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Ernest John Meredith Steel LIBRARY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCE ACADEMY CAMPBELL Library of the Australian Defence Force Academy University College The University of New South Wales Donated by: Ernest John Meredith Steel LIBRARY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCE ACADEMY CAMPBELL A^inxOR: Ernest John Meredith Steel TITLE: Australian Policy Implementation in Papua New Guinea 1945-1953 Persons consulting this Thesis must sign the following statement "I have consulted this thesis and I agree not to infringe the author's rights, as provided by the Copyright Act. I agree not to copy or paraphrase it in whole or part without the written consent of the author, and to make written acknow- ledgement for any assistance I have obtained from it," ^^^ __ ADDRESS SIGNATURE DATE Defence Aca-^fc-my Li h Unlvarsity Cijllege AUSTRALIAN POLICY IMPLEMENTATION I N PAPUA NEW GUINEA 1 945- 1 953 by ERNEST JOHN MEREDITH STEEL A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the r^iuirements for the degree of Master of Arts Australian Studies) in the University College, University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy. October 1989 238825 DECLARATION I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief it contains no material previously published or written by another person nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma by a university or other institute of higher learning, except where due acknowledgement is made in the text of this thesis. signed Date TABLE OF CONTENTS Page List of Tables 1 Map of Papua New Guinea ii Chronology - Australia Papua New Guinea Relations, 1941-1953 iii Chapter introduction I Australia's Post-War Attituctes to Papua New Guinea 8 I i Reconstruction of the Administration 17 II i Operation of the Departments of Health and Education 25 !V Indigenous Economic Development 34 V Change in Government in Australia 41 VI Conclusion 55 Bibliography 59 List of Tables Page Table Comparisons of Expenditure. Departments of Public Health, Education and Agriculture, Territory of Papua New Guinea 1947-1950 4 2 Emplcyment of Native Labour by Angau 1942-46 9 3 Administration Schools for Papua New Guinea 1947-1955 51 14U E 1L)G E S - 4 S 8 S 8 S 144 E 148 E 152 E 156 E U1 CHRONOLOGY Australia and Papua New Guinea Relations 1 94 1 - 1 953 1941-45 Papua New Gulneaadministeredby the Australian Army, namely the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (AN6AU); 1944 Australian New Zealand Agreement; 1943 Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs established under Lieutenant Colonel A A Conlon; First Minister for External Territories Mr E J Ward; Mr Halligan appointed as Departmental He^d; 1945 United Nations Conference on international organization San Francisco 25th April 1945; Papua New Guinea Act 1945; J K Murray appointed as Provisional ^ministrator assumes- responsibility of the Territory south of the Markham River; 1946 United Nations Trusteeship Agreement with Australia approved by United Nations; Provisional administration begins control of all territory (June); Australian School of Pacific Administration commences; 1949 Administrative union of Papua and New Guinea approved by the United Nations; Papua New Guinea Act 1949 promulgated; Labor government defeated by Liberal-Country Party Coalition, P S Spender appointed Minister for External Territories; 1950 Spender visits Papua New Guinea; 1951 First United Nations Mission visits Papua New Guinea; Spencter resigns as Minister (April); Department of Territories created, Hasluck as New Minister; 1952 Murray terminated as Administrator; 1953 Second United Nations visit; Spate Report INTRODUCTION In 1945 most Australians considered the security of Papua New Guinea (PN6). the large island to Australia's immediate north, vital to Australia's defence, The island was clad in dense jungle, contained by a coastline featuring many wide swamps and few beaches against a backdrop of a mighty inland mountain range. Navigable rivers were far apart and good harbours a rarity. Few roads existed and airstrips were limited to a sparse number of coastal towns. A hot humid climate prevailed. PNG was a place of tropical sickness, physical hardship and danger. Much of what the Australians knew about PNG was derived from their readings of wartime newspaper stories and reports by former Australian soldiers who had fought in campaigns against the Japanese in PNG from 1939 to 1945. The widely reported news of the war and the items displayed as part of the wartime propaganda, to help focus public attention in support of the war, caused Australians to take more interest in the future of this land Its people were widely believed to have behaved magnificently on Australia's side against the enemy and earned the support and admiration of all Australians such that there was overall acceptance for the government to become more deeply involved in PNG to expand its economy and spread widely Pax Australiana This dissertation discusses the attempt to formulate and implement Australia's policy in the Territory of PNG over the period 1946 to 1952. It shows how the idealism held by Australians to provide a better future for the people of PNG was difficult to translate into a practical operation. The problems that interfered with policy formulation are identified and analysed. The most important of these included the effects of the war damage done to the economy, the general underdevelopment and the low level of the functioning economy, the lack of a skilled workforce and the absence of an organized system of government, Prior to the war the indigenous economy was still one of subsistance agriculture. Europeans had developed copra, cocoa and rubber exports. These industries were an exclusively expatriate enterprise, The war had destroyed all plantations in New Guinea, Coastal and island plantations were the main battlefields and all that remained of them were headless palm trunks growing out of thick Jungle, However war darna^^ to Papuan plantations had been negligiDle and wartime production had been maintained by the Production Control Board (PCB ) as a branch of the Army's Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (AN6AU), In New Guinea annual copra production reached 39 926 tons in 1949 compared with 70 000 tons^ before the war whilst in Papua the copra production to June 1945 was 9 239 tons, 2 Thousands of village people had been employed by the Army as labourers in areas far away from their traditional village life and many villages had been destroyed, Immense post war efforts were needed to repatriate people, restore village life and compensate loss of property and livestock through war damage compensation payments. No understanding of economic development was held by the Papua New Guineans, their subsistence economy was a necessity because without it the people would not be able to provide food for their survival. Villagers' attitudes concerning the production of crops for commercial profit was outside their cultural understanding. The Administration was keen to see Papua New Guineans become initiated into the economic (tevelopment of their own country and the assumption that Papuans and new Guineans would want to become peasant farmers was widespread among Administration officials. The Administration's efforts in indigenous economic development revealed a contrast in the policies adopted by two government departments, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of District Services and Native Affairs resulting in different reactions by the village people, The Department of Agriculture attempted to teach the Mekeo people how to produce rice, Unfortunately the scheme was not a success due mainly to the similarity and identification with the programmes of compulsory cultivation of crops practised in Papua many years before the war and with the activities of ANGAU, who during the war made recruitment of labour compulsory for vill^ men over 15 years of age, In practice, the policy of the Department of District Services and Native Affairs in establishing co-operative societies achieved more notable results because it responded to the 1 Doimes, I. TheAustrsiim Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra. 1980 p.28 2 Stanner, V. I. H. JTr^ibi/Cft Trmsitkm Australian Publishing; Co. Sydney 1953 p.83 people's hopes of more control of their own affairs. Co-operative societies developed rapidly from their introduction and by 1949 continued to progress, Another issue which made policy implementation difficult was the absence of a system of civil government in PNG. From 1943 to 1945 the Army unit. AN6AU, administered the Territory through police medical, village and labour services with the Production Control Board responsible for plantation production. ANGAU was a military unit under the command of Major General Morris, Its essential duty was to assist the army in fighting the Japanese by providing carriers to move supplies to the front and returning with wounded soldiers; contacting people in areas which had been recaptured from the Japanese; attempting to re-establish village houses and gardens; treating the sick or wounded, and maintaining copra and rubber plantations because these products were essential to the war effort. ANGAU was a military organization, its members held Army ranks,and it acted independently in PNG not influenced in any way by the Department of external Territories. J V Barry KC, author of a report on a plan to compensate village people for war damage in 1945, concluded that 'Angau,.,was an essential and valuable body to meet the urgencies
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