Papua New Guinea (PNG) celebrated 50 years of independence from Australia — its former colonial ruler for almost 70 years — on September 16.
On the same day, a high-level Australian delegation, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, defence minister Richard Marles and Pacific minister Pat Conroy, expected to sign a new defence pact in Port Moresby. But they left empty-handed when the PNG government declared it was not ready to sign.
From its privileged post-colonial position, the Australian government has spent the past five decades promoting “investment opportunities” and fostering PNG’s mining industry.
In 1969, before independence, the Australian colonial administration gave approval for Australian-British mining giant Rio Tinto to extract gold and copper from the Panguna mine in Bougainville. When local communities refused to sell their land, it was taken from them. This sparked decades of resistance and ultimately a civil war that claimed about 20,000 lives, forcing the mine to close in 1989.
The Panguna Mine Legacy Impact Assessment, released in December last year, found that Rio Tinto left behind almost a billion tonnes of mining waste and that no clean-up has ever taken place. Its decaying infrastructure remains today.
Other foreign-owned mining ventures in PNG have left behind conflict and environmental damage: the Ok Tedi copper and gold mine, owned by BHP Billiton (Australia); Porgera gold mine, Barrick (Canada); Lihir gold mine, Rio Tinto; and the Woodlark gold project, GeoPacific Resources (Australia).
A rich country made poor
PNG is rich in gold, copper, silver, nickel and cobalt. Yet, its Human Development Index is just 0.576, ranking 160 out of 193 countries — the lowest in the Pacific and East Asia, below strife-ridden Solomon Islands, Myanmar, Cambodia and Timor-Leste.
The extractive industries, which have reaped billions while leaving behind polluted rivers and barren pits, share responsibility with the Australian government — PNG’s principal “development partner” — for keeping the country poor.
Australia’s bribes for defence access
While the extractive industry has kept the Australian High Commission in PNG busy over the past 50 years, more recently, Australia’s focus has shifted to “security”, as reflected in its current aid program.
Since announcing additional support for PNG’s defence forces in 2018, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has funded a A$500 million upgrade to PNG’s Lombrum naval base on Manus Island. The project, built by Australian company Clough, is the biggest Australian-funded infrastructure project in the Pacific.
To put the size of the project into context, Australia’s total annual aid budget for PNG is A$637 million.
Speaking on August 12 at the opening of the upgraded port, Marles said it is “a really strategically significant place for Australia and obviously Papua New Guinea”. Australian and US warships will have access to the port, which, as Marles points out, “is the gateway to the western Pacific”.
Like other major Australian projects in PNG, the project has faced local opposition. Protests by landowners and contractors led to lengthy delays and budget blowouts. Manus’ governor Charlie Benjamin called for a review of the project in 2020, saying: “Australia promised a whole shopping list of development packages — hospitals, schools, highways, et cetera — and they remain undelivered to date.”
An even larger bribe for defence access was announced in December last year: Australia would provide A$600 million over a decade to support a PNG rugby league team to join Australia’s National Rugby League (NRL). As rugby league is PNG’s national sport, this initiative will undoubtedly be popular throughout the country.
However, the quid pro quo received less fanfare. The ABC reported that the deal includes a clause allowing the federal government to withdraw funding if PNG breaches its commitment to Australia as its major security partner. If that happens, the NRL would be obliged to terminate the franchise immediately.
While Albanese and PNG Prime Minister James Marape were close-lipped about the security aspects of the deal, NRL boss Peter V’landys was happy to discuss them: “I’m very confident that [signing security deals with other countries, like China] won’t occur because rugby league is such a religion in PNG that they’d never take the risk of doing a deal with another country.”
It appears that Australia has successfully tied its security relations with PNG to the national “religion”.
Mutual Defence Treaty
Linked to the NRL deal, the new Mutual Defence Treaty prepared this year is groundbreaking. PNG’s defence minister Billy Joseph told the ABC: “We’re not talking about interoperability. We’re talking about totally integrated forces.”
Under the treaty, PNG citizens — even if not Australian residents — would be able to enlist in the ADF, with the same pay and conditions as Australians and a pathway to citizenship. No other country currently has this arrangement. According to Joseph, the treaty would also include a NATO-style clause requiring either country to come to the other’s defence if attacked.
Like the NRL deal, the carrot for PNG citizens enlisting in the ADF is attractive. Unsurprisingly, however, there are conditions imposed by Australia, such as that “any activities, agreements or arrangements with third parties would not compromise the ability of either of the Parties to implement the Treaty”.
Because of Australia’s blatantly strings-attached aid, many people in PNG refer to it as “boomerang aid”. PNG national planning minister Ano Pala said on September 19: “The ongoing discussions surrounding boomerang aid and concerns about funds being switched, withheld in Canberra and absorbed by Australian management contractors and consultants, emphasises the importance of ensuring tangible outcomes for PNG citizens.”
The scheduled signing of the treaty on September 16 was cancelled at the last minute. Marape explained that his cabinet meeting two days earlier to consider the treaty failed to reach quorum, as several ministers had returned to their villages for the independence celebrations.
China responded to the proposed treaty through its embassy’s Facebook page on September 18: “We respect PNG’s right to conclude a bilateral treaty with other countries on a voluntary basis. However, such a treaty should not be exclusive in nature, nor should it restrict or prevent a sovereign country from cooperating with a third party for any reason.”
Interestingly, many PNG citizens responding to the post agreed with China’s stance, often citing PNG’s longstanding foreign policy: “a friend to all and enemy to none”.
Old story, new carrots
What is obvious from Australia’s recent defence initiatives is that Australia wants access to PNG’s bases and a military ally obliged to side with Australia in any confrontation with China. To achieve this, the carrots on offer are bigger than ever.
However, over the past 50 years, the people of PNG and their politicians have seen this pattern before. Moreover, as they demonstrated in Bougainville, they will resist foreigners who arrive with big promises but end up trampling their rights and polluting their land.
There are clearly many people in PNG who are wary of Australia’s boomerang diplomacy and prefer not to pick sides. This may be the real reason why PNG’s cabinet members “couldn’t make it” to the meeting to discuss the new defence treaty with Australia.