Keywords

18.1 Introduction

Early on the Australian administration of Papua New Guinea (PNG) promoted mining and banned cannibalism, and the latter practice was subsequently eliminated in PNG by 1960. It fits the PR image and subsequent perspectives about PNG as ‘treacherous savages’ presented in Richardson (2006)—a missionary—and such ‘ending cannibalism’ campaigns get widely perceived by the global community as progress and civilization. Reality—and my own multiyear field experience—widely differs though (just as found by many other scholars also, e.g. Beehler & Laman, 2020; Mack, 2014; West, 2006; Connell 2005).

Based on various foreign policy assessments, Australia was widely described to run an ‘Arc of Instability’ and perceived terror (e.g. Henton & Flower, 2006; see May, 1998 on PNG and Solomon Islands, Rumley, 2006). And it's widely now based on neoliberal policies and political power tools (Springer 2015, 2017). This ‘arc,’ surrounding Australia for its own protection (see Ratnasari & Perwita, 2020 for Australia’s Stepping Up Engagement initiative), fully includes PNG (the other nations consist at least of Solomon Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu and Torres Islands/Strait (one should likely add East Timor also, The Guardian, 2019). But PNG is a dominant actor among those nations due to its size, diversity, ocean and well-being, as well as linked with Indonesia via New Guinea and Eastern Timor, etc. (van der Kroef, 1970) Indonesia is a major international actor in SE Asia, in mining and beyond). This arc features some terror fueled by Australia itself (sparked for instance by supporting separatist movements, military aid and build up, policing, promoting ruthless mining in pristine areas, operating land scams abroad on indigenous-owned island land tenure, pushing economic growth on finite resources, providing aid with self-interest and mis-handling the consequential refugee waves as part of many other things and cultural problems like the illegal but occurring runs of gun smuggling and drug transports); subsequently, the state of Australia’s Arc is essentially a home-made problem. PNG just reflects that. Already the PNG’s currency follows an Australian design template, is printed in Australia, and its exchange rate hinges widely on Australia, e.g. (Garnaut & Baxter, 1984). That way, for PNG, Australia can essentiallyset  the price of resources it gets from PNG. Whereas, Australia itself is in a deep and widely acknowledged decade-long crisis of democracy (e.g. Evans et al., 2016).

While China is frequently blamed for massive forest extraction in PNG, e.g. in Beehler and Laman (2020), already the ‘largest forestry project in PNG’ involves a land scam orchestrated by an Australian company (Australian Network News (ABC), 2014) which results into PNG people losing their land, homes and livelihoods; PNG locals get essentially evicted from a forest place they lived in sustainably for millennia (see also for an urban example in Port Moresby with The Guardian, 2021a, 2021b). The highly critiqued JANT Forestry project from Japan actually includes Commonwealth Australia also (Beehler & Laman, 2020; Cousteau & Richards, 1999, p. 206/7). The fact that on a finite landmass, a fast-growth plantation forestry is tried all over New Guinea, as fully promoted and supported—again—by the Australian government and allies, for totally exotic species to PNG such as Pinus caribaea, Araucaria cunninghamii, A. hunsteinii, Teak as well as fast-growing Acacia mangium (Beehler & Laman, 2020) does not help the case. Clearly, refugee problems and biodiversity wilderness loss and loss of home and income are all linked (Afira, 2021). It is easy then to understand the roots of the unrest and terror in the region; the literature for PNG mentions those details clearly, usually related to business practices, with Bougainville as a core example, e.g. Lassett (2012). Bougainville and its mining was an important building block and bootleneck in the PNG nation-building process from the 1970s onward and with support by prime minister Michael Somare (Figs. 18.1, 18.2 and 18.3) It’s a core engine in providing funding and foundation of the new modern nation of PNG to be build.

Fig. 18.1
A photo of people walking along the sidewalk in front of the store with a sign board that reads Australian clothes.

Cheap cloths from Australia, re-offered to a PNG city market

Full size image
Fig. 18.2
A photo of a poster on the wall shows a young girl holding a board that reads Mi Laikum Laif. The text on the board is as follows. Ywam medical ships. A ship is sailing on water in the background.

Australian mission help and mini-hospital based on a ship that reaches remote villages in coastal Papua New Guinea; this Christian organuzation has a global youth focus overall.

Full size image
Fig. 18.3
A photo of a digital screen shows the following text. Air Niugini, business class check-in. Flight: P X 1. Departure time: 14:00. Destination Sydney. Flight: P X 5. Departure time: 15:00. Destination Brisbane.

Relevance of a direct connection to Australia, specifically, remains essential for Australia’s influence over Papua New Guinea

Full size image

18.2 Papua New Guinea as an Equal and True Australian and Global Partner?

Despite the official claim, Australia and PNG are not on equal footage, and despite the frequently seen wording (e.g. https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/papua-new-guinea/development-assistance) it’s not a mutual or fair partnership whatsoever. That one-way street is easy to see, the bigger neighbor bleeds the weaker one. It’s widely expressed by prime ministers Michael Somare and Chan (2016) in the public and for years, as well as by outside observers (e.g. Gosarevski et al., 2019).

The deep structural involvement of Australia in PNG is well and widely documented in all its shapes and forms, and it was done early on, e.g. Nelson (1982), McLennan (1938), Smith (1998), Ward and Ballard (1976), for media; Dinnen et al. (2006), Gosarevski et al. (2019) including its commercial exploration, exploitation, PR image appropriation and settlement done to western terms and policies (Chan, 2016, Nelson, 2016 for a PNG perspective; Dinnen et al., 2006 for policing; and for Economic Growth advising see Gosarevski et al., 2019). It easily goes back to 1850 onward (Flannery, 2002; see Grant, 2013 for WW2, and Gosarevski et al., 2019 for recent times), and PNG is fully caught within that colonial structure and set up that was all decided far away from PNG with Royal courts centuries ago, now playing out through the big neighbor and policies approved through a UN mandate and missions (see Baraka, 2001).

Accordingly, Flannery (1994) stated in his book dedication:

…to the Australasians who are trying to forge nations out of the chaos of colonial history.

This is well spoken indeed. But it remains an understatement, politely leaving out the details of the prime Australian contributions to that very chaos, governance scheme and subsequent decline of biodiversity and conservation, or wilderness for that matter. Without acknowledging the status quo and major actors, one can hardly move forward effectively. Connell (2005) shows some of the ‘development’ problems for Australia with PNG (Gounder, 1999 for development concepts): Neither the GDP is a good performance metric nor are the efforts taken effective and help the nation of PNG forward for sustainability; ignoring climate change and its sources cannot achieve. While known for several decades that industrial style development impacts biodiversity and wilderness, Beehler and Laman (2020) are still clear in their assumption that bridges and roads are part of the development mix. While Australia built roads in PNG 1971 onward with a wider funding scheme, it’s clear that this will not promote wilderness biodiversity, hardly fixes the poverty problems (as the Australian section in PNG remains utterly poor and is riddled with riots and worse, e.g. kidnappings). It should be really noteworthy that Australia cannot be relied on much as a partner in the first place because it shifts its regional and national policy frequently (details in Wainwright, 2004a).

In the bilateral partnership, an Australian-aided PNG started out with great promises and hopes 100 years ago (at least for the assigned parts of PNG). But the more engagement Australia has in PNG the more PNG seems to decline (May, 1998). It’s certainly true for the state of PNG wilderness and where most PNG people live. At best, one can stay here with Bandura (2007)’s moral disengagement harming sustainability, because ignoring the topic and doing nothing here imperils biodiversity conservation further (see The Guardian, 2022 for a generic complaint about Australia from the Arc nations re. climate change, sea level rise). But often it is not just a laissez-faire by Australia but an active and wanted—explicitly stated—participation of Australia in the destruction, knowingly to occur. That is, the direct involvements of Australia in conservation assessments, in resource destruction, carbon trading deals, or taxonomic species lists and its essentially ineffective debates are among those. For instance, it’s found with the project ‘Trees of PNG’ (see role of Sydney’s Royal Botanical Garden https://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/ in https://www.pngplants.org/PNGtrees/proj_details.html), or Birds of Paradise (BoP, an endeavor started through Australia early on with John Gould as one of the first documentations for these species; https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/papua-new-guinea-forty-years-independence/birds-paradise). Despite a massive and widely acknowledged forest cover loss and encroachment, BoPs are still labeled and defended as not of being of conservation concern (Beehler & Laman, 2020). Similar can be said for PNG’s tree kangaroos. For conservation efforts like done and updated from Alcorn et al. (1993; Faith et al. 2000) onward using prioritization algorithms promoted by Australian universities, Beehler and Laman (2020) stated that those are often just an endless game of biologists drawing circles on maps. What is the real-world conservation protection outcome for people in PNG?

PNG has been widely credited with tribal conflict. It follows a certain pattern (as described by Banks, 2008 for instance). However, an entirely different dimension of terror came to PNG from the outside, namely through colonial powers, Christian missions, WW1 and WW2 and then the Australian mining, oil and gas, fisheries, forestry, and the ‘Arc of Terror’ all done in the form of ongoing foreign aid and help. To see the magnitude, already the bombing raids in Rabaul involving  former colonial powers are the largest in the entire Pacific (war) Theatre and WW2 (= ‘center of fire,’ Cousteau & Richards, 1999). And much of those historic colonial powers unleashing such terror remain in charge to the very day ‘due to the global realities’ (e.g. in Melanesia; see The Guardian, 2021a, 2021b). The bad role of Japan in PNG remains somewhat unaccounted for.

As early as 1922, parts of New Guinea was made a Mandated Territory of Australia by the League of Nations (a failed predecessor of the United Nations; Baraka, 2001). In the same year, a mining ordinance was put in place to legalize prospecting in PNG. Like done in many nations, that took PNG itself widely out of the equation and its resources were essentially put in the hands whoever can afford it to grab them from abroad. This were Australians, the next neighbor, and to no surprise, many of those Australians walked out of PNG as rich men, if not even millionaires. The scheme is a repeat scheme from South American gold, from many colonies, and other bad examples (see Hochschild, 1999 for King Leopold in Congo, Palmer 2016 for Cecil Rhodes; see Eichstaedt, 2011 for ongoing problems in Central Africa). It’s neocolonialism in almost its pure form found today, e.g. done via international corporations and with Australia as a platform and willing actor under a UN oversight.

Only due to the WW1 rulings made in Europe for a territorial transition of PNG areas, Australian Gold mine owner Cecil John Levien (1874–1932) took out 1923 the first miner’s right issued in the ‘Territory of New Guinea.’ In that year, Levien took out the now infamous leases at Bulolo flats. Arguably, that land and subsequent resource became available to Australia due to the WW1 events, initiated in Europe with PNG being the pawn.

It then followed a typical pattern: Making use of his insights and job tasks at hand, C. J. Levien, was a District Officer in Buka and Morobe, then a miner. And so he was very important in the process of making New Guinea significant in gold mining between the First World War and the Second World War. He was also instrumental in New Guinea’s commercial aviation history, which tends to be linked to modern mining (details in Sinclair, 1978, e.g. Lae region operated mines from air service with Germany’s Junker playing a central role; and in recent times Ok Tedi mine had one of ‘the busiest airport in the world’). It’s clear that a connection and interaction between the socio-economic sector, PNG, Australia, and outside lead to massive wealth accumulation by just a few knowing ‘the game’ (as Julia Chan, 2016 called it) but leaving the majority of people empty-handed, behind and with the clean up costs. The Australian approach came hand-in-hand with ‘pacifying’ savage people, with bush patrols and using missionaries which consequently resulted into the vast loss of a culture and sustainable lifestyle and expertise (Beehler & Laman, 2020). This is a typical set up in colonial nations, leaving the populations behind, in the dirt, poor and as an unstructured society; it creates a mob. It also speaks to the subsequent resource curse using mining, which benefits the west the most, if even that (e.g. Kirsch, 2014; Langton & Mazel, 2008).

Michael Somare—the long-serving prime minister of PNG supported by Australia—never saw a real problem with PNG’s funding scheme of a ‘trickle down economy’ based on natural resource extraction (Gosarevski et al., 2019; just later he regretted the REDD aspect for carbon sequestration). And the autobiography of another leading PNG politician—Julius Chan (2016)—presents explicit details on that topic for PNG. It fully lays out the consistent and dominating Australian involvement, their plan and strategy, as well as Chan’s experiences; it calls for a change, all elaborated on in terms of tropical governance. It’s a set up for PNG and where the conspiracy theory was shown to be correct; bad powers to steer and control nations to exist and get applied (see Sandline mercenary affair in PNG helped by England/South Africa and described first-hand in Chan, 2016 for his decisions, more context provided in McCormack, 1998).

The author has witnessed, observed and experienced first-hand such type of situations and discussions—in Australia as well as in PNG and outside—on the issue of Australian conduct and attitudes toward PNG and abroad. Already the flying to PNG is a forced Australian act, with administrative payment hurdles. And then ‘passenger conduct’ policies are along the same lines (see also experiences shared in Henton & Flower, 2006 screening out PNG travelers at will).

The earlier prime minister of PNG, Mike Somare, has repeatedly reported similar policies and complained of Australian dominance for a long time, with a famous diplomatic incident and statement at the airport on a flight to Australia for not having his shoes inspected by the air traffic security guards (ABC, 2005).

Textbox 1: Embassies and Diplomacy in an Internet Age and hacking: Passports, visa, independence and embassy income ad absurdum

Embassies are important national representations abroad. It’s the established way of doing business and to address and resolve conflicts between nations. Embassies  have usually close connections with the host government and they would lobby for their citizens, and on behalf of their nation abroad. Embassies are to operate in national interest, and they tend to be highly political locations as they are the center of disputes between governments, etc. trying to intervene and to resolve conflicts. Arguably, embassies do much more than providing visas and passport replacements; they are political.

However, there is reality also, technology and globalization. There remains an essential question of how are embassies funded, and linked, with the host nation and its government? In a democracy, the embassies, and their leadership—the ambassadors—are not necessarily in-line with their government or with the leading party of its time. Embassies are not to be paid or corrupted in their daily affairs. They thus need some form of independence. How that is achieved remains somewhat unclear though, and different models of liability and funding exist. It’s clear though, embassies are money hungry, e.g. visa processing costs and for their stamps. It’s a widely heard and experienced complaint that embassies lack any liability, and are not even contactable behind walls. One reason is that an ambassador may work in secret and carry a level of immunity. A typical example is parking tickets, speeding tickets and even traffic accidents, or inspection of diplomatic suitcases and materials. But it’s commonly seen that ambassadors and such staff get removed from the official mission; they can operate instead in another sphere. It’s done to reduce a political escalation and for being pro-actively.

While ambassadors and embassy employees are often government-employed (with a pension), not all really are. In reality, embassies operate on their own terms and have their own policies and procedures. The day-to-day work of embassies is then left to lower level employees or contractors, which often causes many problems for the citizen and beyond.

In times of globalization and an international society, I think it’s time to look at those problems closer and ask whether such a concept, secrete negotiations and independent embassy actions, still have their place in a modern society with the internet serving citizens, nations or sustainability? For instance, embassies are the natural point of contact in most international fisheries conflicts, e.g. to get confiscated fisheries vessels and crew back home, somewhat unpunished and with public money buy-back. The state of such a global fisheries speaks to the success or failure of such steps. Ambassadors also play a key role in preparing environmental summits and policies, as seen in the climate agreements; all virtually failed. Embassies are usually great for industrial and economic growth schemes, including national culture and the arts, but less  so for sustainability.  By now, many ambassadors come out of established and quite wealthy diplomat families.

Clearly, there is a large international clique of ambassadors around in the world, traveling and working the world.  That's what they do, but it's not really trackable. Arguably, they are often well paid and have a high pension; wider family employment (crony'ism?) has been observed, but details are pretty secret and not well exposed. Sometimes the diplomatic immunity gets waived, e.g. by accident, and then some facts show. Drug smuggling and the transfer of important documents are part of the game and have been observed by the public. WIKILEAKS exposed some of those details, online and otherwise, but more is to be done to end, change and improve bad diplomacy, harmful to the environment, the nation itslef and people. The world can easily suffer from bad diplomats. Based on experience, interactions and discussions with the international community of embassies, the diplomatic circles are often not even aware, skilled on the environment, certainly not willing, to change and give up their status, lucrative jobs and meddling in policy. Much of it is based on visa and legal monopolies given, and networks. Arguably, ambassadors might be effluent speakers and celebrate culture—aka their national (colonial) civilization—and know the local power brokers, but most of them are not trained on biodiversity, on conservation or PNG for that matter. Most of them still cater economic needs and—at best, argue on a win–win where business and the environment both can win (which is widely untrue). That’s exactly what the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the U.N. with wide diplomatic buy-in and negotiations promote though; to no surprise. While widely overlooked, and not well known, the clique of ambassadors has global influence and it has been shown to act on self-interest. The ancient beaurocratic power concept of signatures, or restraining citizenship, use of hardcopy passports, is widely outdated, presents a designed bottleneck with a monopoly and does not allow modern progress for all citizens of the world. Such embassy webportals expose themselves for hacking, as widely shown. That must be exposed and improved in times and realities of the internet and when serving a global audience for the wider public good, as the aim and mandate. Whereas, serving earlier family cliques with ancient bureocratic power means remains less useful.

18.3 How Does Australia Achieve Terror, Outside of Australia?

Australia has sparked massive conflicts onto its own land as well, as seen in Tasmania and the old-growth forest protests, Great Barrier Reef disputes, and the land claims with Aboriginees. For details, see Ludlam (2021) and citations within.

The leading groups and the government of Australia have been strongly promoting an image of the clean, just, fair and modern Australia where everybody is happy (see online https://www.dfat.gov.au/development/australias-development-program) operating in mutual agreement with everybody, a well-liked partner for assisting in development (https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/papua-new-guinea/development-assistance). Australia is to be part of the Pacific family. It’s presented as a good Australia that celebrates the rule of law and ethics—even human rights—to everybody, and just as it is to come straight out of Oxford and Cambridge for centuries: The royal order is confirmed by the eloquent academy, its self-cleaning culture and agency, diplomacy and embassies, and then using a global bill of human rights everybody in their society is happy with. It appears something like this: Australia the shining beacon of civilization in the south Pacific, you can come to Australia to start a new life, while PNG happily agrees and supports it, and the late Cecile Rhodes sits on the side lines and one can make a huge profit which is to triple down to everybody, using great sciences, e.g. based in Oxford and Cambridge and its affiliates and friends. The biodiversity and the environment are to benefit (but do not; hardly PNG is).

Metrics show the reality clearly instead

Arguably, that shiny world and Australian world view is not happening much for most people and it’s far from reality, e.g. most people in the world earn less than 4$ a day, and that is certainly so for many tropical nations, for Australia’s Arc and certainly for PNG. After being in ‘that game’ with Australia as a partner for over 100 years, PNG features some of the worst poverty on the planet while Australian gold mining and development is ongoing in parallel, the party still runs (see NME, 2021 for Ok Tedi mine finance scandal involving a leading part of the Australian entertainment industry; see Sydney Morning Herald 2015 for known paths and patterns of corruption between PNG and Australia) (Table 18.1).

Table 18.1 App. GDP metrics of nations in Australia’s Arc of Instability; Henton and Flowers 2007, see also Browne (2006)
Full size table

The alleged engine of this mindset and machinery is the economy, economic growth and its currency and promoters, backed up by military might; the case of Solomon Island and the Australian military intervention and help shows no other [see for instance Wainwright (2006) of policing there and in PNG (Dinnen, 2006)]. Timor-Leste received military and similar police force guidance, so did PNG. It’s a template narrative and which tries eventually always to put neocolonial mindsets back in the driver seat using foreign policy and their diplomacy; one may call it imperialist and racist as it does not allow much for diversity other than favoring existing elites (which tend to be white, english speaking, close to the royal institutions,  and established for generations; see Jayasuriya et al., 2003, Smith-Khan, 2015 for Australia, and Tuffin, 2008 for New Zealand). As it gets criticized, the white colonizers still  tend to win, as they act as the assumed superiors using science, law, governmental seats, money and force (=power tolls of modernity). Universities and education provide quite a central role in this context (de Carvalho & Flórez Flórez, 2014). It’s a typical argument and profile shown and critiqued by the decolonialists for decades and who favor an indigenization. Part of that old profile to move on still is the use of ‘modern’ medicine, then technology and science, including flying to space. One must be superior when flying with rockets to the moon, not? As initiated by James Cook, this scheme comes as a template onto the people in the Pacific (Diamond, 2013; Flannery, 1994), for the latter virtually all of them have dark skin. In the region, New Zealand shows similar patterns on the white superiority aspect, and the Maori have reported on that for a long time with aggressive but successful moves for a change (see Wehi et al., 2021 for Maori management for some Antarctica waters; see Haertel, 2015 for indigenous concepts and differences to current dominating western approaches). New Zealand and Australia do present a lion-share for PNGs mining efforts, including subsequent ‘development.’

Now how is it really done, to roll out an imperialistic model worldwide against the citizen of the world in real live of 2023? Ten simple ways doing so; a policy that is promoted easily for over a century and can be easily seen in the ‘arc’ and PNG as well when using:

  • UN security council—permanent seats—for all global decisions and have members with a permanent seat, all enforced by UN Blue Helmets

  • use a UN mandate

  • apply development aid to former colonies and protectorates

  • industrial activities

  • mining, banking

  • western education

  • science

  • carbon sequestration deals

  • media

  • health care and pension plans

  • taxation, as well as

  • military aid/power.

  • airlines (tourism and cargo)

  • shipping

Arguably, Australia is a democracy (according to P. Ehrlich moving into an kakistocracy; see footnote 1 in title quote page 407) operating with a UN mandate (Baraka, 2001) to help very poor nations (e.g. Hezel, 2012), and all what happens there is to be done by an elected parliament but locally as part of the dominion (Belanger, 2019; Twomey, 2006 for the global mining empire using that framework). So who is at fault? Not the politicians, so they say (Ludlam, 2021), but in a democracy it’s the people who vote: the citizens.Footnote 1 While this is true conceptually, a large resource eating mass or mob (Flannery, 1994), in reality, there is an elite clique that promotes things like the Australian policy terror for money; often done by CEOs and companies, headquartered elsewhere though. All done with a U.N. approval. This assumes the Australian citizen is a benign being caring for its neighboring island mates.Footnote 2 This claim is hopefully true, but one may easily agree that Australian mining and the policy apparatus fueled up the instability and subsequent terror in those instances, whereas the UN mandate does not help it much last 100 years (Lasslet, 2012; Henton and Flower, 2006 for real world examples in PNG). There is also real terror spilling from Australia into PNG, but presumably that’s part of a wider crime global scene (see for drug smuggling and illegal guns and weapon transfer  often also involving Asia; RNZ, 2005, The Guardian, 2020b).

A typical example how Australia officially operates, and which affects natural resources and the set up of nations and in the Australian arc is shown in the handling of the Sepik region, beyond tourism. There is for instance an Australian involvement in a land carbon sequestration deal that went bust (The Guardian, 2015). The net effect of that involvement has been land scams, habitat destruction, loss of income and livelihood, and certainly loss of faith in Australia (apart the fact that climate change was not helped). The Australian-helped scheme of SABLS has been discussed in other chapters already but are fully adding to that argument presented here.

Another typical case is found with port facilities and associated naval bases:

“‘The Australian’ (2018) reported that Australia and Papua New Guinea were discussing providing port facilities to the Royal Australian Navy and US Navy on Manus Island. [17] Australia and the United States would help expand Lombrum Naval Base, so there would be facilities for Australian naval vessels there.[18] The newspaper reported that Australia was countering interest China had placed in expanding Papua New Guinea’s port facilities at Wewak, Kikori, Vanimo and Manus Island. Manus Island is the most important of these four ports, as it is a deep-water port near important shipping lanes. The RAN operated a naval base on Manus Island from the 1950s until transferred to the Papua New Guinea Defence Force in 1974. [19]” (see also ADF News, 2022)

By now it almost comes as a side-fact that the year-long APEC (Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation) 2018 meeting was hosted by Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APEC_Papua_New_Guinea_2018). However, major operations were designed from the outside and daily flights from Brisbane/Australia etc. occurred during the meeting. PNG citizens had little direct engagement or gain (a few new roads were build  in Port Moresby from that budget to look good in public world media). This was the first time PNG was the host of an APEC meeting but Australia provided app. ¼ of the cost to host the meetings, and it also helped with logistics and security. An independent nation would arguably not operate that way. PNG became a tool, a toy to look good in public—window dressing-, driven for exchange deeds to act in support of Australia and the U.S. against ...China?

18.4 What Terror Has Australia Already Inflicted onto Others?

Australia perceives itself as a global peace keeper. But PNG was already almost put into a secession of the entire nation and certainly into a prolonged island civil war, with deaths, economic dependence and financial crisis (see Chan, 2016 for details). But beyond itself (The Guardian 2021c, ABC News 2019) the Australian policy also threw PNG into an underlying business model with ongoing inequality, poverty and destroying ongoing nation-building in PNG; virtually all nature metrics in PNG show a decay. May it be called a genocide for ancient forest and island tribes? And beyond PNG, Australia played already a massive bad role elsewhere (see for instance Ayson 2007). As it almost exclusively deals with islands and finite space affecting the natural riches of Melanesia, in the following I will present a short list for evidence:

Fiji conflict : Fiji has a long and deep history, and much effort is dealing with its colonial past; it is going through hard times culminating 2006 in a coup, and Australia was not short of help but came with conditions (Hayward-Jones, 2009, 2011). The Fiji government remains not happy with Australia’s efforts and rather moves to Chinese options. In the meantime, the ecosystems of Fiji and its people pay the prize.

Torres Island: Australia has a difficult time to justify its actions in colonial times and after to this very day (https://australian.museum/learn/first-nations/genocide-in-australia/). It makes for a poor common ground to start a trust partnership. Many examples can be provided. This further gets enforced with man-made climate change, where Australia is not acting with enough progress to save Torres Strait Islanders (e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/oct/26/fearful-of-losing-their-homelands-islands-are-taking-australia-to-court-over-climate).

Timor-Leste: As a near neighbor, Australia was initially very receptive to Timor as an independent state from Indonesia and as a new nation. Timor is one of the youngest but also poorest nations in Asia, and the struggle of Timor was bloody, deadly and intense with many refugees, large suffering and international outcries. Nature there paid the costs and got spoiled in that course. Australia provided initially leading military build-up support and training, and was in support. But that then changed when Australia spied in governmental negotiations and leaked them to oil companies who had claims in the region; consequently relationships between both nations flipped (The Guardian, 2019 for details). Timor considers now linking with China as a partner. Any of those relations affect land and sea ecosystems, because Timor has diverse and rel. large ocean resources and matters as a shipping and travel partner for the region overall.

The Australian policy has not helped the conflict on either side. It certainly affects how Australia interacts with Indonesia, a Muslim nation. And now oil and gas resources are to be grabbed by Australia also suddenly changing policy and trust onmore.

Solomon Islands: The Solomon Islands are now referred to as a failed state, and Australia plays no innocent role as a bystander in that path (e.g. Kabutaulaka, 2004 Connell 2006,  McDougall 2007). Australia was already heavily criticized on the Bougainville topic, but Solomon Islands is equally and even more complex as a colonial legacy to be resolved well. Environmental issues for this region can easily be taken from Steadman (2006) as well as Mayr and Diamond (2001) and show many extinctions.

After PNG, the Solomon Islands was somewhat given up for the bigger problem and player in the region: Indonesia (see also Chauvel, 2004; Wainwright, 2004b). But as Indonesia shares a border with Papua New Guinea, East Timor might become the new Tibet in that game. Access to oil and mining resources remain core items of negotiations. Of course Australia does all it can to avoid those problems and to mitigate them, but arguably, Bougainville, Solomon Islands and Indonesia are linked. Now heavily interfered with by China. (e.g. Firth, 2018). China is close to be directly involved in the state politics of Solomon Islands; moving from there to the environmental land—and seasscape  failureis a minor step.

Vanuatu: The island nation of Vanuatu never was much happy with its colonizers, or with Australia (e.g. Lini, 1982). However, like most nations in the Pacific, the Chinese influence adds to complexities, e.g. Atkinson, 2007 for Taiwan). The current discussion centers on Australia’s internationally recognized failure to act on man-made climate change (e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/20/vanuatu-calls-on-australia-to-back-its-un-bid-to-recognise-climate-change-harm). Australia remains the climate bully for those nations.

Global: A first set of the wider Australian foreign policy issues are outlined by Bergin and Wall (2021). Securing Australia and starting to build navy ports with diplomatic missions in the arc are a key scheme. Refugee problems are now the topic of the day. But it does not end there (see ABC 2020 for wider terror links).

Textbox 2: Manus Island dilemma: It’s not extraterrestrial but Australian-made

Based on some international exchanges, political lock-ins and agreements, Papua New Guinea (PNG) allowed the government of Australia to operate and run a controversial offshore immigration detention system, the Manus Regional Processing Centre. It was a refugee camp situated on adjacent Los Negros Island, operating for over 16 years, from 2001 to 2017. It was meant to improve the refugee problem but created major outcries, in PNG, in Australia, the Pacific region and beyond, but created a drama (e.g. The Guardian 2021c, Human Rights Watch 2017)

The Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea ruled in 2016 that the detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island was illegal, and Prime Minister of PNG Peter O’Neill announced that the center would be removed. After a camp stand-off that involved the PNG military and police, all remaining men were removed in 2017 to new accommodations at the East Lorengau Refugee Transit Centre, Hillside Haus and West Lorengau Haus (more details in Dastyari & Sullivan, 2016).

In late 2019, the still remaining asylum seekers were moved to Port Moresby, and upon request by the PNG government, the Australian Government terminated the contracts of the service providers for the detention center and other facilities in 2019.

While Australia is not really taking any liability, responsibility or support for its Journalist and citizen Julian Assange or associated Wikileaks (Australia had no major rejections to deliver him to the U.K., and thus, toward a potential extradition to the U.S.), it has participated in virtually any war efforts done by the western nations: from WW1 to WW2 and then Vietnam as much as Iraq and Afghanistan, and many other missions out there. Australia is a stench supporter of the U.S. approach, including the war on terror and immigration policies involving PNG, but it lacks a good and meaningful track record of success and world peace—just as most other nations who engage in such ‘missions.’ This does affect biodiversity and the environment, certainly wilderness because those are all linked. Already looking at refugees, and squatters shows that clearly.

18.5 How to Maintain, or End the Terror Toward, Peace in the wider Australian Sector

There is a widely shared concept of world peace (e.g. https://www.un.org/en/un-chronicle/world-peace-one-hour). It comes from many groups and entities, but Australia stays far from it.

Arguably, maintaining world peace remains a key question for humankind; with climate change this might get more relevant than ever. But how to get there is not a simple feat. For some people, it comes wrapped in religion, others are more spiritual keeping it with Mother Earth. While others might even push for a benevolent dictator, the track record for that option shows us no good though. Same must be said for democracy with a social welfare spin, but which usually results more into a higher-end resource eating mass and excluding others from the ‘pie’ not achieving sustainability (China as a classic example; see Elvin, 2008; see Connolly 2020 for a PNG application. Those masses might well be the REAL Future Eaters (sensu Flannery 2002 but that  was not mentioned and inferred in his assessment. The key inference was widely left out: number of people and their entitled consumption covered by an approving ideology and religion). Many examples exist for it also.

So where to go from here? While we cannot just go on MARS or the MOON, we need a solution down to earth, and I see no valid one that is truly discussed or available in the western world; certainly not by Australia though (see Ludlam, 2021 offering some approaches for Australia usually involving the Greens; Dobell 2012 for a strategy). All awhile, PNG has already lived on the planet for over 47,000 years without a global crisis, so did the aborigines. Thus, some relevant answers do sit there in the wider Sahul indeed.