South Pacific Conference

Lae To Be Site Of Next Year's South Pacific Conference

Urbanisation, land tenure and new industries, all problems in one or other of the Pacific Islands, will be the chief topics for discussion at the Sixth South Pacific Conference.

rwas officially announced in August that the conference will be held in Lae, New Guinea, and would open on July 6 next year.

Lae is a town of about 3,000 non indigenous people and is the gateway to the Highlands of New Guinea, to which it is now linked by road.

Fifteen territories are entitled to send representatives to the conference.

They are; American Samoa, BSIP, Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, Guam, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Hebrides, Niue, Papua-New Guinea, Tokelaus, United States Trust Terri tory of the Pacific Islands, and Wallis and Futuna Islands.

The Kingdom of Tonga is also en titled to be represented.

Observers The present member Governments of the SPC—Australia, France, New Zealand, UK and the US—usually send observers. Western Samoa, a likely new member government, will, presumably, do this too.

The South Pacific Commission has been especially active lately with a number of things, including the initial preparations for the 1965 con ference, an urban local government technical meeting at Port Moresby, and the wind-up of the first home economics course, which was held at Suva.

For October, there is a meeting of the SPC at Noumea when, among other things, Western Samoa is ex pected to be admitted as a member, contributing about 2J per cent, of the SPC Budget.

The SPC technical meeting at Port Moresby on urban local govern ment was held from July 27 to August 8.

The meeting recognised the need for urban local government, of which there is very little in the South Pacific, and decided to seek the help of the SPC.

It recommended that the SPC should, if asked, help territories with advice and consultants and whatever means available, and prior investiga tion before local government was established.

The meeting agreed that in all terri tories the central government should be responsible for the thorough train ing of appropriate central and all local staffs in the administration of local government.

The conference proceedings were followed with interest by territories which have centres of local govern ment or territories which may soon be able to delegate some central gov ernment functions to local govern ment.

Appropriate adaptations of the ideas expressed could, provided financial bugbears can be overcome, prove of benefit to several island groups.

The venue for the Sixth South Pacific Conference next year will be the Lae Technical School.