Now Close To £4,000,000 Per Annum
p. 26 · Read in the full issue
Australia's Administrative Expenditure on Papua-New Guinea
THE Annual Estimates of Australia (courteously supplied by Canberra upon request) contain the estimates of the cost of governing Papua and New Guinea in the current year.
There are hundreds of pages in this bulky document, and officialdom has a maddening habit of scattering the items of expenditure through dozens of ac counts. We have gone through the pages, and gathered together the follow ing figures, to show the estimated cost of administering Papua and New Guinea this year. The list may not be complete, how ever—it would be easy to miss some items.
It is interesting to recall that, before World War 11, the Territories bore their own administrative costs —they seldom asked the Australian taxpayer for any thing. The following costly set-up has developed under the Socialist regime:— Amounts Allotted in 1949-50 Estimates for Various Services Dept, of External Territories .. £78,000
Papua—lnterest, etc., on Loans 4,580 New Guinea—lnterest, etc., on Loans 1,850 Conveyance of Air-mails .. .. 32,000 Papua-N. Guinea, General Ad ministration, including Native Welfare, War Damage, Re construction, etc 3,400,000 (Last year spent £3,196,668.) Printing of Laws 5,000 Sydney University, Chair of Anthropology 1,750 Australian School of Pacific Administration 20,000 (Last year, £20,947.) Shipping Service 75,000 (Last year, £84,826.) Payments on Behalf of Former Administrations 22,250 Restoration of Plantations, Lands and Roads 100,000 (Last year, £76,202.) Library Services 1,000
New Guinea Timber—Royal Commission 5.000 Audit Officials, Papua Staff .. 6,407 Works Controller, Papua-NG 1,053 Papua-NG Inter-island Ship ping-New Vessels 2,500 (£161,076 spent last year.) Purchase of Lighthouse Vessel and Services Installation .. 26.000 Lighthouse Services 9,000 Lighthouses—New Buildings, Furniture, etc 2,500 Approximate Total, 1949-50 .. £3,795,000 In 1948-49, no less than £100,192 was spent under the heading, “Native Train ing and Reconstruction, Papua-New Guinea.” Nothing is provided for 1949- 50.
In the foregoing figures, no provision appears to be made for the operations being carried on in the Territories by the Department of Works and Housing, or for the cost of maintaining naval estab lishments at Dreger Harbour and Manus.