A Workable Plan For

P-Ng Development

By A Staff Writer

Not since the Foot Mission’s controversial recommendations on Papua-New Guinea has there been such a splash of publicity. Certainly never before had private enterprise cribbed so much headline space on New Guinea affairs. The newspapers and TV stations broke out in a rash of articles and interviews, in Canberra the Territories Minister said the news was a great encouragement, and in Port Moresby the Administrator described it as most progressive.

THE occasion was the announce ment in Sydney on May 11 of the formation of the Australia-New Guinea Coporation Ltd., with an ini tial paid capital of £250,000.

The chairman, Mr. Steven Rich, to gether with all four of his fellow directors, faced a news conference to explain that the corporation was a consortium of Australian banks, in surance companies and businessmen designed to provide investment oppor tunities in New Guinea.

It hoped to chart new courses, yet at the same time support and assist the pioneers. It would channel funds, some from overseas, to agricultural and industrial development, and would have a strong management team based in Port Moresby by June 30.

New Guinea was entering a critical time, the directors said, and world pressures meant speedy development was required there.

No Details To questioners, they said they could not reveal the list of share holders yet or be committed on what specific projects they might have in mind.

There could, of course, be political hazards due to emerging nationalism, but if P-NG was to emerge as a prosperous, independent nation there just had to be development of private enterprise at the same rate as Gov ernment development, they added.

Yet at the end of the first week of publicity there was still one major question about the corporation left unanswered: What was the corpora tion all about?

Just how would it go about its high-sounding tasks and why had it chosen to announce itself in such broad national terms?

The answers reveal that somebody in the corporation has had extensive experience of the ways of Govern ment in New Guinea matters—ex

perience so wide that it is most un likely that newcomer Mr. Steven Rich is really the chief architect of the corporation, as claimed by the news paper pundits (although not claimed by Mr. Rich, be it noted).

It would occur to a man with the New Guinea experience of Mr. F. M.

Hewitt that the most intelligent way of overcoming official reluctance to give private enterprise in New Guinea the support it deserves and needs— the best way of overcoming, in fact, the suspicions of bureaucrats who have long considered New Guinea to be a unique socialist State within a Commonwealth dedicated to free en terprise—is to attack it on a national front with full Cabinet support.

Only big businesses and lending institutions working together have the money and influence required to do

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the job that private enterprise must do in P-NG. Pioneer fields of invest ment, and new secondary industries, need Government support in the form of tariff and tax concession (such as “tax holidays” for new industries m their formative years).

And New Guinea investment also needs protection against established mainland interests, some of whom in the past have attempted to hold back New Guinea business develop ment for their own ends by crying “cheap black labour”. When this happens it is P-NG native progress that suffers most.

Because of these things the cor poration is apparently, and under standably, reluctant to show its hand on specific projects until all the ends have been tied up. But it appears to have at least three specific plans in mind.

Mr. Rich, for instance, whose in terests manufacture Venetian blinds and insect screens, might normally be expected to start such an industry in a tropical country, and even export from there. Sir James Kirby would find plenty of opportunities for his engineering interests. And there is much to be done with Mr. Hewitt’s timber.

Need For Publicity But there is another vital con sideration. Men of their experience know that the future progress of New Guinea will largely be determined by the attitudes of the Australian public. For that reason Australia needs a public fully-informed on just what the problems are in New Guinea. At present it gains most of its information from academic theorists writing in intellectual journals or from banner headlines on inconsequential happenings re ported in the afternoon Press. Both points of view are equally narrow if one reads nothing else.

What Australia needs is well rounded reporting on all aspects of New Guinea affairs using all media, and designed for all kinds of people.

This it will get as a result of the formation of the Council on New Guinea Affairs, which was launched exactly a week after the corporation.

It is no coincidence that its board includes three of the five directors of the corporation. But its chairman is Mr. Norman Cowper, and founda tion members include people promi

nent in business, government, the pro fessions, religion and the trade unions.

The council will appoint a per manent executive director and en courage seminars and discussions on all aspects of New Guinea, stimulate contact between New Guineans and Australians, with the help of scholar ships, and produce an independent journal. The council will, in fact, be that overdue organisation—a New Guinea public relations body in the truest sense.

Such an organisation can, and ob viously will, be left alone by th< sponsors to run independent!’ once it is established, for all kno\ that neither Government nor privat enterprise has anything to hide ii New Guinea and that the wealth o facts that the council can bring t light are overdue for intelligen public consideration.

The formation of both the Aus tralian New Guinea Corporation an the Council on New Guinea Affair is the most important developmer in P-NG for many a year. And fo its clever planning it deserves ac miration.

• See Commerce, page 119.