The late Lloyd Hurrell and Kukukuku man

LLOYD HURRELL (2007)

TWEED HEADS - The Cadet Patrol Officer - who is usually aged between 18 and 25 when he enters the Australian School of Pacific Administration for grounding in such subjects as colonial administration, law, anthropology - gets experience soon enough.

And if he goes into the field with a bright-eyed idealism, it is a good gleam for him to carry. Authority can so easily turn into arrogance - and even the Cadet is at once in a position of considerable authority over natives.

The School represents Australian realisation that well-administered and well-assisted colonial peoples do not revolt and side with the governing nation in war. ASOPA added modern training to a pre-war tradition. About this tradition there is nothing pukkah or military or old-school-tie.

It was ‘Made-In-New Guinea’, and with it goes a spirit of belonging to something that belongs to New Guinea; and that means going through with a job when there would be reason enough to give up or turn back by ordinary standards - but not by New Guinea standards, of what men can do, or forbear to do, if they have enough of staunch wisdom and courage.

It is a tremendously respectable thing in the eyes of the native people, this tradition. So it should be in Australian eyes and, indeed, in the eyes of a world which will have difficulty in pointing to anything quite like it anywhere else.