TRANSCRIPT OF JOINT NEWS CONFERENCE, PORT MORESBY AIRPORT
6 SEPTEMBER 1990
E OE PROOF ONLY
JOURNALIST: To start off with, can you give us what
has happened in the trip?
NAMALIU: The trip has been quite'successful as far as
I'm concerned and, I'm sure, the people of those
provinces in particular that have hosted the visit
Western Highlands, Enga, Madang and East New Britain.
The only thing that they've expressed is that the visit
was not long enough. But however it did provide a very
good opportunity for the Prime Minister and Mrs Hawke and
their party to see a little bit of the country and get an
appreciation of our problems, opportunities, as well as
the changes and progress that we've made.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister Hawke, need to dispell
the patronising image of the father and son
relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea. Can
you elaborate on that?
PM: Yes I can. I think too often there's been an
unstated assumption within Australia and perhaps to some
extent here and other places that there was still some
sort of colonial relationship and that it wasn't a
relationship between two sovereign independent nations.
The major part of my message was to emphasise the fact
that Papua New Guinea is a sovereign independent nation
and that we recognise and understand that and respect it.
That there is a long-standing relationship of friendship
between our two countries which I think will never be
broken and that what Australia is about is to try and
ensure that the assistance we give is increasingly
channelled in a way which is going to increase the
capacity of Papua New Guinea to deal with the problems
and the challenges which confront it. I must say I'm
very pleased that as I've moved around Papua New Guinea
that there is a mutuality and understanding about these
truths. Speaking for myself, this few days has been a
marvellous experience. -It's the first time for twentyfive
years that I've been to these other parts of Papua
New Guinea. For me it was a renewal experience. I now
more clearly understand the great resources and
opportunities that the nation has got. I'm sure that
there is an understanding of the things that have to be
done. As I say, Australia stands ready to do what we can
to assist. I couldn't conclude those observations
without expressing not only my gratitude but the
gratitude of all those that have travelled with me,
Rabbie, for the just indescribable warmth and extent of
the reception that we've received. It's something that
we'll remember forever.
JOURNALIST: What is your message to the people of PNG?
PM: My simple message for the people of Papua New Guinea
is this. To remember that you are one nation, as I've
put it. The unity of this nation is important to be
emphasised. Province working with province, islands with
mainland, coast with highlands, highlands with the coast.
You've got enormous natural resources, great resources
are the people. You must remember that fifteen years ago
the leaders of that time thought of this as one nation
and demanded their independence. They received it. And
now, this generation of Papua New Guineans has to work
together as one people. If you do that with a sense of
nationhood you've got the capacities to become a great
country. JOURNALIST: Is there fear within yourself as to the
country being broken up in terms of Bougainville, in
terms of trouble fighting, in terms certain things?
PM: I think we must be honest with one another and
certainly your leadership, not only the Prime Minister
but others to whom I've spoken, you must be honest and
recognise that there are the possibilities for tension
and Bougainville has demonstrated that there are some
people who want to break up this nation. Now you can't
do that and hope to grow and prosper because if you look
over your period there have in the past been some areas
that have been the more important in economic terms with
their agricultural contribution. There are other areas
which are developing in terms of their capacity to make a
contribution through their mineral wealth. But the way
for Papua New Guinea is to blend the resources of all its
parts because if each part tries to go its own way that's
the path of weakness. The path of strength is to blend
together the various resources of people and material
resources and all its parts. In that way you will become
a strong nation able to fulfil the ambitions of your
young people for education and employment and growth.
It's only by working together in that way that you can do
these things.
JOURNALIST: In relation to aid to Papua New Guinea,
could there be a change in the of Australia
PM: Yes. That's a common position between the
leadership of Papua New Guinea and ourselves that we must
change the balance away from the flat budgetary aid and
into project aid. That's agreed between us. We must
agree on the projects areas as being the sorts of issues
like economic infrastructure, capacity for dealing with
law and order issues, channel the assistance into those
areas which is going to assist Papua New Guinea itself to
deal with these problems and challenges.
JOURNALIST: What is Australia's preference?
PM: Our preference is those issues, those areas which we
can agree together are most likely to be of assistance.
I mean, quite clearly, economic infrastructure is going
to be continuously important, quite clearly the
development of the facility to deal with law and order
issues. That's going to be important. Now without being
exhaustive, those two areas are very important.
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke, the Defence Force Co-operation
Agreement between Papua New Guinea and Australia has
never been reviewed since it was signed in 1975. If PNG
PNG has been too reliant on Australia for equipment
and training, if PNG asked Australia to use that military
aid to buy equipment say from Taiwan or Israel which we
are getting much closer to now, would that be allowed?
PM: Let's just go back. We've now in the period since
independence put about half a billion dollars into the
PNGDF. This is an area that Rabbie and I and Ben Sabumei
in particular have been talking about as recently as on
the trip back on the Hercules from Rabaul. Here again
there is absolutely common ground between us and that is
that what the Government and future governments of Papua
New Guinea are going to want is a defence force which
knows what its various functions and missions are. It
would be silly to assume that the purposes, role and
function and missions of the defence forces of Papua New
Guinea are simply a replication of those of the
Australian defence forces. They're not. So what we're
going to be doing in Australia and it will be done here
is to review our thinking of what those roles are, from
our point of view not to tell Papua New Guinea what they
are but to get our thinking developed. Rabbie and his
people will be doing that. And then we will later on
this year in the light of our own thinking and the
thinking of our friends here, having tried to get some
common ground about roles and missions and functions,
then work out what's the best way in terms of Australian
assistance that we can meet the perception of roles into
the future. Now we are this is not Australia imposing
its thinking. We have discussed this through and we are
thinking exactly the same way. Now coming against that
background to the specifics of your question, let me make
this point first of all. We understand that Papua New
Guinea is looking not only to Australia in the
development of it's thinking about the PNGDF. We don't
resist that. We don't find that objectionable in any
way. We welcome it. It makes sense that you shouldn't
look just to Australia. The next point about equipment.
In the end Papua New Guinea has to make its own
decisions. It goes back to the foundational point I
made, that is that Papua New Guinea is an independent
sovereign nation. It will make its decisions about
sourcing of equipment and so on. It would be very likely
that given the nature of the relationship between us that
those decisions would take into account to a considerable
extent what's most likely to be able to assist the
process of co-operation between us. That doesn't mean
that everything that is going to be purchased by Papua
New Guinea is either sourced from Australia or the
sources from which we
JOURNALIST: Could you explain $ 20 million help..
defence force, in the context of what you have said.
PM: The most recent decisions you mean?
JOURNALIST: Yes.
PM: What we were approached about was not just what had
arisen out of Bougainville. I mean what you should
understand, it was not just a reaction to that. But the
thinking of the Government of Papua New Guinea was that
they needed to increase their forces. So we agreed with
them. In particular therefore the assistance we've been
looking at now is in terms of helping with the training
and equipment of that adidtional is it 450 about 450
new recruits that it covers. That's where the major part
of that additional assistance is going.
JOURNALIST: Just on that point about the Australian
expertise and its applicability to the PNGDF, it seems
that one of the problems confronting PNG is internal
security matters as opposed to external.
PM: That's right.
JOURNALIST: The ADF is an organisation built for
external threats. Where does Australia get the expertise
to help PNG address internal security problems?
PM: It doesn't I mean if you've got Let me answer
that question by saying this. When we use the phrase
internal security it's a shorthand term. Internal
security just doesn't cover one thing. Without being
exhaustive, if you think about internal security you will
think about issues like Bougainville for instance. You
will think about things like for instance mine security,
for example. In regard to issues like that it's quite
clear from the experience and training that the
Australian defence forces have that they can provide
advice and training for things like that. It won't be
the case, and conceptually it's not the case that just
because the Australian defence forces have an external
orientation that the sort of training that they have for
that is not going to equip them to be of assistance to
the defence forces of Papua New Guinea. But the
important thing that we've agreed is that we should both
sit down separately for a start and review where we'vye
been, the sorts of things we've done to try and get a
common thinking about the future role of the PNGDF and
then see from our experience what's the best way that we
can help. There are issues, as Rabbie has said himself,
issues of leadership and basic planning skills. Those
sorts of considerations are relevant to any aspect of
internal security. Obviously we can help in those sorts
of things. Rabbie, would you like to add anything to
that question?
NAMALIU: I think that Bob has pretty well covered most
of the areas that would be defined under that term. The
role of the defence force in this country is changing,
has changed. That's why we have decided that we should
look at reviewing the roles of the defence force both in
terms of the experience that we've had and their own
particular experience in terms of situations like
Bougainville. But also in terms generally of their roles
* in national development. It is in that context that we
believe that we have and will have requirements for
assistance in those specific areas like in terms of
training, in terms of support for various levels of
leadership within the defence force as well as, I
suppose, the development of approaches as to how new
roles should be approached as far as the future is
concerned of the defence force in this country.
JOURNALIST: What part will Australia play in that role?
PM: Sorry?
JOURNALIST: Will it be significant or will it be
I'm asking because specific...?
NAMALIU: As we have indicated, those are the things that
we will be having further discussions on. As the Prime
Minister has indicated, they will on their part be
* reviewing their own position. Similarly on our part we
will be doing a similar review of our own position before
we can get together again and come to discussing specific
issues. PM: To be specific, I've got my Minister for Defence
reviewing the Defence Co-operation program and our part
in that. That review will then come to Cabinet. We will
consider it. So that I and the Minister for Defence
that we'll be then well placed to have thought about
where we've been, what we're doing and our concepts of
what the future role of the PNGDF may be in this country
and what's the best way we can help. As I said, Papua
New Guinea, at the same time as we're doing our thinking
in the weeks ahead, they will be doing it. So that will
mean when we start, say at the end of October or in
November, addressing these issues we'll be in a position
to come to agreements about the roles and functions
JOURNALIST: Is it possible that police training could
come under the Defence Co-operation program?
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PM: We've discussed that and I'd just like to say these
things and I'm sure Rabbie would like'to make his
comments. I think it's right to say that we agree that
as far as you can see into the future there will be two
separate PNGDF and there will be the police. But I
think we both agree that there will be a complementarity
of their roles in many respects and that it may be that
you can get a degree of integration in regard to
procurement issues perhaps and some elements of training.
So in our thinking about the PNGDF we'd be thinking about
that side as well.
JOURNALIST: on Bougainville, what is the
Government's stand now that the suspended provincial
government that's refused to recognise the administrator
that you appointed.
0 NcAoMnAsLtIiUt: u tioTnh e unaddemri nithset rator laisw oafp pporionvtiendc iuanld egro voeurrnment.
As far as we are concerned, he is the administrator of
the province.
JOURNALIST: control of the situation again. Is that
true?
NAMALIU: I think it is more likely to that description
is more apt for the BRA leadership than it is for the
position JOURNALIST: You are not dealing with the BRA.
NAMALIU: That's right.
JOURNALIST: Are you dealing with them?
NAMALIU: The BRA?
JOURNALIST: Yes.
NAMALIU: Well as you know, there are leaders who have
been involved in the negotiations which resulted in the
Accord that belong to the BRA. There are those that
belong to the self-styled government of the republic
of the North Solomons. There are those that come from
the community generally. So they are the leaders that we
were dealing with. They were Bougainville leaders and we
would like to regard them as that rather than belonging
to a specific group like the BRA.
JOURNALIST: Who are they
NAMALIU: You know who they are. You know Mr Kabui, you
know Bishop Singkai, you know Mr Peter sorry, not
Peter, but you know the other people involved. It
includes people who are very close to Mr Ona. But Mr
Kabui is there, Bishop Singkai is there, Bishop Zali is
I
there. These are all very very prominent leaders within
the province.
JOURNALIST: The next round of talks is not far away.
NAMALIU: That's right.
JOURNALIST: Is there pressure?
NAMALIU: As far as we're concerned the talks are still
on. There's nothing to suggest at this time that the
talks will not continue despite, you know, the statement
that we all read about yesterday.
JOURNALIST: Do you think it's realistic Prime Minister
to talk about a complete phasing out of Australian
budgetary aid by the year 2000?
NAMALIU: I think it can be achieved. It's achievable
provided of course that we continue to have discussions
on these matters. We have a fairly clear
perception and that's what we agreed on, on the principle
itself. We believe that we can achieve that by that
year. ends
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