It might be one reason I’ve never made much money as a writer. But, then again, I don’t do it for the money. For me it is a pleasure and a compulsion.

When I worked as a social mapping consultant in Papua New Guinea and Australia, my poor accountant used to harass me constantly about developing a business plan.

My plan was (a) enjoy myself, (b) make enough money to pay the bills and (c) repeat steps (a) and (b) as long as they worked. It might also be the reason I never made much money as a social mapper.

When I travel I usually have a destination in mind and a vague idea of how to get there. Get off the train, get on an aeroplane, drive up that road, stay at that hotel. For the bits in between I rely on serendipity to get me through.

There are two main types of people in the world, those like me who make it up as they go along and those who meticulously plan every move.

The first typology is the one that generally informed the way the kiaps ran Papua New Guinea before independence. That and the fact that they were so starved of resources planning was next to impossible.

‘We know Papua New Guinea is not quite ready for independence, we don’t really know why but we will let you know when it is, please bear with us until then.’

As we now know, that approach didn’t really catch the imagination of the gurus in Canberra.

The second typology probably describes how Papua New Guinea is run today. It is not dissimilar to the way most countries are run in the 21st century.

Curiously, in Papua New Guinea, the kiap system got things done while the current system seems to have failed.

To my disorganised mind one of Papua New Guinea’s biggest problems is that it is over governed, over regulated and over planned. The government seems to spend more money paying consultants and planning things than it does actually doing anything.

Sometimes the planning get so convoluted that they forget what it was they wanted to achieve in the first place.

If you don’t believe me try going into a government department to get a straight answer on a matter. It can’t be done. After you jump through all the hoops of rules and regulations (not to mention learned bureaucratic habits) you might be lucky enough to emerge with half an answer at best.

It’s not really the Papua New Guinean way. If I go into a village with the right money and ask the people to build me a house somewhere with three rooms and a kitchen and dunny out the back, something like the diagram I’ve just drawn in the dirt, I can come back in a couple of weeks and there it will be. Not quite what I envisaged but eminently satisfactory.

I think regulation and planning are overrated and are used as excuses not to actually do anything except maybe cream off some lucrative fees.

I admit that you have to have accountability, especially in a place like Papua New Guinea where money and resources tend to grow wings, but surely that can be provided in large part by simple results.

If I came back to the village and found the house I wanted built was only half finished and nothing like I’d described, I’d refuse to pay the people the balance of the agreed fee and go somewhere else.

Papua New Guinea, like many countries in the world, including Australia, is process-orientated, not results-orientated. That’s why our schools and hospitals are in such a mess.

Make it simple, make it doable and get on with it.

What’s wrong with that philosophy?