BY PAUL OATES
We all know corruption, nepotism, malfeasance and political connivance are not exclusively PNG’s problem. You only have to look at Transparency International’s global corruption index.
However before we can find an effective solution to a problem, you must first effectively define the problem.
With the benefits of hindsight, no one could claim that there weren’t mistakes made during PNG’s nation building. Depending on your point of view, with another 10 years of gradual preparation, education, better communications and experience prior to Independence, PNG might well have been a different place than it is now. On the other hand, it may not.
Those in PNG who pushed for independence as soon as possible were very much like yourself. Young, energetic and well intentioned and hoping to ‘set the world on fire’.
The young PNG politicians then were very eager to get on with the job at hand but with the benefit of hindsight, maybe they were just a tad too inexperienced to appreciate the enormous responsibility they were demanding to be quickly given them. To those that were there at the time and knew them, these young politicians started out with the very best of intentions.
In many ways Martyn is correct in pointing out the somewhat naïve attempts at fast tracking political awareness by those in Canberra who had very little idea of what the implications of fast tracking independence would be.
To infer however that this was an intentional error on Australia’s behalf is not true. Certainly, if a plebiscite had been conducted, the vast majority of PNG people in the early 1970s would have wanted Australia to stay for many years and only gradually withdraw.
There was real pressure from the recently independent African states through the UN who were pressing Australia to leave PNG as quickly as possible. New Guinea was a UN mandated territory as you know. Many of those same African states now have serious internal troubles and PNG could learn from these examples.
Australia’s Constitution was put together by some very learned people over a period of at least 10 years. Those who helped assemble this document were experienced leaders and politicians who knew what would work and what wouldn’t.
It was not an easy task. At the time, areas like Western Australia and Northern Queensland were not sure they wanted to Federate and help create our Commonwealth. Even today, Tasmania has to rightly point out when it’s occasionally left off the nation’s map.
This long period of debate and serious contemplation by veteran leaders was never afforded PNG when her Constitution was drafted. To infer however that Australia intentionally has produced ‘monsters and psychopaths’ is drawing a long bow.
Was it the training that produced your problems or the home grown, weakening of the systems that has now been allowed to develop? There is no shortage of charlatans in every society who will always seek to gain advantage and power.
So might you be demonising the system rather than the bad apples that have floated to the top like garbage in the harbour?
PNG’s system of checks and balances has been allowed to atrophy. The Ombudsman Commission, that body created to keep government in check, has not been properly funded or staffed.
The RPNGC has not been properly funded and has the lowest pro rata numbers in our region. Education and Health have been allowed to whither on the vine. Agriculture has not been encouraged to produce the nation’s food requirements and enable self sufficiency as a nation.
Resource extraction has been allowed to run out of control. The public service is reportedly notorious for not turning up for work or demanding bribes before anything is done. All these were not Australia's doing or intention.
The real problem, as I have attempted to illustrate, is that the checks and balances put in place in the government systems at Independence to prevent current problems from happening, were not designed by those who understood PNG as it would develop after independence.
Naivety? Certainly with hindsight, I agree with you. Intentional, ‘supremacy through surrogacy’? Sorry, where is the proof?
There is a real danger that if we try to pin the present ills on the lack of foresight of those in the past, we tend to absolve ourselves of any responsibility and motivation to fix today’s situation and find better ways of doing things.
I
WANT TO THANK MARTYN NAMORONG for raising the issues he has and having
the ‘guts, gumption and get up and go’ to actually confront head on,
some of the problems affecting Papua New Guinea.
We all know corruption, nepotism, malfeasance and political connivance are not exclusively PNG’s problem. You only have to look at Transparency International’s global corruption index.
However before we can find an effective solution to a problem, you must first effectively define the problem.
With the benefits of hindsight, no one could claim that there weren’t mistakes made during PNG’s nation building. Depending on your point of view, with another 10 years of gradual preparation, education, better communications and experience prior to Independence, PNG might well have been a different place than it is now. On the other hand, it may not.
Those in PNG who pushed for independence as soon as possible were very much like yourself. Young, energetic and well intentioned and hoping to ‘set the world on fire’.
The young PNG politicians then were very eager to get on with the job at hand but with the benefit of hindsight, maybe they were just a tad too inexperienced to appreciate the enormous responsibility they were demanding to be quickly given them. To those that were there at the time and knew them, these young politicians started out with the very best of intentions.
In many ways Martyn is correct in pointing out the somewhat naïve attempts at fast tracking political awareness by those in Canberra who had very little idea of what the implications of fast tracking independence would be.
To infer however that this was an intentional error on Australia’s behalf is not true. Certainly, if a plebiscite had been conducted, the vast majority of PNG people in the early 1970s would have wanted Australia to stay for many years and only gradually withdraw.
There was real pressure from the recently independent African states through the UN who were pressing Australia to leave PNG as quickly as possible. New Guinea was a UN mandated territory as you know. Many of those same African states now have serious internal troubles and PNG could learn from these examples.
Australia’s Constitution was put together by some very learned people over a period of at least 10 years. Those who helped assemble this document were experienced leaders and politicians who knew what would work and what wouldn’t.
It was not an easy task. At the time, areas like Western Australia and Northern Queensland were not sure they wanted to Federate and help create our Commonwealth. Even today, Tasmania has to rightly point out when it’s occasionally left off the nation’s map.
This long period of debate and serious contemplation by veteran leaders was never afforded PNG when her Constitution was drafted. To infer however that Australia intentionally has produced ‘monsters and psychopaths’ is drawing a long bow.
Was it the training that produced your problems or the home grown, weakening of the systems that has now been allowed to develop? There is no shortage of charlatans in every society who will always seek to gain advantage and power.
So might you be demonising the system rather than the bad apples that have floated to the top like garbage in the harbour?
PNG’s system of checks and balances has been allowed to atrophy. The Ombudsman Commission, that body created to keep government in check, has not been properly funded or staffed.
The RPNGC has not been properly funded and has the lowest pro rata numbers in our region. Education and Health have been allowed to whither on the vine. Agriculture has not been encouraged to produce the nation’s food requirements and enable self sufficiency as a nation.
Resource extraction has been allowed to run out of control. The public service is reportedly notorious for not turning up for work or demanding bribes before anything is done. All these were not Australia's doing or intention.
The real problem, as I have attempted to illustrate, is that the checks and balances put in place in the government systems at Independence to prevent current problems from happening, were not designed by those who understood PNG as it would develop after independence.
Naivety? Certainly with hindsight, I agree with you. Intentional, ‘supremacy through surrogacy’? Sorry, where is the proof?
There is a real danger that if we try to pin the present ills on the lack of foresight of those in the past, we tend to absolve ourselves of any responsibility and motivation to fix today’s situation and find better ways of doing things.
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