Benevolent Disregard?

Pic courtesy Daily Telegraph

I'd wager, gentle reader, that most Australians, if asked, would not be able to recall that Papua New Guinea achieved its independence from Australia on 16 September 1975. 

1975 is a long time ago, I'll admit, but I doubt that the question would probably not have been answered correctly by most Australians even during the eighties or nineties. Our Pacific neighbours do not figure strongly in the Australian consciousness, and never have.

Those that would probably have a clear recall of PNG independence are the surviving "Chalkies", those national servicemen who became part of the Army Education Corps tasked with providing educational programmes for members of the PNG Pacific Islands Regiment between 1966 and 1973. 

Darryl Dymock, a nasho who was in my recruit platoon at Singleton in 1969, has written a very engaging book about these three hundred or so diggers. One of the themes explored in that work is the contribution these men made to the peaceful transfer of power in PNG, a country that many considered to be at risk of succumbing to violence during this period of transition.

I would gladly have been one of them, but the army obviously believed at the time that I would make a better contribution in Infantry.

The PIR had a strong role in maintaining law and order in this somewhat boisterous country, and the values and protocols instilled in its members through their education at the hands of young Australian teachers was important.

Perhaps this small piece of history can (excuse the pun) teach us something if we consider the tensions surrounding recent events in the Solomons. Maybe if Australia had set out, through a range of initiatives, to strengthen the political and cultural institutions in the island nation during the last couple of decades, as it did in PNG between 1966 and 1973, we would not have landed (with a thud) where we are now.

Denise Fisher's 2014 piece in The Interpreter echoes, to some extent, this sentiment, and notes the degree to which France regards the significance of the status of New Caledonia to its influence in the Pacific, and bankrolls it accordingly. I have stolen the title of her piece and applied it to this post, as it's a good fit.

Perhaps we could learn something from the French, or (perish the thought) the Chinese.

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