Anglicans Get

And The P-Ng

Their Own

"Voice"

• When Prince Charles visited the Anglican Mission in Papua in May newsmen found that covering his tour was tough work because of Press restrictions made at the request of Palace officials. Here the mission’s recently appointed public relations officer, Miss Susan Young, explains her job.

From Susan Young, in Port Moresby Almost exactly a year ago I was with the British forces in

Borneo, making what I by then

knew to be my last major trip as aviation correspondent for a

big group of English provincial

newspapers.

WITHIN six months I planned to go over to “the other side” of journalism—that is, I would become a public relations officer.

Up to that time I had had the average newspaperman’s cheerful contempt for PRO’s, but in Borneo I watched the armed services information officers closely, in the hope of pick ing up some useful tips before starting my new job with the Anglican Mission in New Guinea.

In one important respect the job has proved to be much easier than I had expected: New Guinea in general and the mission in particular are simply stiff with stories. It has not been necessary to stoop to the pitifully peurile paragraphs that characterise some organisations’ public relations work.

Stories Get Out

The chief difficulty in a place like New Guinea is, of course, getting the stories out into the wider world.

Communications being what they are (or rather are not) in the territory, stories are sometimes unavoidably dated by the time they reach news papers and radio stations.

But at least the stories do get out and whenever possible I try to produce the news “sooner than now” —that is, I try to work to the same sort of time schedule as I would have to in England, say, or Aus tralia.

Understandably my activities are regarded with a certain amount of

suspicion in some circles. But I think that before long this new arrange ment will turn out to be of con siderable benefit to mission and newsmen.

The post of public relations officer is a new appointment for the mission.

It is the idea of the Bishop of New Guinea, Bishop David Hand.

I have arrived in New Guinea at a critical time for the territory and therefore for the mission too, since the Church is, or ought to be, inextricably bound up with the life of this huge island.

As the birth pangs of a new nation begin, so the mission is attempting to keep pace with, and sometimes to lead, the rapid changes now taking place in the territory.

It’s part of my job to keep people in touch with what the mission is doing in keeping pace.

But apart from this my job also involves keeping the people in the diocese informed; eventually we hope to produce some sort of diocesan newspaper or newsletter.

75th Anniversary

This year especially promises to be a memorable one for the mission.

For a start, the mission celebrates its 75th anniversary in August, when it commemorates the landing of the first Anglican missionaries at Kaieta, near the big cathedral station of Dogura in eastern Papua. A visitor for this occasion is expected to be the Most Rev. Philip Strong, for many years the Bishop of New Guinea, and now Archbishop of Brisbane.

Another notable event was the visit of Prince Charles in May. It was perhaps unfortunate that he came before we had had a chance to establish my job properly, for there is no doubt that the circum stances surrounding the visit pro duced ill-feeling in some newspaper quarters—almost all of it, I believe, due to misunderstanding which could have been avoided had I known the people concerned better than I did.

There’s one other thing: far too many people seem to think of missionaries as being a bunch of cranky do-gooders, mere pedlars of superstition. I shall be happy if, through my job, I can show missionaries for what they are sane and sensible people dedicated to their calling and to the people of the territory.

The Christian missions’ share of Papua-New Guinea’s expenditure on education “is not merely unfair, but positively immoral” in the opinion

of the Bishop of New Guinea, David Hand.

Bishop Hand attacks the education grant in an article in the July issue of the New Guinea, Quarterly, published by the Council on New Guinea Affairs.

He says that of about Si 1-million a year spent on education in Papua- New Guinea only about $3 million goes to the missions for equipment and grants-in-aid.

“The truth is,” he says, “that the authorities are trading on the missions’ dedication to their cause, on their ability to raise funds from Church people and to attract the

sort of teachers, who, when neces sary, are prepared to work for practi cally nothing.”

Bishop Hand says that relations between the missions and the Admini stration are remarkably good, parti cularly at the higher levels, but there is tension, caused partly by the underlying differences in philo sophy but more obviously by grievances over such problems as financial assistance and educational standards. The missions, he adds, ought to receive funds “better suited to the status of a partner with the Administration, rather than a poor relation”.