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Forty years after independence, Papua New Guinea is the largest single recipient of aid from Australia. Yet Australians seem to be largely ambivalent about the country. Few Australians know the history of our colonial rule in PNG and our ties to the country are being forgotten.
The Embarrassed Colonialist
About the author
Sean Dorney
Sean Dorney is a Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute.
Topics
PNG expert Sean Dorney examines PNG's weaknesses and strengths since independence and argues that, for moral and practical reasons, Australia needs to reconnect with Papua New Guinea. It is time we shed our embarrassment about our colonial past and embrace our relationship with our nearest neighbour.
The Embarrassed Colonialist is available to purchase from all good bookstores ($9.99). An e-book version ($3.99) is also available. You can read an extract of The Embarrassed Colonialist below:
Continue ready this complementary preview of Sean Dorney’s The Embarrassed Colonialist.
Lawrence Stephens, chairman of Papua New Guinea’s high-profile anti-corruption non-government organisation, Transparency International PNG, tells of boarding a flight to PNG from Cairns.
‘I walked up to the woman with the Geiger counter who was going to check if I was a terrorist with a bomb. And brushing me down she said, “Oh, are you catching the flight to Nagoya?” I said, “No, I’m catching the flight to Papua New Guinea.” She looked shocked, and asked why I was going there. When I explained it is my home, she said she could think of nowhere worse! I told her I could think of half a dozen places that would be worse, and asked if she had ever been to PNG? “No,” she said. “And I have no intention of going there!”’¹
Stephens’ encounter with an Australian official might be an extreme example of the ignorance and disdain with which Australians seem to view PNG these days, but it is by no means an isolated one. ‘You jump in a cab down in Australia, whether it be Sydney or Brisbane,’ says Kostas Constantinou, chairman of PNG’s largest bank, Bank South Pacific, and owner of several hotels in Port Moresby, ‘and you get an Aussie taxi driver and he says, “Where are you going, mate?” “I’m going up to Papua New Guinea.” And they say, “What! Are you insane? What are you going to that place for?”’.
This is not to say that PNG’s — or more particularly Port Moresby’s — reputation for lawlessness and violence is not well deserved. Constantinou, father, Sir George Constantinou, established the extremely successful construction company Hebou Constructions (PNG). He was murdered in Port Moresby in 2008 when he was carjacked while visiting one of the company’s timber mills. When I was the ABC correspondent based in Port Moresby, I was mugged twice. Once when some raskols (the generic name for young criminals in PNG) held a screwdriver to my throat and stole my wallet, and a second time when they put a gun to my temple, punched me to the ground and stole the ABC vehicle.
The fact that violence and lawlessness in Port Moresby have come to colour our view of PNG as a whole speaks to a deeper ambivalence about our nearest neighbour and perhaps even embarrassment about our role as its former colonial master. On 16 September 2015, PNG celebrated its fortieth anniversary of independence, yet the milestone barely rated a mention in Australia. At around half a billion dollars a year, Australia gives more aid to PNG that to any other country – yet Australians seem to know little and care less about the country. The 2015 Lowy Institute Poll revealed, for example, that 61 per cent of Australians could not identify Peter O’Neill, PNG’s prime minister. How many Australians realise that PNG was once an Australian colony?
The aim of this Paper is to help change this situation. The first half of this Paper will look at PNG today, reflecting on both its problems, which are written and talked about often, but also its strengths, which rarely rate a mention. This first part of the Paper will also examine how Australia has contributed to both the country’s weaknesses and strengths, first as the colonial power and, since independence, as PNGs main donor. In doing this, my aim is not just to educated Australians a little about PNG, but also to inspire them to be more interested in it. So in the second half of this Paper I will explore why we cannot continue to ignore PNG, and will conclude with some ideas about how we can strengthen our relationship.
Forty years after PNG’s independence, Australia needs to accept, rather than escape, its colonial past. It needs to do so not in any negative or paternalistic sense; I am certainly not suggesting that the best way to deal with PNG’s many problems is for Australia to resume a colonial posture. Rather, we need to acknowledge our colonial past as a starting point for a deeper engagement with PNG today. Australia’s role in PNG, both in thw past and present, needs to be taught in schools. There needs to be greater media attention paid to PNG. There should be more effort to build people-to-people connections with a particular focus on younger generations. And, once and for all, Australia needs to shed its embarrassment and embrace its relations with its nearest neighbour.
