Bougainville chief secretary Shadrach Himata (Roselyn Ellison, Nationalpic)

KEITH JACKSON
| Sources: Bougainville News & New Dawn FM

BUKA – In a comprehensive statement on the Bougainville economy, chief secretary, Shadrach Himata, has stated that the province’s internal revenue of K20 million could increase to as much as K55 million this year.

Himata said there are many economic projects in the pipeline including a gold refinery in Arawa, due for completion in the second quarter of this year, a limestone project at Manetai, powered by the Panguna hydro, and a water bottling plant in Toniva scheduled to begin operations mid-year.

Ministers who participated in yesterday's 29th Australia-Papua New Guinea ministerial forum

IAN POOLE

FAR NORTH QUEENSLAND - The 29th Australia-Papua New Guinea ministerial forum in Canberra yesterday, co-chaired by Justin Tkatchenko and Senator Penny Wong, featured a stellar line-up of ministers from both countries.

The official communique, which you can read here, details the outcomes of the five key issues discussed at the forum it which 16 Papua New Guinean and 12 Australian ministers took part.

Raquel Welch in Bandolero (1968)

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - As one ages a catalogue of memories builds up. It’s a process largely beyond our control.

Memory is non-discriminatory. Both important events and inconsequential events are stored in our memories to be retrieved later, often surprising us.

God's gift to climate change deniers, Tony Abbott (The New Daily)

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE -I recently read an interesting article in The Australian written by Greg Sheridan, with whom I frequently disagree.

In the article Sheridan asserted that achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 will be impossible unless some new forms of technology emerge.

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad | Edited

PORT MORESBY – It seems that Golden Sun is the next hot thing in Papua New Guinea - an unbelievably easy way to make money through ‘investment’.

But it has all the features of a scam.

Just below is a Facebook post by someone named Gabriel, who has been engaged in e-commerce (including online payments).

Second Creek with a distant Tumby Island

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - They drive to the end of the track and park their cars. Then they walk down to the beach across the white sand, and stand on the rocks staring at the ocean.

Just visible on the horizon is Reevesby Island, the largest of the 20 or so islands and islets of the Sir Joseph Banks Group that lie about 20 twenty kilometres southeast of Tumby Bay.

ISSAC MOMO
| Ples Singsing

ERIMA, NCD - Long ago, there lived on the coast of Papua New Guinea a couple and their two sons. The brothers would frequently fish at sea.

This day started like any other. They loaded fishing gear into their canoe and departed.

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.

MICHAEL DOM
| Ples Singsing

LAE – I have held off this message to Kurai Memorial Awards entrants for much too long, and I’m extremely apologetic to all the entrants.

The Ples Singsing team, which is entirely voluntary, has been preoccupied with the business of life - work and career, family, future, etcetera – making it difficult for us to pull through in our usual collective strength.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - In 1976, Professor Carlo M Cipolla wrote a 60-page paper in which he outlined the fundamental Laws of Stupidity.

Various synopses of Professor Cipolla’s paper can be readily accessed online and I strongly recommend that people read either the paper itself or at least an abbreviated version.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

And so they take their leave. Close mates Keith Jackson and Greg St John assist the late Phil Charley

 TUMBY BAY - I like walking but just lately my right knee has started playing up. Every so often the bits kind of grind together and it aches like hell.

Goes away if I grit my teeth and keep hobbling along. I reckon it’s probably a case of one mountain too many. Way back in another life in the Star Mountains.

My left knee is a bit painful too, but I know exactly what’s going on there.

KEITH JACKSON

State Fragility: Case Studies and Comparisons by Nematullah Bizhan (ed), Routledge, London, 2022. ISBN 9781003297697. eBook can be downloaded free here

CANBERRA – ‘State Fragility: Case Studies and Comparisons’, edited by Dr Nematullah Bizhan, presents seven case studies that both address key questions on state fragility and examine the policies adopted to mitigate such brittleness in states.

Dr Bizhan is a visiting fellow and lecturer in public policy at the Australian National University and a senior research associate at Oxford University.

JASON HANNAN
| The Conversation | Extract

Link here to read the complete article

WINNIPEG, CANADA - After two years of acknowledging the dangers of Covid-19, something happened with public health policy across the western world.

Federal and municipal governments in North America, Europe and Australia began lifting basic protections like vaccine and mask mandates, winding down public testing, ending contact tracing and withholding critical public health data, like case counts, hospitalisation numbers, wastewater results and even the size of local outbreaks.

Lino Eaki (Seru Kepa, UNDP PNG)

NEWSLETTER
| United Nations Development Program

PORT MORESBY - An entrepreneurship acceleration program has helped an aspiring school administrator and business owner establish a pre-school in the Port Moresby suburb of Hohola.

Lino Eaki is on a journey to expand her business as well as providing a vital service for many working-class parents.

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.

Happier times before his disappearance - Papua Governor Lukas Enembe with his people (Papua Government Facebook)

YAMIN KOGOYA
| Asia Pacific Report

BRISBANE - Today is exactly one month since the Governor of Indonesian Papua, Lukas Enembe was 'kidnapped' at a local restaurant during his lunch hour.

The officials involved were from the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and Indonesian security forces.

James Marape delivers a speech in Enga Province,  January 2023 (Department of Prime Minister NEC Facebook)

ANDREW ANTON MAKO & STEPHEN HOWES
| DevPolicy Blog

CANBERRA - Papua New Guinea prime minister James Marape announced during the 2022 festive season that the annual allocation of electoral funding to each member of parliament (MP) will double in 2023.

It has largely gone unnoticed that the 2023 budget brought down in late November included this doubling.

Asian Cup football final at Stadium Australia, 2015 - sport is a great comforter for Australians who feel the world has gone awry (Austadiums)

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - Even though any objective survey of modern Australian politics leads to despondency, we should bear in mind that the two biggest spending political parties performed rather badly at the last election.

Also, perhaps we should bear in mind that spending by our political parties is dwarfed by the colossal sums spent in the USA, where money doesn't just talk, it positively shrieks.

LNG tanker 'Spirit of Hela' (Santos)

NEWSLETTER
| PNG Business News

MAKATI, PHILIPPINES - The PNG LNG project generated K16.5 billion for Papua New Guinea over the eight years of production from 2014 to 2022.

This includes K7.5 billion paid to Kumul (PNG’s national petroleum company) from the state's 19.4% equity, K1.3 billion to the Mineral Resources Development Corporation, K800 million in royalty payments, K700 million in development levy payments and K6.2 billion in tax payments.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

The Maliau Caves Adventure by Peter Comerford, Austin Macauley Publishers, London, 2023, 86 pages. Available here from Amazon Books Australia, paperback $17.12, ebook $6.37

TUMBY BAY - Limestone sinkholes and caverns are common in Papua New Guinea and feature in many legends and myths.

The foundation mythology of the Faiwolmin people of the Star Mountains features travels underground by their female creation hero, Afek.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Australia’s sudden spurt of interest in Papua New Guinea has got nothing to do with concerns over corruption.

Rather, it is a reaction to the USA’s paranoia about China’s influence in the region and how that influence might impact on its desire for global economic and military superiority.

CHRIS OVERLAND

In 2016 the Australian government implemented a scheme where an algorithm instead of a human would identify and pursue outstanding welfare debts. The system, dubbed ‘robodebt’, led to 373,000 Australians being forced to pay outstanding debts. The scheme was later found to be unlawful and was scrapped in 2020 resulting in the government agreeing to a settlement of $1.8 billion covering repaying debts paid, erasing outstanding debts and legal costs - KJ

ADELAIDE - I have followed the activities of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt scheme since it commenced.

As a retired former senior executive in the South Australia public service, I have some insight into the sometimes quite complex relationships between senior public servants and their political masters.

One of the world's top military officers, Admiral John C Aquilino, inspects a PNGDF guard of honour

JOHN KURI

PORT MORESBY - On Sunday 29 January, Admiral John C Aquilino, Commander of the United States’ Indo-Pacific Command, came to Papua New Guinea.

There was not much fanfare and the guard of honour of the PNG Defence Force left a lot to be desired.

But that’s not the point of this article. It's really about what it means for us that one of the most powerful men in the world’s military comes to PNG’s shores.

Professor Richard Murphy (University of Sheffield)

RICHARD MURPHY *
| Twitter @RichardJMurphy

ELY, CAMBRIDGESHIRE, UK - It’s hard to believe that three years ago few people had heard of Covid.

Fewer still thought it would disrupt life as we knew it for the following 18 months. And that millions would die, many in the UK.

Now we are in denial again, which is just as dangerous.

Centre, Jerry Ubase (Secretary, Community Development & Religion Department); right, Wesley Serber (Aramba Development Foundation); with  members of organisations working to prevent family and gender violence   (Lydia Kaia,  UNDP PNG)

NEWSLETTER
| United Nations Development Program PNG

PORT MORESBY - Wesley Serber is a man on a mission, determined to end the cruelty and abuse caused by sorcery accusation-related violence (SARV) in the remote communities of the South Fly region of Papua New Guinea.

A large number of sorcery accusation-related violence cases use glasman or glasmeri (akin to witchdoctors) to falsely and maliciously accuse men and women of sorcery for financial gain.

Youths throw rocks at vehicles in Alice Springs (Northern Territory Police)

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - The Central Australian town of Alice Springs is currently in turmoil - racked with alcohol fuelled crime largely involving the Aboriginal community.

Aboriginal children roam the town centre at night vandalising shops and Aboriginal men and women are fighting in the streets and parks.

CHRISTIAN EDWARDS
CNN | Extract

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus - “My message is clear: Do not underestimate this virus. It has and will continue to surprise us, and it will continue to kill”. To be regularly updated about the disease, link here to CNN’s free coronavirus newsletter

ATLANTA - It’s time to start thinking about our future with Covid-19, which has killed more than 6.8 million people around the world since the first case was identified three years ago.

While the virus remains a global health emergency, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday the pandemic is at a “transition point.”

John Kewa from Mt Hagen lives in Wollongong, NSW. He works with seafarers, and is seen here carrying a box of goodies for them

GARRETT ROCHE

MAYNOOTH, IRELAND - Since I left Papua New Guinea in 2017, I’ve been living in Maynooth, not far from Dublin city. 

Dublin has many parks and other green areas. I came across an interesting revealing that Dublin’s inner city has more than 10,000 trees, about 2,500 of these have been surveyed and registered.

The royal commission was established and is being streamed live here: https://robodebt.royalcommission.gov.au/

COMPILED BY MAX OPRAY
| Schwartz Media

From time to time, when there’s something important to say, I give space in PNG Attitude for Australian politics. Each morning, Schwartz Media sends me a heads-up on the big stories of the day. This morning’s email brought with it sickening information about how a powerful segment of Australia’s public service, apparently working at the behest of senior politicians, had engaged in what would best be described as criminal behaviour. The passages underlined for emphasis are mine - KJ

Anthony Albanese and James Marape at Moem Barracks,  Wewak (PM’s Office Media)

JIMBO GULLE
| PNG Business News

PORT MORESBY – Papua New Guinea prime minister James Marape says that, for the first time in the 47 years since independence, an Australian government and prime minister are addressing all outstanding issues between both countries.

Marape was commenting on the visit by Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese in mid-January.

R J HAUSER

Tandem Regina Mortua (At Last, the Queen Died)

The frothy surf of media guff is slowly ebbing
on its receding tide of feigned sincerity
leaving a beached society exposed by
the shallow waves of sentimentality.

She looked like a little porcelain statue
in the end, shiny and polished and strained,
the mouth stretched in a painful smile,
her face, pleated with lines, quite drained.

EDITED BY KEITH JACKSON

Edited extracts from the TIPNG Domestic Election Observation Report 2022 compiled by Transparency International PNG (TIPNG). The full report can be downloaded here

PORT MORESBY - The accumulated failings in the preparation, conduct, delivery and conclusion of the 2022 national general election resulted in significant issues impacting the quality of the elections.

Many eligible voters could not freely, fairly or safely vote, and consequently their views were not taken into consideration in the formation of the 11th national parliament.

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.

PORT MORESBY – On Thursday last week, at the Tiling ceremonial grounds in Mt Hagen, the people of Moge tribe witnessed the ordination of the KomKui area’s first priest, Father Rex Andrew Dokta SVD.

The KomKui people had made their Covenant with God more than 40 years ago, on 18 December 1980.

PRISILLA MANOVE
| Prisilla’s Notes

GOROKA - In the remote and rugged highlands of Papua New Guinea, traditional Indigenous communities have practiced sustainable farming techniques for centuries.

Kuk in Western Highlands Province is one of the first places on earth where people started farming.

The frequency shown on the receiver dial was used by Radio Australia until its closure when it was quickly grabbed by China Radio International

PETER MARKS
| ABC Alumni

Australia Calling - The ABC Radio Australia Story by Phil Kafcaloudes, commissioned and published by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2022, paperback, 224 pages $27.75. ISBN 0646852434, 9780646852430. Available here from Booktopia for $27.75

MELBOURNE - Radio Australia was founded in 1939 by prime minister Robert Menzies to project the perspective of Australia during World War II.

At the time propaganda, what we might now call ‘fake news’, was being broadcast in our region by the Japanese, Russians and Germans.

Delivering ventilators to Indonesia in July 2021 (Timothy Tobing, Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade)

TERENCE WOOD
| DevPolicy Blog

CANBERRA - Less than 1% of Australian government spending is devoted to aid.

Aid’s effects are felt in other countries, and its impacts are rarely directly noticeable to Australians.

ADB Director for PNG & Pacific David Hill and PNG Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey ('ADB in the Pacific' Facebook)

NEWS DESK
| PNG Business News

PORT MORESBY - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Papua New Guinea government have signed loan and grant agreements of more than $66 million (K90 million) to help improve PNG’s technical and vocational education and training (TVET) program.

The agreements, part of the Improved Technical and Vocational Education and Training for Employment Project approved on 29 November, were signed by PNG Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey and ADB Country Director for Papua New Guinea David Hill.

MICHAEL BAKER, DAVID DURRHEIM, LI YANG HSU & NICK WILSON *
| About The Conversation

MELBOURNE - Imagine it is 2030. Doctors in a regional hospital in country X note an expanding cluster of individuals with severe respiratory disease.

Rapid whole-genome sequencing identifies the disease-causing agent as a novel coronavirus. Epidemiological investigations suggest the virus is highly infectious, with most initial cases requiring hospitalisation.

The episode bears a striking resemblance to the Covid outbreak first detected in December 2019.

YAMIN KOGOYA

BRISBANE – You may have seen this man-like beast, masquerading as human among the children of earth.

A self-indulgent man, he decorated his empty skull with all kinds of hedonistic ideas, and sophisticated expressions and gazes.

He enters the earth at night like a thief, in fact he is a thief to steal what belongs to the children of earth.

Photo by Towfiqu Barbhuiya on Unsplash

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - My next door neighbours are quite elderly, more so than me even, and I occasionally help them with stuff that goes wrong in their house, leaking taps and suchlike.

A recent endeavour involved unblocking the drain beneath their kitchen sink.

Prisilla Manove

PRISILLA MANOVE
| Prisilla’s Notes*

GOROKA - My father’s father lived in a complete agrarian society. What that means is that everything they ate they grew; everything they needed they made.

All labour and life revolved around both the harvest and ceremonies celebrating the harvest.

For my people, these practices happened up until the mid-21st century in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Fragments of them still happen today.

Richard Hauser

R J HAUSER

For her birthday, my wife Sylvia was given a huge jigsaw puzzle of more than 13,000 pieces

My life is a jigsaw
its scattered confetti of peace and connection
a love progeny waiting for the final
myriad detritus colourful after the life
with lost purpose searching with meaning
my fitful open tabs for completion components
of wedding and left with longing of little pieces
of a meaningful picture.

My life is a jigsaw
its myriad components
scattered detritus
of colourful confetti
left after the wedding
of a longing life
with lost little pieces
of peace and purpose
searching for connection
with meaning and love
my fitful progeny
waiting with open tabs
for the final completion
of a meaningful picture.

Papua New Guinea's prime minister James Marape greets his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese (PNG Business News)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – It’s always good to see Rowan Callick’s byline in The Australian or anywhere else, and the other day it was a delight to read the commentary that followed.

Callick’s an excellent journalist - a former Australian Journalist of the Year with a couple of Walkley Awards and three books to his credit.

Augustine and Fitzkeith with cellphone and repurposed fire extinguisher

LEONARD FONG ROKA

PANGUNA - In late 2017 my father-in-law, after seeing what I did in Panguna, asked me to help built a toilet and shower facility.

I was lost. How could I help in a place where there were no hills to provide gravity feed to get water for the facility.

Winnie Kiap CBE, PNG’s ambassador to the United Kingdom from 2011-22, and nominee for Governor-General

KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN

PORT MORESBY - The position of Governor General in Papua New Guinea becomes vacant in February as Grand Chief Bob Dadae’s six-year tenure comes to an end.

In the history books, Sir Bob will be remembered as the only PNG Governor-General who served under the reign of both Queen Elizabeth ꓲꓲ and King Charles ꓲꓲꓲ.

And on Thursday his successor will be elected by the PNG parliament.

There has been much discussion in PNG recently about which women would qualify to be the first to hold this high office. Winnie Kiap is a leading contender.

ALEXANDRA FROST

SYDNEY - In its day the Australian School of Pacific Administration (ASOPA) was an important institution, as was the International Training Institute (ITI) which succeeded it.

ASOPA was established after World War II as a place where ‘the right type of people’ could be trained for post-war work in the colonial administration of Papua and New Guinea, later adding teacher training to its functions.

As part of my post-graduate research writing a history of ASOPA, I am compiling the histories of people who were involved in any capacity, whether as staff or trainees.

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.

This awan was collected by John Greenshields and gifted to the South Australian Museum. It is pictured here with Sophie Parker of ArtLab in Adelaide (Image: Alice Beale)

JIM ELMSLIE
| Journal of the Oceanic Art Society

ADELAIDE - This large body-mask, called a tumbuan in Tok Pisin, comes from the Iatmul people of the Middle Sepik River in Papua New Guinea, and played an important role in traditional ritual life.

Initially it was thought to pertain to the naven ceremony of the Iatmul people, when pairs of mwai masks were attached to the backs of the tumbuans and groups of dancers performed each afternoon in front of the men’s house for several months.

Secret ritual names for a multitude of objects, plants and animals were passed down to the young men and a recitation of all the previous Iatmul generations was incantated to the audience.

R J HAUSER

We often heard Dad walking the long way home
from heavy farm chores through the winter dusk
clearing his sinuses with a snort and a spit in
the gutter and slipping into a bold hillbilly yodel
his spirits elevated by a day’s exacting labour
and prospects of a family meal and a warm kitchen.

In stifling summer heat no-one wanted to move
but he would drag his unwilling brood and a few
old stagers out into the humid midday glare
to dodge redbacks and snakes in the pumpkin patch
or screw the tops off heads of bleeding beetroots
mouthing maxims of worn wisdom he found there.