Ownership "Needs

New Guinea Land

Overall R Eview"

From an AAP-Reuter correspondent in Port Moresby Land claims by native tribes in Papua-New Guinea are rapidly getting out of hand. Last year more than 300 disputed land claims were heard by the Territory’s Land Titles Commis sioner, Mr. D. J. Kelliher. That number seems certain to be ex ceeded this year.

ALREADY there are enough claims set down for hearing to keep the Land Titles Court busy for the next 12 months.

Native tribes have claimed all the land on which the town of Lae is built, the whole town area of Wau and a substantial part of Rabaul.

Daera Cuba, an elderly member of the Tubumaga clan, has person ally claimed an acre of valuable in dustrial land in the Port Moresby suburb of Konedobu.

Assistant Administrator Dr. John Gunther is sceptical of the claims. ‘ Claims of this kind are being made all the time,” he says. “There is no justification for them.”

The chief reason for the large number of claims is that it costs a native nothing to make one or to pursue it as far as the High Court of Australia.

Fee Needed

Technically, a native can make a claim on any piece of land which takes his fancy. Officials are unanimous that some fee will soon have to be charged to prevent these indiscrimin ate claims. But some claims are genuine and in several cases tribes have moral rights to compensation for land, even though they have no real legal claim on it. 0 This applies particularly on the New guinea side of the border where most af the major land litigation has centred.

There have been many allegations hat the Germans tricked or bullied lative tribes out of areas of land and nost of the present claims date back o the German administration.

Then came the Japanese invasion, ind some title deeds the Australian idmimstration had been able to estab ish by then were destroyed under the scorched earth” policy.

Deciding the rightful owners of much disputed land m New Guinea since then has been a long, difficult and expensive process.

In Papua, however, disputes are much more easily settled.

The Administration generally has tween meticulous in its land dealings with the natives and few claims against it have been successful.

Daera Cuba, one of Papua’s best known land barons’ also claims that his clan owns several hundred acres” m other parts of the capital.

For several years he has been claimm u any * rea ? .in and near Port Moresby. His claims have been disputed both by the Administration and by other tribes.

Many land claims are handed down from generation to generation. Each new generation inherits tales about the land from their elders and in turn makes a new claim on the same piece of ground. . Some disputes date back to the be gining of the century, Probably no court will ever settle them to the tribes’ satisfaction.

Senior Lands officials believe that it is time the Australian Government took a comprehensive look at the whole land situation throughout the Territory.

Disputed lands have been a source of much discontent among native tribes and have put the Government to considerable expense.