Up Front

with the Editor

1973 What a new year it should be!

This is the year in which Papua New Guinea will formalise self government and attack such sacred cows as land tenure, commercial in vestment, the public service and probably international boundaries.

This is the year in which the Gilbert and Ellice Islanders will decide whether to hang together or hang separately—whether the two peoples will tread different con stitutional paths. This is the year in which the New Hebrideans will give hurry-up to the outmoded British- French condominium system. And the year in which the British Solomon Islanders will find themselves a new system of government. And in which the Dominion of Fiji gets a Fijian Governor-General.

This is the year in which the Micro nesians and the Americans have to come to terms, or otherwise, on the status of Micronesia; and Micronesia itself has to come to terms with the Marianas people over the details of their breakaway proposals.

This is the year in which Western Samoa gets a new parliament; in which the Republic of Nauru takes stock of itself after five years of independence; in which the French will be under real pressure from new Australian and New Zealand Labour governments if they decide to go ahead with their atmospheric nuclear tests.

Australian and New Zealand at titudes to all Island problems will differ in 1973 from those of 1972; the two new governments assure that.

Both are Pacific-orientated, and Prime Ministers Norman Kirk of NZ and Gough Whitlam of Australia actually know where the Islands are (although Gough’s geography is not as good as Norman’s).

There will presumably be changes in immigration procedures affecting Islanders entering both countries, particularly of Islanders entering

Australia from New Zealand. New Zealand has been unhappy about Aus tralia’s attitude to these in the past.

Australia’s new policy is not firm, but Mr Whitlam has said that people who are relatives or close friends of people already living in Australia will get priority to migrate. Whichever way it’s done, if it is made easier for Islanders to live or work in Australia in 1973 then it gets my support.

The political pace in the South Pacific has been developing swiftly in recent years—l’ve said it often enough—but 1973 will show us the hottest pace yet.

CHANGES for PIM in 1973, too.

After 42 years PIM has changed ownership. But the faces are still the same, PIM was founded in Sydney in 1930 by R. W. Robson, who built up Pacific Publications—a company which over the years acquired the Sydney and Melbourne Publishing Co in Sydney and the Fiji Times and Herald Ltd, in Suva. Between them they publish various technical and Pacific journals, books and news papers in Sydney and Suva. It’s been a private organisation, and operated very personally. To R. W. Robson, Judy Tudor, L. G. Usher (in Suva), Selwyn Hughes and myself, Pacific Islands affairs are our heartbeat.

They remain so, although in December the Melbourne-based com pany of Wilke and Co Ltd acquired all the shares in Pacific Publications as result of a contract made in 1970.

The company was acquired as a very much going concern, and the people remain. R. W. Robson now becomes senior director and consultant. Who of us could expect to be as active at 87?

There are some new names. Charles McMillan, chairman of the Wilke group, and Ken Cathie, group man aging director, are both fascinated by the Pacific.

The changes to PIM in 1973 had already been planned, and you’ll notice them as we go along.

Stuart Inder