Pacific Territories

Confusion and Lack of Planning in Australia's Pacific Territories

rE bald newspaper announcement' —made on September 9, presum ably on information supplied by Mr.

Ward—that civil government will be restored in Papua early in 1945, while the Army will remain in command in the Mandated Territory, is typical of the confused planning and bumble footed administration of the Curtin Labour Government/ Which have brought Australia to the edge of economic and industrial chaos.

There is no indication of how the Papuan Administration and ANGAU (the respective personnel of which are now inextricably mixed) are go ing to sort themselves out; of whether they are going to function side by side—and, if so, how; of whether it is intended that ANGAU shall have its headquarters in Port Moresby (along side the civil government) and func tion only in New Guinea, or whether it will transfer its whole establish ment to the Mandated Territory.

If ANGAU and the Papuan Govern ment are to function independently, what is going to become of the Production Control Board, which now practically runs the planting industry and appears to have complete charge of such essentials as labour and transport? Is it to become part of the civil government? If so, how is it to be done?

IF the Board goes with its mother body, ANGAU, to the Mandated Territory, it will have very little pro duction to control, apart from min

ing, so long as the eastern end of New Britain, all’ New Ireland, all Buka, half of Bougainville, and the hinterland of northern New Guinea are full of isolated and wandering Japs.

Few people seem to realise that there is a formidable job of cleaning up to be done in the Mandated Territory before anything like organ ised agricultural production can be resumed. There may be 100,000 Japs loose in the coastal areas and the interior jungles, living miserably in the native villages or on the gardens they have established in the last two years; and the great majority will have to be hunted down by men skilled in jungle-craft.

The only areas which may be re garded as clear of Japanese are the Morobe goldfield, the Huon Peninsula and the Rai coast, as far west as the Madang-Bogia area, the western end of New Britain and a large part of the Manus district.

Americans and Australians, sweep ing westwards after the retreating enemy, have by-passed all the* other large districts, and the Japs within them. Our fighting forces are con cerned only with breaking up the enemy’s fighting organisation—which they have done most effectively in the New Guinea zone-but not with clearing him out of the jungles. That is a job for a later time; but, obviously, until that job is done civilian activities may not be resumed in the Mandated Territory.

F ““£5 m Pacific Territories, and any vision— which it notoriously has not—it would have foreseen this situation at the end of 1942 (when the Japs were be big thrown out of Papua) and would have acted accordingly. The essential elements of civil administration then would have been restored at once to Papua; and civil administration, collaborating wherever necessary with military organisations, would have controlled the restoration of native government, the return of civilians, the re-establishment of productive industries and the provision of essen tial things such as labour and transport. The change-over from military to civilian control would have been gradual, and harmonious, But, instead, those Curtin planners applied to the Territories the system wit l ? which they have burdened Aus tralia endless chains of commissions, boards and experts, directed by hordes of bureaucrats, whose delight

P. 9 discourage individualism, push

civilians around and kick private enterprise in the pants. In the Terri- A °n(?s, this policy is expressed in the ANGAU-Production Board set-up, directed by the Army through a Brass-hat liaison, in which the civil government (Department of External Territories) is recognised, but barely tolerated. Since February, 1942, the administration of Papua has been 100 P er cent military, and civilians have been treated as if they had no rights whatever.

Military authority should have ended as soon as the Territory was freed from the invaders; taut the

Amy has hung on to control for two years beyond that, and now is well dug in, and most reluctant to leave.

FROM the point of view of efficiency and service, there is little wrong with either ANGAU or the Production Control Board. It is simply that they are uneconomic, top-heavy and bur eaucratic, from the highest-ranking Brass-hat down to the humblest form-signing corporal. ANGAU is staffed with the best and brightest officials of the former administrative services of both Territories—men who know the country and know the job; the Board seems to be particularly well served by capable men. Prob ably, never in the history of the two Territories, has there been better administration—regarded purely as administration.

Then (someone will ask) why inter fere with a system that is working efficiently? Simply because the whole set-up belongs to wartime, and is abnormal, unreal and uneconomic.

Canberra’s professors, bureaucrats and socialistic planners think that Australia, under present conditions, is wonderful—they are quite incapable of appreciating the fact that the civilian population is carrying almost intolerable burdens and restrictions; that even the necessary wartime structure of totalitarianism is re sented; and that, if it were not that the need to win the war transcends everything else, the people would rise in revolt against*the intolerable complacency of their bureaucratic masters. We of the Anglo-Saxon nations are individualists, and we demand a world in which we shall enjoy personal freedom and the laws of competition—the way of life for which we fought for hundreds of years, and for which we are fighting now.

JUDGED on any other than wartime conditions, the administrative set-up in Papua now is ridiculously over-staffed and enormously expen sive. We accept it as part of the Army in wartime; but we know that it could not last a month in a free world, where a community, like an individual, must live within its in come.

In ANGAU and the Production Board, to-day, we have fifty men do ing what five would have done in peacetime; and enjoying larger emoluments and greater privileges ANGAU and its associates doubtless would like to continue their activities in Papua in peacetime—just as was forecast in this journal two years ago; but, while that might be in some ways an admirable thing for Papua, it done onl y at a cost of perhaps £200,000 per annum to the Australian taxpayer—and we can imagine how long the taxpayer would bear it!

ANGAU and the Production Board have aroused criticism because of their apparent lack of consideration for the rights of civilians—especially those unfortunate people who were hurriedly evacuated—and their ap parent hostility towards private enterprise, in any shape or form. Yet

there can be no future for the Terri tories unless both civilian rights and private enterprise are protected and encouraged.

We had hoped, even in 1944, that the Canberra Government would have found some way in which the civil government could work side by side with the military set-up, and har moniously arrange a change-over extending over many months, so that the Territory .could get the greatest possible permanent benefit from the lavish expenditures of the military era. But the military regime has shown such antagonism towards the civil regime, and such little con sideration for civilian rights, that nothing of that kind is to be ex pected. * We anticipate that civil govern ment and private enterprise soon will be restored in Papua, simply because Canberra dare not longer delay that necessary change-over; but, because of the hopeless incapacity of the Australian Government, and its Socialistic hates and prejudices, we anticipate that the change will be attended by much squabbling and confusion, and interference with private industry and property, and that Papuan civilians will have to suffer a great deal yet before they are restored to their homes and their rights.

All this is nothing new to Terri torians, however. For several de cades, they have suffered much from the ignorance and indifference of

Australian Governments. The only change which they now can see is that, whereas for 25 years their needs were ignored and forgotten, they now are likely to receive the ardent atten tions of reforming gentlemen, who wank to express their for “Fuzzy Wuzzy.” Their last condition promises to be worse than their first. In pre war years, they at least were left alone.