Territories
pp. 49-51 · Read in the full issue
The "Sugar Daddy" of the Pacific
Australia’S Grants To Islands
Although Australia refuses to accept responsibilities in the South Pacific Islands, outside the huge Islands Territory of Papua and New Guinea, Australia’s expenditure on matters connected with the Islands reaches a remarkable total—at least £11,500,000 per annum.
AUSTRALIA'S Budget and Esti \ mates for the financial year 1957-58 were published on Sep smber 3. The amount ear-marked »r Papua and NewGGuineaa —a free ad practically unconditional gift— as £11,000,000, which was nearly l millions greater than the £9,135,000 ranted in 1956-57. But that was 3t the end of it.
Australia provided £33,080 for orfolk Island, compared with 17,079 last year. Australia gets sthing worth mentioning from NI return—the profits on the trade ith the few hundred people who re there are negligible.
The Cocos (Keeling) Islands, in ie Indian Ocean, which Australia ok over in 1955 from Singapore, >w cost the Australian taxpayers 15,000 per annum (£77,005 last ar), of which £11,600 is salaries, lat little group was settled in 23 by a couple of Englishmen tare and Clunies Ross) and now is a small community of mixed iropean, negro, Indian, Siamese id Chinese races; and it provides e Qantas Australian-African ser ;e with a fuelling-place. But it is ficult to see what advantage Aus ilia gets from ownership.
A.lso over in the Indian Ocean is
iristmas Island—mostly a vast
ap of phosphatic rock—and Aus dia has just taken this over from itain, and this year plans to spend, ntly with NZ, £335,000 on the de lopment there of phosphate work rs, similar to those at Nauru.
Last year, Australia and NZ ntly spent £1,500,000 on Christmas and preliminaries. However, the mmonwealth presumably will get nething substantial out of this the shape of fertilisers, to re ice the now dwindling resources Nauru and Ocean Island.
N examination of these Estimates . reveals a number of interesting items. r or example, £75,800 is provided Australia’s share of the cost of ■ South Pacific Commission, with idquarters at Noumea. As Aus ha pays 60 per cent, of the cost this 6-nations set-up, it can be n that the SPC now is costing
approximately £126,300 per annum.
It is not easy to enumerate the benefits that Australia derives from that £75,800.
this year plans to spend £14,500 on a “pearl shell survey”.
Last year, £17,964 was spent under this head. Again, benefits difficult to see.
Every year, Australia provides about £40,000 per annum for “New Guinea civilian war pensions.
Education benefits and medical treatment”—the cost last year was £39,367. This is a heritage of the Jap invasion of New Guinea, 1942-45.
There is £I,OOO provided for P-NG and NI for “payments” under “war service homes”. No explanation.
The fools and the wise men who borrow money at interest die, sooner or later; but the consequences of their folly, or wisdom, continue, in the shape of loans. Papua and New Guinea have had such loans in the past, and Australia now finds £8,270 per annum (£8,324 last year) to cover interest and sinking fund.
One wonders why P-NG, with all its wealth and resources, should not pay this sum, instead of Australia.
This year, Australia has provided £30,400 for the Sydney School of Pacific Administration, where selected men are trained for the P-NG services. It cost £27,709 last year.
This year, under the heading of “electricity undertakings, Papua and New Guinea —transfer of stores and vehicles from Dept, of Works”, no less than £140,000 is provided. Last year, Australia gave P-NG £100,581 for “Rabaul harbour and road works.”
Australia, this year, will pay £17,000 for the maintenance of lighthouses in the P-NG area —last year, it was £28,037. In addition, it is spending £7,000 on new lighthouse equipment, and £29,000 on new buildings within the Territory.
None of the foregoing are included in the £ll million grant.
PATIENCE and some genius are needed to trace Australia’s Pacific Territories expenditure through Departments other than that of Territories.
For example, large sums are spent in P-NG by the Department of Civil Aviation: but they are not shown separately.
But the sum spent by Common wealth Department of Works in P-NG is shown separately—£lßl,6lo last year, and £181,254 proposed this
year. It appears that Works main tain in P-NG 1 Director, 1 Assistant Director, 67 engineers and archi tects, 6 administrative officers, 2 accountants, 35 clerks and 20 typists, machinists and storema n—l 32 altogether.
The maintenance of the Depart ment of Territories in Canberra
costs £229,300 this year—but that; must not be blamed altogether on. the Islands —the Department looks; after Northern Territory as well.
In 1957-8, Australia will give away £5,850,000 on “International De velopment and Relief,” including: £5.045,000 on the Colombo Plan.
With all that money, and withi
all that administrative personnel, and with that generous spirit towards Pacific Island Territories (which can give little more in re turn than lick the hand that feeds them) it seems a pity that Aus tralia cannot take responsibility for the hungry nearby Territories of Solomons and New Hebrides. They, at least, could be built up into trad ing countries from which Australia ccula get some really substantial benefit. (The above was written before the P-NG Budget was presented. It appears now that Australia's largesse Js not what it seems — the larger the grant, the more Territorians must pay in taxes to keep P-NG's internal revenue at its "correct proportion". See else where in this issue.)