BY BARNEY ORERE
THE last decade of colonial involvement in PNG was preceded by over 80 years of Australian Government interest in the eastern half of the island. In 1833, the Queensland Government attempted to annex this territory, fearing that it might otherwise be claimed by a hostile European power.
This bid was thwarted by the British Government and from 1884 – to the dismay of the Australian colonies – the northeast came under German control. Pressured by the Australians, the British simultaneously claimed the southeast.
The British handed over to Australia in 1906 and the area was renamed Papua. Australian control of the eastern side was completed when the northeast was seized from the Germans on the outbreak of war in 1914. Attempts to attain outright sovereignty over the northeast met with failure at the Paris Peace Agreement of 1919, but Australia was granted a League of Nations mandate.
SECOND WORLD WAR
The Second World War disturbed both the physical and conceptual dimensions of Australian rule in PNG. Another outcome of the war was less tangible, yet no less real: the hundreds of thousands of Australian servicemen and women who served in PNG imbibed and promoted affection for its people that stimulated a sense of responsibility and commitment to the future of the Territories.
In organisational terms, the war resulted in consolidation of PNG’s administrative structures. During the Japanese invasion, both Papua and the Australian controlled areas of New Guinea were managed as a single entity from Port Moresby – a practice continued after 1945 and solidified by the Papua and New Guinea Act 1949.
TERRITORY OF P & NG
With amendments, the Act was to remain until 1975 the legal basis for Australian Government in what was now called the Territory of Papua and New Guinea. The original act provided for a civilian Administrator, advised and assisted by a non-elected Executive Council and a Territory public service. The Commonwealth Government exercised authority under the Governor-General, but so did the Administrator – and differences over the proper shape of the relationship between the Administrator and the Minister for Territories were to become a constant source of friction.
The Administrative union of Papua and New Guinea did not nullify the separate status of the territories under international law. With the demise of the League of Nations, the New Guinea mandate had been reconstructed in 1946 via a United Nations (UN): Trusteeship Agreement.
The Agreement allowed Australia to govern the Trust Territory as part of the Commonwealth for the purposes of ‘peace, order, good government and defence’. But required that the administrative power ‘promote the political, economic, social and educational advancement of the inhabitants, and their progressive development towards self-government or independence’, in accordance with the ‘freely expressed wishes of the people concerned’.
Australia also had regular obligations to the UN: to visits by the representatives of the Trusteeship Council. Successive Australian Government were prepared to commit Papua to the basic goals of the Trusteeship, but were chary of UN encroachment on Australia’s sovereign rights. Indeed the preamble of the PNG Act made clear that the Administrative Union would operate alongside maintenance of ‘the identity and status of the Territory of New Guinea as a Trust territory and the identity and status of the Territory of Papua as a possession of the Crown.
Six months after the promulgation of the PNG Act, its Labour Party authors were defeated in general elections. There followed 23 years of unbroken Liberal-Country Party Government – a period whose political continuity was mirrored in the Territory’s portfolio.
For over two decades from 1951, only two men held the position of Minister. The first of these was Paul Hasluck. He saw in PNG the challenge of encouraging the birth of mature society, ready to make its own decisions in a modern world. This society he believed, would build itself organically.
Australia’s calling was therefore not to dictate or to force the pace, but to assist by fostering basic preconditions on a broad geographic and demographic basis. The pressing tasks were ‘law and order, health, education’ and lessons on ‘how to earn a living’. Australia was to promote economic growth and provide opportunities for participation in political processes and institutions , but changes in these areas were to be gradual, staying in step with social development.
In the five years from 1951, first contact was made with 400,000 people over and area of 65,000 square miles. By 1963, all areas of the Territory were officially described as being under Australian control.
In 1963, it was announced that the Territory would have a House of Assembly consisting of 44 members elected from a Common Roll, plus 10 European members from ‘reserved’ electorates and an equal number of official members.
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
Since 1951, the Territory had a Legislative Council – at first consisting of the Administrator and a majority of official members supplemented by three elected European members and nine appointees, three of whom were indigenous.
A decade later, official members formed a minority with the addition of nine elected members, including three ‘Native Members’. By contrast, then’, the new house was the Territory’s first genuinely representative political body. Ostensibly, the power of the House were wide – to make ordinances for the ‘peace, order and good government of the Territory’ – but just as these powers were the same as those of the Legislative Council, so were the limitations.
The Commonwealth Government maintained the right of veto over any legislation through the power of both the Administrator and the Governor-General to withhold assent to an ordinance. An Administrator’s Council – inaugurated in 1961, and designed to be an ‘embryo executive’ was similarly geared to practice in Government.
Reference: Australia and Papua New Guinea 1966-1969.
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