New Guinean Public Servants
pp. 16-160 · Read in the full issue
Inquiry By Arbitrator
New Guinean Public Servants Resent Lower Wage Scale
From a Port Moresby Correspondent The current application before the Public Service Arbi trator for better salaries and conditions for local public servants is causing great interest, for there is plenty of revealing infor mation coming out in evidence.
THE general trend of complaints is that the lower wage scales at present paid to local officers, com pared with what the expatriate people get, are creating great resentment.
It was put in its strongest terms by Albert Maori Kiki, 35-year-old patrol officer, who said New Guinea had been made into a “white man’s paradise” and that the Government’s policy of giving Europeans better treatment could well lead to racial violence.
A “dynamic situation” was develop ing rapidly among the elite minority
over the wages issue and there could be a “national disaster” if present con ditions were allowed to continue, he said.
Base public service salaries should be higher to enable families to live adequately, and the upper salaries high enough to allow New Guineans to mix with their European counter parts.
He himself had to turn down many social invitations because he could not afford to accept or return them.
Government psychiatrist, Dr. B. G.
Burton-Bradley, said there was a clear relationship between discrimination and mental health in New Guinea.
During the period when New Guineans were not allowed to drink it had been common for young educated people to be taken to him for treat ment of a “paranoid illness” brought on by resentment.
Direct Relationship
This particular class of illness had disappeared since drinking restrictions were lifted, but he now had educated New Guinean patients who had great difficulty with inter-personal relation ships. He had noticed a direct re lationship between their cases and the excessive low salaries paid to educated native public servants. The more highly educated natives were the ones most likely to be affected, he added.
The arbitrator has heard many tales of hardship by local public servants.
The public servants want the “equal-work, equal pay principle” adopted by the Administration.
The present lower salaries of local officers were determined on the basis of what the Territory could afford, having in mind eventual economic viability. The basis for the figures has never been disclosed.
While few would dispute the prin ciple of salaries commensurate with the growth of national product many believe that differentiation between local and overseas officers is unwork
(Continued on p. 158)
able while Australia controls the Territory.
The present somewhat bitter situa tion was foreseen by many overseas officers in 1962, when the P-NG Public Service Association asked public service branches to say whether they wanted a special division of over seas public servants or one unified service.
The majority wanted a special division, yet the unified public service, with two pay rates, came into opera tion in 1964.
Here is an example of how the salary differential works, using annual salaries: Position Overseas Local Clerk £2,888-3,384 $1,280-1,416 Patrol Officer . .. 3,010-4,250 840-1,416 Chief Legal Officer . 7,106-7,624 2,880-3,000 In addition, the overseas officers get extra allowances which the local officers do not get. A married over seas officer with three children, and more than seven years’ service, would, for instance, receive a basic wage ad justment of 5370, a child allowance of $364 and an expatriate allowance of $960.
Thus an Australian on the lowest scale of principal legal officer could receive a pay of $B,BOO, while his New Guinean counterpart would receive $2,880. There are also considerable differences in leave conditions, hous ing and retirement benefits, with the overseas officer being favoured.
Many Australian public servants in New Guinea have for some time be lieved there is only one way to achieve a stable public service—and that is to have one range of salaries.
For those Australians whose services are needed until locals are qualified to take them over there should be employment outside the Territory’s public service, as perhaps a division of the Department of Territories.
In view of the bitterness in the arbitration evidence, something should be done about it soon, they think.
It would mean that the higher salaries needed to keep overseas officers in New Guinea during the changeover would be controlled by the Commonwealth Parliament, and the local people could see that the cost of them was not a charge against the Territory’s revenue, but a kind of Australian South Seas Colombo Plan aid.