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.

KEITH JACKSON

Timeline Papua New Guinea: 1949-1975 by Bill Brown MBE, a photographic memoir of the development and birth of a nation. Available free for viewing at YouTube here

The Brown family in 1966:  Michael,  Pamela,  David & the Great Man himself

NOOSA – A couple of years ago, Bill Brown emailed me a link to a project he was working on and which was nearing completion.

Timeline Papua New Guinea: 1949-1975 is a slide-based memoir that traverses PNG’s critical years from the early post-war period to 1975, the year of its independence.

KEITH JACKSON

Photograph from the National Archives of Australia

NOOSA - In 1958, Adelaide based writer Alan Seymour put the finishing touches on a major project, his play The One Day of the Year was at last finished.

The play was drawn from Seymour’s observations of the poor behaviour of Australia’s ex-servicemen on Anzac Day, which had been instituted in 2016 to mark the invasion of Turkey by Australian and New Zealand troops on 25 April 1915.

ALLAN PATIENCE *
| Pearls & Irritations

Dr Allan Patience writes that Australia's racist tradition was originally articulated by white supremacist Henry Parkes (Sir Henry Parkes Archives)

MELBOURNE - In 1890 Henry Parkes [who was premier of the colony of New South Wales] spoke of “the crimson thread of kinship running through us all.”

He believed this ‘crimson thread’ – evocative of blood – united all white people in the Australian colonies and bound them to Britain.

JOHN GREENSHIELDS

| Extracts of a letter from Mr Greenshields to Australian environment minister Tanya Plibersek, and copied to foreign affairs minister Senator Penny Wong and arts minister Tony Bourke MP

MILLSWOOD, SOUTH AUSTRALIA - This article is based on a letter I recently wrote requesting the Australian government to consider including the grave of Sir John Hubert Plunkett Murray in Australia's List of Overseas Places of Historic Significance.

In the above photo, taken in 1907, Murray is seen with a member of his staff at Government House in Port Moresby.

ANCIE SCHINDLER
| A 1953 memoir in the possession of Ancie's son, Dr Ivan Schindler

ROSEWOOD, QLD - The road from The Highlands to the Markham Valley floor had become a reality. A road, did I say, more like a track, which wound down the steep mountain sides to the flat Markham Valley.

The only Europeans to have travelled it as yet were the ADO (Acting District Officer) Kainantu and the PO (Patrol Officer) Rupert Haviland, who was in charge of the labour cutting out the track.

JUDITH WHITE
| Culture Heist

TWEED HEADS - Yesterday should have been a day when we all walked a little taller as Australians. When we took a step towards healing with First Nations peoples, and a reckoning with the colonial past. Instead we have a day of pain and shame that many will struggle to overcome. Instead, it was day of pain for all of us who voted Yes, but far more so for Indigenous Australians who generously offered the hand of reconciliation, only to have it rebuffed.

PAUL MINGA
| Ples Singsing

PORT MORESBY - The unexpected buzzing of the helicopter took my attention by storm.

It was landing near Kerowil Singirok, the present base of the PNG Defence Force Engineering Battalion in the Highlands, and on board was Papua New Guinea’s first prime minister, Michael Thomas Somare.

BAKA BINA

PORT MORESBY - What the heck is a crocodile walk? Commenting on the First Nations Writers Festival, I blurted out the words originally said in passing during my short stint in the Army.

I had used them in my book, ‘Operesin Kisim Bek Lombo’, published in 2020 by Amazon KDP.  I have since been asked what it means one time too many.

MICHAEL TAM

Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii (1840-2017) was against the Reciprocity Treaty, believing it heralded an American takeover of her kingdom. She was correct

PARI - What kind of danger does a nation face when the United States wants to establish a military base on its sovereign territory? Let me first review the history of how the Hawaiian kingdom died.

Some 3,200 kilometers away from the US mainland, Hawaii’s central Pacific location has long been of strategic military importance.

KEITH JACKSON

Red feather headdress from Telofomin in Sandaun Province  (Belinda Christie)

NOOSA – Papua New Guinea, in all of its many modes, is an exciting place – and you don’t necessarily have to go there to get a taste of some of its exuberance and beauty.

The Australian Museum, in Sydney established as Australia’s first public museum in 1827 to procure ‘many rare and curious specimens of Natural History’, has an association of over 150 years with Papua New Guinea.

BONIFACE KAIYO & KEITH JACKSON

PORT MORESBY – On 1 May 1963, the United Nations transferred the administration of West New Guinea to the Republic of Indonesia. The capital Hollandia was immediately renamed Kota Baru.

West Papuan nationalism and desire for self-determination that had consolidated in the wake of the long deadlock between Indonesia and the Netherlands after Indonesia declared its independence at the end of World War II had not borne fruit.

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

PORT MORESBY - When Kiribati left the Pacific Islands Forum after the Forum (including Australia and New Zealand) failed to honour a gentleman’s agreement to let its leadership rotate to a Micronesian nation, it was Fiji which brought Kiribati back into the fold.

After becoming prime minister late last year, he went to Kiribati and, along with his delegation, sat on the grass in the sun.

Jacksons International AIrport Port Moresby (peace-on-earth.org)

JOHN MENADUE
| Pearls & Irritations

SYDNEY - And the anti-China media beat-ups continue, this time over possible Chinese naval bases in the South Pacific.

The anti-China campaign never stops: Hong Kong; Xinjiang; debt traps; the tennis player Peng Shuai, who was ‘disappeared’; Covid policies that were too strict and then too permissive; a property collapse; a shrinking economy now growing too fast; and renewed beat ups about Chinese military bases in the South Pacific.

ROSS JOHNSON

SYDNEY – Having been recruited into the Administration of Papua and New Guinea in 1952, I soon found myself as a student at the Australian School of Pacific Administration (ASOPA) in Sydney.

The six-week ‘short course’ for cadet patrol officers (pikinini kiaps) was an integral part of Australia’s post-war determination to bring modern and robust governance to the then two separate territories.

BAL KAMA
| ConstitutionNet | IDEA International

Originally published as ‘The future of governance in Papua New Guinea: consultations begin on form and system of government’

THE HAGUE - Papua New Guinea is currently undertaking consultations for potential constitutional reforms on a range of issues in relation to its form and system of government.

Key questions include the suitability of its current model of parliamentary governance and the relevance of a British monarch as the Head of State.

The role of the Head of State (currently Charles III, represented by a Governor-General) is limited to ceremonial duties, with a prime minister in charge of the affairs of the country.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - I am sure Phil Fitzpatrick is correct when he writes that Australia could have been a better coloniser.

That said though, I am sure that Australia was very far from the worst colonial power in history.

In my estimation, Australia's colonial model was perhaps the most fundamentally benign version devised during the European imperial era.

Britain did not resist Germany colonising north-east New Guinea in 1884 because it sought German support on more urgent matters. Australia seized the colony early in World War I (Deutsche Welle)

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - During my short career as a kiap, I often pondered my presence in Papua New Guinea. What was I doing there and why was I doing it?

Kiap, didiman, tisa, kuskus, dokta, ansini, kamda* - I suppose we were all missionaries with the same message to sell.

Fr Rex Dokta speaks at his ordination

LEO NOKI

Leo Noki is CEO of the Mt Hagen City Authority.
This article is derived from the speech Mr Noki
gave on behalf of the KomKui community at
the ordination of Father Rex Andrew Dokta

MT HAGEN - The Catholic Church in the Western Highlands Province conducts its mission under the leadership of Archbishop Douglas Young with the support of the more than 200,000 Catholic congregation.

I should note here that Holy Trinity Cathedral in Mt Hagen was opened and dedicated by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle only in October last year.

PETER KRANZ

MORRISET – ‘Aus dem Leben der Kate auf Deutsch-Neuguinea’ (‘From the life of the Kate in German New Guinea’ may well be the first moving film made in what is now Papua New Guinea.

It was the creation of Professor Richard Neuhauss (1855-1915), an ethnologist from Berlin on an expedition to German New Guinea in 1909.

I was very excited to find this 114 year old 16mm film about Kate’s life in German New Guinea.

MATHIAS KIN
| Facebook

KUNDIAWA - There was some doubt in the sixties about how a country of 800 different tribes speaking 800 languages would come together under one united government.

These feelings were expressed freely by Australians as well as New Guineans.

Many expressed that New Guineans themselves were not developed and that the economy and infrastructure were not ready for self-rule.

MARTIN AWAYANG NAMORONG

PORT MORESBY - The Hela were some of the last people in Papua New Guinea to have contact with Europeans.

And one of the first outsiders to have contact with them was Jim Taylor during his 1937 patrol.

His daughter, Dame Meg Taylor, would retrace his journey decades later in her documentary ‘In My Father's Footsteps’.

West Papua, the last frontier where humanity's greatness and wickedness are tested and where tragedy, aspiration and hope are revealed

YAMIN KOGOYA

BRISBANE - On 30 June the Indonesian parliament in Jakarta passed legislation to split West Papua into three more pieces.

The Papuan people's unifying name for their independence struggle, West Papua, is now being shattered by Jakarta's draconian policies.

BILL BROWN MBE

SYDNEY - I read ‘The Forgotten Australian Patrol Officers’ by Luke Gosling OAM MP and wondered who had misled him and who determined that the majority of kiaps supported a memorial for kiaps.

I am one of the former kiaps who think the memorial concept is a nonsense.

Distinguished former kiaps like Harry West and Fred Kaad have departed, but they did not support the push for either a medal or a memorial.

"The kiaps’ role in the bringing to independence of PNG was undoubtedly unique and important and that should bring with it a certain sense of pride, but that is as far as it goes"

Don Kennedy with his wife Glen is presented the Australian Police Overseas Service Medal by federal MP Dr David Gillespie, the National Party member for the seat of Lyne on the northern coast of New South Wales

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Early this month, the Australian Institute of International Affairs published an article, ‘The Forgotten Australian Patrol Officers’, by Luke Gosling OAM, the Labor member for Solomon in the Northern Territory.

“What the kiaps did for Papua New Guinea is today called nation-building in official jargon,” Gosling wrote.

Albanese recognises is Australia needs to embrace the reality of an aspiring China and also enter new arrangements with the USA that can better protect Australia

Illustration by Global Times

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE – Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese has articulated a view of Australia' long term defence requirements that is based upon a pragmatic and realistic assessment of history and current facts.

Albanese does not characterise China as an enemy, nor is he advocating that Australia become a humble supplicant to the USA.

It’s one thing for Pacific people to know they had their culture taken from them. It’s another thing entirely to not know the artefacts and records of that culture still exist

KATE ROSS
| Trove Partnerships, National Library of Australia

CANBERRA – The Pacific Virtual Museum at the National Library of New Zealand is a remarkable project that brings together Pacific heritage collections from around the world under the masthead of Digital Pasifik.

Digital Pasifik is a website that allows people to discover digitised Pacific collections that are held around the world. You can link to it here.

"I have been reading history for 60 years now and one of the things I have realised is that the human urge for conquest and the instinct to dominate others transcends geography, ethnicity, language and culture" - Chris Overland

Assyrian Empire (2025-605 BCE)

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - The death of Queen Elizabeth II has led to some reflection upon the British Empire and its legacy.

Commentary has ranged from the vile and tasteless to thoughtful consideration upon what is undeniably a very mixed British imperial legacy.

The sea took away my kin not long ago, but the sea is not the enemy. I do not blame the sea, the sea will always serve its purpose

ROBIN-LUKE SUANG

PORT MORESBY - As the Bismarck moonlight shines so  bright, I can recall early memories of being on a canoe with my uncles at night, fishing the pristine waters near our island for crayfish and reef fish.

This was where I was born and where I spent my first few months when isolation was at its greatest.

Allowing the market to entirely determine the distribution of wealth without the cautious restraining hand of government has hugely exaggerated the economic gap between winners and losers

Annexation of Papua, 1885

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - Traditional Melanesian culture was organised in ways that were and are totally at odds with the prevailing capitalist economic system.

I would characterise the traditional way of life as being based upon a system of mutual obligation and communalism, whereby each member of a social group both contributed to the common good of the group and, in turn, received benefits from it.

This piece was inspired by a conversation between Raymond and his father (‘A policeman remembers….’), who spoke of the venerated role of the colonial tanim tok (interpreter)

Kiaps talk with luluais, tultuls and tanim tok

RAYMOND SIGIMET

DAGUA – Kiaps were government patrol officers within the Australian colonial administration who were tasked to bring control over the 850 tribes of the territories of Papua and New Guinea.

A vital person who patrolled with kiaps in this arduous and sometimes dangerous task was the tanim tok.

Very few Pacific islands would opt for their current status if offered a choice to return to their pre-colonial lives. This could be more than a post-modern fantasy

STEPHEN CHARTERIS

CAIRNS - If you look at history through a Bougainvillean lens, independence is obvious and non-negotiable.

But the same sentiment applies to practically every other island group in the Pacific region.

“In mining, hard facts and foresight are important. We are very conscious of the fact that in a few years, Papua and New Guinea may be independent. Soon there may be an indigenous administration – call it a black president if you like"

Arawa headman Narug and other village leaders Monoerung Tavore (wearing glasses) and Kori (in hat) listen as kiap Max Heggen explains the Arawa Agreement under which villagers would forfeit a tract of land to allow a large town to be built to service the Panguna mine. Brown describes Narug as a tough negotiator but "thoughtful and reasonable."

BILL BROWN MBE

THE CHRONICLE CONTINUES – Bougainville District Commissioner Des (DN) Ashton paid the price for obeying orders at Rorovana when the Papua New Guinea Administration removed his authority over Bougainville Copper's areas of operation.

Following Australian Prime Minister John Gorton’s August intervention in the Rorovana confrontation, the Administration committed a special unit of a dozen kiaps to the mining operation.

History is the product of the often imperfect actions of imperfect people, some more so than others. Genuine evil is present too

Genghis Khan - the ruthless and feared 13th century Mongol warrior-ruler was feared because of his ruthlessness and passion for  massacre, rapine, destruction and revenge. Genghis Khan statue in Mongolia (G Adventures Inc)

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - I am sure that the Australian takeover of German New Guinea during and in the years following World War I was a far from perfect venture.

But, a reader of The Awkward Takeover of German New Guinea is invited to infer that the German regime was some sort of model of how to apply colonial rule in an orderly, methodical and humane way.

“The 'family' construct is inappropriate in a context where Australia should be seeking to forge mature, meaningful and equivalent relationships with Pacific Island nations. The whole theme is patronising, inane and quite weird” – Keith Jackson

BINOY KAMPMARK
| Pearls & Irritations

MELBOURNE - When will this nonsense on familial connection between Australia and the Pacific end?

In 2018, Australia’s then Pentecostal prime minister, Scott Morrison, drew upon a term that his predecessors had not.

"Perhaps there was a lack of faith in Indigenous authority, a deficit arising from their own Australian attitudes towards native people both at home and in their territories"

The Australian fleet, headed by the flagship HMAS Australia,  enters Simpson Harbour, Rabaul,  12 September 1914 (AWM)

MARTIN MADEN
| Tok Piksa | Edited extracts from an article

BIELEFELD, GERMANY - At the time of the Australian takeover, the capital of German New Guinea, Rabaul, was described by AL Epstein in his book Matupit as "not so much a town as a tropical garden, dotted about with government offices, business premises, and bungalows.

“The avenues were carefully laid out and planted with Poinciana and Casuarina trees, the latter creating the feeling, as one visitor many years later was to describe it, of looking down the nave of a cathedral half a mile long."

Legislation will need to spell out the terms of Indigenous Treaties to ensure consistency with Australia's constitution and laws relating to land and access rights. This is not impossible but is bound to be complex and contentious

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - The history of Australian governments in dealing with Australia’s Indigenous peoples is very dismal indeed.

The now departed and unlamented Liberal-National Party government continued this tradition whereby weasel words were deemed an adequate substitute for meaningful action.

The ‘designed to fail’ policies that glisten with promises come to nought in delivery because the Whitefella wants to be able to control, constrain and interfere with the Blackfella’s interests

New South Wales Mounted Police attack Aboriginal people, Waterloo Creek, 1838

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY – I’m currently writing a history of the South Australian Aboriginal Heritage Branch, based in Adelaide, where I was employed between 1974 and 1994.

It’s tentatively called ‘Full Circle’ – the title describing a 20-year trajectory in which the Branch went from virtually nothing to journey through a period of high productivity and public recognition before finally looping back to irrelevance and obscurity, buried in a high rise city building.

The Solomons both lost and found its way politically and economically. Part of its journey were mismanagement and corruption, and the ‘tension years’, when the nation came to the brink of anarchy

Honiara is a corruption of the Malaitan word, nahona`ara, meaning facing the place where the southeast winds meet the land (Jenny Scott)

CLIVE MOORE
| DevPolicy Blog

Honiara: Village-City of Solomon Islands by Clive Moore, ANU Press, May 2022. More information here. ISBN 9781760465070 (online). Download or read the book free online here

BRISBANE - Like most cities, Honiara is bound by its geography, history and culture. In my new book, I explore these relationships and how they have created the city we see today.

Military bases in the Solomon Islands are in the news, although most people seem to have forgotten that Honiara began as a World War II battle ground and military base, initially Japanese and then American.

'John Teosin was a complex personality and an enormously deep thinker. He was ahead of his time in many ways. Among the living dead, John Teosin shan’t be forgotten'

COMPILED & EDITED BY KEITH JACKSON
| With some useful references from Dr Robin Hide

NOOSA - The John Teosin Highway (aka the Buka ring road) connects villages along the east coast of Buka Island with Bougainville’s commercial and administrative centre, Buka Town.

The ring road plays a vital role in people’s lives as well as moving them from one place to another.

The National Geographic, always a product of its time, remains an amazing pictorial record of Papua New Guinea over nearly 100 years

E Thomas Gilliard's 'Miramar children' (or were they?) of 1955 (National Geographic)

PETER KRANZ

MORISSET – The photograph above was taken during E Thomas Gilliard's bird hunting expedition to the Papua New Guinea Highlands in 1955.

The story of the expedition, together with many spectacular photographs, was published in National Geographic magazine in the same year under the headline, 'To the Land of the Headhunters'.

Port Moresby,  19th century - from The Colonial Portfolio (The Werner Company London)

CHRIS WARRILLOW

MELBOURNE - Names often change with time but, after nearly 50 years of independence and 150 years after the arrival of Captain John Moresby, the name of Papua New Guinea’s remains Port Moresby.

Prior the arrival of the first British sailors in 1873, and still today, the traditional inhabitants lived in a few small villages on the harbour shores with many houses built over its waters.

The RSL Cenotaph, a clear sky and a calm morning provided the perfect setting for this year's Anzac Day dawn service in Rabaul 

SUSIE McGRADE

RABAUL – In a year that marks the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Rabaul, more than 80 people attended Rabaul’s Anzac Day dawn service this year, which was hosted by the Rabaul Historical Society at the RSL Cenotaph.

The battle saw a small Australian overwhelmed by Japanese forces in late 1942 and it became the as the main Japanese naval base for the Solomon Islands and New Guinea campaigns.

John J Murphy - district commissioner, war hero falsely accused, lexicographer and author

WARREN ‘WAZZA’ TURNER

PORT MACQUARIE, NSW - I was far from a star player when I ran out for Kone Tigers in the early sixties. I really just made up the numbers, so I don’t deserve a star billing.

When the Papua versus New Guinea rugby league teams were selected, I thought I might be an outside chance of maybe making the seconds.

Stanley Gene blasts through the pack (Love Rugby League)

CLARRIE BURKE

When Dr Clarrie Burke died in January 2019, there was an outpouring of grief in Papua New Guinea and Australia for a man who spent his life “in the service of educating and uplifting others”, as one PNG Attitude reader wrote. This article was published in September 2012 in Una Voce, the journal of the PNG Association of Australia (since renamed Kundu), titled ‘The times they began a’changing’ - KJ

BRISBANE - The time: 3 pm; date: August 14; year: 1960.

Anyone living in or visiting Port Moresby in the hours leading up to that time would have reckoned with the endless unbroken lines of cars and swollen streams of ‘native’* people on foot being directed by traffic police from both sides of Hubert Murray Highway into Lahara Avenue.

John Guise - "The first Papuan to make a political mark and a true pioneer of nationhood"

DON WOOLFORD
| AAP Archive | 28 August 2012

SYDNEY - A little-known role of the most remarkable Papuan of his generation should be recalled during the commemorations marking the 70th anniversary of the battle of Milne Bay - Japan's first defeat on land in World War II.

John Guise, the first Papuan to make a political impact, didn't mind a bit of boasting, especially if it involved cricket and the unbeaten 253 he once smashed which was, and may still be, a record for Milne Bay first grade.

Woman resists police during the confrontation at Rorovana, 1969 (Sydney Sun)

BILL BROWN MBE

THE CHRONICLE CONTINUES - On 28 July 1969, Australia’s minister for external territories Charles CE (Ceb) Barnes approved the issue of CRA’s three new Bougainville leases.

The terminology that defined the locations of the areas required was particular.

They were “leases for mining purposes” and the area was “approximately 400 acres of Rorovana land for laydown areas, construction camp and general accommodation …. 194 acres south of Willys Knob for aggregate, and the first section—approximately eight miles—of the east coast road.”

Papuan Governor Lukas Enembe (centre) meets Russian Ambassador to Indonesia Lyudmila Vorobyeva in Jakarta (Tribun Manado)

YAMIN KOGOYA

BRISBANE - Russian president Vladimir Putin has been invited by Papuan governor Lukas Enembe to visit the Indonesian province later this year.

The invitation was extended when Enembe met Russian Ambassador to Indonesia, Lyudmila Vorobyeva, last week and has triggered heated debate in social media.

Speculation is also rife about whether Indonesia — as chair of the G20 group of nations — will invite President Putin to attend the global forum in Bali later this year.

Singirok had just been sacked and everyone was jumpy when his bodyguard, Corporal Allen, pulled a pistol on a soldier who arrived unexpectedly at Murray Barracks. He said he just wanted food (Andrew Meares)

RAE KATAHA SMART

A Matter of Conscience: Operation Rausim Kwik by Major-General Jerry Singirok, Partridge Publishing, Singapore, February 2022, 636 pages. Available from Amazon: hardcover $100, paperback $72.95 or email Rae Smart here for more information

TEWANTIN QLD – At last the book by Major-General Jerry Singirok on the Bougainville conflict and the Sandline Affair, ‘Operation Rausim Kwik’, has just been released.

Written from the unique perspective of former Army commander Singirok, the book is a no holds barred account of a mutiny.

Russian troops ford a stream at the Battle of Tannenberg in what is now Poland, August 1914. The battle lasted five days and ended in a German victory (Popperfoto)

ROBERT FORSTER

NORTHUMBRIA, UK - In 1973, Kaiyer Auwin, a fight leader of Milep village in Jiwaka, let me into his inner thoughts.

Kaiyer, who had once carried a spear against early explorer and prospector Jim Taylor, told me he could scarcely believe the benefits that followed the Kiap Administration’s subjugation of everyday inter-clan fighting.