Tim O'Connor
On September 15, 1975, the Australian flag was lowered for the last time in Papua New Guinea. It was a momentous occasion and an historic day for PNG, but 30 years on the shadow of Australia still has a large bearing on life in that country.
Foreign minister Alexander Downer jetted to Port Moresby on August 23 to announce the "salvation" of Australia's failed Enhanced Cooperation Program with PNG. The ECP was shelved in May after a condition of legal immunity for Australian police was found to be unconstitutional by the PNG Supreme Court.
The original ECP was to have allowed around 260 Australian police to be placed predominantly in Port Moresby and along the Highlands Highway, and 60 Australian bureaucrats to be placed in key PNG bureaucracies. The total cost was to be $1.1 billion.
The program, based on a model built in Canberra, was widely criticised for its lack of local knowledge. It was so inappropriate, and its conception so rushed, that it didn't even fit within PNG's constitution. Several local observers were concerned that it failed to address the key problems in PNG, saying it reflected a solution to problems that Canberra deemed needed to be addressed.
Under the new ECP Mach II, 30 Australian police will be stationed in PNG as trainers and will be working on anti-corruption measures. They will be accompanied by a similar number of bureaucrats, but at substantially less cost. The revised ECP is a much more traditional aid program — training and advising rather than actually doing — and a huge departure from what the Australian departments of the prime minister and cabinet, and treasury envisaged when they designed it.
The original ECP was aimed at addressing law and order problems in PNG. The revised ECP is focused primarily on corruption, a problem that perhaps affects foreign investors but will have little direct impact on the 85% of Papua New Guineans who live outside the formal economy.
But like much of the Australian aid program in PNG, the revised ECP also offers Australian-developed solutions to what Canberra perceives are PNG's problems. Though it may save some face for Downer, this ECP is unlikely to really assist PNG.
In Port Moresby on the August 24, Downer told the PNG- Australia Business Council he was "disappointed" that PNG had not changed its constitution to allow Australian police immunity from PNG law.
While both countries' governments are undoubtedly hoping that a meet-in-the-middle approach will produce positive results, tensions remain particularly around what is, or is not, appropriate development for PNG.
The nub of the conflict lies in the differing social organisation of the two countries: Australia's social structures are focused around the individual, while PNG remains a highly collectivised society ruled by chiefs, tribes and wantoks (literally, those who speak the same language — "one-talk").
Solutions that may be appropriate for Australia are often not for PNG. The ownership of land provides a good example of this. Australia has a Torrens title whereby individuals can own virtually any tract of available land if they have access to the required capital to purchase it. In PNG, 97% of land remains in customary ownership. This land provides a social security blanket for the 85% of the population who rely on subsistence farming and barter to make ends meet.
In the late 1990s, the World Bank with the support of the Australian government attempted to begin to register some of this land. It was a move hotly contested in PNG. Demonstrations erupted and four died during the heavy-handed crackdown by PNG police.
Since then, the World Bank has lowered its profile and Canberra says that it only wants to "foster debate around the subject" of land titling.
Land in PNG is more than property: it provides livelihoods, reflects spirituality, allows the continuation of cultural practice and provides a living link to the history of the people who live upon it. In economic terms, if it cannot be rented or sold, it has no value. This is a key dilemma in the conflict between the Australian "solutions" for PNG and the ones seen as appropriate by many Papua New Guineans.
Land Equity International, a private firm, has been carrying out many of the land registration programs, funded by the Australian aid program. LEI has close connections to the resource giant BHP and, evidently, to the Australian government.
What possible interest could a mineral giant have in making access to land easier? Flag planters for government policy such as the mining industry-funded Centre for Independent Studies have identified the registration of customary land as essential for economic development.
Such relationships between parties with vested interests have raised the ire of many groups in PNG, and do little to allay growing concerns here about Canberra's real interest in PNG.
Australia's "solutions" in PNG have provided little long-term benefit in PNG and there is a real concern that they may be having a negative one.
[Tim O'Connor is the aid campaigner at AID/WATCH, an independent organisation monitoring and campaigning on Australian overseas aid, as well as trade policies and programs. To mark 30 years of PNG independence, AID/WATCH is hosting two speakers from PNG — Annie Kajir from the Environmental Law Centre and Yat Paol from the Bismark Ramu Group. The Land is Life < http://www.aidwatch.org.au/assets/aw00797/PNG%20A4%20AllEventsA HREF="mailto:.pdf"><.pdf> tour will travel to Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.]
From Green Left Weekly, September 14, 2005.
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