Henry Bodman (1938-2016) - wrote the first comment published in PNG Attitude

KEITH JACKSON (2011)

SYDNEY - This is a tribute to all those commenters who make PNG Attitude such a lively internet space. When this blog kicked off nearly four years ago, on 26 February 2006, the first comment, from Henry Bodman in Brisbane, appeared the same afternoon. But there wasn’t a helluva lot of commentary back then. I wrote the posts and people read them largely in silence.

It wasn’t really until regular commenters like Paul Oates (first post, 4 November 2007) got into their stride that the interactivity really blossomed. Back then, the site was entitled ASOPA People and it had a much narrower view of its purpose. Its evolution into PNG Attitude came over time and was largely driven by a growing and diversifying readership.

It was never in doubt that the internet could be a strong influence in bringing together Papua New Guineans and Australians who cared about the relationship between our two countries, and who wanted to strengthen it. But for that to happen, the blog had to be a real forum – it had to be interactive, it had to have a wide input from a range of contributors, and it had to be controversial and even irritating.