MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

Engans desperately try to dig for victims of the landslide (UNDP)

PORT MORESBY - I’ve never been a fan of Job Pomat (and for good reason), but what he said today in parliament is that what every national leader should say and do in times of disaster.

After the prime minister and opposition leader had belatedly spoken about the Enga landslide and offered condolences, Pomat, speaking in Pidgin, said something along the lines of the following:

NEWS DESK
| Bougainville News

          Bougainvilleans want compensation for environmental damage caused by the Panguna mine (Radio New Zealand)

BUKA - A class action involving thousands of people is being brought against Rio Tinto and Bougainville Copper Ltd over the environmental and social destruction wrought by the Panguna mine in the autonomous region of Bougainville.

The action is headed by Martin Miriori, the brother of Bougainville’s first president, Joseph Kabui, and former secretary of the separatist Bougainville Interim Government during the civil war.

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

Likely challenger Allan Bird and troubled prime minister James Marape. Bird is the highly respected Governor of East Sepik Province (Radio New Zealand)

PORT MORESBY - Pangu Pati, the leading coalition partner in the current Papua New Guinea government, has split.

My test for a successful change in government in PNG is when there is a significant split within the biggest coalition party.

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

Publicly criticising the judiciary is usually a bad idea.
(Bing image inspiration created by by AI)

PORT MORESBY – The recent arrest and refusal of bail for social activist and political commentator Samson Komati arrest is reminiscent of Bryan Kramer’s arrest before he became an MP. Bryan was an activist and a prolific social media commentator on politics and related matters.

Under two prime ministers, Papua New Guinea has become a place where social media activists are arrested and jailed.

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

Rainbow Paita MP  -  one of the backroom operatives always in with a chance of running the country (Facebook)

PORT MORESBY - Rainbow Paita is the MP for Finschhafen Open and a senior minister in the Marape coalition government.

Paita’s name often floats around when attempts of a vote of no confidence occur aimed at securing the prime minister’s position.  Either he’s a candidate or a behind the scenes operative.

JAMES CHIN
| An extract from Chapter 4 of The Chinese in Papua New Guinea: Past, Present and Future, edited by Anna Hayes, Rosita Henry & Michael Wood, Australian National University, 2024

Link here to the entirety of Chapter 4: The rise and rise of China: Contemporary Chinese community in PNG (2010–2020) by James Chin

Port Moresby cafe scene (Generated by Copilot AI 18 May 2024)

Introduction

CANBERRA - In a period of one decade (2010–2020), the power balance among the Chinese community in Papua New Guinea has shifted significantly from the PNG born Chinese and the Southeast Asian Chinese to mainland Chinese.

The speed of this transition has been remarkable. However, the trend in PNG is consistent with global trends where the rapid rise of China has totally changed the environment that is familiar to the West.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK
| Illustrations generated by Copilot

TUMBY BAY - Humans have always told stories. It’s something that distinguishes us from our animal peers and contributes to our inflated perception of ourselves as special beings.

Our stories are an essential part of our character and personality.

IAN LING-STUCKEY *
| Academia Nomad

PORT MORESBY - Once again, the opposition is trying to mislead the people of Papua New Guinea in recent statements that PNG is printing money to fund the budget deficit.

This is just wrong. The International Monetary Fund verifies this is wrong. It is a condition of the IMF program that PNG does not print money to finance the deficit.

ALLAN BIRD*
| Academia Nomad

WEWAK - I disagree with the position of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in relation to the devaluation of the kina now underway.

The IMF believes that depreciating the kina will encourage exports and assist PNG production. In fact the opposite is true.

In the last 49 years, the PNG economy has not diversified much and therefore a significant depreciation is not going to automatically result in increased production and exports.

We had a significant depreciation 24 years ago which did not result in any significant benefits. It just led to more hardship for ordinary people.

This is because PNG has not invested in the productive capacity of the economy.  It is not possible to quickly increase production.

Only the extractive sector is able to do that, but almost all of these companies are operating at peak or declining capacity.

I just saw a 10kg bag of rice increase from K50 to K56, the second price increase this year.

Depreciation is already hurting ordinary people. While some low income earners are getting a tax break, the vast majority of people in the informal sector cannot access similar assistance.

The Marape government in chasing cheap loans and having resorted to printing money may have unknowingly placed a rope around the necks of ordinary citizens.

I believe a reasonable kina trading band of around 30 US cents and 40 Australian cents is what we should be aiming for.

We must restrain government borrowings and improve fiscal discipline. We must live within our means.

We must also redirect spending not just on economic enablers but also on the productive capacity of the various sectors.

We must also look at tax incentives to encourage private sector investment to help diversify our economy.

We must decentralise our government structure as a means of encouraging spread of private sector investments. The engine room for growth is in the provinces, not in Waigani.

We must have a smaller central government that oversees provinces and doesn't compete with them.

We need to expand private sector investment and support private sector to grow both the economy and jobs. It is not government that grows the economy, private sector does that.

Too much government control, coupled with corruption is killing our economy.

The Marape government has borrowed K32 billion over the last five years but has only proven that it is incapable of growing the economy. Economic growth has lagged behind this government borrowing.

I hope all current and future leaders learn something from this grave mistake and not repeat it in the future.

We have a situation in our country where the government thinks it should be running businesses - and it fails miserably. We should focus on governing and leave business to the private sector.

It's time for a reset. Marape has taken PNG backwards by 20 years. It's time to take PNG forward.

* Allan Bird is Governor of East Sepik Province in Papua New Guinea and is seen as a likely candidate for prime minister after the next national election

KEITH JACKSON

ASOPA students circa 1960 (National Archives of Australia)

SYDNEY - Alexandra Frost is a higher degree research student at the University of Sydney, investigating the student experience, education and training at the Australian School of Pacific Administration (ASOPA).

As part of her research, Alexandra is conducting a survey of people who attended, taught or worked at ASOPA during its 27-year lifetime from 1946 to 1973.

ALLAN BIRD
| Academia Nomad | Edited

We must spend our money wisely (Generated with AI ∙ 8 May 2024)

WEWAK - Papua New Guinea prime minister James Marape’s response to concerns raised by ordinary people about the rising cost of living leaves much to be desired.

The biggest contributor to inflation and the depreciation of the kina over the last five years is the spending behaviour of the national government.

EDDIE TANAGO
| Campaign Manager, Act Now!

PORT MORESBY – The community advocacy group, Act Now, has urged the Papua New Guinea government to stop the ongoing abuse of agricultural clearing permits being used as a cover for large-scale logging.

Forest Clearing Authorities are routinely misused to facilitate large-scale illegal and unsustainable logging.

MICHAEL E MILLER
| Washington Post | Extract

Bougainvillean guerilla fighters of the 1990s civil war. Thirty years later the Toroama government faces challenges of equal enormity

ARAWA— On a warm morning in November, a barrel-chested and battle-scarred man arrived to Capitol Hill in Washington USA for a meeting he hoped would help save his struggling homeland.

Ishmael Toroama was introduced to two members of the US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party as the president of Bougainville. But his previous occupation was evident in the arm that hung limply at his left side as he shook the lawmakers’ hands.

PATRICK KAIKU

Papua New Guinean boatmen transport Allied supplies in World War II (US Library of Congress)

WAIGANI - After a visit to the Veteran’s War Memorial in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on 17 April, president Joe Biden gave a speech to a crowd of supporters.

Attempting to personalise his family’s life story within the larger narrative of his country’s wartime sacrifices, he made passing reference to Ambrose Finnegan, his uncle who served in the Pacific theatre of World War II.

PATRICK KAIKU

WAIGANI - After a visit to the Veteran’s War Memorial in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on 17 April, president Joe Biden gave a speech to a crowd of supporters.

Attempting to personalise his family’s life story within the larger narrative of his country’s wartime sacrifices, he made passing reference to Ambrose Finnegan, his uncle who served in the Pacific theatre of World War II.

PREVIEW
| Amazon Books

Edgar and Eve by Philip Fitzpatrick, Independently Published, April 2024, 344 pages. ISBN-13:‎ 979-8323956722.  Available here from Amazon Australia Services Inc. Kindle $1.53. Paperback $18.32.

SYDNEY - Just imagine, the world in turmoil, not with war but something much more terrible.

VARIOUS AUTHORS

Image Creator-generated AI image using DALL·E 3

“The new national literature of PNG emerged from the [University of PNG’s] literature department beginning in the mid-1960s shortly after the institution was established. Leading up to formal independence from Australia in 1975, the curriculum of the literature department was deliberately developed with a decolonising agenda. The first cohort of creative writing students self-consciously penned what would be considered the first texts of the new nation. Yet, this pioneering endeavor was subject to outside impositions of ideas of cultural authenticity” - Marlo Starr in Ondobondo’s visual publics: Small print culture in PNG