BERNARD CORDEN

Under conditions of tyranny, it is far easier to act than to think - Hannah Arendt

BRISBANE - During the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison carousel, a miasma of malfeasance, skulduggery, intimidation and incompetence shrouded almost every ministerial role and portfolio.

It increased exponentially following the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 and has since degenerated into a pernicious paradigm of Gangster Capitalism, reminiscent of the illegal narcotics trade with its rancorous gangland turf wars.

BERNARD CORDEN

Even if the workers die like flies, they will never
be able to pin anything on CSR - Norman Irving

BRISBANE - During the many cabinet reshuffles over the past decade, one of the most intriguing sinecures involved the appointment of a celebrity woodentop as Australia’s foreign minister.

The Menzies glamour puss represented the constituency of Curtin in Western Australia, which encompassed several of Perth’s exclusive beach side suburbs.

DOUGLAS PATIKEN BARARA

PORT MORESBY - On the eve of our 50th anniversary, the identity of our country is slowly being erased by Western dictate but none of us cares about it let alone wants to stop it.

Cheerfully we rejoice in the dilapidation of our motherland. Not only is Western influence colonising our land and resources (the very fabric of our identity), the real takeover is happening in our minds.

CATHY TUKNE
| Information Coordinator | Act Now!

Papua New Guinea (PNG) stands at a crossroads. For decades, its development narrative has been dominated by resource extraction gold, copper, oil, gas, timber, and palm oil, promising prosperity but delivering inequality.

While foreign corporations profit, most Papua New Guineans remain marginalized, their environments scarred, and their futures uncertain.

BERNARD CORDEN

Where there is shouting there is no true knowledge - Leonardo da Vinci

BRISBANE - Another insufferable and irascible cabinet minister was an instantly abhorrent loudmouth senator for Western Australia. The Subiaco Xanthippe must use the same hairdresser as Donald Trump and has a unique, but rather endearing, ability of making her face disappear when she opens her gob.

At most of her media conferences, the harridan senator appears to be following the bouncing ball on an autocue or karaoke machine. The ensuing stentorian racket could be used much more productively as a foghorn on the Manly ferries or for scaring ibises from the runways at Sydney’s international airport.

PAUL FRENCH

LONDON, UK - Papua New Guinea, or simply PNG, sandwiched between Indonesia and Australia. A confection of over 800 languages and dialects.

The capital, Port Moresby (Pom City) is generally regarded as a tough town, a hardship posting for diplomats and foreign correspondents, a potentially dangerous place for business executives.

JOSEPH GUENZLER
| First Nations Writers Festival

Daniel Kumbon

FAR NORTH QUEENSLAND - Pacific authors have been honoured in Townsville for their stories of culture, conflict and resilience.

Winners of the 2025 First Nations Writers Festival have been announced, celebrating authors from Papua New Guinea, Bougainville and the broader Pacific who are using literature to share vital cultural and personal narratives.

Daniel Kumbon, from Enga Province in Papua New Guinea, received a book award for 'They Chose Peace', a deeply personal reflection on tribal conflict, national identity and healing.

EDITED BY KEITH JACKSON

51-YEAR RELATIONSHIP
| John Gordon-Kirkby

Author Daniel Kumbon and I first met in 1974 when I, as a kiap, was on a pre independence educational patrol. He was at home from high school. We corresponded for a while till I “went finish”. Fifty years later, with the internet, we linked up again to renew the friendship , now stronger than ever.

BERNARD CORDEN

Never seen so many men ask you if you wanted to dance - Chris de Burgh

BRISBANE - The Fly-In-Fly-Out (FIFO) regime of working at parliament house in Canberra would be better described as Fit-In-Or-Fcuk-Off and underpinned by the traditionally masculine aphorism…. What happens in Canberra, stays in Canberra.

Under Malcolm Turnbull’s administration back in 2017, the human services minister Alan Tudge and his media adviser, Rachelle Miller, were involved in a clandestine but consensual extra-marital relationship.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY  BAY - Humans didn’t start killing each other on a large scale until after they discovered agriculture and became sedentary about 10,000 years ago.

That was when land and its possession first became an integral part of human life. The further conglomeration of land into nation states turned that possession into something positively evil. 

That evil has dogged humanity ever since.

EDDIE TANAGO
| Campaign Manager | Act Now!

PORT MORESBY - Recent news story about communities in Morobe using profits from cocoa farming to pay for solar powered street lights in their villages is encouraging and positive.

Such initiatives drive economic independence, a sense of community and self-reliance.

LUKE HAMER
| Chief Pilot, Samaritan Aviation

WEWAK - At Samaritan Aviation, our mission to bring the hope of the Gospel to remote hospitals begins long before we reach a patient’s bedside. Serving the people along Papua New Guinea’s Sepik River takes preparation.

In our Aviation Department, we need both a plane and a pilot ready. One without the other, and we’re grounded.

Pamela Cowley Virtue
| PNG Association of Australia

SYDNEY - I was one of the two European survivors from Higaturu at the eruption of Mt Lamington. The full details are in our book, The Volcano’s Wife (from which I take no proceeds at all). I’d just like to clear up a few points.

Mt Lamington had not started to erupt ‘some week or so previously’. The local people and government officials were not at all upset at that time.

KEITH JACKSON

The Cricketer (illustration by Harry Lake, Kundiawa News 1964)

NOOSA - The dateline tells you we're back in Noosa after one of those nightmare trips you'd want to forget except for the fund of future yarns it will yield.

I was discharged from the France-Vietnam Hospital in Saigon on Monday after a week in situ with sepsis, which triggered a bunch of other unpleasantness around the body.

Some of the details even made my GP, usually so composed, appear bemused.

But now's the time for apologies and a promise to make up time when the opportunity arises over the next week or so.

Meanwhile the weather in  Noosa is sublime. As am I.

MARIAN FAA
| Extracts

Complete story here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-06/australians-from-icac-png-embroiled-in-chaos-police-complaints/105381984

PORT MORESBY - Papua New Guinea's peak anti-corruption body is on the brink of implosion as its three commissioners from Australia and New Zealand level criminal allegations at each other.

The country's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) began operating in 2023 but has been hamstrung by feverish leadership tensions.

EDDIE TANAGO
| Campaign Manager, Act Now!

PORT MORESBY - Community advocacy organisation Act Now is calling on prime minister Marape and regulatory agencies to take urgent action to address huge discrepancies in log export values revealed in a recent report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The findings are based on log export monitoring reports and Chinese customs data and show foreign owned logging companies could be defrauding the PNG government and resource owners out of billions of kina in revenues.

BERNARD CORDEN

It just didn’t happen - Christian Porter

BRISBANE - Unchristian Porter, a Frank Spencer doppelganger, was the son of Charles Michael (Chilla) Porter, former Olympian and general secretary of the Liberal Party of Australia. The favourable bloodline included his grandfather, the late Charles Robert Porter, a member for the redneck electorate of Toowong in deep north Queensland, who served as a minister under that imperious dullard, Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen.

This pedigree of perceived privilege enabled a brisk ascent through state and federal politics and generated egotistical aspirations of becoming prime minister. During a tenure as social services minister, the power trip involved implementation of the federal government’s callous Centrelink Robodebt recovery scheme and the inhumane cashless welfare card, amidst sinister recommendations covering mandatory drug testing of welfare recipients.