Everybody's In The Act

The annual ritual in the United Nations General Assembly of telling Australia what it should do about Papua-New Guinea and Nauru was performed with even greater forthrightness than usual in December.

FIRST, after Australia’s delegate, Dudley McCarthy, had raised the customary objections, the As sembly’s Trusteeship Committee passed two African-sponsored resolu tions calling on Australia to set early dates for the two territories’ indepen dence and to rehabilitate Nauru.

The voting was 61-nil with 19 abstentions in both cases.

A couple of weeks later, a plenary session of the Assembly put the screws on Australia even harder. By 84 votes to nil, with 25 abstentions, it called on Australia to set a date not later than January 31, 1968, for Nauruan independence, and to take immediate steps “towards restor ing the island of Nauru for habita tion by the Nauruan people as a sovereign nation”. (The abstainers included Canada, New Zealand, the United States, Britain, France, and several European and Latin Ameri can countries).

By 86 votes to nil, with 22 abstentions, the Assembly urged Aus tralia to give Papua-New Guinea its independence at an early date.

The lack of a specific date in the P-NG resolution probably gave the Australian Government some com fort, as it could interpret this as recognition by the world at large that turning a Stone Age country into one capable of running itself is easier said than done.

But there was little comfort to be extracted from the resolution on Nauru—this being the first one to ask Australia to give Nauru its in dependence by a set date, and the first on the question of rehabilitating the island.

As the Nauruans themselves insist they want independence by January 31, 1968—and will no doubt put a resolution to that effect through their very first Legislative Council meeting when the council is inaugurated at the end of this January—the Aus tralian Government is going to find itself under pressure.

The Nauruans plan to establish a viable economy by the simple expedient of claiming ownership of the phosphate industry and getting the BPC to act as “managing agents”.

They are expected to put up this proposal at a phosphate summit meeting in Canberra in April.

Meanwhile, a committee of experts, comprising Professor J. Lewis, Pro fessor of Agricultural Economics at the University of New England (NSW); a Melbourne consulting en gineer; and an FAO soils expert, is due to go to Nauru soon to study the rehabilitation question, which would involve the shipment of soil to the island.

All-in-all, the Nauru question was hotting-up.