Although the Howard Government mightn’t like to talk about it, our comments last Friday about Papua New Guinea and the Arc of Instability that surrounds Australia have struck a chord with readers. Here’s some of your feedback:

  • It was apparent to me when working briefly on an aid project in Moresby three years ago that there were major problems within the country – the stories of lawlessness and violence relayed by expats (and reported in the newspapers, often with graphic photos that would never be published in Australia); the organised crime that appears to run gambling and prostitution in the town; the magnificent homes of some politicians; and the grinding poverty that would lead young girls to perform oral sex for two kina (approximately 80 cents Australian)…
  • It is time we turned more attention to Papua New Guinea – not from any sense of neo-colonialism, but in recognition that we probably did leave too quickly at independence, and more selfishly, that if PNG fails, it will make us all wonder why we thought Solomon Islands and East Timor were dangerous and difficult problems to solve…
  • It doesn’t take long to work out that things aren’t “normal” in Moresby – the doorman at the pub with a pump-action shotgun; guards at Chinese restaurants with big Rottweilers; the poor sergeant at a police station where we had gone to report a theft from our locked vehicle in broad daylight at a busy shopping centre who was screaming at his officers, apparently in an attempt to get them out on the street. Trouble is, if you’re being driven around in an embassy car, and meeting with the “relevant minister” perhaps these slices of life aren’t so obvious!
  • There are 5.5 million people in PNG. How many of these would like to slip across Torres Strait for a bit of peace and prosperity? Although Papua New Guineans are traditionally attached to their “ples” (yes, I worked there for a few years), years of schooling have detached them from their culture and years of population growth have made their home villages an uncertain and insecure refuge. It will be interesting to see what an Australian government will do in a few years time in the face of thousands of Papuans boating in our direction for economic reasons.
  • Your snippet on PNG was particularly apt. I’m an old PNG hand of sorts myself having spent four years up there in the 60s as a schoolteacher among other things. I find it particularly ironic that the UN should make any untoward judgements about the state of the PNG nation, just as I would never accept any adverse comment by the Australian Labor Party. The situation in PNG today can be directly sheeted home to the UN Trusteeship Council’s zeal to have trust territories granted their independence whether they were ready or not, and Gough Whitlam’s cynical willingness to exploit this situation for crass domestic political advantage in the late 60s-early 70s…