Bureaucracy Clings To Stabilisation Fund

THE Papua-New Guinea Copra Stabi lisation Fund has become an absur dity. At this moment, it contains more than £1,200,000 Australian. If the copra market collapsed, there is enough money in the Fund to subsidise all Papua- New Guinea production, for over 20 years, at the rate of £5 per ton.

In 1946, when it was commenced, there may have been justification for this arbitrary deduction of £5 per ton from the planter’s returns; but there is none now. The MOF 9-years’ contract gives the planter all the guarantee he wants; and, apart from that, the fact that the world market now consistently values

copra at £lOO Stg. per ton (more than double the MOF rate) does not suggest any liklihood of a collapse.

The Stabilisation Fund deduction should have been discontinued a year ago. The fact that there is no sign of its being removed is just another illustration of the fact that, once Bureaucracy is allowed to get its talons into the earnings of private enterprise, in this fashion, it takes more than public discontent, and a good case, to prise it loose. It would appear that in this respect that there is no difference between Administrations, whether they call themselves Socialist, Liberal or Calathumpian.