Dare to dream, but in PNG dreaming’s not enough
19 February 2016
DULCIANA SOMARE-BRASH | Pacific Institute of Public Policy
THERE are many people commenting online on the impacts of decisions taken by the current Papua New Guinea government.
Many express their feelings about a looming fiscal crisis, these range from fury to indifference.
In the haste for change, once again it is easy to assume that a new crop of freshly elected leaders in a newly constituted PNG parliament after 2017 will miraculously create the change PNG needs!
We must not forget that the same laws will apply in the same national parliament and provincial houses of assembly.
In the same national and district courtrooms, case law will grow and precedents will continue to be set in the absence of the hard questions that may never get asked about the blatant breaches in our society and adopted system of government.
From 2017 our leaders will (more than ever before) need the knowledge, political will, grace and patience to restore integrity, democracy and the rule of law as a national emergency in order for all else to be rebuilt without exception.
The truth is a new government in 2017 will inherit inter-generational debt, a massive deficit and redundant parliamentary rules/standing orders governing important decision-making processes. Not to mention the crumbling sanctity of the National Executive Council (Cabinet).
They will realise that legislation set up in principle to provide robust governance mechanisms have been misunderstood or ignored by their predecessors.
In 2017 a newly elected parliament will discover an exhausted public service, a manipulated police force, an angry defence force, and many broken Papua New Guineans with drought and income starved families and disrupted livelihoods.
Those elected members of parliament will find very drained state-owned enterprises, institutions and agencies incapable of operating with only a steady trickle of public funds to deliver wages, health and education or district support according to policies and promises of the past and present.
They will find that the much promised revenues from oil and gas have been committed to paying off the current government’s unilateral decisions and therefore debt for unauthorised loans for generations.
New leaders in 2017 will need to navigate a global economic downturn of epic proportions with PNGs development and economic interests at heart. Our new leaders will discover that our broken service delivery system and our overheated economy will need more than elected candidates with tunnel vision.
Those elected will need to be legislators, not aspiring millionaires or public finance managers. Newly elected leaders will require an understanding of serious fiscal discipline, tax and industrial relations reform and economic modelling that reflect PNG’s economic conditions and our revenue-earning potential in sectors other than petroleum and energy.
PNG will need MPs who are humble yet extraordinary thinkers to guide monetary/fiscal, social, cultural and development policy simultaneously to aid a new-look holistic reconstruction strategy focused on understanding that our vast natural resources should never again be left to a single individual who knows no institutional, spiritual, executive or national boundaries.
Those new MPs should be held to the universal promise that candidates seek election (and re-election) to be servants to their people not master manipulators of their resources.
All the hopes in online commentary revert to a single assumption that PNG will inevitably have free and fair elections next year.
If all we do is dare to dream it’s no longer enough because we will inevitably get what we vote for yet again.
Dulciana Somare-Brash has bachelor degrees in political science & international relations and law from James Cook University. Most recently Dulciana has been Pacific Institute of Public Policy’s deputy executive director and director of operations in PNG
STOP PRESS: Dulciana is the strategic policy adviser in Pangu Pati with Basil - and there wondering if the 'old man' will leave National Alliance and join them for the last gasp...
Posted by: Michael Dom | 16 March 2016 at 01:55 PM
So, like father like, son like daughter?
Or is this a fresh new batch from the ancient vein of PNG politics?
What's her party?
And are we invited?
Posted by: Michael Dom | 16 March 2016 at 12:54 PM
According to Sean Dorney, today 19 February 2016, he feels PNG is not a hopeless case. Do you agree?
19 FEB 2016 - 12:44PM
PNG not a hopeless case: Lowy Institute
Australia must re-engage with Papua New Guinea, according to a new Lowy Institute book. (AAP)
Australia must shake its embarrassed colonialist past and re-engage with Papua New Guinea, according to a new Lowy Institute book.
Source: AAP
19 FEB 2016 - 10:52 AM UPDATED 9 HOURS AGO
Australia needs to stop treating Papua New Guinea like an "unfortunate illegitimate child" that it's ashamed of and beef up genuine engagement with its closest neighbour.
That is the conclusion of a new Lowy Institute book called Embarrassed Colonialist, by Walkley Award winning former ABC Port Moresby correspondent Sean Dorney.
"While Papua New Guinea has its challenges it is not a hopeless case," Mr Dorney writes, pointing to its strong economic growth, a huge LNG project, resilient women, free media, boundless natural beauty and huge tourism potential.
"Australians need to move beyond this corrosive belief that no amount of Australian aid money will fix PNG's problems or that nothing good can come out of a deeper engagement with our former colony."
Mr Dorney laments that Australia's role in helping to give birth to an independent country is not part of the school curriculum in Australia.
"While there were some things from the colonial era that we should not celebrate, helping give birth to another nation should have been one of our proudest achievements," he said.
"Instead we seem to have become so embarrassed by our performance, so politically correct that we don't want to teach our children that we were colonialists ourselves once."
A lack of media coverage of PNG was also disappointing, he said, with only an ABC correspondent now based in Port Moresby.
PNG is Australia's largest aid recipient, receiving half a billion dollars a year.
"Throwing money at PNG is definitely not enough... we need to understand PNG," he said.
Mr Dorney called for a rethink of the aid relationship, saying there needed to be renewed focus on increasing capacity of PNG government officials rather than simply implanting Australian officials in the local bureaucracy.
Both countries needed to make it easier for people to obtain visitor and business visas, Mr Dorney said.
Despite being a former colony, Australia had no special migration scheme favouring PNG.
There were more Cook Islanders in Australia than Papua New Guineans despite the Cooks being a former colony of New Zealand and PNG being 430 times larger in population.
This was because NZ welcomed people from Pacific nations such as the Cook Islands, Samoa and Tonga, and then they came to Australia through the back door.
Papua New Guineans were also under-represented in Australia's seasonal-worker program which brought Pacific islanders to Australia to fill skills gaps in industries such as horticulture.
FACTS ABOUT AUSTRALIA AND PNG
* PNG celebrated its 40th anniversary of independence in 2015.
* More Australians died in PNG in WWII than anywhere else in the world.
* Australian MPs with PNG connections: Foreign Minister Julie Bishop had a penpal from PNG as a year-nine student and has family members who have spent time there. Labor's immigration spokesman Richard Marles went there on a school trip at age 16.
* PNG is a country of 1000 unique tribes and 800 languages.
* Australian investment in PNG comes in at $19 billion and two-way annual trade is $7 billion.
* An estimated 30,000 Australian visitors go to PNG a year and more than 5000 walk the Kokoda Track.
* At its closest point the northern-most Queensland island in the Torres Straits are four kilometres from the PNG coast.
See http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/02/19/png-not-hopeless-case-lowy-institute
Posted by: Vikki John | 19 February 2016 at 09:00 PM
Sounds like a response inspired by a poem I read somewhere...
"Did then we dare to dream
And transcend as one?
Have our ancestors been told
How far we have come?
What do we tell of?
What praise, what glory,
That children will hear
As pleasant bedtime stories?"
The poem can be found here http://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2011/03/yesterday-we-dreamed.html
Posted by: Michael Dom | 19 February 2016 at 12:47 PM
Well Barbara, maybe you've nailed it in one.
PNG currently doesn't have enough money to hold a general election? So why bother? Let's defer the whole exercise. After all, we'll only end up with the same type of people in charge as we have now.
You can see how the logic might go....
Posted by: Paul Oates | 19 February 2016 at 12:02 PM
Over the past two years while I have been writing on the Sepik Forum I have noticed this constant power struggle going on between the Sepiks and the Highlanders.
I think some of it goes back to what happened when Somare was sick for so long and O'Neill took over as PM in a way which Sepiks believe was illegal. I feel Dulciana is referring to that when she mentions restoring the "rule of law".
But some of it is the way O'Neill is replacing a lot of the top public servants, the Secretaries of Government departments, who are Sepiks, with Highlanders. Maybe they are part of the "exhausted public service".
Sometimes there may be some sense in it but he has broken the rules at times and many of these Sepiks have appealed against the termination of their contracts. Some of these appeals seem to be still pending.
If the Sepiks speak out about all the troubles with O'Neill, which they do, they can be seen to being anti-Highlanders.
But I can assure you that the Sepiks are speaking out about all the current problems and there have been many wise comments. O'Neill has pursued the development of the big mines, and allowed the selling off of the timber, etc and a lot of money has come into the country.
But he has spent a lot of it on developing Port Moresby and he has not maintained the infrastructure nor maintained the education and health services to a reasonable level throughout the rest of the country. Many fear that a lot of the money has been stolen by O'Neill and his friends.
He has neglected village agriculture but when he does show an interest in agriculture, it involves allowing foreign firms to come in and introduce large commercial farms. He has not promoted village development.
At the moment, with all the comments about the government being broke, one wonders if they will be able to find enough money to run the elections next year.
Windmills, or dragons, or giant pukpuks, etc what does it matter...just so long as you "fight for the right....and the world will be better".
Posted by: Barbara Short | 19 February 2016 at 09:54 AM
That song is about a guy who thought windmills were dragons Barbara.
Posted by: Philip Fitzpatrick | 19 February 2016 at 08:26 AM
Dulciana, what a wonderful and eloquent description of the enormous hurdle facing the next crop of PNG political leaders in 2017.
So having effectively described the problem, now what is the answer?
There is a finely balanced tight wire that now must be trod and up until the election by those who seek to pull their country back from the abyss. They must create an awareness without causing panic. They must:
1. Effectively and colloquially explain to the electorate in terms that can be understood what has happened and is happening to PNG and why its happened, then
2. Explain the those who vote that unless and until they vote for someone with a proven record of achievement and honest and ethical leadership they will only end up with the same result as before.
Clearly there are those around who could effectively broadcast this message to the voting public. The real question is, why this isn't happening now.
Is it because the voting public aren't ready for the message?
Is it because those who could and would lead PNG on a better road aren't being supported by those who want a better deal for their country and their children?
Emmanuel Narokobi has tried to start debate with his initiative 'Tanim Graun' but this is clearly not getting to the heart of the PNG voting public. Don Polye has taken a stand against the bankrupting loan PM O'Neill presided over. Gari Juffa has taken a stand over corruption and poor government services. Others have taken similar stands in their own way.
Therein lies the nub of the problem. Speaking out on a controversial subject is not a traditional PNG way. In the village, a tough subject must be approached obliquely and explained by parables and examples so as not to denigrate anyone or give offense. (Olsem Tok Bokis Ya!) This is diametrically opposed to the principle of government and opposition that is the bread and butter of a Westminster system.
Will PNG simply re-elect the same old, same old in 2017? Will it therefore simply be trapped like a spider, caught in it's own web by the constraints of her own traditional culture?
Posted by: Paul Oates | 19 February 2016 at 08:25 AM
We need to be reminded of all the words of that song by Joe Darion....
To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star
This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far
To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause
And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest
And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star
Posted by: Barbara Short | 19 February 2016 at 07:46 AM