Papua New Guinea and Australia
THE new Australian prime minister can be assured of a cordial welcome to Papua New Guinea.
As the leader of one of our near neighbours, it is in the interests of both countries to address the negatives that have increasingly bedeviled our relationship over the past decade.
As the major contributor of foreign aid to our country, Australia deserves the heartfelt thanks of all Papua New Guineans.
Without that aid PNG would find it hard to maintain the nation’s existing standards of living, far less look towards their improvement.
Our country is prone to natural and health disasters.
Australia has always stood ready to meet our needs in those situations and to meet them magnificently.
Australia’s massive funding of the campaign against HIV/AIDS is a case in point.
Mr Rudd need have no doubts of the gratitude of thinking Papua New Guineans for those major contributions to the well-being of our nation.
So why is the inter-relationship between the two neighbours at low ebb?
There is little point in indulging in the blame game.
We hope that what is past is very definitely past.
For if the current Australian government was to perpetuate the arrogance and the clear contempt of its predecessor towards our leadership and our people, any pretence at mending the relationship would evaporate.
We have, as a people and a nation, much to learn.
Gaining our independence in 1975, we are still a fledgling among the nations of the world.
Our progress so far has been, in common with many other developing nations, peppered with a wide range of political, economic and social problems.
We began our independence with a fragile unity.
Unlike most other developing nations, we were expected to cobble together more than 800 tribes, each with its own language and customs, and somehow weld that disparate group into the semblance of a nation.
Many careless observers deride our progress to date.
They ignore the fact that we have sustained our democracy, despite the myriad of problems we have encountered. Our nation of more than six million people is fast becoming the flagship of the independent states of the South Pacific.
That claim is not an exercise in self-glorification; merely a statement of fact.
And it is necessary to state that fact publicly because of the perception that PNG is a failed State.
We have been told repeatedly by overseas experts and tunnel-visioned politicians alike that we are a basket case; a resource-rich country shackled with short-sighted people devoid of any vision for their future, inhabiting a nation riddled with corruption and endemic violence.
It is inappropriate to use the visit of the new Australian prime minister to sound our own trumpet too loud and too long.
But we do seek a new perception of our nation from the government and people of our oldest ally.
We no longer wish to be viewed as subservient tribes of Fuzzy-Wuzzy Angels.
That expression doubtless had meaning and wide currency during World War II, a global conflict that ended 63 years ago and 30 years before our country was created.
We are not a bunch of tiresome natives perched at the tip of the Australian continent.
We are a nation with a younger generation that has already produced a dazzling array of professionals in a highly diverse range of occupations.
Sixty of our graduate doctors and specialists are now working around the globe.
Our Boeing and Airbus pilots work as far away as the Middle East, and for airlines as distinguished as Emirates.
We can build huge mines and then operate them to standards of international efficiency and safety.
We have distinguished architects, engineers, surveyors and agronomists.
We have film makers and poets and actors and journalists.
We have seven universities and thousands of tertiary students.
And that youthful body of professionals shares a passionate belief in our future.
It’s time our two nations rebuilt the trust that was our strongest bond.
We invite Mr Rudd and his government and the people of Australia to join us as partners in a practical vision, one that sees our region peopled with strong and independent countries with a common view of a peaceful and prosperous South Pacific.
Editorial