Papua New Guinea, explained.
Australia should help PNG’s Security Industries Authority disclose which firms will be guarding polling stations (Llane Munau/AFP via Getty Images)
Security firms are armed up leading into polling season, but who do they answer to?
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Australian rifles, private guns and PNG’s 2027 electionAustralian rifles, private guns and PNG’s 2027 election
Gun violence has become a critical issue in Papua New Guinea, and Australia is not a bystander: it funds PNG’s elections, trains its police, and is about to supply its security forces with rifles. Demand for hired guns is rising across the Highlands. Itinerant gunmen with skills honed in tribal conflict sell their services for cash, pigs and women (Opens in new window). A 2005 study (Opens in new window) traced around three-quarters of their high-powered guns to pilfered military and police armouries, and recent ABC reporting (Opens in new window) suggests little has changed. These armouries are due to receive 3,500 Australian Combat Assault Rifles (Opens in new window) over the next four years.
Tribal fighting regularly spills into urban settlements, and businesses in the cities pay the security costs. The state has pursued both soft and hard responses: gun amnesties (Opens in new window) occurred across the Highlands this year, alongside raids by Kumul 23, a police unit trained by Australian special forces (Opens in new window) to find and “surgically remove” (Opens in new window) those who terrorise communities. It is too early to say whether the approaches are working.
Either way, the gunmen are a symptom (Opens in new window), and the patronage networks that bankroll them are the disease. Their activity intensifies during election periods, as do the gun trade and demand for private security. The private security industry, one of PNG’s largest employers, has adapted to this rising risk.
In a Lowy Institute Analysis (Opens in new window) released this week, I examined ten years of data on PNG’s private security firms and found the industry has both grown and armed up. Year after year, new small companies are registering for top-tier Class A licences, which cost double the standard fee but allow their guards to carry firearms and use advanced surveillance equipment. In 2024, firms were taking out these licences at four times the 2015 rate.
Much of this growth is commercial, driven by resource projects, business clients, and petty crime. But guards and guns acquired for any reason are available at election time, when candidates and power brokers want protection or muscle.
Year after year, new small companies are registering for top-tier Class A licences, which cost double the standard fee but allow their guards to carry firearms and use advanced surveillance equipment.
ANU observers’ reports (Opens in new window) on PNG’s last four elections show guns becoming more common across the country, a “genuine cause of concern” for future polls. In some areas, polling-day violence and controlled voting have become so normalised that experienced observers expect security incidents – including killings – to occur.
Australia budgeted $20 million (Opens in new window) to support PNG’s 2022 general election, then needed another $10 million just to ensure the vote went ahead. Stakeholders described the effort as “more in line with crisis-response or humanitarian disaster than aid programming”. The Australian Defence Force also deployed more than 130 personnel and aircraft under Operation KIMBA (Opens in new window), helping with logistics and planning, and safely flying election materials around the country.
The election took place, but polling fairness and security varied enormously. At the worst polling stations, security broke down. Ballot boxes were stolen. Convoys were hijacked. Firearms were brandished, and rival factions exchanged gunfire. Police and state security forces were often powerless, reluctant to intervene, or entirely absent. Private security escorted and protected ballot boxes in some places; in others, it helped seize or control them, alongside campaign managers, agents, supporters, strongmen and local power brokers.
PNG votes again in 2027, almost certainly with substantial Australian and international support, giving Australia a direct stake in who secures the vote. Past elections suggest violence will spike, both election-related and opportunistic, as rivals use the polls as cover to settle old scores. This time it may be worse, with more guns and hired gunmen in circulation. Private security will certainly be present. The question is who it will answer to.
Private security firms sit within wider networks of candidates, campaign agents, strongmen and police, and some have political ties of their own. Many are unlicensed. No regulator can capture all of this, but transparency about who contracts whom can expose patronage networks to public scrutiny and shrink the space for bad actors.
Australia should withhold its rifle shipments until armoury security has been independently verified and the results published, as proposed (Opens in new window) by Miranda Forsyth, Sinclair Dinnen and Michael Main, and consider deferring delivery until after the 2027 polls. Before voting begins, it should help PNG’s Security Industries Authority audit Class A licensees and release its register, and work with the Electoral Commission and state security services to disclose which firms will be at polling stations, on convoys and in counting centres. Voters, observers and donors must know who is guarding the ballots – and for whom.
About the author
Bradley Dare
Bradley Dare is a former Australian Defence Force officer now working as an analyst within the Australian Government.
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