Up Front

with the Publisher

Some colour has gone from Papua New Guinea‘s Government House with the resignation In February of the Governor-General, Sir John Guise. Sir John wants to contest the general elections in May. One might wonder what could be so attractive about the political hustings that a man would voluntarily relinquish the privileges and honour of the highest post in the land, that of the Queen’s representative, to com pete in them. But Sir John Guise has never been a man for doing the obvious, and politics are in his blood. In view of his latest de cision it might be more accurate to say that politics are his lifeblood.

I have cause to remember one of the last occasions I met Sir John, It was during the Papua New Guinea independence celebrations of 1975.

It was the big day itself. Only that morning Sir John had become the new nation’s first Governor-General, and he was now seated on a dais below Independence Hill surrounded on all sides by seated Pacific leaders and heads of state, ambassadors and dignitaries of all kinds from many lands. All were patiently awaiting the arrival of the last guest, Prince Charles, heir to the British Throne, who was only a few minutes away in a cavalcade of cars, police and security men.

You would not have believed the number of security men who were present at that spot on that day.

Imelda Marcos, First Lady of the Philippines, had brought a whole planeload of them for herself, and there was not one leader in the vast assortment who was not being watched over from behind dark glasses by men who had, as the thriller stories have it, tell-tale bulges beneath their coats.

You can imagine, then, my mounting horror when I detected Sir John apparently beckoning to me from across the no man’s land that separated that great tier of VIPs from the roped-in press enclosure, where literally hundreds of us appeared to be under armed

guard. I hoped it wasn’t happening, and I looked behind me to see whether it was really some security man that the Governor-General was attempting to attract.

But it was me he seemed to want.

Bravely I stepped into no man’s land and marched purposefully and smartly across the open ground between us expecting any moment to hear a shot ring out, or to have a security man take a flying tackle.

I climbed the steps of the dais, and in full view of the waiting throng walked up to the seated Governor-General and went down on one knee.

“Stuart”, said the Governor- General. “Would you be free for lunch tomorrow?”

“Yes sir”, I said, a little shaken, probably at my narrow escape from assassination.

“I am having all the departmental heads into lunch and it might be useful for you to come along too”.

“Thank you, sir”, I said. And there was a great fanfare as Prince Charles’s entourage rolled into view!

Well, it was a very good lunch at Government House, In other ways it was like no other function that I ever attended at Government House.

The new Governor-General didn’t stand on his dignity. We all wore open-necked shirts. He got the beers himself and handed them out.

And when it came time to go into lunch there was no formal arrange ment at the vast table.

“Find yourselves a seat”, said the Governor-General.

When we did there was, luckily, one seat left, at no particular part of the table, and Sir John sat in that - the last of us to sit down.

That lunch was the most relaxed lunch I’ve had in any Government House anywhere, or in most other houses for that matter.

Sir John that day set a Vice-regal style which he carried on through his entire period as Governor- General. As I said, some colour has now gone from Government House!

Fortunately, the personality behind it is not lost to Papua New Guinea.