Papua New Guinea kicked off a festival of 50th anniversary independence celebrations last month with breathless fanfare that will run well into the rest of the year. The national milestone will fall on 16 September 2025. Billboards have sprung up around Port Moresby in high-traffic areas, like mushrooms after a downpour, impelling passers-by to be proud of themselves and their country.
PNG Prime Minister James Marape would have plenty to celebrate, after comfortably defeating a vote of no confidence in April, which gives him a clear run for the rest of his term to 2027.
Side-by-side
Marape genuinely welcomed Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s re-election in May, congratulating Albanese over the phone even before the Australian Electoral Commission had called the election in Labor’s favour.
This means Marape can continue his bromance with Albanese, which was forged on the muddy hillsides of the Kokoda Track when the two prime ministers trekked a 16-kilometre stretch of the historic route, side-by-side, to mark Anzac day in 2024. A literal walking metaphor for how both countries’ governments are seeking to present the bilateral relationship.
Even PNG Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko threw-in behind Albanese during the election campaign. His unsolicited and blunt endorsement of the Australian Labor government’s continuation reflected broader sentiments within PNG’s political circles.
This support is not surprising, given the carousel of gifts Australia has been bestowing onto Papua New Guinea over the past year: a $600 million PNG NRL deal, $570 million in budget support (bringing the total to over $3.1 billion from Australia since 2020), negotiations on a historic PNG-Australia defence treaty that would see a marked boost to PNG’s defence forces, a $400 million Pacific Policing Initiative (PNG will host one of the regional training hubs), as well as a slew of discrete infrastructure and other kinds of bilateral aid projects.
Albanese may well be singing Genie’s, “You ain’t never had a friend like me,” song from Disney’s Aladdin movie the next time he sees his PNG counterpart.
In fact, it’s hard to recall a period when bilateral ties have been stronger, or PNG ministers more effusive in their praise of Australia’s support for their country.
The Albanese government’s immediate pivot to the Pacific after its first election victory in 2022 appears to be paying off. After years of perceptions of transactional diplomacy and occasional tensions over the decades, Marape clearly hopes for steadier bilateral ties, a more authentic “partnership”, and deeper mutual understanding. There is indeed much to celebrate about the state of the political relationship between Australia and PNG.
Looking north
Yet beneath the warmth, there’s pragmatism. Marape, more seasoned than ever at diplomatic balancing, knows Australia’s friendship remains essential, but he must also carefully manage his equities with China.
Marape is not shy in reminding his Australian counterparts that PNG’s sovereign interests come first. This is about trade and investment. Australia has been a long-time valued trade and investment partner for PNG, but Marape and other PNG leaders look to China and the rest of Asia for new market opportunities.
China may well be happy to let Australia perform the difficult task of assisting PNG lift its security and development indicators.
Marape has even reinvigorated PNG’s somewhat ambitious aspiration to join ASEAN, with an eye to the imagined lucrative foreign markets that membership may open for PNG exports. He sees Asia on the path to future prosperity, and he wants PNG to get on that train before it leaves the station.
Since domestic security overheads and sovereign risk are key handbrakes on foreign investment into PNG, Australia’s contributions to a more secure and financially stable PNG will help Marape make good on his economic objective of stronger trade with Asia by making his country a more attractive destination for capital. So, why not lean-in? After all, closer security ties are evidently a key motivator for Canberra.
And China is not going anywhere. With a new Chinese bank set to open in PNG, a new casino that will come with its own special economic zone and port of entry (exclusively for high-rollers), increased China-PNG flight connectivity, a China-PNG FTA in the works, and ongoing as well as rumoured offers of new infrastructure projects (particularly in the digital sector), that relationship is clearly also in rude health.
China may well be happy to let Australia perform the difficult task of assisting PNG lift its security and development indicators. That lets it focus on the real business of business: money. And besides, China already has strong political relationships with Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, and more recently, Cook Islands, that it is converting into an increased regional security presence.
Celebration versus reality
But stepping back from big-ticket political showpieces, beneath the resplendent new independence celebration billboards, there’s an evident cognitive dissonance in Port Moresby.
While official narratives focus on national pride, sovereignty, and PNG’s regional leadership aspirations, a growing proportion of the population, particularly young people, find little cause for celebration. Job prospects remain scarce, violent crime in urban centres is rising, and political disenchantment among youth is increasingly palpable. They perceive a political elite that is self-serving and corrupt, disconnected from everyday realities.
Canberra’s enthusiastic support for Marape’s ambitions of regional economic and security leadership, as marked by leaders-level glad-handing and deal-making, is having an unintended side effect: Canberra is at times seen as complicit with a PNG political class rapidly losing domestic credibility.
The PNG NRL deal for example, is surprisingly unpopular among educated young Papua New Guineans, who are distrustful of their government and disappointed that Australia is rewarding bad behaviour.
Yes, there is much to be proud of in the 50-year relationship, but we’re not going to celebrate our way into a better future if we ignore the realities facing everyday Papua New Guineans.
