, the sternum had been cut through, and the inside of the pectoral cavity was perfectly clean and bright ... the whole incident was horrible beyond description…

In Gavamani, fact trumps fiction every time.  I think the book is easily Jim Sinclair’s most accomplished work.  It is part of what was intended as the first of an historic trilogy on the work of the patrol officers, resident magistrates and district officers of the British and Australian colonial administrations.  The succeeding two volumes have yet to be written.  We can only wait in hope.

Gavamani ends with the savage acrimony displayed in the Royal Commission requested by the failing English administrator, Francis Barton, and the appointment of Hubert Murray as the first Lieutenant-Governor of Papua. 

This acrimony had basically been a battle between the old British colonials and the new Australian administrators.  With Murray in their ranks the Australians won.  Sinclair says, “With his appointment, a new era began.  A legend was in the making – but that is another story”.

If you only read one book about colonial Papua read this one.

Gavamani: The Magisterial Service of British New Guinea by James Sinclair, Crawford House Publishing, Adelaide. Check the Pacific Book House advertisement in the current January issue of PNG Attitude magazine

BY REGINALD RENAGI

THERE IS ANOTHER political option for the next prime minister of PNG, but to accept it you need to explore the art of the possible.

Of course grand chief Michael Somare could carry on and set a record in office that will be unbeatable in PNG and Commonwealth politics.

But, if he was really serious about elevating the status of PNG women in his twilight years, he might consider giving his job to the best performing MP in the government, Dame Carol Kidu.

The Dame as an MP has no equal.

Her actions always speak louder than words.

And Dame Carol is ably supported by a good department Secretary who assist her to run a more effective state agency than most of her Ministerial peers.

Such decisive action by Somare would be full recognition of the tireless efforts of the lone woman MP in parliament, who ahs been one of PNG’s best lawmakers of recent times.

This would no doubt upset the men in parliament, but they’d soon get over it when they saw good governance, accountability, responsibility and sanity return to parliament and government.

I don’t believe Michael Somare will quit politics before the 2012 national elections. But PNG has the wrong political leadership running the country.

It should not be this way. So who’s going to do it for PNG?

BY REGINALD RENAGI

RECENTLY THE MEDIA raised three interesting questions: will Somare quit politics in 2011 before the 2012 elections, who will be the next prime minister and what will happen to the National Alliance Party and the current government?

It’s an issue open for argument, and you will get many different answers.

In this article, I try to predict what may happen by gauging public perceptions of the coalition government’s performance since the 2002 national elections.

First of all, PM Somare will not quit politics in 2011 before the elections.

He enjoys the power of controlling the destiny of over six million people and would like to extend his record of being in politics until after the 2012 elections.

Moreso, no one believes that Somare's occasional talk of leaving politics. The people of PNG have heard it many times before, for example prior to the 2002 and 2007 elections.

The man does not keep his word so the public does not take him seriously.

On a hypothetical note, if the PM was to quit politics in 2011 due to some reason like ill-health, the National Alliance Party will most likely see splits in its senor ranks.

Some NA members have openly shown they do not want the top job to go to the deputy PM as they see themselves as the ideal choice.

So who will be the next PM? This is easy in an ideal political world where the job goes to the next senior MP after the prime minister.

But PNG is not in an ideal political world. There are many competing interests and shifting alliances within the coalition.

That said, I predict that the National Alliance will not do too well in 2012 without the stabilising presence of its drawcard, Michael Somare. He’s the glue holding the NA together.

With due respect to other NA members, no one is eminently qualified and possessing the required seniority, depth of public administration knowledge, experience and political maturity to succeed Somare – with the exception of former deputy PM, Sir Puka Temu.

Sir Puka had the edge over all the NA party’s regional deputies as none was an effective departmental head like him before entering politics.

But, alas, he has left for the Opposition party.

Another former Deputy, Don Polye, has also been recently dispensed by Somare in favour of fellow Engan, Sam Abal.

Michael Somare will not simply bow out of politics with a whimper. There will have to be a loud bang at the 2012 general elections.

BY JOHN FOWKE

ONLY A YEAR AWAY from another crucial national election, the status, composition and utility of PNG’s Local Level Government system - is in question.

I have written previously recommending that Papua New Guineans elect their national representatives on the basis of enforceable agreements that each MP will serve the interests of his  people through the established local level government in the electorate.

As a result there will arise a direct line of communication and meaningful power connecting the humblest citizen to the seat of national power in Waigani.

The political parties would not welcome such a change, and will fight the concept wherever it is mooted and attempted. But the parties have had trial run lasting 35 years and it is long past time for change.

Regionally-driven representation in a society in which membership of asples, hauslain and land-rights are basic, is crucial to its successful function. This fact was ignored in the early rush for independence and later personal power got in the way.

The class-based party-system copied from Westminster in the land of Misis Kwin has proved not only to be irrelevant in terms of connecting with society but also very inefficient and resistant to being steered by the ordinary people.

Parties as they exist in PNG are simply clubs for the politically-ambitious; window-curtains behind which scores of naughty boys play around at the citizens’ expense. There is no idealism or ideology involved.

It would be better to move to a system where the nation’s representatives report to their respective LLGs, not to party bosses. PNGneeds representatives whose words are carried back to the villages by councillors and MPs who are given their direction in the democratic forum provided by the LLG.

In this circumstance, a real, responsive democracy will arise from what is now an increasingly hegemonic government-by-privileged-minority. Such a change is achievable and is not in conflict with the provisions of the Constitution.

BY DONALD HOOK

A FORMER commanding officer of the Pacific Islands Regiment, Colonel Ken McKenzie DSM OAM, has died at the age of 85.

Kenneth Stuart McKenzie was born on 28 September 1925 into a military family. His father, Colonel Kenneth Alan McKenzie DSO, was constantly on the move as reflected in Ken’s schooling – Sydney Grammar, Canberra Grammar and Melbourne’s Scotch College.

Ken graduated from the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in December 1944 and was posted to the 6th Division, taking part in the Wewak-Aitape campaign. He then served with BCOF – the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan.

He was commanding officer of the PIR in 1962-65, headquartered at Taurama Barracks near Port Moresby. From there, he was posted to Washington DC as assistant military attaché at the Australian Embassy.

In 1969-70, he was deputy commander of the First Australian Task Force based at Nui Dat in Vietnam.  He acted as commander on several occasions.

Headhunted out of the army, Ken McKenzie returned to PNG as manager of employee and community relations at the Bougainville copper mine from 1971-76.

He was twice married. First to Lynette Ariel Lee in 1948 and then to Judith Ann Forsyth in 1979.

Ken was an advocate for the RSL’s Queensland branch and a member of the RSL National Executive.  He died at Greenslopes Hospital, Brisbane, on 21 November 2010.

PNG Attitude has a number of readers in Queensland who are being seriously affected by the current floods, including some who have been forced to evacuate their homes.  We convey our best wishes to these good folks along with our hopes that any impact on their lives will be minimal ....

RADIO NEW ZEALAND

THE OPPOSITION has failed in its bid to put a motion of no confidence before the PNG parliament.

Parliament has agreed that a vote for the position of Governor-General will take place on Friday.

Nominations for the position have now opened and will close on Wednesday afternoon.

RNZ correspondent Alex Rheeney says the opposition tried unsuccessfully to use the parliamentary session to put forward the no confidence motion.

He says the opposition has indicated it will try again to put a motion of confidence on Friday.

But this unlikely to be successful as the government walked into the parliamentary chamber together on Tuesday in a show of strength.

Alex Rheeney says the indications are that the government will support the nomination of the former Governor General Sir Paulias Matane to return to the position, but other contenders may include Barry Holloway.

The opposition has indicated it will support a number of candidates including two women, Winnie Kiap and Enny Moatz.

Spotter: Paul Oates

BY TREVOR FREESTONE

RECENTLY A CONTRIBUTOR to PNG Attitude wrote that we former Australian expatriate residents are out to criticise everything about Papua New Guinea. This is just not true.

You might say it’s pointless comparing PNG of the 1970’s to today, and you may be right. But, like many Australians who spent an extended period in PNG, I am distressed at the opportunities lost over the last 35 years.

Everyone has their own ideas as to who is to blame. Personally I blame the Australian government, which was in such a hurry to exit PNG it failed to set up a system of checks and balances that would ensure the new nation continued on the path to becoming a great democracy that put its citizens first.

I know that at Watabung, an area in the Highlands, the people could not understand the rush to Independence. True, they wanted Independence, but they wanted it when they felt they were ready.

In 1975 they did not feel they were. They certainly did not want Australians to be withdrawn in such a hurry, without even consulting the people those Australians were working for.

In Watabung I was training my senior teacher to take over my role as headmaster, but he was not quite ready. He was a very capable teacher and would have been an ideal replacement. However Watabung School was far more than a primary school. It had an excellent cultural program, a coffee business, a flute-making business where the children could accumulate their own funds in preparation for when they left school, and a piggery, which taught correct pig husbandry.

The school had purchased a movie projector and every weekend would show movies (the most popular ones starred Tarzan.) When movies weren’t available, we would organise a dance night. These activities raised more funds for the school. More importantly they encouraged the youth to stay and enjoy Watabung.

The Deputy Premier of NSW, who was also Education Minister, visited Watabung and later sent us a congratulatory letter explaining how impressed he was with the school and its programs.

Unfortunately, in protest, my senior teacher asked for a transfer once he knew I was to be repatriated. In hindsight it would have been better to have made him headmaster and me his assistant for a year.

I imagine that there are many Australians who feel that they should have stayed just a little longer to finalise the training of their replacements.

The new headmaster had no idea about how to manage the multiplicity of school programs and, over time, they all shut down.

I believe that tourism was a major opportunity. Watabung School was on the Highlands Highway and tourist buses usually asked if they could stop over. We allowed this as it gave the children an opportunity to speak to tourists and improve their language skills.

These visits became very popular and the travel company gave us the funds to build toilets and picnic tables for the tourists, who always arrived about lunch time. We even arranged for a local village to build a display house in the school grounds and whenever a group came to visit they would put on a little singsing.

The tourists paid the villagers to perform and they made quite a lot of money. The mud men from Asaro also performed for these tours, so the area was benefitting from tourism. And, when the school had a cultural day, the tourists would be extra lucky.

One only had to visit the Goroka or Hagen shows to see how the tourists loved the PNG culture. Hundreds of tourists from all over the world came to these exciting shows. In 2008 I was at the Goroka show. There was just a handful of overseas visitors. Such a pity.

Tourism is one of the big losers from the breakdown in law and order. PNG is such a wonderful country; solve the lawlessness problem and the tourists will return. PNG has so much to offer.

Like many Australians who were repatriated, I loved the people and the country and still do. The Watabung people have asked me to speak up on their behalf and I hope I can meet their expectations. Here’s hoping that PNG will turn the corner and once again head in the right direction.

I didn’t write this article to boast of my achievements, as it was a team effort by my staff, the children and their parents. I am trying to explain why I have such an interest in PNG and why I am happy to read articles and to comment on them.

The Australian media doesn’t seem to have much of an interest in PNG. It is important that PNG Attitude continue to keep us informed.

Footnote: In 2008 I returned to Watabung to a huge welcome where the parents thanked me for the work I did in the 1970’s. In recognition of this work they changed the name of the school to the Trevor Freestone Primary School, Watabung. It was such a great honour.

Photos: Watabung, 1970s - Trevor and kids; school library; schoolboys; dancing group

BY FRANCIS HUALUPMOMI

IT APPEARS THAT the peaceful rise of China has been miscalculated in some parts of the world as a potential threat in the international system.

In reality, China indeed is just another ordinary state making waves to restore her lost pride after being materially humiliated and shamed by the West and Imperial Japan in pre-modern East Asia.

China has now accepted Western norms and aggressively integrated into a US-led liberal order. Her peaceful rise to global prominence is a hybrid balance between socialism and capitalism.

China’s national interest is to attain “Peaceful Great Power” status through economic development without upsetting the “rules of the great power game”. Her foreign policy is premised on the philosophy of national strength driven by economic power and strong leadership.

The main objective is to project and build soft power diplomacy with more concentration in developing countries to share its wealth and promote a peaceful and harmonious society.

There are three reasons why China is not a threat. First, China is a developing country with huge internal problems to solve. Poverty and corruption are the greatest challenges. In December 2010, Premier Wen Jiabao announced a focus on sustaining domestic development and soft power diplomacy when launching the new Five-Year Strategic Plan.

Second, geo-strategically China is still no-match for the US as the great power. Although China is rapidly building its strategic capability, it is not necessarily a challenger.

China is building defensive military power to safeguard its sovereignty and economic interests in the maritime theatre. It would take more than a decade for China to be a threat. The US, although declining in power, still poses unchallenged capacity and capability as a global leader.

Third, and finally, China is a rising regional not a global power. The US is still the great global power and regional power in Asia-Pacific region. The US has superior maritime capability. Also, Japan and South Korea are US allies which make it more difficult for China to challenge the status quo. India, Vietnam and Indonesia may also emerge to balance the ledger against China.

However, in the future, China’s expansion and influence in developing countries, such as in the Pacific, are a threat to the US sphere of influence and may cause friction, even war. Any miscalculation on Taiwan may lead China to war.

A neutral diplomacy between the US and China must be reached consensually to avoid future conflicts. China’s peaceful rise is an economic advantage for developing countries like PNG.

Play the right card to ensure a win-win situation.

BY JEFFREY FEBI

I RETURNED FROM HOME bewildered, and of course angry, at the continuing lack of government infrastructure - the schools, aid-posts, roads.

I had walked for two days to catch a PMV [private motor vehicle = taxi] to travel to Goroka to catch my flight to Port Moresby.

My home village is located in a not so remote part of the Eastern Highlands. It shares borders with Wabo (Gulf), and Nomane (Simbu). It used to be okay 12 years ago, the last time I went home.

There are 20 villages in the area I come from. They have a population of between 8,000 and 9,000.

Only two primary schools service them, and these are small schools which cannot accommodate more than 200 students in any one year. Teachers from other areas do not want to work here, so a couple of local teachers are doing their best by taking more than one class.

I witnessed the ruins of many aid posts: some totally covered by kau-grass while others continue to stand as if to hold their heads above the surrounding suffocating grasses and shrubs.

The existing aid-posts, and the only health centre, are without drugs and short of staff.

The road is overgrown by grass and bush. Small trees grow in the road. Fences have been erected across the road, as no vehicle has driven there for a while. It won’t be long before food gardens are planted on the road.

This has been the norm for almost a decade. And no respite in sight.

The people who will miss going to school and the people who will die from treatable diseases - who will they blame?

The PNG government has on many occasions boasted about sustained economic growth and increased revenue collections.

So why are these people still suffering? When will they stop carrying coffee bags for days on end only to be robbed by money-hungry roadside coffee buyers who buy beans at much lower prices? Who will hear their cries for much needed basic medical supplies?

I can proudly proclaim that most of the organic coffee beans from unfortunate farmers end up in most of the brands of the popular Goroka Coffee many people enjoy the world over.

Think about it.

BY REGINALD RENAGI

MANY PAPUAN NEW GUINEANS would say that, despite the government’s shortcomings, it is probably not the time for a wholesale change. But a change in leadership, yes!

Political observers, here and abroad, see our government as incompetent and indecisive. The problem we have today is weak and indecisive leadership. We really deserve better.

Our government lacks a good succession plan. It should have been in place for many years. Now we’ve been found wanting and are in a constitutional and leadership crisis.

The National Alliance government will be hard-pressed to find the required quality leadership from within its own ranks, or from within the broader ranks of its coalition.

According to political analyst Francis Huluapmomi, the government can't find "a highly intelligent and qualified politician who is able to strategically manoeuvre PNG in the age of globalisation and changing patterns in international politics to attain national objectives”.

It’s hard to disagree.

That is why for years the ruling regime has kept the same man in the driver's seat, despite his many mistakes.

Today, our people do not trust their government. Too many broken promises since Independence.

There are good quality MPs sitting in the middle-benches and Opposition to be made a part of a new and good government. But for this to work, there needs to be an immediate regrouping within parliament.

If we can keep the few good MPs in the coalition and merge them with the middle and opposition, we can form a good government with experience and credibility. A government that the citizens of PNG can put their trust in to protect the national interest.

But there is a major snag. Who is going to take the lead? No, not acting PM Sam Abal.

Abal is a nice quiet guy but, from his public utterances so far in the job, he is only warming the chair for the return of the Somare. For some reason, he lacks the typical highlands' aggression.

I have studied leadership and strategy for over 30 years, and I can say that that former Deputy PM, Don Polye, can make a good PM in a new-look government with a good team that would move this country from its comatose state.

As far as I can see, Don Polye is the one political leader standing up to do something about cleaning up corruption.

The problem PNG has today is that our leadership lacks the guts to get its act together, and lead PNG as it should be led in the national interest.

So it colluded to sacrifice a very good potential future PM, Don Polye.

If we do not change the status quo, PNG will not have a good competent government and parliament until the 2012 national elections.

It’s a waste of people’s time and resources to put up with the current nonsense.

It’s time for a real change.

Tomorrow in PNG Attitude – three big stories…

Reginald Renagi - time for a change in government

Jeffrey Febi - why are our people suffering?

Francis Hualupmomi - Chinese threat;  PNG opportunity

BY ICARUS

An entry in The Crocodile Prize

if one man could witness another
walking willfully, whimsically
whistling into a darkening valley
would one wonder why

who should stray so jubilantly to misfortune
strike out with purpose for ruination
one mans words to his brotherhood
speeds forthwith the ruin of a nation

why would it be so, one wonders
that a brother or some other should
benefactor the downfall of his own
and gain in glee from their misery

when he is on his walk, and one
watches in fascination his fateful funambulation
this benefactor brother baffles
with wandering, wand-waving words
blindfolded fools then follow this fellow
walking willfully, whimsically
whistling into a darkening valley

what would one say of this and that
a truth is not a realisation of a fabrication
nor is a fact a rational tale to trust
but some do, as reality is, and we call it life.

the fact is, he lies,
i.e. he does not speak truthfully.

See full details of The Crocodile Prize literary contest in ATTITUDE EXTRA at left

BY ROSS WILKINSON

READERS WILL KNOW that PNG Attitude has evolved over a number of years to its present focus and format, and that it has been the vehicle for the development and continuing promotion of several worthwhile initiatives such as The Crocodile Prize and the Montevideo Maru recognition project.

It has emerged as a forum for worthwhile debate on a variety of important PNG issues. Readers will also know that PNG Attitude has previously been recognised for its excellence and that it has a worldwide audience. Therefore, it is important to us all that this be protected.

Readers would no doubt be aware of recent actions taken by the editor to protect readers from unreasonable and offensive comments by a small number of contributors and to protect the PNG Attitude site, its editor and its contributors from legal action arising from the inadvertent publication of defamatory or subversive contributor comments.

A critical goal is to ensure the continuation of PNG Attitude as an avenue for reasoned discussion of PNG-related matters.

The editor has previously stated, and explained in the site rules (About PNG Attitude at left), that, while some contributors may have a need to hide behind anonymity, they must still be mindful of the impact of their words.

The editor recognises and accepts this need for anonymity in certain circumstances but he must have confidence in the bona fides of anonymous contributors, who are required to seek his prior approval of this arrangement.

You may ask “why?” and “what is the harm?” This paper has been prepared to ensure readers and contributors understand why these steps are necessary. So what are the issues you should know and understand?

Legal breaches

Civil liability arises from publications that are judged to be likely to harm a person's reputation and cause financial loss or damage. Monetary penalties are usually applied where such cases are proven.

Criminal liability arises from publications that affect the community, such as those that have a tendency to endanger public peace. In most jurisdictions penalties include fines or even imprisonment. There may also be issues surrounding contempt of court if current legal proceedings are involved or suppression orders exist.

Also, given the nature of subjects canvassed in PNG Attitude, there may arise discussions that touch upon potentially subversive or treasonable topics and the editor must have regard for the individual laws of the various nations and governments under discussion.

Contributors should also be wary of the concept of a breach by implication.

Jurisdiction

The Gutnik case sets the precedent where a US newspaper published a defamatory statement about a prominent Australian mining industry figure, Joseph Gutnik. The newspaper also published the same article in its online edition.

Mr Gutnik sued the US publisher in Australia, and the Australian courts upheld that publication occurs in the country where the article is intended to be read. As it was published online and was capable of being read in Australia, it was deemed to have been published in Australia.

Anonymity

In a recent West Australian case, a defamatory statement was made on a blog site by an anonymous contributor. The blog site publisher did not release the identity of the anonymous contributor but a further forensic examination of the electronic trail led to the contributor being identified and successfully sued.

Computer buffs who know far more than me will confirm that internet traffic leaves “footprints” that are able to identify particular computers.

So, what is the upshot of this?  There is sufficient concern from readers of PNG Attitude that supports stronger editorial control (not censorship) along the lines already implemented and recently editorialised.

I urge all readers to read and heed the contents of the rules in About PNG Attitude. Readers need to understand more fully why this is necessary, not only for their continuing access to PNG Attitude, but so – in their other role as contributors – they have legal protection from possible court action.

The information I've provided here should not be taken as legal advice. It is provided from a lay perspective to present a broad view of the issues in language readers can understand.

It is the hope of the PNG Attitude community that this will encourage the ongoing and vital exchange of ideas, experiences and the wonderful stories for which this site is renowned.

Ross Wilkinson B Bus CPRM MRMIA is Risk Manager (Operational and Organisational) with the Department of Transport in Victoria. He spent 13 years as a patrol officer in PNG

BY PETER KRANZ

OFFICIAL BIRTH registrations in PNG are estimated to be a bit over 50% of all babies born. So how do you know how old someone is, or where they were born when all this information blurs in the collective memory.

As an exercise, I tried to estimate the age of Mana, my Papua New Guinean mum-in-law, by asking questions about events she and her family could remember when she was a child.

There was no relevant documentation, but she could remember a sweet potato famine in the sixties and, amazingly, the birth of Prince Charles (1948) and the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II (1953).

We are trying to arrange a visit for Mana to Australia. For this she needs a passport, and for this she needs a birth certificate, which she doesn’t have.

This is such a common problem in PNG that you can get one retrospectively by filling in a form and answering questions about your family and what you can remember (like those preceding).

The officials then choose a happy medium between the range of ages suggested by the answers, and that gets entered on your birth certificate. That then is declared to be your official age. Rather like the Queen’s Birthday, or when all young horses are decreed to turn one, but less accurate.

Even names are rather fluid. My wife is known by a different name by each branch of her extended family. And clan names have morphed into surnames, and are different from village and immediate-family names.

These are just some of the difficulties encountered when trying to apply our western notion of age and accurate statistics to countries where such measurements do not apply. Westerners are Positivists. I think PNG people are Naturalists (in a philosophical sense).

One of the great achievements of the kiap age was the systematic registration of the details of people's ages, places of birth and names. In fact this had implied power, since writing down a person's name was held to have special significance.

This is one reason why the cannibalistic practices which led to kuru were stopped within a generation.

I wonder whether this early demographic information been lost.

Photo: A picture of Mana (mum-in-law) and her first experience of a mobile phone. She was in Kundiawa talking to her son in Moresby, and used up all our credits!

BY PHIL MANLEY

THANKS HEAPS for the latest PNG Attitude. A good (but sad) read most of the time.

A comment on the discussion about a sign on Ela Beach saying it was a restricted area for locals.

I don't recall that sign being there in the 70's, but have a look at this sign I snapped at Rouna Falls Lookout (above Port Moresby) in 2004.

If discrimination at Ela Beach was regrettable in the 50’s and 60's, it was still present at Rouna 40 years later (but reversed).

BY KEITH JACKSON

Gail Burke (nee Pukallus), highly regarded lecturer in mathematics at Port Moresby Teachers College and editor of Meeting the Challenge, died of a heart attack on New Year’s Day. Her funeral will be held at Toowoomba on Monday.

Gail was born in Laidley, Queensland, where her father had found work during the Depression. The family moved to Toowoomba, where she grew up. She completed her secondary schooling in Brisbane and went on to train as a teacher at Kelvin Grove Teachers College.

Gail taught in Queensland primary schools for three years and in London and Hamburg during a period overseas. Back in Australia in 1960 she decided to teach in Papua New Guinea.

After working in a number of primary schools in Port Moresby she moved to Port Moresby Teachers College, lecturing in mathematics and drama for a number of years. During this period she also gained an MA (Education). Her main hobby in Port Moresby was amateur theatre.

Gail and husband Clarrie returned to Australia at the end of 1975, where she joined Education Queensland working in policy and financial areas until her retirement in 1995. She maintained her interest in theatre.

Gail suffered a debilitating stroke in 1999, but continued with her enduring interest in Family History, which had previously led her into research and writing a number of books on the history of her family.

She also edited Meeting the Challenge – an important book on Australian teachers working in PNG before Independence.

“Gail’s collection has been put together … without personal agendas to interfere with the simple record of the lives of those teaching in PNG from 1955 to 1975,” Henry Bodman later wrote. “It is an enjoyable record of real life at the coal face of colonial administration.

“The result is a collection of very human experiences which contrast beautifully with each other in suggesting the aura of the times and the commitment of the story tellers to the job of educating a people to embrace the task of self government.”

A celebration of Gail's life will be held at the T S Burstow Chapel, 1020 Ruthven Street (south), Toowoomba, commencing at 12.30 pm on Monday 10 January.

Friends can contact Dr Clarrie Burke at 70/119 Sugarwood Street, Bellbowrie Qld 4070.

The PNG Attitude e-magazine for January was distributed yesterday to 1030 subscribers. If you'd like to be number 1031, you can obtain your free copy each month simply by emailing us here

BY PHILIP FITZPATRICK

OVER THE LAST WEEK or so I’ve been crunching numbers for a preliminary social mapping study along the coast east of Moresby, roughly from Porebada to Saua.

Such studies are mandatory for companies looking for oil and gas in Papua New Guinea.  No one has seriously looked for hydrocarbons down that way before, so this study is covering new ground.  And some of the statistics are alarming.

According to a census of schools conducted by the Education Department in 2008, the strip of coast has got about 360 schools, the majority of which are elementary.  The student population of all schools combined is around 41,345, with about 1,400 teachers.

The number of students as a proportion of overall population seems to me to be very high.  However there are no up-to-date general census figures to make an accurate comparison.  The last census was in 2000 and the next one should have been last year, but that seems to have gone by the board.

In 2000 there was a notable increase in population in places like the Rigo District caused by high birth rates and migration.  In a couple of places, like Kwikila, the rate was running close to 4%, about twice the normal rate.

There are a lot of kids out there, especially little tackers.  There are only eight high schools in the area, with around 3,200 students.  According to my dodgy maths that is about 8% of the student population.  Is that a good rate of kids going on to secondary education?  To my untrained mind it doesn’t look too flash.

Whether these statistics are a snapshot that can be extrapolated to other areas is questionable.  In other studies I’ve done, the rates are even worse.

As far as I know, social mapping studies are not read by anyone in government.  For many exploration companies they are just another box that has to be ticked as part of their Petroleum Prospecting Licence.  A lot of them just get an old kiap to knock up a report as quickly as possible.  Needless to say, professional rigour is often lacking.

The mob I work for take a slightly different tack and regard the studies as a useful tool in establishing workable relationships with the local people.  If the company officials read the studies they can make informed and responsible judgements about how they pillage the country.

The government doesn’t acknowledge this aspect as a function of the studies. For them it is all about who gets the royalties.  If any of them read the studies, it is only to flick to the appendix listing landowner groups.

Some of the studies I’ve done in the Western and Gulf Provinces show an alarming rate of population increase, severe impacts from climate change and the real danger of subsistence food shortages in the near future. 

Despite Michael Somare believing that people in PNG will always be able to feed themselves from their gardens, there is no way of getting away from the fact that fires in the late nineties wiped out huge areas of sago swamp and that new palms will not be ready for harvest until at least 2025.  There are also strange fish in the rivers and birds that no one has ever seen before.

But as well as going hungry, it seems the kids are going to miss out on a decent education.

One of the most sobering statistics showing up in my number crunching is class size.  In the study area, a teacher to student ratio of 1:80 is not uncommon.  One poor bugger in the Abau District was looking after 107 elementary school students by himself in 2008.

Wonder how an Aussie teacher would cope with that lot.

Phil Fitzpatrick is principal of South Pacific Social Solutions Pty Ltd

BY KEITH JACKSON

NOW HERE’S an organisation doing some real good for PNG – the Kokoda Track Foundation.

The Foundation - an Australian-based not-for-profit organisation - has just announced the Archer Leadership Scholars Program.

It sounds a mouthful, but the concept is straightforward. From 2011 the Foundation will offer annual scholarships to six tertiary students from PNG to undertake an intensive leadership program.

In the same way as the Foundation’s Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel scholarships, the Archer scholars will be selected on the basis of criteria including outstanding academic achievement, gender equality and leadership potential.

And, for the first time, the Foundation is calling for applications from students across PNG - not just the area around the Kokoda Track.

Foundation Executive Director, Dr Genevieve Nelson, says that each year the six successful students will be given opportunities including:

A contribution towards tuition fees (students must be in their final year of studies at a tertiary institution in PNG)

A contribution towards boarding fees or a living allowance

A resource allowance to purchase laptop, textbooks or other resources

Community development experience with the Foundation on the Kokoda Track

Mentoring

A two- week student exchange to Australia to participate in a four day leadership course, a four-day work experience placement, mentoring and sight-seeing

“We are extremely excited about this initiative,” said Dr Nelson, “and are hoping to distribute the call for applications widely through PNG Attitude’s reader network.”

The Foundation is accepting applications and the closing date is 11 February.

Inquiries should go to the Foundation's executive director, Genevieve Nelson, on [email protected]

You can also link to the application form on the Foundation’s website here.

Over the years Pacific Book House has become the go-to place for people wanting to obtain books with a PNG or Pacific theme. We talk to founder BILL McGRATH about books and about his career in PNG and the Pacific.

Keith Jackson - Where did your interest in buying and selling books come from?

Bill McGrath - I was working in the State of Hawaii in the 1970's and visited a local bookshop that specialised in books of the Pacific Islands, which gave me the idea that one day I may set up a similar bookshop in Australia.

So how did it get started and in what circumstances?

In Brisbane in 1984, after attending the annual Brisbane Book Fair when I took steps to set up a mail order bookshop based at my home at Broadbeach Waters on the Gold Coast.

Are there any particular problems in dealing with books about the Pacific?

Over several years I managed to source books on the Pacific Islands and Papua New Guinea from a variety of distributors not only in Australia but in Hawaii, the US mainland and the UK. Sourcing was made more difficult when some book distributors, particularly the larger book distributors, never did like to deal with a small bookseller even on a prepaid cash order.

Where is your main market?

Presently I am selling mainly to Australians and other expats who are working in Papua New Guinea. Those Australians and other Europeans who work on a fly-in fly-out basis in PNG have sizeable amounts of disposable income and some buy books on PNG. I also sell to PNG university libraries. Unfortunately the PNG government seems to have very little in the way of funds to purchase books for the PNG National Library, PNG Archives, and provincial libraries.

And what kind of books are the most popular?

Mainly exploration and travel, anthropology and books on the Pacific War.

What was your original association with PNG?

After completing an Engineering, Surveying Cadetship in the Public Works Department of Western Australia from 1950-1953, I joined the Administration of the Territory of Papua New Guinea as a Cadet Patrol Officer in April 1953 and served on the headquarters staff at Konedobu.

Then you became a fully fledged kiap?

Yes, in 1955 I was promoted to Patrol Officer and became Officer in Charge at Erave Patrol Post in the Southern Highland Province which had just been established by Patrol Officer's Brand and Battersby. In 1958 I attended a Long Course at ASOPA and in 1959 was appointed as Patrol Officer [Lands] at Konedobu Headquarters. I undertook land buying assignments for the PNG Administration in the Central, New Britain and Northern Districts.

In 1961 I transferred to the Lands Department and remained there until December 1965, I was headhunted to be as Director of Lands and Surveys of the US Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands at Saipan. My six-year contract specified that I had to be replaced by a suitably qualified and experienced Ponapean Micronesian was appointed.

So you pursued a career in the Pacific?

I moved to Hawaii in the beginning of 1971 to the position of Land Department Manager in C Brewer and Co Limited, one of the big five Hawaiian landowners and sugar producers. In 1975 I was headhunted by Coopers and Lybrand and appointed by the Fiji Native Land Trust Board as the founding General Manager of the Native Land Development Corporation. I remained there until 1979. Later a Fijian [Ratu Tuki Cakobau] was appointed as General Manager.

In 1980 I accepted a consultancy appointment from the United Nations Development Assistance Program as a Land Consultant to the then New Hebrides Condominium Government and carried on in that role after Vanuatu became an independent nation in 1980.

So where in all of this did you set up Pacific Book House?

In 1984, and then continuing the book business until 1990 when I was appointed Land Supervisor with Chevron Niugini as the operator of the PNG Kutubu Petroleum Development Project. I stayed with Chevron until 1997, then between 1997 and 2007 resumed the business of Pacific Book House.

In 2007 I took a short term assignment with InterOil on the Purari River which 2 years later turned into something a bit longer. Finally, in July 2010, I resumed Pacific Book House and that’s where we are.

Anything else, Bill?

I must say I am most impressed with PNG Attitude and I admire your perseverance in producing such a professional newsletter each month.

You can visit the Pacific Book House website here.

BY MIKE TOOLE

IT IS indeed rare that a good news story on PNG is published in the Australian media, so it was pleasing to read a report that HIV infection rates may be declining.

Media reports on the HIV epidemic in PNG have often used emotive terms such as ''catastrophic'', ''scourge'', ''crisis'', and ''alarming''. In 2007, think tank the Centre for Independent Studies published a report that predicted that ''if present rising infection trends persist, 18 per cent of the population could be affected by 2010 and 25 per cent could be affected by 2020''.

The actual estimate of the percentage of the adult population infected by the virus in 2009 is 0.9 per cent, a figure endorsed by the world's peak body, the United Nations Joint Program on HIV and AIDS.

Many of these reports were based on hearsay, data that lacked statistical rigour, and assumptions about the way in which the virus was spreading that were not based on sound evidence. It was often said that PNG was experiencing an ''African epidemic''.

But let's look at the facts. In 1990, the percentage of urban pregnant women infected by HIV was zero in both South Africa and Papua New Guinea. Ten years later, one in four South African pregnant women were infected compared with just six in 1000 women in PNG's largest city, Port Moresby. Clearly, the dynamics of the epidemic in PNG are different from southern Africa.

Between 2008 and 2009, there was a 37 per cent decrease in the number of newly diagnosed HIV infections, even though about 120,000 people were tested in each of those years. At the peak of the epidemic in 2005, 15 per 1000 pregnant women tested positive; in 2009, just seven per 1000 were positive. The decline has been even more pronounced in rural areas.

An important milestone in PNG's response to the epidemic was the passing by Parliament in 2003 of a law that outlawed discrimination on the basis of HIV status. This enabled more people to get tested with less fear of stigma, and for prevention efforts to be scaled up despite anti-condom rhetoric.

Every province in the country now has an AIDS committee and many have been active in developing a ''condom culture'' in parts of the country where the virus has spread the fastest.

This has been a geographically concentrated epidemic. In 2009, almost three out of four new infections were among women and men whose province of origin was in the Highlands Region. It was there that HIV spread rapidly along the busy Highlands Highway, fuelled by the exchange of sex for money earned in the mines and other industries along its route.

Despite the often hostile attitude to condoms by church leaders in PNG, many Christian health workers have quietly - and heroically - been at the front line of the response to the epidemic.

They have compassionately cared for the sick and sensibly counselled the well to protect themselves by using a condom when having casual sex. Their efforts - despite constraints imposed on them by their bishops - have saved countless lives. The private sector has also been active. The PNG Business Coalition Against HIV and AIDS has been one of the strongest partners in responding to the epidemic.

Many challenges remain and there can be no room for complacency. The country has one of the highest rates in the region of sexually transmitted infections, which increase vulnerability to HIV infection, and widespread violence against women is a symptom of deep-seated gender inequality.

The massive liquefied natural gas project - now at the start of a four-year construction period - will create a new generation of ''mobile men with money'' with the means to buy alcohol, drugs and sex. Education and condom promotion programs must be scaled up to meet the challenge.

Australia has played a key role in supporting the fight against HIV and AIDS in PNG, having invested close to $100 million in the national response. While our neighbour faces many other health challenges, such as high maternal and child mortality rates, there is cause to congratulate PNG on the good news released last month.

Source: Rare good news as PNG heads off HIV 'catastrophe', Sydney Morning Herald, 14 September 2010

Professor Michael Toole has been Head of the Centre for International Health at Melbourne’s Burnet Institute since 1995. He is also a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at Monash University. From 1973-82, he worked in rural and refugee health programs in Thailand and Somalia and was later health coordinator for Oxfam Australia. He then coordinated US technical assistance to refugees in eastern Europe, Africa and Asia. His recent field work has focused on HIV prevention and primary health care in Laos, Papua New Guinea, China, and Myanmar. He is a member of the technical review panel of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. He was a founding board member of Médécins sans Frontières in Australia.

BY KEITH JACKSON

DECEMBER WAS a more subdued month for comments from readers (perhaps because the descending holiday season induced creative torpor), and it turned out to be a topic close to home that commanded pride of place …..

20 – PNG Attitude magazine (Keith Jackson).  It's a bit self-centred but I'm always glad to see readers appreciating the website and magazine

15 - The health perils of a wet Sunday (Paul Oates). The heavy rain in south-east Queensland kept Paul indoors, and he decided to do some research into how Australia’s aid money is spent on health programs in PNG.

14 – Papua: Maybe old Percy was right after all (Phil Fitzpatrick). Phil looked back at the writings and reflections of that great supporter of Papua and Papuans, the Sir Percy Chatterton.

13 - So PNG has changed; but for the better? (Paul Oates). Sir Michael Somare said PNG had got someplace in its first 35 years. Paul Oates sought to answer the question: Where exactly?

12 – Cables expose Chinese criminality in PNG (Peter Kranz). The Wikileaks cables managed to squeeze out some fascinating US views of how Chinese criminals are infiltrating PNG.

12 - Aussie aid workers get muddy boots (Ilya Gridneff). Ilya and many readers heaped rare praise on AusAID for its new efforts at getting development teams out into rural areas.

12 - PNG writers to benefit from advertising (Keith Jackson). Readers found some fascination in a decision to run advertisements in the PNG Attitude magazine, with the proceeds going to The Crocodile Prize literary contest.

12 - Courageous Tiffany to speak in Melbourne (Keith Jackson). On a rare visit to Australia, the PNG lawyer who defends the rights of grassroots people talked of her battles to support village landowners.

11 – Speaker Nape must go, says union boss (PNG Exposed). A scathing indictment of PNG’s controversial Speaker generated quite a bit of attention from readers.

11 - National disgrace: UPNG in parlous state (Scott MacWilliam). Close scrutiny of PNG’s oldest and most venerable university revealed a terrible state of affairs for students, staff and PNG itself.

BY PETER M McDERMOTT

THIS MILLENNIUM has brought a renewed interest about Australia’s national identity and the nature of Australian citizenship.

The High Court of Australia has recognised that citizenship is a statutory concept. As Justice Dowsett remarked, ‘citizenship is purely the creature of statute’. What can be conferred by Parliament can be withdrawn by Parliament.

The circumstance of a wholesale withdrawal of citizenship from Australian citizens was certainly unique in Australian history. It was achieved by the operation of both New Guinea law and Australian law.

Under PNG law, there was a prohibition against dual citizenship in section 64 of the Constitution of the Independent State of Papua New Guinea.

Under Australian law, the relinquishment of sovereignty under section 4 of the PNG Independence Act necessarily had the consequence that, upon independence, the people of PNG ceased to be citizens of Australia.

The wide regulation-making power in section 6 of the PNG Independence Act also conferred authority upon the Executive to make a regulation to withdraw Australian citizenship from many of its citizens...

The Australian citizenship that the Papuans had possessed before Independence Day was, as the Constitutional Planning Committee fully appreciated, not a ‘real foreign citizenship’.

This is why the expression ‘real foreign citizenship’ is to be found in section 65 of the Constitution of the Independent State of PNG. The nominal Australian citizenship possessed by Papuans would not enable them to enter the Australian mainland.

Justice Kirby emphasised that the Constitution of the new Independent State gave its citizens a ‘real citizenship’. He also pointed out that ‘in place of a veneer of citizenship were substituted substantial and enforceable rights of citizenship of PNG that conform to international law’.

Read the full journal article here.

Spotter: John Fowke

VIC HODGKINSON, who flew Catalinas around PNG and the Solomons in World War II, has died in the United Kingdom at the age of 94.

He was born near Sydney on 17 October 1916 and educated at Sydney Technical High School. After becoming a pilot with the RAAF he was posted abroad for flying boat training. He was in Britain when the Australian government ordered 10 RAAF Squadron to assist the war effort.

He flew his first operations in England in March 1940 and was particularly busy during the evacuation of British forces from France in June 1940.

In April 1941, Hodgkinson was returning from a patrol short of fuel and in dense fog when his Sunderland flying boat crashed into the sea killing six of his crew. The survivors spent 10 hours in a dinghy before they were rescued.

After his tour of duty in Britain, for which he was mentioned in dispatches, he returned home and joined 20 RAAF Squadron, flying Catalina flying boats. Based in the north of Queensland, he attacked Japanese shipping around New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. The Catalina was also used to drop supplies to Coastwatchers in flights that could be of 25 hours' duration.

After completing 44 long-range operations in the south-west Pacific, Hodgkinson was awarded a DFC and sent as chief flying instructor to a flying boat training unit. Towards the end of the war he formed and commanded 40 Squadron from Port Moresby.

He left the RAAF in 1946 and returned to England, where he joined BOAC as a pilot. He was one of the early Comet captains and finished his flying career on the Boeing 707. He retired in 1971, having amassed 19,300 hours, including some 4,300 hours on flying boats, and settled in Hampshire.

Source: ‘A thrilling life spent flying by the seat of his pants’, Daily Telegraph, London, 31 December 2010

BY KEITH JACKSON

BY HIS OWN admission, Port Moresby's serial blog identity faker Bruce Copeland has impersonated twelve different ‘people' in what is clearly an attempt to undermine the credibility of PNG Attitude and to satisfy his own bizarre urges.

As recently as last night, Copeland was continuing to insinuate this website with his objectionable and often abusive views and defamatory comments about other contributors, in doing so using additional phony names.

Each of these unwelcome contributions was detected and deleted.

In a spam email sent to his unwilling ‘network’, he again admitted that he has been bombarding PNG Attitude for many months with fraudulent emails from twelve fake names - Rod Everett, George Manoi, Tom Kuligi, Simon Yapi, John Kaupa, Marilyn Johnston, Robert Palmer, Peter O’Donnell, Neil Appleby, Sebastian Orovae, Bidaka Harmeney and Robert [?] Watson.

“I used pen-names because two of your ancient colonial mates were getting jealous that I knew more than they did,” Copeland said by way of justification.

Then followed a tirade of abuse about gays and how I had somehow “betrayed our work relationship and denounced me [Copeland] to all.”

I never had a ‘work relationship” with a man I regard as a phony and I would never want one.

Copeland went on to say “I wrote a protest on your blog and included the pen names. So you took these and claimed they were real people. That is so that you do not have to delete their high class letter [sic].”

Well, Mr Copeland, not only did I make no such claim, but the so-called “high class letter” – scores of them, in fact - have been deleted from the site.

They were fraudulent contributions from a person who has adopted a range of phony names and false email addresses to pursue his bizarre aims. Copeland and his funny fake friends have no place on PNG Attitude.

PNG Attitude accepts contributions from people who wish to use pen names, but the writer’s real name must be made known to the publisher otherwise the letter or comment may be deleted.

BY PAUL OATES

LIKE MANY other people this morning, I’m sitting down enjoying a cup of coffee with my breakfast. Thoughts go out to those who work to produce that satisfying cup of aromatic Arabica.

When on patrol in the PNG mountain villages, I would often have some interesting discussions, after dinner at night. I’d take my Tilley lantern to the local schoolhouse or church and run a 'free for all' discussion on any subject the people wanted to talk about.

Usually it would start off with coffee prices, and then more discussion about coffee prices and then there might have been something else.

Understandably, after so much effort to produce the coffee, to see the prices being offered at the local trade store go up and down without knowing the reason was very frustrating to village growers.

I would try and explain the problem of a world economy and about how Brazil at that time produced most of the world’s coffee. To those who had no idea where South America was, let alone huge Brazilian coffee production, this was no mean task. Oversupply and undersupply of commodities like kaukau or pineapples (ananas), at the local market could be used as a ‘for instance’.

Trawling through the Internet recently, an article caught my eye. It was entitled Brazil coffee will trade at double discount of others, ICE says. and was written by Stuart Wallace.

“The discount on Brazilian coffee will be more than twice that on the cheapest grades currently deliverable against ICE Futures U.S.’s Arabica contract when it gets included from 2013, according to the bourse."

So, between sips of coffee, I decided to take a small venture into today’s world of coffee production and coffee pricing. Not surprisingly, nothing much seems to have changed in 40 years.

“Coffee cultivation and processing not only requires hard manual labor, but also intimate knowledge of pruning and caring for the coffee trees. Coffee cultivation is not just a job, it is a way of life and a craft that takes years to learn and perfect. But the reliance on coffee as the primary source of income also leaves most farmers at the mercy of a global commodity chain that they have absolutely no influence on.” [Does Fair Trade Eliminate Poverty?Anders Riel Müller, Conducive Magazine, 31 October 2010]

“Coffee farming is the world’s largest employer with 25 million farmers, almost all of them in the Third World. Coffee is also the single biggest source of income and foreign exchange for most of the nations of Africa, and a major source in many others. When the coffee industry suffers, as happened a decade ago after foreign aid by the World Bank and other international agencies drove down prices for farmers, entire economies will suffer, and especially those millions of farmers and others in the Third World whose livelihoods depend on this crop.” http://www.probeinternational.org/coffee#tabs-tabset-2

The accepted method at the PNG rural trade store of determining the grade of sun dried coffee (and therefore the price offered) was at the time to take a green bean and chew on it. If you could sink your teeth into it and right through it, then it was X1. If your teeth would go into but not through, X2 and if you feared for your tooth then it was properly hard and dry and was therefore Y grade, (the top grade and earning the top price).

During discussions in the village, it was important to try and explain that the local trade store manager had no real control over the pricing system and was not trying to rob them. Today, there is concern in many coffee producing countries about being able to feed a coffee producer’s family.

“Food insecurity has a significant impact on the lives of coffee farmers and their families.

“…in general, a small scale coffee farmer tends to have between one and ten hectares of coffee. For most of these small scale farmers, coffee is the primary source of income, so they are highly vulnerable to fluctuations in global coffee prices.

“Small changes in coffee prices during harvest season can be decisive for whether their families will be able to feed themselves throughout the year, send the children to school, and in the worst cases whether they can remain on their land.

“They are at the mercy of a global trading system in which prices and conditions of trade are set in commodity exchanges in the US and Europe far beyond their reach and control.”

“Coffee is also a very labour intensive crop that requires pruning and maintenance throughout year, and during the harvest season, that can last for several months, most family members are required to help out.

“Some families would have a few fruit trees growing on their land as well for their own consumption or for sale, but most were trapped in a mono-crop situation where scarcity of land and lack of knowledge and resources to diversify left them extremely vulnerable to coffee price fluctuations on the global market.

“The lack of land for food crops also meant that almost all food was purchased in the food markets, leaving families in a situation of double vulnerability as they are subject to fluctuations in both coffee prices and food prices.” [Does Fair Trade Eliminate Poverty?]

The increasing dilemma about coffee production versus income and food security is not restricted to rural PNG. Perhaps we should all start thinking about where our coffee comes from and what it takes to produce this desirable commodity? It might make our next cup even more valued?

BY PHILIP FITZPATRICK

AS A PIKINI KIAP in the highlands in the 1960s life was full of challenges.

Two weeks into the job and I was dropped off on the bank of an angry looking river where a substantial Bailey bridge was wrapped around a gigantic rock in midstream. 

On one bank was a pile of what looked like giant Meccano pieces and on the other, squatting in the grass, were several hundred expectant highlanders.  “Let me know when you’ve fixed it,” were the parting words of the ADO under whose tender care I had been nominally placed.

Strangely enough the bridge was duly fixed.  I’ve got photographs to prove it.   The experience was interesting but it paled into insignificance on the next rung of the learning curve. 

Instead of several hundred highlanders there were several thousand and the job entailed standing in front of them and explaining the subtle nuances of the upcoming elections for the House of Assembly.

By then I was well aware that oratory was a finely finessed art among highlanders and one was judged not so much on the content of one’s speech but by the performance.  As a duly endorsed representative of Pax Australiana there were reputations on the line.  Somehow I survived with my dignity intact, not the least because of the very astute and colourfully phrased interpreter by my side.

Oratory was not just the prerogative of kiaps and big men.  Everyone could have a go, including women.  To place one’s opinion on the public record in front of a gathering of everyone in the valley was both a privilege and a right.  A forcefully argued opinion was talked about for days and the esteem thus garnered became part of the legend.

In later years, when I escaped to Papua, the contrast was stark.  In Papua one did not stand up in front of the village and speak.  In Papua you sussed out the people of influence and had a quiet word in their ear. 

Then you sat back and waited for the timid knocks on the rest house door and the furtive shuffle into the shadows out of public view where points and arguments were put in hasty whispers.  In Papua even the most mundane topic became an intrigue.

After a while I got used to it.  To say what you mean for all to hear and, what’s more, to put your name to it just isn’t the Papuan way.

Thus it wasn’t a big surprise to find that as PNG Attitude evolved and the ranks of the Papuan New Guinean correspondents grew there was an exponential growth in the use of pseudonyms and nom de plumes. 

That old Papuan renitence to stand out from the crowd and their love affair with conspiracy was at play I thought.  Now I hear there are secret blogs for Papuan eyes only on the horizon.

When I sat back and thought about it I came to the frank conclusion that it is all bloody annoying.  Not only that, but it is gutless and counter-productive. 

When I read the latest comments from the likes of “Dexter Bland” I immediately discount them because of the obvious and silly pseudonym.  In other words, I reason that anyone not game to put their real name to something can’t be taken seriously and isn’t worth reading.

In 1884 Boe Vagi stood quietly by while Commodore Erskine took over his country.  The following year Renaki, the leader of Hula village, stood similarly mute when the beachcombers R E Guise and W J Currie ran riot among the village maidens. 

Percy Chatterton described the Papuans by nature as a tolerant, easy-going, complaisant and courteous people and wondered what might have happened if somewhere other than Port Moresby had been the kicking off point for the colonial powers.

And I must admit that that benign nature is one of the most attractive things about the Papuan people.

However, under Australia’s protective umbrella that might have been fine but things are getting tougher by the day and Papua cannot afford to be nice to everyone anymore. 

You cannot continue to let everyone run all over you.  It’s time for Papuans to fearlessly step out of the shadows and say what they mean.  If you are going to rein in your rogue and discriminatory government there is no other way.

IN SECRET US cables released by WikiLeaks, US diplomats have accused the Indonesian military of drug smuggling and illegal logging along the PNG border.

The cables also blame Jakarta for the continuing unrest in the troubled Indonesian province of Papua.

The US embassy in Jakarta admits that Papua “is politically marginalised and many Papuans harbour separatist aspirations”.

Indonesia also has far more troops in Papua than its government is prepared to admit.

The cables blame Jakarta for the instability and chronic underdevelopment of Papua, and accuse military commanders of drug smuggling and illegal logging along the PNG border.

The armed forces are “involved in both illegal logging and drug smuggling in PNG”.

“An ethnic Papuan, Gebze, presides over a regional government where allegations of corruption and brutality are rife.”

Gebze is said to be “out of control” and there have been numerous illegal forestry deals with Chinese and Korean companies.

Source: The National

BY PAUL OATES

I LIVE IN rural Queensland near a town called Boonah where we run a small Droughtmaster cattle stud and grow some cabinet timber.

In essence my wife and I made a classic 'tree change' from our previous work. I had previously spent the best part of 40 years in various areas of government including service in PNG. My wife is a semi-retired specialist physiotherapist.

Health services in PNG are just one of the areas that desperately need attention. There are many other parts of the PNG government that could benefit from a change in direction.

Australian organisations like the Myer Foundation’s Melanesia Program and the Lowy Institute could provide valuable initiatives to help the people of PNG access the services they urgently need.

There is, however, a 'Gordian Knot' that has to be unravelled. I speak of the inertia that has developed between the PNG government and the Australian government on the aid program.

Many well meaning people have worked long and hard to try and improve the life of the PNG people, yet increasingly that nation continues to slide down a one way slope to impending disaster and foreign domination.

Prior to independence in 1975, Australia developed and maintained a framework of government services for all the people of PNG.

Since then foreign aid programs have contributed millions of dollars into what seems like a black hole, where the benchmark for success is inputs rather than outputs.

So, over the last 35 years, instead of improving the lot of PNG’s people, aid programs at best often appear to be of superficial benefit.

BY PETER KRANZ

THE UNIVERSITY OF PNG has a respected Medical School which has been training doctors, health scientists and allied professionals since 1962 (then called the Papuan Medical College). It has been part of UPNG for some time.

The School of Medicine has a museum - little known and infrequently visited. It’s just a small room at the Taurama campus.

You ask the receptionist for the key if you’re interested, which I did one day when I had an hour to spare. The museum is more a collection of medical curiosities from the 19th century than what you’d expect of a typical museum.

Its specimens are dusty and ancient, with peeling Latin labels. Thousands of jars and specimens collected over many years are arranged on ceiling-high shelves. Some date back to early missionary clinics, medical researchers, and even kiaps with an interest in medicine.

The museum is not for the fainthearted. There are human parasites, deformities and curiosities in abundance.

I was looking at a pickled two-headed foetus when I heard a scratching noise above me. I was alone, the lighting was poor and it is a pretty spooky place.

I craned my head and looked up to the corner of the ceiling and saw two red pin-point eyes staring at me. For a short while my imagination ran riot. How many disturbed masalais might be haunting this place?

Then the eyes disappeared and the scratching noise began again. What dark ancient spirits might I have awakened from the past by my ignorant intrusion amongst the preserved remains of so much human suffering and misery?

Then the lights went out (one of the many power black-outs endemic in Moresby).

I made a bolt for the door, managed to scramble it open; getting there at the same time as a large rat, who took one look at me and raced outside - more scared than I was.

Moral - don't visit the Taurama medical museum on your own.

If you’re interested in medical training at UPNG there is an excellent article by Isi Kevau, John Vince and Jean McPherson here.

BY KEITH JACKSON

IT WAS UGLY while it lasted. Voicing abuse like “you have come out on the side of the…paedophiles”, reader ‘Rod Everett’ and half a dozen of his strange friends decided to attack the publisher with offensive comments on PNG Attitude because we had dared to do – what, exactly?

It all began for me with an irritated email from Prof Michael Toole, Head of the Centre for International Health at the Burnet Institute in Melbourne and Professor of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at Monash University.

Michael - like me and many other people including Dame Carol Kidu, Kevin Rudd (yep!), Patrick Levo, Bill Shorten, Corney Alone, Noel Pascoe and Reg Renagi – are, for the most part I would suspect, unwitting and unwilling recipients of regular vulgar, scatological and nauseating emails from Post Moresby-based self-styled HIV/AIDS activist and homophobe Bruce Copeland.

Michael wrote in an email to this group, which Copeland regularly spams with his manic and frequently abusive commentary:

"For too long we have all sat back and accepted Bruce’s sick, anal-obsessed ravings. He can only get away with it because he’s hiding behind the inadequate legal system of PNG. Anywhere else, he would have been sued into bankruptcy. I am tired of our passive compliance ... silently hiding behind our embarrassment and our fear of his disgusting reprisals.”

I responded to the group, including Copeland, as follows:

“As an unwilling recipient of Bruce's email excesses for some time now, I have remained silent in order not to encourage him to further them. As we know, Bruce views our responses - whether outraged or plaintive - as a mere sharpener of his spear.

"But let me lay this challenge to Bruce. That he should ask all of us individual recipients this question: do we wish to receive his emails or not? If we do, and answer him accordingly, he can continue to include us in his network. If we do not wish to receive them, as a man of honour, he should take us off his list. It is time to stand up and ask this question, Bruce. And to honour our responses.”

This straightforward request for Copeland to demonstrate a bit of common courtesy led to a stream of comments on PNG Attitude from ‘Everett’ (Copeland?) and others.

‘Everett’ distinguished (sic) himself by admitting that for months he has been commenting on the blog under the false names of George Manoi, Neil Appleby, Peter O’Donnell and Marilyn Johnston, offering these weasel words:

“Keith - I am not happy that you have come out on the side of the gays/lesbians and paedophiles of Australia in opposing AIDS Holistics. I have been loyal to you for a long time even writing key reports on your blog with false pen names. You have mounted the names on Google so you have been a knowing accomplice. Now I cease.”

“A knowing accomplice”? What, to a deliberate campaign to deceive PNG Attitude? I think not. Taken in by an habitual liar, more like it.

Some funny friends of Everett/Copeland then decided to bombard the site with comments ranging from the deluded to the abusive. One ‘John Kaupa’ even insidiously suggesting, “You’re gay, aren’t you Keith”.

Well, no I’m not. But what if I was?

These half dozen people are low life and their comments were duly removed from the site and their names (phony or real, who knows, who cares) have been blocked from further access and unsusbcribed from the e-magazine mailing list.

Copeland is a purveyor of ignorance and nonsense who specialises in defamatory personal attacks on anyone who disagrees with him. We’ll do our best to keep him and his phony, funny friends off PNG Attitude which is designed for people who have a genuine interest in PNG and the issues it faces.