This time round, if inbound foreign minister Julie Bishop finds herself distracted by other pressing international issues, the Pacific may have to get used to being ignored.

Ms Bishop has said she will visit PNG during the course of next week. We’ll see. If she does, that will be a promising sign. But we’ll all be looking at the follow-up. Promises are easy; action is complex.

I make those observations in full recognition that PNG and the Pacific may not care too much about whether Australia – which is regarded by the island states as being increasingly irrelevant to their future – seeks to exercise deputy sheriff-type oversight over regional affairs.

As China and the US contest this part of the world, so Melanesia in particular knows that it is in a strengthening position to leverage its global position and its growing resource base to tread a path of its own.

Meanwhile, to a somewhat more light-hearted anecdote from Peter Kranz:

Elections in PNG are fun (and dangerous).

Officials try to stop multiple voting by stamping your hand with indelible ink once you've voted.

There were blokes outside the voting stations doing a roaring trade in wiping the ink clear with dry-cleaning fluid for just a few toea. Quite enterprising I thought.

Some of my staff had a competition running for who could vote the most times. The winner boasted he'd managed five!

Of course this would never happen in Australia. Or would it?

http://www.amymcgrath.com.au/Books/thefraudingofvotesBB.htm