'Is Australia the ogre Governor Wenge, a bit of a wild card, makes it out to be?'


Australia and some of the islands states that lie in the area regarded as being Australia's patch by its prime minister, John Howard, presently regard each other with jaundiced eyes. “Some people” in “some islands states” is a more accurate way of putting it, and also “some Australians” since comparatively few Australians know or care about what transpires in the patch.

Luther Wenge... Morobe Governor

Hostility reached a pitch recently when at Brisbane Airport the transiting prime minister of Papua New Guinea, Sir Michael Somare, was given a security shakedown that required him to remove his shoes lest he had bombs implanted in the soles.

Since the veteran PNG leader has every intention of departing from life in a natural manner, the attention given to the soles of his feet miffed him somewhat.

The indignity heaped upon him, as perceived in PNG, pushed outbursts of anti-Australian feeling there to new heights. It was followed a few weeks later, on May 17, by the hurried departure from PNG of 161 Australian police sent there to brace the demoralised, sagging and incompetent PNG force, an institution which has become another of the failures of post-independence.

On the application by the Governor of Morobe province, Luther Wenge, who was definitely inspired by payback motives, three judges of the PNG Supreme Court in a well reasoned opinion, said that an agreement allowing the Australians to perform as police locally, but mostly under Australian rules, infringed the country's constitution. The Australians thus lost immunity from prosecution under PNG law and were withdrawn home almost immediately by the Australian government.

All these probably avoidable chain of events have blighted Australia/PNG relations with bad feelings that have seeped into other parts of Oceania. Australia is becoming viewed as an arrogant overlord, whose insistence that the region's inhabitants snap to attention and meekly swallow its requirement for transparency, good governance and accountability-is becoming a tiresome exercise. Pacific Islanders, being Pacific Islanders, are a little laid back and are more comfortable exercising their various modicums of independence in that comfortable Pacific Way. Why worry about a few broken eggs here and there? It is just learning experience. Too bad that it causes ulcers in Australian stomachs. Is Australia the ogre Governor Wenge, a bit of a wild card, makes it out to be? As does Andrew Nori, the Solomon Islands lawyer, who hopes to lever the Australian-led RAMSI force from his country using the same kind of legal lever that Mr Wenge very successfully used? Unlike the governor, Mr Nori is perhaps motivated by the fact that he faces trial on a charge of allegedly helping millions of dollars of public money evaporate as an adviser to the militant Malaita Eagles after they ejected the then elected government in 2000.

Is Australia, in fact Papua New Guinea's best mate? Sir Michael is prepared to concede that it is. Even the belligerent Governor Wenge did after his court victory. That is why, perhaps, they feel comfortable in giving Australians such a roasting, or ribbing, depending on how one treats it, since everyone know that there's nothing Australian mates like more than mocking the awful failings of their best mates.

Most prominent in the line of countries Pacific Islanders regard as good mates are, in no particular order, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, France, the European Union, Taiwan, Britain and a few other Asian odds and sods on the fringes, along perhaps with the phantom figure of the United States in the far distance, ready to move in again if its national interests so dictate.

What is the true order of mateship, one, two, and three? We shrink the responsibility of suggesting one. Those who would venture to do so would take note of such influences of aid donations with or without strings attached, the pursuit of national interests, historic relationships, past offences, including invasion and colonialism, cultural attachments and assessment of motivations.

What is it that country A, B, C or D wants to extract from the islands? More than just fish, logs or terrorist training camps and laundry facilities. All these questions are perplexing, uncomfortable for us easy-going Pacific Islanders. But do you know something?

When playing with permutations, it becomes difficult not to begin the ranking with Australia and New Zealand. We're not at all convinced that any other country should put in their place.