£8,000 For Port Moresby Native Landowners!
pp. 7-8 · Read in the full issue
IN June, the Papua-New Guinea Ad ministration paid over no less than £8,025 to the Kila Kila and Korobosea natives, for 321 acres of land, which is to be included in the district of Boroko. a new suburb of Port Moresby.
In other words, the Administration paid the ridiculous price of £25 per acre for land in a muggy little valley tucked away in the hills at the back of Port Moresby,
when it is obvious that the only suitable nlace for European settlement there is the cool and accessible country close to the sea.
The officials, of course, will retort that there is no accessible land available along the sea-front; but there would be plentv of space there if so much suitable land had not been wasted on police barracks labour compounds, and other Depart
mental brain-waves. Why reserve the choicest sea-front lands for native accommodation, while making plans to dump a European residential area back in the hot and unhealthy valleys?
Above all, who authorised the payment to these natives of £25 per acre? How was the price arrived at? The natives never occupied the land, never used it, and as waste-land it is worth about £2 per acre. The transaction is typical of the way this present Administration develops a frenzy for spending Australian money whenever anything involving native interests is under consideration.
It is a pity that there is no Legislative Council or similar body in this Territory, to which the Administration could be compelled to submit details of its annual expenditure. An examination of some of the expenditure on activities affecting natives—such as “compensation for war damage” and Mount Lamington relief— would give startling results, A pleasant time is had by all, so long as poor old over-taxed Australia continues to pay. But how much longer is Australia going to shovel out £5 or £6 million pounds per annum, to make a Socialist planners’ holiday in Papua-New Guinea?