Context is important here because it is rare for a government minister to step aside.

Firstly, it possible to argue that Tkatchenko wouldn’t have stepped aside if it wasn’t for the visit of United States’ president Joe Biden.

Prime minister James Marape may have asked Tkatchenko to take this step to avoid any protests during the Biden visit.

Don’t for one second think Tkatchenko was doing the honourable thing by stepping aside after calling the people he represents in the international arena “primitive animals”.

Second, the rise of social media and its impact on shaping politics in PNG cannot be understated.

A friend of mine who does research on the role of technology on politics - digital politics - told me that because of the sheer numbers of PNG Facebook users, if they focus on one thing it dominates social media sites in the Pacific.

On every social media site, the Tkatchenko saga dominated the conversation.

The story about Tkatchenko’s trip was first shared on social media before print media and the ABC picked it up.

Third, student-led protest has once again showed it plays an important role in PNG politics.

On Thursday 11 May, students from the University of Papua New Guinea protested on the streets calling for Tkatchenko to step down.

In my view, this protest broke the camel’s back, and forced Tkatchenko to step aside.

In PNG, the student-led protests usually gets the political elite’s attention.

Protests organised by unions and NGOs never gets nationwide support like a student-led protest does.

There is pride among the rural majority when the students lead the protest.

About 85% of Papua New Guineans reside in rural areas, many of them illiterate. The students see themselves as the voice of this rural majority.

Fourth is the controversy itself: a white man (citizen or not) calling Papua New Guineans “primitive animals”.

Many people forget that less than 50 years ago, Australia was ruling PNG as a paternalistic colonial master.

As this current controversy raged on, I was reading Ben Reilly’s article in 1999 on the historical explanations of weak political party systems in PNG, and wondered if deep down PNG still holds a deep resentment against Australians. Tkatchenko is originally from Australia.

When the first Papua New Guineans were elected to the House of Assembly in 1964, they were deprived of any real power.

Real political power remained in the hands of the colonial administration, and ultimately with the Australian government, which retained a power of veto over House of Assembly legislation.

This led to an imbalance between the executive and legislative roles of the House of Assembly: a parliament that facilitated representation, but had little or no real power.

Paul Hasluck called the House of Assembly a glorified debating chamber, “a place for the expression of opinion,” than a functioning legislature. Elected members predominantly saw themselves as “apprentice politicians rather than as parliamentarians elected to govern the country” (Reilly, 1999).

By branding Papua New Guineans primitives, Justin Tkatchenko consciously or unconsciously reverted to the racial superiority mindset of the colonial administration.

If an indigenous Papua New Guinean MP called his own people “primitive animals”, I wonder if he would have attracted the same level of criticism.

Finally, Tkatchenko is a controversial politician with a ton of baggage.

He was APEC minister in 2018 when PNG hosted the APEC meeting. He bought 40 luxury Maserati cars for world leaders to use, each costing about K1 million.

Due to allegations of corruption around the purchase of the Maseratis, no world leader used them.

About K40 million worth of Maseratis were kept in a shed in Port Moresby rusting away. This issue has never been investigated.

Many people have wanted to see Tkatchenko face the law for a long time.

A confluence of factors explains why Tkatchenko stepped aside.

PNG politicians rarely step aside, and that’s why you see PNG social media celebrating this little gain.