Minister says much HKI

Australia

to learn from Ok Tedi

AUSTRALIA’S minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Affairs, Robert Tickner, says Aboriginal people and Australian companies have much to learn from the experience of Ok Tedi Mining Limited in Papua New Guinea.

Tickner especially refered to the relationship of the mining company with local traditional landowners. He was speaking from a small village near the remote Ok Tedi Mine in the Star Mountains in the western province of PNG, close to the Indonesian border of Irian Jaya.

On the guns-for-drugs trade between Papua New Guinea and Australia, Tickner said it was not only thriving but increasing. He said this was largely due to poor or non-existent border security between the two countries.

Tickner said the problem needed to be urgently addressed.

He said the lack of proper surveillance between the islands in the Torres Strait and PNG’s western province had created what he called forgotten frontier. Two years ago, former Australian justice minister Michael Tate promised to get tough with organised crime gangs who were buying crates of marijuana from PNG growers in exchange for high-powered automatic weapons.