Revisiting the roots of the nationhood

By GYNNIE KERO
The opening of three new buildings at the Pacific Leadership and Governance Precinct in Port Moresby earlier this month is something ‘significant’ for the country.
Not only in the sense that the new facilities will increase the resources and capabilities of the country’s public servants but the occasion rekindled the fires of nationalism in the formative years of nationhood.
One of the buildings opened at the PNG Institute of Public Administration (Administrative College then) was where the informal discussion group known as the ‘Bully Beef Club’ met in the 1960s to talk about the future of an independent country. On March 21, Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop visited Kavieng, New Ireland as part of her three-day visit to the country before opening these facilities.
Bishop was greeted by Governor Sir Julius Chan who presented her with a copy of his memoirs Playing the Game.
In the book, Sir Julius makes particular mention of the years leading up to Independence and the Bully Beef Club is referred to as the foundations for the intellectual thought that went into independence in 1975.
The Bully Beef Club were young aspiring public servants receiving their training and one of them was very young Sir Michael Somare.
Sir Michael belonged to an era in which the nation saw the rise of some of PNG’s brightest political stars such as Sir John Guise, Sir Albert Maori Kiki, Sir Obia Olewale and Sir Kingsford Dibela, among others.
Long into the night, these bright young men would discuss the future of PNG where it could be able to determine its own destiny.
At about the same time at the newly established University PNG, budding statesmen were also discussing PNG’s future. Vincent Eri, Rabbie Namaliu and others were also talking about a world where PNG would be able to drive its future.
And these institutions, the UPNG and PNG Administrative College enabled young Papua New Guineans to come together to learn to develop their leadership skills, to make connections and friendships that last a lifetime.
They named their group after their staple food of the time. “We would all contribute money and substitute our own food by having navy biscuits, hard biscuits, and corned beef – because that was real food as far as we were concerned in those days,” Somare told the Australian Broadcasting Commission years later.
“We said, ‘We’ll form a Bully Beef Club’ .And that Bully Beef Club developed into a political club.”
UPNG and the Administrative College shaped the country’s independence-era leaders, providing them with the skills and personal networks to help build a nation. Now, these historic institutions will play a new role in preparing PNG’s future leaders, as part of the Pacific Leadership and Governance Precinct. They would become public service chiefs, government ministers and business leaders. Among them were future prime ministers and a governor-general.
At the Administrative College in the mid-1960s, a young Michael Somare – who would go on to become Sir Michael Somare, Grand Chief – and contemporaries like Albert Maori Kiki, trained for positions as senior public officials and talked into the night about politics.
Similar conversations were occurring at the newly-formed UPNG, where future statesmen like Rabbie Namaliu and Vincent Eri were thinking about PNG’s future as they worked towards undergraduate degrees in first student intake.
Both institutions were established by the Australian Government to meet the needs of an independent Papua New Guinea. They would be pivotal in the generation of nationalist sentiment that influenced the independence path PNG would take, and its timing.
The Australian-appointed Currie Commission on developing tertiary education in PNG said a national university should be established to drive economic development and prepare the country for self-government. The proposed UPNG, the commission said in its 1964 report, “should not only be a symbol of approaching nationhood but a place for fostering of unity in a society where tribal and regional loyalties are still strong”.
The Administrative College, or ADCOL as it was known, was established in 1963 with the aim of localising the public service. Later it became the PNG Institute of Public Administration.
The college focused on providing training for mid-to-senior level public servants, with the aim of lifting educational standards within the service and meeting departmental requirements for employees who could take on higher levels of responsibility.
Certificate and diploma courses of up to two years were offered. But the college provided more than courses for bureaucrats. It became a centre for debate and forged friendships that would prove nationally significant.
The leadership precinct is a joint initiative of the Papua New Guinea and Australian governments to support future public service leaders.
The precinct now includes an administration building at PNG IPA and a lecture theatre and student services building at UPNG.
More than 2,250 Papua New Guineans have participated in Pacific Leadership and Governance Precinct courses and events since 2015. Almost half of all participants in these short courses are women.