Guinea

Inside New

With John Ryan

John Guise is going up the hill again for small-talk at Government House.

The Administrator is sitting down, physically, to talk to the villagers. And 10 government departments and seven ministerial members of parliament are being given more administrative-political power.

That’s the August story from New Guinea—an August that got off badly with the 1,000-man police action near Rabaul against Mataungan . . . a legal sortie that almost turned into a political debacle when somebody pressed the panic-button and yelled for military help.

Transcribed into military Pacific Islands Regiment parlance, the state of readiness reached Red Plus before the army started back-checking, to find that somebody in New Guinea’s civil administration had panicked too early.

It all began in July with the Gorton tour, and the departure of David Hay and the arrival of his successor as Administrator, L. W, Johnson. At his airport departure, Hay was given a shoddy, showery farewell. Red Cross Society native girls were there because they’d been told to go, but the weather kept everybody else away: except departmental and service chiefs there for protocol.

I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for Mr. and Mrs. Hay. They knew they were unpopular in New Guinea, but they weren’t quite sure of the real reasons. Their critics were probably in the same boat.

There’s no doubt the New Guinea atmosphere took a boost with Les Johnson’s return. Within three hours of arriving, he was telling the Press more than Hay had told in the past year.

Then Johnson was off to Rabaul for a look-see, despite Mataungan’s published determination to refuse him an audience. Eventually, Johnson reached enough of the Mataungan middle-rank men, to make his personal impact. He physically sat down with Mataungan, and at month’s end (after some very direct talking by Johnson) Mataungan was talking about having (at last) a private conference with 12 of the 34 native members of the hated Gazelle Multi-racial Council.

Only three weeks earlier, 1,000 policemen were in the Rabaul area, and 560 of them were near Keravat, to confront and kick Mataungan squatters off government land there. The Mataungans went home one weekend to go to church and play football—and when they came back to squat again on the Monday morning, they found the police were there first.

Acting Police Commissioner Brian Holloway has simply out-generalled John Kaputin and Oscar Tammur, MHA. The basic issue between Mataungan and the Gazelle Council is still land —land that once belonged to the Bainings tribes now hiding out in the Bainings Mountains.

This point was raised in a letter to the Post-Courier —and promptly answered by a Tolai who conceded the original Bainings ownership, but pointed to the legality of “conquest” and the unshakeable “truth” that the land now belongs to the Tolai conquerors.

I suppose the 1914 Australian troops who captured the Gazelle from the Germans should get into the act now, by claiming the entire Gazelle as a “conquest”.

Seriously though, the Tolais are going to have to start doing some straight, unemotional thinking oyer the land question. They’re going to have to compromise, whether they like it or not. And the foreigners now con trolling 40 per cent, of the Gazelle are going to have to compromise, too; not perhaps by giving the land back, as the Australian Labour Party leaders would have it, but by selling to the government all acres not essential or not being fully used.

Legislation allowing the government to take this land is already on the books, but the government will use it only in the last resort.

During the confrontation, Mataungan had set ambush positions for the police. They couldn’t use them, because the police found them too soon.

But during the excitement, somebody at Rabaul convinced somebody at Port

Moresby that 1,000 policemen were not enough. Gorton had given Hay the green light to use native troops of the PIR to help out, and somebody asked for them quicktime. When the panic subsided, the army started asking for the name of the man who pressed the button. No names, no pack-drill.

But to have actually sent the army against the Mataungans— to have established a precedent in using troops—would have been political disaster; it would have set another precedent of the very type this country, politically, should never countenance.

The police came out of the confrontation with the battle honours— md demanding more power to nip trouble in the bud, long before it reaches Vlataungan-level. So Secretary for Law Lindsay Curtis obliged with a draft nil giving police power to grab those inciting others, those inciting intimida lon (it s been going on at Rabaul for a year) and various other measures, ill aimed at Mataungan and potentially dangerous situations in public places, was to debate it from August 31.

And to close an exciting month, Governor-General Sir Paul Hasluck ;ave Administrator Johnson written authority to turn over to departments ,nd ministerial members some of the power Prime Minister Gorton promised >n July 6: control over departments by the seven ministerial members of arliament; and control over a large slice of the new budget by the Admini trators Executive Council. , The tw ° positions of Assistant Administrator were abolished, and former £?f Ur s: ,/* J ; Newr P an > was sent upstairs as Deputy Administrator.

Jnder the old system with Assistant Administrators, each Assistant had ve departments responsible to him. They took the “hard” departmental stuff ito the Administrator. As well, the Administrator held the reins individually n six other departments. J , N° w ;. tl?e 10 m^ or “ ser V ice " departments will start looking after much 10re th^ ir own affairs, going to Tony Newman only when in real trouble. v l6 channels of communication to the Administrator and Canberra Ztr? I SJ dir S: ted: • Way . from the Pu !> lic Service and into the political mere, because the major departments will now have direct access to the ■mtrnllimf § Pxec J^ tive Council through ministerial members ostensibly It . s .S° l1 ?g to throw a lot more work on the x native and one European ministerial members.

One member of the Executive Council, Toni Leahy, MHA went into le council m July, 1968, as the Administrator’s nominee, and he’s now been nnl nf A eat M H A Tore Lokoloko) Executive Council spokesman"n the ouse of Assembly. This allows the Government Leader in the House (A t 0 - take of a political back-seat, and thrusts Leahv Council. “ ,UStlfying ° F eXplainin * all measures in “by the a ! ! P, art of the Canberra-Port Moresby decision months aeo to start government influence during parliamentary debate. 8 The time L 7ead for aTI conce e rne^ rS *° Bt3rt governin S- « critical, demanding

The old style planters and do-gooders of the Pacific Island v mpletely out of place in the new environment, Dr. B. S Saini of Melbourne n 'nri Sl l ? ld l he II nd con B ress °f Australian and New Zealand r Saini I f dva 7 cemen J of Science in Port Moresby in August q u^7a%%: h Te7 P a^Te deS ° f ** ° f “ What is wanted are the mercenary types who are able tn temper e> Li7n feSS ‘ o!ta i ap u° ach sufficiently include some positive aspects missionary work. He must be a professional, who is honest abmt tentions of making money, puts a price on it and does it without wtional attachment to either the place or the people who live in it He a new phenomenon in the islands brought about by the specialised Lture .programmes and the need for skilled people I pefior a t d o de tha’t h 7f TheZonZt' W ,h own culture was mge things or to his mindf nThngZ pua-New Guinea, dispelling fears that the rapidly growing town

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