People

Whoever succeeds Mahe Tupouniua as director of the South Pacific Bureau for Econ omic Co-operation (SPEC), will have a hard furrow to hoe.

Mahe, who has run SPEC since it was created by the South Pa cific Forum in 1972, gave it guts and ideas for all sorts of schemes designed to lift the Forum members’ living stan dards, and gave the South Pa cific Commission a few headaches, stealing their thun der and taking over some of their projects. Now Tonga has recalled him. Before going to SPEC he was the kingdom’s finance minister, the first com moner to hold a portfolio, and he has been sorely missed. It’s not so long since some of the higher-ups in Tonga grumbled out loud about his long absence. So, as a loyal Tongan, he’s going back home. The Forum is advertising widely for a replacement but putting a period to the terms of engagement three years.

Mahe’s wife is sister to the Queen Consort of Tonga.

Dr Ako Toua of Papua New Guinea has “gone home” to Fiji as his country’s high com missioner. His links with Fiji are very close. He graduated from the Fiji School of Medi cine in 1962 and is married to a Fiji girl from Vanua Levu.

Before joining the PNG Foreign Affairs Department this year, he had held several

senior appointments, including

Director of Health and Com missioner of the PNG Elec tricity Commission. He and his wife have four sons.

Senator Neville Bonner, the only Aborigine in the Aus tralian Senate, had a few things to say about the premier of the state he represents in the Aus tralian Parliament, Queens land, when he visited Port Morseby in July. Early in his senatorial career Neville Bon ner earned himself a lot of criti

cism among Aborigines for his apparent willingness to go along with his Liberal Party’s policies toward his people. But with a few years in the Senate under his belt Senator Bonner these days is far less ready to toe the line of either his party, or that of his party’s allies, the

variously named Country,

National-Country or National Party. In Port Moresby Senator Bonner accused Premier

Bjelke-Petersen of hypocrisy

over the proposed Australian- Papua New Guinea settlement of the Torres Strait dispute.

Saying he totally supported the Torres agreement. Senator Bonner said that while Mr Bjelke-Petersen was cham pioning the cause of Torres Strait Islanders who disagreed with the settlement, he had never at any time offered them true freedom.

What Senator Bonner didn’t say, what Mr Bjelke-Petersen would never dream of admit ting, and what Australian

Foreign Affairs Department

officials would privately con cede, is that Australia has come out of the Torres dispute very well; Some observers are sur prised that Papua New Guinea has settled for an ‘inter national’ boundary which barely differs from the status quo, a seabed resources line which is much less than they asked for and a swimming fisheries resources line which is far from generous. Australia would be well advised to wrap up the agreement before Port

Moresby changes its mind.

Allan Taki, winner of a recent by-election for the Solomon Islands House of Assembly seat of West Kwara’ae on Malaita, will bring some colour and cus tom to the Assembly meetings.

He believes that it is his duty to represent the Solomons people as they are, not as

European copies complete

with suit, shoes, collar and tie.

His shorts, however, are very much in the western-style. Mr Taki appeared like this at most of the independence functions in Honiara. Another minister, Waita Ben, Minister for Agriculture, went barefooted at most of the functions includ ing the visit to the Agriculture

Department offices by the

Duke of Gloucester. Photo: SI Information.

Waving palms and tropical sunsets, no matter how superb, will never sell the South Pacific to the hard-headed business men of Europe. But a combi nation of Karl-Heinz von Stellmach’s movie photogra

phy and running commentaries

in Germany by Gilberts-bom

Aborina, Karl-Heinz’ wife, are proving a hit. Aborina is pic tured in the process of showing another of her husband’s films about the Pacific to a gathering of German businessmen. Bom on Tarawa, Aborina was de scribed by one businessman as the finest unpaid ambassador the Pacific has in Europe.

When you’re the King of Tonga your birthday can last four days. It did this year, any way, when King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV celebrated his sixti eth birthday. Flying in for the July event was an all-star cast including the likes of President Hammer Deßoburt of Nauru, Ratu Sir George Cakobau, Governor-General of Fiji, Ratu William Toganivalu and Sir Josua Rabukawaqa

representing the Fiji Govern

ment, Geoffrey Henry of the Cook Islands, Togia Viviani of Niue and Tom Koraea of Papua New Guinea.

The bells of the Centenary Church, Nukualofa, called the people of Tonga to a combined

Asi Eikini, Western Samoa Minister for Economic Affairs and Development, has acquired his second matai title.

At Safotulafai he was given the title of namulauulu, one of the several top ranking orator titles in the district. He is now in his second term in parliament as representative for Safotulafai.

Above; Aborina Stellmach; below: Allan Taki

thanksgiving service on the Sunday, supplementary ser vices being held in towns and villages across the nation.

Monday saw military displays by detachments of the army,

navy, police and royal guards

followed in the afternoon by a variety of sporting events. In the evening the Dateline Hotel was the venue for a royal ball culminating in the cutting of a

gigantic cake by the King’s

tiny, sleepy, only grand

daughter.

Tuesday, the actual birthday, began with an 8 am flag-raising ceremony followed by official calls on the King at the palace.

At 1 pm 1000 guests, assembled

in the palace grounds, valiantly

failed to eat their way through endless offerings of Tongan delicacies.

On Wednesday the emphasis was back on sport: offshore races under sail and power, basketball and rugby union. In the early evening the Indian Cultural Group from Suva gave a recital of Indian music, dancing and singing.

Politics in Papua New Guinea as three ex-ministers have been reminded in recent by elections is a tough game.

Three former ministers Sir Maori Kiki, former deputy prime minister, Mr Patterson Lowa, former police minister, and Mr Gavera Rea, former labour minister all failed in recent by-elections in Port Moresby to regain seats in par liament (PIM, Aug).

Now Sir Maori has an nounced his retirement from

public life.

At 47, Sir Maori has been around a long time and it’s dif ficult to think of PNG politics without him. Political ob servers before last year’s gen eral election felt he was unwise to challenge the charismatic Miss Josephine Abaijah for the National Capital District seat.

Indeed, the Papua Besena leader handsomely thrashed the then deputy prime minis ter. It is also thought that, had Sir Maori tackled the Northeast seat last year he would have had no difficulty in winning it. As it turned out in

the by-election, a vigorous,

foot-slogging campaign by

Besena candidate Dr Goasa

Damena earned him just enough votes to keep Sir Maori out.

Tonga’s capital, Nukualofa,

has seen much pageantry but none so holy as the array of some of Rome’s upper crust, a covey of archbishops and bishops, along with clerics of the lower ranks. They were there with 5000 other people to celebrate the silver jubilee, as a bishop, of Bishop John Hubert Macy Rodgers, a New Zealander and one of the best known religious figures in the South Pacific.

Bishop Rodgers, who is now

assistant bishop to Bishop

Mackey of Auckland taught for 12 years at St John’s Catholic School on Tongatapu after his ordination in New Zealand in 1940. In 1953 he became Vicar

Apostolic in Tonga and, with the establishment of a hier archy in the Islands in the 19605, Bishop of Tonga. He was ‘translated’ (a word used for a bishop shift) to Rarotonga.

His successor. Bishop Patrick Finau, who was at the cel ebration, was a pupil at St John’s School (then called St Peter Chanel’s) along with another youth. John Foliaki.

To further their education.

Bishop Rodgers (then a priest)

sent them to New Zealand and

they stayed with Bishop

Rodgers’ sister. Later, they

were both ordained priest by

the bishop.

Their reunion was a high light of the jubilee celebrations which began with a kava cer emony, then a jubilee mass, and ended with a massive feast and a dancing display.

Papua New Guinea’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Frederick Reiher, seemed to be taking a side swipe at the Western churches’ propensity to maintain a state of Christian disunity when he

addressed a public rally

organised by the PNG Church

Partnership. The unlikely

venue was Knightsbridge, Lon don. In attendance were no fewer than one archbishop and four bishops from PNG. Mr Reiher, among other things, said: “In these days when the columns of The Times news paper are taken up with sharply contrasting views on the criticism directed at the state ment made by a member of the

Royal Family (Prince Charles

had earlier indirectly criticised Papal attitudes to the Vienna marriage of Prince Michael of Kent to Austrian Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz,

touching off Anglican-Roman

Catholic controversy Ed, PIM), it is gratifying to address representatives of churches in Papua New Guinea where controversy by and large has not boiled over into acrimony and the state of the churches which you represent reflects

goodwill and mutal respect.”

Mr Reiher thanked those churches “which have con tributed so much both spiri tually and materially to our country for nearly nine dec ades”. Later, on a damp Lon don summer day, Mr Reiher (third from left) was pictured with the PNG church leaders

(from left); Bishop Rhynold

Sanana, Bishop Bevan Meredith, Archbishop David

Hand, Bishop Jeremy Ashton

and Bishop George Ambo.

The reunion - Bishop Finau (left), Bishop Rodgers and Fr Foliaki. - Photo: Tonga Chronicle.

PNG High Commissioner Reiher and church friends

Brian Coates’ view of the New Guinea eagle, one of the world’s largest and a true forest bird.