Right now, Australia is
involved in a controversial effort to try to build a stronger and more efficient Papua New Guinean state:
"The first leg of his mission has been announced. He wants to deploy up to 200 police in Port Moresby, Lae and the highland capital of Mt Hagan. But they may need help to break the country's worsening cycle of violence. More than 1500 troops and police were sent to make peace in the Solomon Islands, which has one-tenth of PNG's population of 5.2 million.
Conscious of the US experience in Iraq, Australia's Federal Police are working on an intensive program to equip officers with the necessary cultural and language skills.
Last month, Downer showed he would act decisively against the 20-year slide in PNG.
This week, he showed he could drop the patronising air which had assisted corrupt vested interests to argue against Australian-driven reform. Instead he's adopting the language of partnership.
"Our aim is straightforward: to work more closely with the PNG Government - to help them achieve their aims for the people of PNG," Downer told the Herald.
"In particular, that involves improving law and order and economic management so that adequate services can be provided to PNG citizens."
This is controversial, not least because until 1975 Australia was Papua New Guinea's colonial power. A recent issue of
Meanjin has gone into more depth about the complicated Australian relationship with Papua New Guinea, marked on the one hand by a paternalist colonialism/post-colonialism and on the other hand by a desire to keep far away.
Lately, Australians have become
concerned about the problems of the Melanesian island states to their nation-continent's north and east. This is part of a more assertive Australian foreign policy aimed at the Australian neighbourhood, as evidenced by Australia's support of
East Timor, the recent intervention in the
Solomon Islands, and plans to
expand Australia's military. Australia--called a "sheriff" of the region of Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific by Bush--has become concerned with
two sets of problems perceived as threats in its hinterland:
"According to Canberra, one of the reasons it might be necessary to [stage multilateral interventions] is that there are several potential failed states in Australia's back yard, mainly in the Southwest Pacific but also in Southeast Asia, for instance Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Timor Leste (East Timor).
The other reason multilateral interventions might be necessary is the growing security threat to Australia posed by terrorists, people smugglers, illegal fishermen, drug traffickers and money launderers. Therefore, according to Howard, after Australia's intervention in East Timor in September 1999 and the current intervention in the Solomon Islands, other multilateral interventions might be necessary to cope with the threats described above."
The aftermath of the Bali terrorist bombing, which killed dozens of Australian vacationers, can't be underestimated. Dealing with Indonesia will be difficult; dealing with smaller and weaker states, like East Timor and the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, won't be as problematic.
Australia, though, can expect one by-product of its new interventionism. A
Radio Australia interview observed, in relation to Polynesian relationships with New Zealand, that:
I think it is possibly cultural a little bit as well. I mean certainly, (there is the) colonial experience, the long-standing connections Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, Niue have had with New Zealand. There’s been an exchange of population, a change of people,happening throughout the last 40 or 50 years.
That never happened during the Australian administration of Papua New Guinea, for example, the British administration of Solomon Islands or the British-French administration of Vanuatu. That kind of migration never took place.
In terms of movement, internal movement from rural areas, from outlying islands to capital cities, I mean, that is a phenomenon that happens right throughout the Pacific. It's not unusual.
But you have high annual growth-rates in Port Vila in the 1990s. Port Vila town grew by four-point-two, four-point-three per cent per year, which is nearly twice the national growth rate. Now that growth rate would not have happened if there had been a migration outlet. People would have been able to go overseas.
Australians should not be surprised if, in a generation's time, quite a few Melanesians live in their country. Imperial and quasi-imperial involvements always manage to attract flows of migrants from the new peripheries to the new centers; what other option is there for the upwardly mobile?
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