Decolonisation of Papua New Guinea

Keynote address on the decolonisation of Papua New Guinea

University House, Canberra, 3 November 2002

Last March Professor Donald Denoon asked whether I would consider an invitation to this workshop. His first sentence declared 'one of the great monuments of your political career is an independent PNG'. I could scarcely resist.

I wrote on PNG in The Whitlam Government 1972-75 (Viking 1985) between pages 71-101. I did not have access to Ian Down's The Australian Trusteeship Papua New Guinea 1945-75 published for the Department of Home Affairs by the Australian Government Publishing Service in 1980. Downs referred to several of my visits to PNG but did not adequately identify the people who accompanied me. I attach a list of the visits. It would be useful for the editors of the DFAT volume on the 30th anniversary of independence to have the attached list of my itineraries and my comments on them.

The first visit was on my way back to the Philippines, where I was the navigator of the only Empire aircraft attached to MacArthur's headquarters. I frequently saw the pioneer Mick Leahy (1901-79), who was working for the American forces. When he married in 1940, my wife was his wife's bridesmaid. She attended the family dinner to celebrate our 60th wedding anniversary in April this year. I did not always share Mick's views but I learned much from him for the rest of his life. (He scored a footnote in Downs at page 175.)

My second visit was in 1953, my first year in the Parliament. I was in the Parliamentary group which accompanied Governor-General Slim when he dedicated the three Commonwealth War Graves in Lae and outside Port Moresby and Rabaul. My father-in-law had been a sergeant in the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force which captured Rabaul in 1914.

(A Chatham House conference was held in Palmerston North, New Zealand, in January 1959. Paul Hasluck, the Minister for Territories, and I were among the Australian participants and James Callaghan among the British. I raised developments in PNG, the Solomons and the New Hebrides. I discussed these territories in my book at pages 115-119.)

In March 1960 Arthur Calwell and I were elected Leader and Deputy Leader of the ALP. In July I decided to use the greater facilities which had become available to me to take Lance Barnard, Charlie Jones and my wife on an extensive tour of PNG. We noticed the campaign being mounted by the Protestant churches against drinking by the indigenous population; they thought it futile to urge prohibition for the expatriate population. Calwell took a simultaneous but different itinerary with Clyde Cameron and Dr Felix Dittmer.

In October 1960 my wife and I attended the meeting of the Legislative Council at which Governor-General Dunrossil assented to amendments to the Papua and New Guinea Act. In my book at page 78 I describe the humiliating treatment accorded to Dr Reuben Taureka MLC when we took him to lunch at our hotel.

In January and February 1963 I made an extensive tour of PNG with Frank Crean and a new senator, Sam Cohen, Q.C. (Downs at page 460 mentions an unknown W.J. Harrison.) At the end of our tour the Rotary Club of Port Moresby asked me to address a dinner at which there were 200 guests, including six Papuans. My theme was that Australians could justify their role in PNG's society and economy only if the indigenes perceived that they themselves were being prepared for participation in all the jobs which were being performed anywhere in PNG. My illustrations of sea and air transport produced hilarity which was discourteous to the Papuans and irksome to me. I telegraphed Reg Ansett and the chairman of TAA. The former promptly responded and set out to train PNG aircrew. I never heard from the latter. The ALP Commonwealth Conference (29 July - 2 August 1963) adopted, to Calwell's displeasure, a specific and advanced policy on PNG drafted by Don Dunstan and me.

In April 1965 my wife and I attended a seminar in Goroka on the 1963-64 World Bank report. Nugget Coombs supported the assumption of some responsibility for the allocation of budget funds by elected members of the House of Assembly. I declared, 'The rest of the world will think it anomalous if PNG is not independent by 1970.' C.E. Barnes, the Minister for Territories, opposed my view. John Guise, the leader of the elected members of the House of Assembly, did not publicly support me but privately conceded that he shared my opinion (Downs, page 460).

(In August 1966 the British Colonial Secretary, Arthur Bottomley, visited Australia for a fruitless discussion with the Holt Government on the New Hebrides. He briefed me.)

I was elected Leader and Lance Barnard Deputy Leader of the ALP in February 1967. At the House of Representatives elections in November 1966 the Coalition had received 49.98% of the votes and the ALP 39.98%. At the elections in October 1969 the votes were respectively 43.33% and 46.55%; the Coalition won on DLP preferences. I was encouraged to make my seventh and most extensive trip to PNG in order to propagate and develop the ALP's policy. At the end of December I set out in an RAAF plane with Bill Hayden, Kim Beazley, Graham Freudenberg and Peter Cullen from my staff, my son Antony and several pressmen. The most dramatic moments of our tour were in Rabaul, where we were greeted by the combined choirs of the Catholic and Methodist churches and cheered by a congregation of 11,000, the largest in the Territory's history. Downs at pages 464 and 465 quotes the text of 'Labor's Plan for New Guinea' which I issued on the eve of our departure from Port Moresby.

Between 6 and 11 July 1970 Prime Minister John Gorton, who had never visited PNG and who, as a senator, had not engaged in debates on PNG, - I have not checked the Senate Hansard - and David Hay, the new Secretary of the Department of External Affairs and former Administrator of PNG, made as extensive a tour of PNG as I had made but in one-third of the time. They were greeted in Rabaul by an audience of 10 000 who were as hostile as our 11 000 had been enthusiastic. Tom Ellis, head of the Department of the Administrator, gave Gorton a handgun. In a panic, on Sunday 19 July, Gorton called a cabinet meeting which, without a written submission, agreed on the precautionary step of an Order in Council calling out the Pacific Islands Regiment. The tension between Gorton and Malcolm Fraser, the Minister for Defence, over this proposal was a factor in the resignation of Fraser on 8 March 1971 and the replacement of Gorton by McMahon on 10 March 1971. Downs and I were not allowed to see the Cabinet documents: Downs, footnote 56 on page 484, and Whitlam Government, page 92. Fraser's and Gorton's accounts are to be found in Hansard of 9 March 1971 at pages 683 and 688. Tom Hughes, Gorton's Attorney-General, gave his account in his eulogy at Gorton's State Funeral. Minister Downer has given me the archived copies of the Cabinet minutes, which I attach. The Order in Council was repealed on 22 April 1971.

Meanwhile, in January 1971, I had made another visit to PNG as Leader of the Opposition. I went with Tom Burns and Mick Young, the Federal President and Secretary of the ALP, Bill Morrison, who had been elected to the House in 1969 after 20 years in the Australian diplomatic service, and Clyde Cameron, who was now free to revisit PNG, the time having expired for writs to be served on him by those who felt aggrieved by his remarks in 1960. My wife and my sister, Freda Whitlam, a school principal, also accompanied me.

On 20 May 1971 Barnes reaffirmed that it was the policy of the Australian Government to advance PNG to internal self-government and independence as a united country (Downs, page 446).

On 23 June 1971 the ALP National Conference declared that 'the Labor Party will ensure the orderly and secure transfer to PNG of self-government and independence in its first term of office.'

Barnes resigned from the ministry on 25 January 1972. Andrew Peacock was appointed Minister for External Territories by McMahon on 2 February and quickly established constructive relationships with all the indigenous politicians and officials.

Australian Parliament

My maiden speech on international affairs was delivered on 15 September 1953. I discussed the regional territories which were still subject to the Netherlands, Portugal, Britain and France. Paul Hasluck constantly interjected on my references to Indo-China but not on my references to PNG. I pointed out that, although Papua was an Australian colony, the first Minister for External Territories, E.J. Ward, had stated that the Chifley Government had no objection to the Trusteeship Council exercising surveillance over Papua. Outside Parliament I applauded Hasluck for substituting an Australian flag at Government House in Port Moresby for the Union Jack that his predecessors Ward and Spender had not noticed and for resisting RSL pressure to allow soldier settlements in Papua.

Calwell condoned Hasluck's leisurely programs for PNG because he believed the territories were a cordon sanitaire for White Australia. The schoolteachers in Caucus rebelled when the 1961 annual reports for the two territories made identical statements:

There are no universities in the Territory and some years must elapse before their existence can be justified. Qualified students have access to universities in Australia.

The Trusteeship Commission's fifth Visiting Mission under Sir Hugh Foot, the last British Governor of Cyprus, was due in Canberra in the second week of April 1961. Before the House adjourned in the early hours of Friday 6 April Kim Beazley gave notice that he would propose an urgency debate on the need to establish a university in PNG with faculties designed to meet urgent needs and with residential colleges, and with ancillary high schools and technical schools to give secondary schooling adequate to prepare the undergraduate students of that university for university courses.

On Sunday night 8 April the ABC broadcast a statement by Hasluck that the government intended to establish a university college in association with an administrative college. On the next sitting day Beazley, Len Reynolds and Gordon Bryant regaled Foot and his colleagues with well-documented accounts of the deficiencies of education in PNG. The Mission was not satisfied with Hasluck's belated proposals. It reported

The Administration's education program for mass literacy is commendable but, in terms of today's world and today's needs in New Guinea, it is inadequate. Three results are discernible from the present policy: first, a broadening of the literacy base; secondly, the providing of a number of indigenous teachers for primary schools; and, thirdly, the providing of workers to feed into the economic stream at the unskilled and the semi-skilled levels. But the existing system does not: (a) provide university education; (b) produce individuals capable of replacing Australians in other than unskilled or semi-skilled positions; (c) give a level of knowledge required to exercise responsibility in the field of commerce or industry; (d) make provision for senior administrative and professional staff; or (e) adequately generate political confidence and leadership.

In March 1963, Hasluck appointed the Currie Commission to prepare plans for higher education. It reported to Hasluck's successor, C.E. Barnes, in March 1964.

Separatism

At the 1972 elections my more dramatic commitments on China and Viet Nam somewhat obscured the fact that the 'It's Time' Policy Speech set out a comprehensive framework for Australia's international relations, with specific priorities. I stated:

A nation's foreign policy depends on striking a wise, proper and prudent balance between commitment and power. Labor will have four commitments commensurate to our power and resources;

First, to our own national security;
Secondly, to a secure, united and friendly Papua New Guinea;
Thirdly, to achieve closer relations with our nearest and largest neighbour, Indonesia;
Fourthly, to promote the peace and prosperity of our neighbourhood.

The emphasis on a united PNG and its juxtaposition with Indonesian relations was not accidental. They were fundamental to regional stability and, equally, to the fulfilment of our United Nations trusteeship. After my visits of 1970 and 1971, there was no question but that Australian government policy would set the same goal for the Territory of Papua and the Trust Territory of New Guinea and that bipartisan goal would be the independence of a united PNG. Nevertheless, centrifugal forces in PNG were immense and intense: economic, historical, regional, racial and religious.

Another 30th anniversary should be noted: the third House of Assembly elections in February-March 1972 and the creation of a coalition government (Pangu with 7 ministers, People's Progress Party 4, National Party 4 and 2 Independents) with Michael Somare as Chief Minister. His staying power has certainly exceeded mine.

On 14 March 1972 the UN General Assembly resolved to call upon Australia to prepare, in consultation with the Government of PNG, a further timetable for independence. The resolution re-affirmed 'the importance of ensuring the preservation of unity'. In Canberra on 17 January 1973 I assured the Chief Minister that we would follow the time-table agreed by the McMahon Government for self-government on 1 December 1973, but that full independence could be achieved as early as 1974. In Port Moresby on 18 February 1973 I said:

It is folly for anybody to believe that any section of Papua New Guinea would serve its interests by going it alone. For it would truly mean going alone.

In December 1973 the UN General Assembly emphasised the 'imperative need to ensure that the national unity of PNG was preserved and strongly endorsed the policies of the administering authority and of the Government of PNG aimed at discouraging separatist movements and at promoting national unity.'

The forgetfulness of things not in yesterday's headlines is such that it is commonly thought that PNG separatism was restricted to Bougainville. In fact, from December 1972, through Self-Government Day in December 1973, and right up to Independence Day in September 1975, PNG unity came under desperate and disparate challenges. There was separatist rioting and violence in Goroka, the Gazelle Peninsula, Kieta and Port Moresby itself. The Papuan secessionist movement, Papua Besena, was led by Josephine Abaijah, MHA for Central Regional. She had succeeded Percy Chatterton of the London Missionary Society. She was an educated and sophisticated version of Pauline Hanson. She openly exploited tensions between Papuans and Highland workers in Port Moresby. Father John Momis, MHA for Bougainville Regional, a Marist Brother and protégé of Bishop Leo Lemay, supported a separate Bougainville. The diocese had been called German Solomon Islands from May 1898, Northern Solomon Islands from May 1930 and Bougainville from November 1966 (Annuario Pontificio). Lemay was a brother of General Curtis Lemay, who succeeded General Kenney in command of General MacArthur's air force, who advocated bombing Viet Nam 'back to the Stone Age' and became George Wallace's vice-presidential running mate in 1968.

In August 1975 the Bougainville separatists unilaterally declared a new nation to be known as the Republic of North Solomons. On 1 September declarations of independence were made in Arawa and Kieta, the latter attended by Leo Lemay's successor, Gregory Singkai, another Marist.

A week before independence, the PNG Minister for Justice, Ebia Olewale, and Father Momis both appeared before the UN Trusteeship Council in New York. Momis said that Bougainville wished to determine its own destiny and that its 90,000 people were ethnically and culturally part of a separate Solomon Islands group. Olewale told the Council that if the separatist principle was accepted 'it could result in the creation of 700 potential mini-states in Papua New Guinea'. The Trusteeship Council unanimously extended congratulations to Papua-New Guineans on their successful preparations for independence and expressed confidence that the unity of the country would be successfully maintained. The President and three members of the Council attended the ceremonies at Port Moresby on Independence Day, 16 September. Josephine Abaijah was not present.

Australia did, indeed, have the power and commitment to bring a united Papua New Guinea to independence. More, Australia had the highest national and international obligations to do so. The most powerful force for unity was the momentum towards independence once self-government had been achieved. As Michael Somare wrote in his autobiography Sana (1975): 'It took me months to get the self-government date of 1 December 1973 passed by the House of Assembly, but only forty-five minutes to set the date for Papua New Guinea's independence.' Papuan secessionism, in particular, withered in the face of my Government's determination that independence would be secured only by a House of Assembly speaking for a united Papua New Guinea. As it was, it was a closer run thing than many like to admit. What kind of message would have been received in Rabaul, Kieta or Port Moresby if the Australian Government had been playing a different game elsewhere in the region? Bishop Lemay was succeeded by Henk Kronenberg, another Marist Priest but a Dutchman, in April 1999.

When PNG achieved independence our security agencies asked me if we should leave our bugging equipment in place as the British had done when their African colonies achieved independence. I told them that we should not. The equipment, however, was still in place when the Hawke Government took office.

Education after Independence

As a member of the Unesco Executive Board (1985-89) I noted that Australia, like all colonial powers, had for too long left schools and clinics to missionaries. Protestant missionaries translated the gospels, and sometimes the whole Bible, into regional dialects. They certainly failed to promote national languages in Melanesia. In Africa and Latin America, on the other hand, Catholic missionaries have at least made Spanish, Portuguese and French into the national languages of their old colonies.

A Melanesian Literacy Project was established as an Australian International Literacy Year project in February 1990. In March I was the head and Margaret was a member of the Australian delegation to the World Conference on Education for All at Jomtien, Thailand. The Solomon Islands and Vanuatu ministers for education, Jerry Tetaga, the head of the Papua New Guinea delegation and the secretary of the PNG Department of Education, and I agreed that government-to-government discussions on the project should take place. The PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu ministers and officials representing the Australian minister held discussions in Port Moresby on 17-18 May. The ministers agreed to form a Melanesian Literacy Council to cooperate in literacy development and expressed gratitude to the Australian Government for making the project possible. Kim Beazley junior, the Minister for Employment, Education and Training, did not pursue the project.

When the Hawke Government sent me as Australia's permanent delegate to Unesco in 1983, I was briefed to secure Australia's transfer from the Western European group, Group I, to the Asia and Pacific group, Group IV. In 1985 the General Conference at Sofia unanimously approved the transfer at the 1987 Conference of a Board seat as well as Australia and New Zealand from Group I to Group IV. Tetaga succeeded me on the Board from 1989 to 1993. It has become accepted that two states from the South Pacific Forum should have representatives on the Board.

Conclusion

I am grateful for the invitation to this workshop and the terms in which it was made.

Yet I still hear it asserted that my government was in error in pushing PNG into independence too soon. It is exactly the same sort of argument used 150 years ago against self-government for the settlement colonies of the British Empire, the argument that they were not ready. In the case of PNG, however, I use no such lordly and imperial arguments. I simply assert that, had we delayed PNG independence, even for another year, we would have put the whole country in the gravest danger of breaking up.