EDDIE TANAGO
| Campaign Manager | Act Now

PORT MORESBY – News that the bank accounts of 30 logging companies operating in Papua New Guinea have been closed have been welcomed by advocacy organisations Act Now and Jubilee Australia.

The PNG Forest Industry Association complained to The National newspaper that Bank South Pacific (BSP) had closed the commercial loggers’ bank accounts to comply with its anti-money laundering responsibilities.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - History can be used to justify all sorts of things - if you select the bits of it you want to reference, that is.

Selective quotation is a tactic used by both the left and the right of politics to justify their positions on a range of issues.

James Marape and Joko Widodo meet over tea in Jakarta

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Papua New Guinean prime minister James Marape’s flying visit to Jakarta late last week drew much criticism on PNG social media because of the size of the accompanying delegation.

The cheap criticism obscured the mini-summit’s importance as an encounter where Marape and Indonesian president Joko Widodo were able to meet privately and face-to-face.

The architect John Amory-designed residence in Warrawee sold to Lynda Babao for K16 million

A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

CANBERRA - In August 2020, the Australian media reported that former prime minister Peter O’Neill’s wife, Lynda Babao, had bought a $6 million (K16 million) house at Warrawee on Sydney’s upper north shore.

A few months before, another Sydney residence associated with the family had been quietly sold for $12.35 million (K33 million).

Kerenga Kua - “I must say that personally I am ashamed of the government” 

NEWS DESK
| Pacific Mining Watch

PORT MORESBY - Petroleum minister Kerenga Kua says he is ashamed of the PNG government for delays of up to 13 years in K120 million of payments to LNG project landowners.

Kua announced the outstanding funds will soon be released by the PNG Treasury after landowners from the Hides petroleum precinct gave the government 14 days to release the money and respond to other outstanding issues.

Fairfax Harbour showing Port Moresby CBD and Hanuabada village ( RGAPhoto86, Shutterstock)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Papua New Guinea’s economy is projected to grow by 4% in 2022, about the same as forecast for Australia, but the World Bank characterises the recovery as ‘fragile’.

As Covid slowed global production, the PNG economy contracted by 3.5% in 2000 but returned a small but positive outcome of 1% last year.

Crew of Coast Guard Cutter 'Stratton' on patrol in Fiji's exclusive economic zone, February 2022

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - When the US Coast Guard sailed into Fairfax Harbour, Port Moresby, last Thursday morning to be welcomed by Papua New Guinea’s defence minister Win Daki, there was at least one person feeling disgruntled.

“We are getting ourselves into a serious blunder of a lifetime,” said business leader and national affairs commentator, Corney Alone.

James Marape (left) and Kerenga Kua (seated left) watch while ExxonMobil,   Santos and Noex Japan partners sign the near K40 billion P'nyang LNG agreement

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Yesterday, as it closed its most beneficial deal yet, it looked like Papua New Guinea had come of age in negotiating agreements with global resource developers.

In what will be a huge boost to PNG’s struggling revenue flow, the P’nyang liquefied natural gas agreement was signed with ExxonMobil and its partners Santos and NOEX of Japan.

Eddie Tanago - "The PNG Forest Authority should be abolished". A rogue institution that has orchestrated illegal logging for 30 years

EDDIE TANAGO
| Campaign Manager | Act Now!

PORT MORESBY - The Marape government’s claims that it has stopped issuing new log export licences to foreign-owned logging companies are not borne out by the evidence.

Nor are its statements that it is moving to 100% downstream processing of logs before they are exported.

President Toroama - Decision of the five clans the "beginning of a new chapter to realise Bougainville’s independence"

KEITH JACKSON

BUKA –In a major development, landowners from the Panguna mine area and the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) have agreed to re-open the Panguna mine, abandoned after a civil war broke out in 1989.

The mine is one of the world’s largest copper and gold deposits with an estimated remaining resource of copper, gold and silver valued at more than K200 billion.

BERNARD CORDEN

“Don’t accept that what’s happening
Is just a case of others’ suffering
Or you’ll find that you’re joining in
The turning away”
 -  Pink Floyd, On the Turning Away, 2015

BRISBANE - Ten years have passed since the traumatic MV Rabaul Queen disaster on 2 February 2012.

The dilapidated rust bucket capsized at daybreak in treacherous waters as it crossed the Vitiaz Strait off the northern coast of Papua New Guinea with the likely loss of about 500 people.

A Kodak Instamatic 104 such as Busa's father might have used as a 1970s street photographer

BUSA JEREMIAH WENOGO

PORT MORESBY – It was only recently that I discovered my father was once a street photographer.

Back in the 1970s, he and some village friends took up the activity as a form of employment, to earn money, to put food on the table.

This was well before modern digital cameras and smart phones made photography simple and ever-present.

Illegal logging comprises 70% of PNG's timber industry

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – It is easily the biggest illegal land grab of customary land in Papua New Guinea.

Or maybe anywhere in the world outside what used to be called Communism before they discovered how much loot could be made out of Capitalism.

It is a mass theft encompassing more than five million hectares of land, 12% of the country.

Port of Lae - set to become a regional container hub as Australia fends off Chinese influence.

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - The Australian government has announced it will provide K1.5 billion in loans and grants to Papua New Guinea to upgrade its ports facilities.

Australia says the funds will strengthen trade ties between the two countries and encourage PNG to decline investment from other nations including China.

Daru's New Century Hotel and street market - doubtless the mud-puddlers have fond memories of sinking the odd stubby here (Mark O'Shea)

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - There’s a loose and exotic fraternity of expatriate mud-puddlers who served in the Western Province who exchange occasional emails when something of interest about their old stamping ground surfaces in the media.

A recent report in the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier about a development plan for Daru, the provincial capital, is currently stirring their interest.

Ok Tedi is the only government-owned mine in PNG, which has toughened its dealings with resources companies in recent years

MICHAEL KABUNI

PORT MORESBY - As we begin 2022, I want to take a look at the defining issues that will shape Papua New Guinea’s social, political and economic outlook.

It’s not possible to cover everything in one article, but consider this an introduction to issues I’ll expand on throughout the year.

In this piece, I look at PNG’s political and economic outlook, and in a companion article I’ll consider security and governance issues.

Martyn Namorong - With elections due in June, police commanders are concerned at the lack of preparation

MARTYN NAMORONG
| Linked In

PORT MORESBY - Papua New Guinea goes to a national election in June with many people pinning their hopes on the outcome of the polls.

The election is pivotal, not just in terms of bread and butter socio-economic issues but also in dealing with a final political settlement for Bougainville, which in a 2019 referendum opted overwhelmingly for independence from PNG.

LOGEA NOU
| Edited extracts

Link here to the complete report by the National Research Institute

PORT MORESBY - In Papua New Guinea, customary land is administered by the Department of Lands and Physical Planning (DLPP).

This faces many challenges including the costly, cumbersome process of land registration, protracted disputes over ownership and boundaries and questions about the capacity of DLPP to administer customary land.

Westpac, ANZ, Bank South Pacific and Kina Bank have questions to answer about their ties with illegal logging practices in PNG

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Banks operating in Papua New Guinea - including Westpac and ANZ - have provided the country’s five largest exporters of logs with at least K300 million in credit over the last 20 years.

But gaps in company reporting and murky funding processes mean the true amount could be three times as high, reaching close to a billion kina.

Telstra CEO Andy Penn - soon to be the proud owner of Digicel Pacific (Photo - David Crosling, AAP)

KIM WINGEREI
| Michael West Media | Extracts

GOLD COAST - Why was Telstra slotted $1.6 billion (K4 billion) by Australia’s Morrison government to buy Digicel, and how is it Telstra shares slumped by one-third during the bull market?

It’s corporate welfare on steroids. Another bizarre intervention in what Scott Morrison and treasurer Josh Frydenberg like to call free markets.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - One of the most perverse inventions of capitalism is planned obsolescence.

This is the idea that an article is manufactured to fall apart and cease to function properly after a certain amount of time.

Annoying for you and good for the manufacturer, who has ensured that users have to purchase a new article to continue to enjoy its convenience.

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - On Monday 25 October, the giant Australian telecommunications corporation, Telstra, announced it was buying Digicel Pacific, the dominant mobile network operator in the region.

Digicel owns the biggest telcos in Papua New Guinea, Nauru, Samoa, Vanuatu and Tonga and the second biggest in Fiji.

Neoliberalism as it is perceived by China - a wild American ram (or buffalo if you’re an editor) about to plunge a terrorised planet into the abyss

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - Bernard Corden has written a fine polemic in ‘There’s a man going ’round taking names’.

Idealism, unfiltered through the lens of reflective thought, is a dangerous thing.

Very few proponents of ‘pure’ neoliberalism – the ideology that markets can run the planet better than governments - appear to devote little if any time to reflection.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - As Paul Oates has frequently pointed out in his comments on PNG Attitude, before you can solve a problem you have to clearly identify its root causes.

Once you’ve done that, you can devise strategies to eliminate or overcome those causes and solve the problem.

Washouts on the Highlands Highway are common. Bridge at Ukarumpa,  Eastern Highlands, 2016

KEITH JACKSON

AUCKLAND – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $325 million (K1.1 billion) to the Papua New Guinea government to upgrade 430 kilometres of the Highlands Highway.

The massive project, which will be a boon to three million people living in the Highlands, was signed by the ADB's Pacific director general, Leah Gutierrez, and PNG treasurer, Ian Ling-Stuckey

NEWS DESK
| K92 Mining

KAINANTU - K92 Mining has donated K100,000 to Femili PNG to support its work in eradicating family and sexual violence in Papua New Guinea.

‘’We have been in operation for four years and, for us as a new company, we want to be able to support social issues and agendas,” said K92 vice-president Philip Samar.

Of the thousands of images of the Panguna copper and gold mine on Bougainville, this must be the most dramatic. An armed guerrilla fighter looks over the deserted mine during the 1988-1998 civil war

BERNARD CORDEN

‘If you want to change culture you will have to start by changing the organisation’ - Mary Douglas

BRISBANE – In addition to the corporate vandalism and carnage reprised in my Digging & Dumping piece the other day, several other contentious mining ventures await approval from the Papua New Guinea government.

I had included the Wafi-Golpu joint venture southwest of Lae on this list until it received approval a couple of days ago.

A study of three PNG companies revealed that gender-based violence cost them about K7.3 million a year

EVONNE KENNEDY & SHABNAM HAMEED
| DevPolicy Blog | Edited extracts

PORT MORESBY - Evidence has emerged that the private sector in Papua New Guinea can play a key role in responding to gender-based violence, and that doing so makes good business sense.

Research by the International Finance Corporation, in partnership with the Business Coalition for Women, has found that a gender-balanced workforce, and appropriate workplace responses to family and sexual violence, can provide benefits to businesses and their employees.

Porgera gold and copper mine in Enga Province

BERNARD CORDEN

'Every dogma has its day' - Anthony Burgess

BRISBANE - Over the past five decades many notorious corporate brigands in the mining and mineral resources sector have plundered vast quantities of ore and precious metals from the bountiful arc of the Pacific rim that encompasses Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

Buccaneering recidivists include Rio Tinto at Panguna, BHP at Ok Tedi, Placer Dome on Misima Island, Barrick Gold at Porgera, Newcrest at Lihir, Morobe Mining JV at Hidden Valley, St Barbara at Simberi and Gold Ridge and Ramu NiCo at Kurumbukari and Basamuk Bay near Madang.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE – Over recent times I have been writing, almost to the point of tendonitis, that China’s decades-long ‘economic miracle’ is a present day replay of how all advanced economies have developed.

First, there is a dramatic acceleration as resources are mobilised in a large scale modernisation and industrialisation phase.

EDDIE TANAGO
| Act Now

PORT MORESBY – If the government's ban on new logging permits is to be effective, it must be total, and extended to cover all types of logging consent.

Last week prime minister James Marape directed the PNG Forest Authority (PNGFA) to stop issuing new permits and permit extensions so the government can meet its 2025 deadline to end the export of unprocessed raw logs.

Digicel's Denis O'Brien - Australia's China troubles is the tycoon's get rid of debt card

BUSINESS DESK
| The Irish Times | Extract

DUBLIN - The downward spiral in relations between China and Australia in the past year has played into the hands of businessman Denis O’Brien as he looks to further reduce the debt burden of his Digicel telecoms group.

Early last year O’Brien effectively forced bondholders to write off $1.6 billion (K5.6 billion) of what they were owed.

James Marape - “We will not come below 52% in negotiating new resource projects"

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Papua New Guinea will never allow the PNG share of resource projects to slip below 52%, prime minister James Marape has said as the nation stands on the threshold of a new resources boom.

Mr Marape said his government was pushing for more than a 50% stake in P’nyang, Pasca, Pandora and other future LNG projects as well as the Wafi-Golpu and Porgera mining projects.

BERNARD CORDEN

‘Scientific theory is a contrived foothold in the chaos of living phenomena’ - Wilhelm Reich

‘The most basic claims of religion are scientific. Religion is a scientific theory’ - Richard Dawkins

‘The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage’ - Mark Russell

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - Commenting on Keith Jackson’s ‘The vandals who trashed our nation’ and other remarks on the Covid crisis, Andrew Brown wrote that “people in small business are going broke by the dozen, the number of empty shops in my local area is frightening”.

And he added, “That is real hardship for people losing everything they have and not having any hope.”

When plans turn to MASH (Illustration - John Shakespeare, Sydney Morning Herald)

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE – Keith Jackson (‘The vandals who trashed our nation’) expressed in clear terms the ugly truth of what has happened in the Australian government’s response to Covid-19.

This pandemic will not be over anytime soon. The much vaunted 70% vaccination level spruiked by Morrison, Berejiklian and others will not come close to ending it.

James Marape to brief conference on PNG government's plans for improving investment climate

MEDIA RELEASE
| Business Advantage PNG

PORT MORESBY —Papua New Guinea’s prime minister James Marape MP will open the 2021 Business Advantage Investment Conference in Port Moresby next Tuesday.

Mr Marape will outline his government’s strategy for improving the environment for business and investment in PNG to an audience of international and local investors, financiers and senior business executives.

KEITH JACKSON

The 'Afore Highway' from Oro Bay, described as "a reasonable gravel track with some challenging sections" is to be upgraded as part of the Mangalas project

NOOSA –Governor Gary Juffa has won the support of prime minister James Marape in establishing the innovative Managalas forest carbon pilot project in the Afore region, located between the Owen Stanley and Hydrographers ranges in Oro Province.

The project, billed as ‘a sustainable integrated land development’ will both conserve rainforest and reforest the grassed plains with cash crops including coffee and coconuts.

KEITH JACKSON

Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey used parliament to put reserve bank governor Leo Bakani on the spot (PNG Bulletin)

PORT MORESBY – Papua New Guinea’s Treasurer, Ian Ling-Stuckey, has sent a strong ‘please explain’ to PNG’s central bank governor, Loi Bakani.

Ling-Stuckey minced no words in asking Bakani why he had disassociated the central bank from its own Financial Analysis and Supervision Unit (FASU).

PNG petroleum minister Kerenga Kua and Esso PNG chairman Peter Larden (Lorraine Wohi)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Papua New Guinea’s petroleum minister Kerenga Kua and ExxonMobil PNG managing director Peter Larden have announced that talks will resume on the P’nyang natural gas project.

In November 2019 negotiations collapsed with the PNG government saying Exxon was unwilling to negotiate on PNG’s terms.

PNG mining minister Johnson Tuke, who falsely claims PNG mining is sustainable & has trouble wearing a face mask,  poses with ambassador Jernej Videtic of the European Union, which is trying to convince PNG that 'green mining' is a thing

DUNCAN GABI

MADANG – At a meeting to discuss sustainable mining with European Union ambassador to PNG, Jernej Videtic, Papua New Guinea’s mining minister Johnson Tuke claimed his government is mindful of the impact mining has on the environment and people’s livelihoods.

Tuke also claimed the PNG government is addressing these issues by updating its regulatory framework and demanding investors introduce modern and sustainable technologies to diminish the negative impact of mining on the environment.

These claims were totally wrong. They were without truth.

Chris Overland - 'Consultancies not all bad news for smart public servants'

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - A seminal idea underpinning neo-liberal capitalism is that private enterprise is always more efficient and cost effective than a public entity.

This notion informs much of the decision making surrounding the hiring of consultants, the target of a polemic by my colleague Philip Fitzpatrick in PNG Attitude yesterday.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - Bernard Corden’s splendid article, 'A Question of Balance', neatly describes the situation the Western world is now in and how we got here.

Neo-liberal capitalism is, in many respects, the reaction of the propertied classes against the sometimes unduly restrictive nostrums of democratic socialism that emerged in its full form in the aftermath of World War II.

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - Papua New Guinea’s prime minister, James Marape, has warned Santos and Oil Search he expects them to maintain a significant number of senior Indigenous executives in PNG if their announced K56 billion merger goes ahead.

“We do not wish for the largest oil and gas company operating in our country to simply be a branch office of a foreign company,” Marape said, signalling he may require a merged company to retain jobs and offices in PNG and prioritise the development of local gas resources.

Pokpok Island near Kieta. Tourism at community level has great potential for small business and, in the long term, to promote Bougainville as a peaceful and beautiful Pacific destination

SIMON PENTANU*

KIETA - We can talk about and hold up and dangle tourism as a potential driver and earner of Bougainville’s internal revenue - talking is easy.

We are creatures of habit and instinct and we keep talking and talking if it sounds good without realising things are much more involved and will take a lot more focused human effort than we think.

CHRIS DUCKETT
| ZDNet | Edited extracts

SYDNEY - Australia is funding the potential purchase of a Pacific telco for only one reason, to ensure China Mobile doesn't get to it first.

It now appears Australia wants a crack at showing the world how to keep companies out of Chinese ownership.

Influential Bougainville politician, Theonila Matbob - Prominent in advocating that Rio Tinto should accept responsibility for cleaning up Panguna's devastating legacy

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – After several months of discussions Rio Tinto and 156 Bougainville community members, represented by the Human Rights Law Centre, last week reached an agreement to assess legacy impacts of the former Panguna copper and gold mine on Bougainville.

The mine was operated by Bougainville Copper Ltd (BCL), then majority owned by Rio Tinto, from 1972 until 1989 when operations were suspended following guerrilla against the mine and a subsequent civil war.

Tailings waste flowing into Konawiru-Jaba River delta on the Bougainville west coast

STEFAN ARMBRUSTER
| SBS News

BRISBANE - Multinational mining giant Rio Tinto has agreed to fund an independent assessment of the human rights and environmental impacts of its former Panguna copper and gold mine in Papua New Guinea’s autonomous region of Bougainville.

Rio Tinto abandoned the mine in 1989 during a brutal civil conflict on Bougainville and now no longer holds a stake after controversially divesting its shareholding to the PNG and Bougainville governments in 2016, rejecting corporate responsibility for environmental damage.

Menya River (Brian Chapaitis)

ACT NOW!

PORT MORESBY - This article breaks down some of the myths used to justify the privatisation of customary land.

It makes clear that efforts to privatise land are not about development but about profits for corporations, financial institutions and already wealthy people.

Cartoonist Mark David depicts treasurer Frydenberg and prime minister Morrison's flawed efforts in managing the pandemic and the economy

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE – Keith Jackson has rightly written (‘Lethargic Australia drops ball on Covid’) that the Morrison government has failed dismally to do its job in relation to both quarantine and vaccination relating to Australia’s Covid pandemic.

The direct result of this failure is that the State premiers have had to do all the heavy lifting to contain the virus.