BUKA – The Bougainville Constitutional Planning Commission (BCPC) extended its consultations to Brisbane this week.

This will be the second international consultation to gather views from Bougainvilleans living in Australia.

PORT MORESBY - Community advocacy group Act Now! says a new logging operation in Milne Bay Province could be yet another example of a bogus agriculture project being used as cover for a large-scale forest grab.

The new logging operation began on Sideia Island earlier this year as part of the Loani Bwanabwana Integrated Agro-Forestry Project.

ROB BARCLAY

ADELAIDE – Former policeman, long-term MP Peter Dutton has finally awoken from his torpor and started to make some welcome statements.

Unfortunately, he has a tendency to cherry-pick only those subjects he is interested in.

ISO YAWI

A pure work of fiction based on a poem, The tale of a long road, that I wrote for the 2015 Crocodile Prize - IY

LAE - I was not sure whether Serah would make it to Menyamya station or not.

It would be a three-day walk on the harsh mountain track.  But there was a nurse at the station. This would be our second child. We wanted everything to go well.

KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN

PORT MORESBY - The Marape-Rosso government has announced a Papal state visit to Papua New Guinea from Friday 6 – Monday 9 September and approved a K15 million budget for preparations and security.

At about the same time, the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference made an announcement calling for unity and participation in the visit amidst an array of cooked-up myths and criticisms.

History records that the first Catholic missionaries from France arrived on Yule Island in 1885, establishing the first mission station there.

CAMERON HILL
| Bougainville Copper Limited

Sir Mel Togolo and Andrew Cooper sign the remediation agreement
(PNG Post-Courier)

BUKA - The Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG), Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) and Rio Tinto have signed a memorandum of understanding to address concerns around future risks of ageing infrastructure in the former Panguna mine area.

The agreement is a response to several ageing structures requiring prompt attention identified by an independent legacy impact assessment.

MARK PALM
| Samaritan Aviation Newsletter

WEWAK - One of Samaritan Aviation’s amazing stories is about the first patient we ever flew in 2010.

Her name was Antonia and she had been in labour for three days. She was unconscious when we got the call on Good Friday from the Timbunki Health Centre, located along the Sepik River.

I remember putting the stretcher in the airplane and taking off into the rain and clouds for the 35-minute flight.

ALEX MITCHELL
| Come the Revolution

Alex Mitchell

TWEED HEADS - Former Labor Party prime minister Paul Keating is Australia’s foremost public intellectual.

Love him or loathe him, when he speaks on the ABC, the national broadcaster, people stop eating or talking, and listen.

Keating commands such public attention: he doesn’t ask for it, we give it to him with the same respect we gave prime minister John Curtin when he declared war on Nazi Germany.

MARY PEACHIN
Inside Tucson Business

Tucsonans who know him would agree, Ron Perry has enjoyed one hell of an adventurous live.

For more than 40 years he collected what is considered by experts to be the finest museum of quality Papua New Guinea artifacts.

KEITH JACKSON

Keith in the big person's chair at the exclusive Park Hyatt Dubai.  Right arm bandaged to restrict bleeding from capillary breaches.  Walking stick in hand to restrict falling over.  Sitting in chair also restricts falling over.  "Chairs are of key importance in not falling over," Keith said in a rare public statement. (Photo taken by Ingrid Jackson with Keith's full knowledge )

DUBAI - I'm now in the United Arab Emirates which, the way things are going, could one day own Australia.  Life is very comfortable here. Who needs democracy when you've got plenty of parking, plenty of retail, plenty of billionaires, plenty of air links to everywhere and don't care about the end of the world?

Rome, Spain, Barcelona, Casablanca, Malaga, Gibraltar, Valencia.  Three weeks on a small ocean liner traversing hither and thither on the Mediterranean. Plenty of time for the tropical breezes I recall from my youth to magically spring up and work wonders on my back and my soul.  Being with a splendid wife assists.

CHRIS ASHTON

Chris Ashton, journalist and author - recorder of a time now past in a land we loved so much

PREFACE BY KEITH JACKSON

It was in the late 1990s when Chris Ashton – a fine man and an exquisite writer – accosted me on a Sydney street and re-established what had been a collegial but not close relationship formed in the exciting swirl of 1970s Papua New Guinea.

In pre-independence PNG, we both had exacting roles. Arguably Chris was the leading public recorder and analyst of the massive changes occurring almost daily as the Australian colony hastened towards self-government.

JOE MORRIS & WARREN (WAZA) TURNER

Champion footballer tough politician accomplished diplomat. John Kaputin (centre) seen here at Rabaul airport in 1970 with Australian territories minister Barnes and prime minister Gorton

'The crowd erupted and stormed the fence'

JOE MORRIS
| Original article published 4 December 2007

NEWCASTLE - Digger Annand’s given name was James and he now owns a bottle shop in Newcastle.

I was a member of the DCA side that won in 1966. Barry Kenny, also in the side, later played for Queensland.

JOHN GATES

The 'Pride of Our Nation' Coast Watchers memorial statue in Honiara, Solomon Islands (Courtesy of Martin Hadlow)

NEWSTEAD – On behalf of more than 750 petitioners, late last year I drew the attention of the Brisbane Lord Mayor and Councillors that there is no memorial on the Australian mainland to the Coastwatchers who performed such courageous and vital service in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands during World War II.

Brisbane was the site of the Coastwatchers’ headquarters in the second half of the war and recognition of their amazing achievements and sacrifice is long overdue in Australia, which benefited so much from their bravery.

PAUL KEATING
| Pearls & Irritations

Below Keith Jackson's preamble; overleaf Paul Keating's analysis ....

PREAMBLE - In Anthony (Albo) Albanese, Australia has one of its most timid, dare I say frightened, prime ministers ever to hold the office. It has been clear since the beginning of his term two years ago that his main objective was to not cause any ripples while he secured a further term. Not the Albo I knew 30 or more years ago. A loud-mouthed agent provocateur against the conservative enemy. Provided, of course, he had the protection of more stout-hearted politicians like former prisoner of war Tom Uren (whose protégé he was from a young age) and prime ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating (neither of whom ever thought of him as anything other than a lightweight). Eventually, Albo discovered he’d been around long enough to be considered for greater rewards: leader of the house, then leader of the opposition and now prime minister. A lesson in surviving long enough to become whatever you wish. In this piece, Paul Keating shines light on how the meek Albo and his hapless deputy Marles has turned Australia’s back on Asia and thrown in our lot more comprehensively than ever with the USA and, hard to believe this, with the UK, once of the British Empire - KJ

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

PORT MORESBY - Reports of criminals being paid K300,000 for the release of hostages is troubling, but not a surprise. In Papua New Guinea, we pay for everything.

Our politicians bribe electoral officials to win elections. Prime ministerial candidates pay other politicians to join various camps to form government. When prime ministers underperform, they pay other politicians to keep them in power.

ROB BARCLAY

| A Patrol Officer’s view of modern Australian society

MELBOURNE - In the 1960s and 70s, I found that we Australians were warmly welcomed even in such far-away places as Sri Lanka, Thailand and Mexico. This was because everybody has heard about our Colombo Plan that educated huge numbers of South East Asian people in Australia at our expense.

“We love you white men, you have invented such wonderful things as the airplane, the radio, TV, the refrigerator, the car – even put men on the moon,” people would say. “You have improved our lives with new cash crops and better agriculture, and given us hope. We want to be just like you.”

CHRIS ADAMS

This article records what might otherwise be a forgotten part of the story of rugby league in Papua New Guinea. It is based on discussions with past players and what I’ve read in clippings from old newspapers. It’s not definitive, and I encourage and welcome additions and corrections.

From the 1920s until PNG’s independence in 1975, the then colony was divided into the Territory of Papua and the Territory of New Guinea.

Australia jointly administered both territories, having been given a League of Nations mandate over the former German New Guinea in the early 1920s. The two territories were physically separated by a spine of mountain ranges running east to west across the middle of the island.

MICHAEL DOM

For Sola Gracia

This morning, I heard my mother singing hymns in her bedroom
And I can’t remember a day growing up
When her sometimes slightly off-kilter melody
Was not, for me, the joyous sound-track of dawn

Her faithful reverence filled those spaces in my life
That I may otherwise have silently ignored
Those uninhabited moments were somehow so full
And I know that one day I shall wish them full again.

Lae, 7 August 2024