Papua New Guinea's White Exodus:
pp. 55-56 · Read in the full issue
'Going Finish' Is No Myth
From a correspondent in Port Moresby
A prominent company director in Papua New Guinea labels as a myth the belief held in many circles that the whites are packing up and getting out of the country.
Managing director of PNG Motors Ltd, Mr A. Morris, in a survey of economic trends in the country, parti cularly in the motor trade, said as self-government and independence ap proached, there were many changes in the economic pattern.
“This includes big changes in the role of the whites,” he said. “But any suggestion that they are packing up and getting out is a myth.”
However much one would very much like to believe that it is a myth, all indications are that it is not a myth. In fact, it is no myth if whites could be termed as including the Chinese and the mixed race com munity of Papua New Guinea.
The most common comments that one hears so often expressed these days are: “Two more months and we’ll be off—going finish” or “We’ll be going finish at the end of Nov ember”, or “It won’t be long now before we are off for good” and many more such statements which are clear indications that come November, there’s going to be a mass exodus from Papua New Guinea.
Apart from this situation, expatriate public servants here are no longer as hardworking as they used to be in the early colonial days—the days of the kiaps. These days, however, ex patriate officers are more or less working to regulations, but some don’t even put in what we might term a full day’s work.
There have been many instances of expatriate officers taking time off to play, squash, say, tennis or golf.
And what’s more they are being paid a full fortnight’s salary despite that these games were played during official hours.
Even though the National Coali tion Government’s policy of accel erated localisation has been spelt out fully most of them just don’t bother about their moral obligation to train
local people to take over responsibilities from them. o . A Some just shrug heir shoulders and dump piles of files in front of the local officers taking over from them, saying, Well you are in the handle h’ a n° r ,> 0 M” handle tt all right .
This attitude of expatriate officers in the public service reflects the knowledge that their time is at hand to pack bags and leave the country come September, October or November.
As regards Papua New Guinea’s other expatriates—the Chinese com munity—they are all set to move off f * he beginning of November, A number o( them, including one of p apua New Guinea’s most wealthy C[ P businessmen. Andrew Chow, are already putting up their shops for sa , e busi|y engaged in quick, short trips to Australia, buy ing up land and making arrangements for the establishment of their busi nesses south. Those with families are also making arrangements for their
children to attend schools in Australia next year.
Reliable sources say that south bound flights in November have been booked out by the Chinese com munity—mostly for women and children. Additionally, three Fokker Friendship aircraft have been chartered by the Chinese to leave Rabaul in November.
A PNG Army officer, recently travelling from Sydney to Papua New Guinea, said he had been told by customs officials in Sydney that travelling South during November this year would be difficult as all the seats on southern-bound flights from the beginning to the end of November or early December have all been booked out by the PNG Chinese.
This all confirms the belief that most whites are packing up and get ting out of the country. If it was a myth, why then are these people making confirmed one-way bookings on southern-bound flights towards the end of the year?
Mr Morris admits there has been a period of great uncertainty about the future. However, he said that this period is now over and that the Papua New Guinea Government’s stated policy, welcoming investment and skills which will provide genuine development, has provided a settling effect on the community and economy.
But the question of Papua New Guinea citizenship is still unresolved and this is very much an indisputable cause of much of the uncertainty which still exists, despite Mr Morris’s assurance.
Several government ministers have also given similar assurances that there’s no need for this uncertainty.
The fact remains, however, that uncertainty is still hovering over the country and is likely to remain there until December I—the1 —the date for the declaration of full, internal self government, and until the question of PNG citizenship is resolved.
Otherwise, why would the country’s mixed race community be in such a hurry to confirm their Australian citizenship and take advantage of it to get to Australia well before Papua New Guinea attains full internal self-government and, later, indepen dence.
Of course, one has to express some form of confidence in the future potential of the economy, but it’s a well known fact that for any newly emerging nation on the thres hold of nationhood there’s going to be a slump and internal trouble that could arise as a result of too rapid a political change.