MINISTERIAL talks between Australia and PNG, suspended by the Howard government over the Julian Moti saga, will resume next year.
Australia’s Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd and Sir Michael Somare agreed to the resumption of talks when they met in Bali yesterday.
PNG’s relationship with Australia, at government level, turned sour when top PNG Government officials aided the escape of Moti to Solomon Islands, preventing his arrest by Australian federal police.
Mr Howard, angry over this, suspended the talks. Mr Howard was defeated by Mr Rudd in the recent elections, heralding hopes for a fresh start to the relationship.
Flanked by a heavy contingent of senior ministers and officials, Mr Rudd and Sir Michael met in Bali yesterday morning and agreed that the relationship was too important to leave unattended.
Heralding a “rebirth” in the bilateral relationship between the two nations, Mr Rudd declared to Sir Michael that ministerial contact “should resume forthwith”.
He said ministerial contact had been suspended “for far too long” and it was time both nations made “a fresh start”.
Sir Michael said there wasn’t any animosity in the past, “just differences of opinion on issues between two very close neighbours”.
Sir Michael said the resumption of the Ministerial Forum next February “provides a good opportunity not only to review our cooperation but also determine what we can do better”.
Both leaders discussed issues of mutual interest to both nations.
Mr Rudd also told Sir Michael that he looked forward to visiting PNG “sooner than later” next year.
Sir Michael said while countries debated actions to be taken on climate change, time had ran out for many of them as they watched land that generations of their ancestors used to sustain themselves continued to be submerged.
“Humanity must not allow our fragile island societies with civilisations older than those of North and South America to be drowned by swelling sea,” he said.
Sir Michael commended the Australian government for taking steps to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and welcomed their policy initiatives on their emissions reduction targets.
He added that the fight against climate change would be lost if the world lost its forests.
He said hat reducing emissions from deforestation was undeniably impossible.