wipe out freeholds

New Guinea plan to wipe out freeholds

From a Port Moresby correspondent

When the voluminous report of the Commission of Inquiry into Land Matters (typescript, three-quarters of an inch thick) was introduced into the November session of the House of Assembly, some of the cynics who thumbed through it predicted that 50 per cent of it would be rejected, and only 10 per cent of what was left would be enacted.

The prediction was based on ex perience of what normally happens to the extensive reports of com missions of inquiry once they get into national legislatures. But whether or not the cynics are right, there can be no denying that this report has to be considered seriously. (For the background on how it was compiled, see p 37.) The report is the most exhaustive and the most impressive report on land ever to be released in Papua New Guinea. It is lucid, and original.

Should most of its provisions be enacted, it would set an entirely new pattern of land control in the South Pacific, and alter the concept of land ownership which has been followed in the past by the PNG Administra tion.

Its very first recommendation, for example, says that “private land lordism must be checked”, thus re versing the view of the Australian Administration that individual owner ship of land is to be aimed for and that titles must be made safe. The commission is sympathetic to clans who want to assert their traditional rights against the holders of alienated land (who are usually Europeans), but it has no intention of simply allowing European landlords to be replaced by New Guinean landlords, with “colonial exploitation being replaced by exploitation of one class of New Guinean by another”.

It attempts to resolve this problem, and many others, by introducing what undoubtedly is the most controversial of its many recommendations— recommendations 21 and 22, which state bluntly that all freehold and leasehold titles, both urban and non urban, should be converted into gov ernment leaseholds from a specified date.

This means all titles, anywhere in New Guinea, including those large city holdings held by Messrs Burns Philp and the other big firms in

Port Moresby, whether or not they happen to have department stores or picture theatres on them.

The plan is to renew the newly created government leases for a period of 40 years, and to charge the lessees rent in the usual way, after a “holiday” period of five years. No compensation will be paid to the owners of the present freehold titles for the change in title, and the law will protect the government from compensation claims. The main aim of the policy will be to bring all urban land under government owner

ship.

Government will also have power to insist on development of any un developed areas of rural land, the work to commence within a year and be completed within five years. If not developed, the government will have power to reallocate the land, “with priority to land-short Papua New Guineans living on or near the land”.

The new government leases will be available for a maximum of 60 years for citizens, with right of re newal; for a maximum of 40 years for non-citizens, but for 60 years if they involve citizens “in substantial ownership and management of the business on the land”. Non-citizens will have no automatic right of re newal.

Present leases which now have less than 40 years or 60 years to run, as the case may be, will continue to expiry, but leases which have more than 40 or 60 years to run will be reduced.

Should these far-reaching pro visions be introduced they would, of course, affect the value of present business enterprises in PNG.

The present market value of planta tions particularly on the coast, are improved by the estimated value of the freehold. If the land is converted to leasehold, the value of the planta tion drops. Similarly the big enter prises in New Guinea have enormous asset backings based on their free hold land, particularly that held in the big towns. Burns Philp and Steamships between them control a large slice of the city area of Port Moresby.

A number of PNG politicians, some of them prominent, own valu

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able freehold titles which could be affected in this way, and this aspect of the report is not likely to have an easy passage through the House.

Some freeholds—conditional free holds for customary land—will still be available in PNG if the commis sioners get their way, but they will not be available to outsiders. A gov ernment lease will be the only form of title which a non-citizen can acquire.

There is an interesting recom mendation numbered 71, which says that lawyers should be excluded from participating in early stages of land disputes which come before Local Land Courts, and admitted to the District Land Courts only in special circumstances.

The inquiry was aware of the diffi culties in Micronesia particularly, where millions of dollars have been spent, and there have been long delays, over land claims because legal men have debated technicalities.

The New Guinean commission suggests that lawyers should appear only in District Land Court cases in connection with those involving national land, or in disputes in which the government or a company is in volved.