New Guinea
pp. 34-36 · Read in the full issue
Diary
With John Ryan
Gilbert And Sullivan Year
Gilbert and Sullivan could have made a fortune in Papua-New Guinea, setting politics to music.
In fact, the raw material is getting better every year: • Oscar Tammur MHA dancing in rage in a hospital ward because the government forced him to leave gaol. • Management consultants telling the university to look for a black or brown vice-chancellor. • Chairman of the Public Service Board Gerald Unkles letting his hair down by castigating public servants. • Police snooping around the Public Service on the trail of alleged misappropriations. • Mataungan reject Daniel Rumet angling for a law scholarship. • Constitutional Committee chairman Paulus Arek MHA praying that the villagers will want some constitutional advance this year. • “Rebellion” against Australia and New Guinea by Papuan members of parliament The list is virtually endless.
The old Commonwealth Office gentlemen in London must be politely laughing themselves silly over the fix in which that old colony, Australia, now finds itself in Papua-New Guinea, Biggest of all the 1971 problems is Papua.
In 1883 the Australian colonists in convention at Sydney literally forced Britain into proclaiming the 1884 Protectorate over south-eastern New Guinea (British New Guinea) and it wasn’t until 1906 that Britain fobbed it back to the Australians, and it became Papua.
By unfortunate political accident, the 600,000 modern-day descendants of the 1884 Papuans are British subjects and Australian citizens . . . and they’ve started full-scale political war to find out what their citizenship really means, and why Australia is apparently showing much more interest in the New Guinea Trust Territory than it is in Australian-owned Papua (see Percy Chatterton on the subject, p. 46).
Minister for External Territories Barnes dashed through Papua last month under a veil of official secrecy, apparently to try to find out what Papuans are really thinking. This followed the creation during the November meeting of the P-NG Parliament, of the Papua Action Group under the Member for South Fly, Mr. Niwia Ebia Olewale.
According to my information from nameless, faceless government men in Canberra, the Barnestorm of Papua was simply part of Prime Minister Gorton’s master plan to announce, as soon as possible, the decision that Australia will yield sovereignty over Papua so that it can officially and legally join New Guinea in the gallop towards self-government.
At the moment, the difference in status between New Guinea and Papua is a constant political pin-prick for those native politicians who want to start talking nationalistically about a joint, equal status for New Guinea and Papua.
The decision on Papua must be made. It cannot remain simply a black enclave between a white Australia and a future, independent New Guinea Trust Territory. PM Gorton decided that Papua must go with New Guinea, for joint independence. This is simply the neatest way out of an awkward political-social situation.
Meantime, the Papuans are giving the Australian Administration of P-NG, and the Executive Council, a rough time with arguments insisting that nobody thinks of Papua, no money is spent in Papua, and that the economic and political planners in Canberra and Port Moresby are dazzled by New Guinea alone, and intent on big spending there to try to keep the United Nations General Assembly at bay. Papua is dead unlucky, economically.
The only worthwhile thing on the horizon is the Kennecott copper which, if it reaches mining level, will make the New Guinea Trust Territory people think seriously about letting poor Papua tag along in a joint P-NG independence,
Life (And Death) With
The Mataungans
Oscar Tammur MHA, patron of Mataungan at Rabaul, leaped out of his Nonga Hospital bed and began yelling: “They can’t force me to leave gaol. I’m a prisoner. I demand that the police come back to guard me—l want to finish my time in gaol. . . .”
Mr. Tammur had been sent to gaol for 30 days because he’d re fused to pay his annual $l6 taxmoney to the Gazelle Multi-racial Council at Rabaul, and had refused to pay the $3O fine.
He had a couple of days crack ing rocks at Keravat Gaol, and was then whisked into hospital, under police guard, because of bronchitis.
Mr. Tammur MHA, was determined to become a Mataungan martyr by going to gaol, rather than bending the knee to the hated, Australian sponsored Gazelle Council.
He was only halfway through his gaol term (most of it in hospital) when somebody in Canberra sent $3O to Magistrate Paul Quinlivan at Rabaul to pay the fine, and Quinlivan signed the release papers.
Mr. Tammur MHA was exceed ingly cranky. Nobody had asked him (he claimed) whether he wanted to accept the money. There were some in P-NG who agreed that there had been a lack of courtesy . . . and that the Australians had seemed just a little too anxious to get Mr. Tammur out of gaol, to limit his martyr potential.
At month’s end, Mataungan had hit back at Port Moresby and Can berra by announcing their plan to establish a Mataungan Local Govern ment Council directly opposing the legal Gazelle Council, and in gov ernment circles there were (foi^-
obvious reasons) no strong objections ■ so long as Mataungan people due pay tax to the Gazelle Council so.
It was another month of high politics, all of which failed to change the basic situation: Mataungan supporters still have to pay taxes, and the Gazelle Council is still in business.
And then on December 23, the Administration confirmed reports that the Mataungan Association has made threats to kill several prominent Tolai people who support the Aus tralian Administration.
The Department of Information and Extension Services said in a broadcast that the Mataungan threats of killing were made against— • The member of parliament for Rabaul and Ministerial Member for Education in the Executive Council, Mr. Matthias Toliman; • The president of the Gazelle Council, at Rabaul, Mr. To Wartovo; • The former president of the Gazelle Council Mr. Stanley Tomarita; and • A senior executive of the Gazelle Council, Mr. Henry To Matamatam.
The threats by Mataungan to kill the four men were apparently organised at a Mataungan meeting a few days earlier to celebrate the first anniversary of the attack in December, 1969, when supporters of the Gazelle Council were beaten up, and punches were thrown at the former Administrator of New Guinea, Mr. David Hay.
Christmas Present?
By public reputation, Mataungan’s former Vice-President Daniel Rumet must be one of the most “lawless” native men in P-NG. Mataungan has cost the Australians Si million since May, 1969, in flying police to Rabaul to guard law and order.
Now that he’s been kicked out of Mataungan, Rumet (a former pub lic servant) is scouting around for work. There’s a good chance that he’ll get a government scholarship to study law at the University of Papua-New Guinea!
Public Service Uproar
First chairman of the P-NG Public Service Board, Gerald Unkles, left New Guinea in December in a welter of words, and recriminations all round. Unkles and the rank-and file Public Service Association had sniped at each other for many months —the promotion of Chief Electoral Officer (Papuan) Simon Kaumi to replace Australian Bob Bryant, the yfl|houldering-aside of the traditional
Promotions Appeals Committee, and Unkles’ sharp words at a management seminar about the “second-rate” performance of the Public Service, dis loyalty, etc.
Unkles came to P-NG two years ago, carefully briefed by Canberra to get native public servants into top jobs come what may. It was inevitable that he should run head-on into the PSA, which is now more watchful than ever against political promotions at the expense of white public servants who, for many years, have been footing the union bill.
In fairness to Unkles, he did a good job for Canberra.
Now that he’s gone, PSA hierarchy is looking to new chairman, Papuan Sere Pitoi, 35, to restore the once easy-going relationship between public servants and their employer. With time running out, Sere Pitoi is really in the hot-seat.
Mr. Whitlam's Tour
By the time you read this, Australia’s Labour Opposition Leader Mr.
Gough Whitlam will be on tour again in Papua-New Guinea and, for Canberra, that means real political trouble.
Whitlam toured P-NG January, 1970, and precipitated a July visit by Prime Minister. Mr. Gorton, and an avalanche of government political decisions giving P-NG greater local control.
January 1970, Whitlam bought into most of P-NG’s problems, particularly the Mataungan issue at Rabaul. For years the government has been telling P-NG’s 2,400,000 villagers that they, the people, will decide when P-NG will become self-governing and then independent—but Whitlam on tour January, 1970, cut right across the government, by telling P-NG it would be self-governing in 1972 and independent in 1976.
Now, Whitlam is on tour again, with an even stronger team than last year. Among his companions is president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions Mr. R. J. Hawke, who has been closely interested in P-NG since he came here 1967 to help the Public Service Association argue higher salaries for native public servants.
Whitlam’s other fellow-travellers: Kim Beazley MHR, T. J. Burns (ALP, Queensland), Clyde Cameron MHR, W. L. Morrison MHR, M. J.
Young (ALP), R. D. Williams, federal secretary of the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations.
Whitlam’s itinerary: January 3—Port Moresby; Jan. s—Mount Hagen; Tan. 6—Madang; Jan. B—Lae; Jan. 10 —Rabaul; Jan. 13—Kieta; Jan. 14— Port Moresby; Jan. 17—Sydney.
Speaker of the P-NG House of Assembly John Guise has asked for private discussions with Mr. Whitlam, and the Opposition Leader is breaking away from his itinerary at Rabaul to fly direct Rabaul-Milne Bay to meet Guise.
A notable feature of the Whitlam tour is that his party is not visiting any Papuan centres outside Port Moresby, but is concentrating solely on the New Guinea Trust Territory. MHAs in Papua are already reacting against the Whitlam tourists because of this.
Quiz Of The Populace
Paulus Arek MHA and his 13 companions (four Australians) in the parliamentary Select Committee on P-NG Constitutional Development are on tour (to begin January 4) to confront P-NG’s people with what, for some, will be a frighteningly radical set of ideas. The questions: • When do you want internal self-government? • One House or two? • 100 members in a House of Assembly, including six nominated out siders who don’t have to face the voters? • What educational qualifications for candidates in 1972? • What do you want in the way of national name, flag and emblem?
In 46 days, until February 19, the select committee is visiting 85 centres trying to find out what the villagers want in 1972. Biggest problem is trying to tell the villagers what it’s all about.
Ideally, the select committee should be listening only. With Labour Opposition Leader Gough Whitlam making another P-NG tour, there’s too much po’itical pressure now for the committee, openly, to remain the listener: the villagers are having to be told what is “good” for them. The committee will report to the House in March.
In late December the Kieta Local Government Council and the Napidakoe Navitu (Self-Government for Bougainville) announced they would boycott the select committee’s public meeting at Kieta to get the people’s views.
The Kieta Council and Napidakoe said they wanted to once again demand a referendum allowing Bougainville’s 75,000 people to decide whether they
wanted to remain with the rest of P-NG, join the British Solomons or set up their own independent republic.
The Year Of Pilot Error
1970 was the year of Pilot Error in Papua-New Guinea.
Nine aircraft on the P-NG aviation register went down in fatal accidents killing 38 people (of the 41 people aboard), and a dozen other planes got into trouble without causing deaths.
Department of Civil Aviation authorities have done everything pos sible to try to reduce the number of accidents, and DCA slated one dead pilot—lan Cornet, 26. His Piper Aztec crashed at Milne Bay killing him and eight passengers, and DCA says the plane was below operating efficiency, was overloaded, and that Cornet was not properly endorsed for the route.
Most other aviation tragedies in P-NG in 1970 have also been put down to pilot error. At year’s end, another helicopter (the fifth in 1970) came down—and the pilot, Hamish Greeve, and passenger, John Keenan survived.
In the aviation industry, they were hoping their survival was a good omen for 1971.
The 1970 aviation toll: • TAA Twin Otter —Kainantu, eight killed, three survivors. • Helicopter—near Goroka, three killed. • Missionary Cessna —near Aitape, pilot killed. • Patair Piper Aztec—Milne Bay, nine killed. • Private, P-NG registered Piper Aztec—near Townsville, two kil led. • Private Piper Tripacer—between Lae and Gloucester, two killed, • Aerial Tours Beech Baron—near Balimo, six killed. • Aero Club Piper Aztec—near Kokoda, four killed. • Territory Airlines Ltd., Cessna 206 near Lake Kopiago, three killed.
Christmas Footnote
It all goes to show that man is still top dog in the Eastern Highlands.
Steamships Trading Co’s window dressers were putting a life-like tailor’s dummy on display for the Christmas rush, when a crowd of villagers began gathering. Before long, they were angrily jostling the shop staff and accusing them of desecrating a human body.
To try to convince them it was a dummy and not a body, a New Guinean shop assistant lifted the male dummy’s “hair” —then had to flee to safety, pursued by villagers even more convinced the dummy was human.