PNG's future ... in good hands

The next generation of Papua New Guinea’s leaders is waiting in the wings for its chance to guide its nation into the future: they are smart and keen to take up the challenge and they are brimming full of hope and bright promise.

And they’ll now have the chance to expand and develop their leadership skills and potential, thanks to the generosity of one of New Guinea’s ‘old hands’, the late planter, Coast Watcher and philanthropist, Fred P. Archer, who died in 1977 aged 87.

This week, Australia’s High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea, Mr Ian Kemish AM, announced the 2011 Archer Scholars in Port Moresby - a program that offers six final-year PNG tertiary students an unique year-long intensive leadership program (incorporating private mentoring, community development placements, work experience, tuition and boarding support, resource support, and an exchange program to Australia).

Supported by a grant from the estate of the late Fred Palmer, the scholarships are a joint initiative of the Kokoda Track Foundation (a not-for-profit organisation working in the areas of education, health, community development, and microbusiness in PNG) and the Trust Company (one of Australia’s biggest trustees), which manages Fred Archer’s estate.

The Archer Leadership Scholars Program aims to identify and foster the next generation of PNG leaders.

The Foundation called for applications from final-year students, aged between 18 and 35, who are PNG citizens and of PNG heritage from tertiary institutions across the nation and, in this, the first year of the program, it found a wealth of exciting potential leaders.

A shortlist of 14 candidates underwent an intensive interview process and the following six students emerged as the 2011 Archer Scholars:

• ·       Nellie Hamura (Pacific Adventist University; Master of Arts in Pastoral Ministry; Eastern Highlands)
• ·       Brendan Pulai (University of PNG; Public Policy Management; East Sepik)
• ·       Geoffrey Ulsimbi (University of PNG; Environmental Science & Geography; East Sepik)
• ·       John Pota (University of PNG; Accounting; Manus)
• ·       Richard Faveve (Pacific Adventist University; Secondary Teaching; Central)
• ·       Jimmy Mai (Divine Word; PNG Studies/Community Development; East Sepik)

The Archer Leadership Scholarships represent the Kokoda Track Foundation’s first foray out of the Kokoda catchment area. The Foundation has been running its Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel Scholarship program since it began working in PNG in 2003, offering scholarships to bright students attending primary and secondary schools throughout the Track catchment area. This year the Foundation is supporting 313 students on scholarships.

The Archer Scholars program will allow the recipients to extend their leadership skills as they enter the workforce and take other leadership roles in PNG society. It will honour the memory of Fred Archer, who firmly believed that education was the key to Papua New Guineans’ future success, both individually and as a nation.

The son of a drover, Fred Archer served with the AIF in WWI, before moving to New Guinea in 1923 where he became a very successful planter on Bougainville and New Britain.

When the Japanese invaded the Pacific during the Second World War Fred Archer stayed behind and joined the Coast Watchers, hiding behind enemy lines and reporting on their movements.

After the war he rebuilt his shattered plantations to prosperity and created the Bougainville Company, a highly successful sea freight operation.

After he retired, Fred devoted himself to philanthropic work, providing education opportunities for generations of islanders. He paid school fees, attended graduations, sending many local children to the best available schools.

Shortly before he died, Fred formed his company into a charitable trust to be managed in perpetuity with dividends distributed each year to charities in PNG and Australia. 

The Australian War Memorial ... A Sacred Duty

The Australian War Memorial is under threat and the threat comes from our own Government.

While they have splurged billions over recent years they claim they cannot find $5 million needed to prevent cuts in staff, services and operations and plunging the Memorial into what AWM Council Chairman, General Peter Cosgrove, fears will be an “inexorable decline”.

A Government that can stand idle as our most respected national institution faces this intolerable situation has lost touch with our nation’s spiritual values.

How can a government ask its military forces to fight in Afghanistan - where we have already lost 22 soldiers killed in action and 168 wounded – while undermining the shrine that honours their sacrifices?

When it was founded, after World War I, largely at the behest of WWI historian Charles Bean, its original guidebook said:

“It constitutes not a general museum portraying war, much less one glorifying it, but a memorial conceived, founded and, from first to last, worked for by Australia’s soldiers, sailors and airmen.”

It is the memorial’s spiritual element that sets it apart. First and foremost it is a shrine. It honours the ideals for which those who fell gave their lives.

It must be funded adequately to allow it to not only survive but to thrive so generations into the future will see that we have never lost our connection with those who have selflessly sacrificed their lives and their health for our freedom.

Adrian Appo ... Local Hero

At last some proper recognition for one of our quiet achievers: Adrian Appo, CEO of Ganbina, a highly-successful indigenous employment training agency based in Shepparton Victoria, has been awarded the Order of Australia for services to his people.

Adrian received his award for his long service to indigenous youth in regional Victoria through career planning, employment and training.

He is a visionary leader who takes the long-view on the future of indigenous Australians. He anticipates it will take two generations for Aborigines in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley to gain what he sees as “an equitable stake in the local economy.” But Adrian is determined to set them on the path to that position by helping to end indigenous dependency on welfare.

''It took generations to get to this stage, so it's going to take generations to get out of it,'' Adrian told The Age yesterday. ''Many kids don't have a model to follow in their own families, so kids who go through Ganbina become role models for their siblings.''

Born the seventh of eight children, Adrian overcame early racially-based setbacks. Despite possessing his high school certificate he was initially rejected when he applied to become an apprentice electrician, being told that Aborigines ''can't deal with conceptual ideas''.

Adrian’s Dad intervened to reverse the decision. Adrian successfully became an electrician, then an electronics engineer with the RAAF and a TAFE teacher. Then his passion for advancing his fellow Aborigines took him to Ganbina.

Adrian’s setbacks inspired him to prove the racists wrong by excelling at his work, and assisting other indigenous Australians to gain a career.

Ganbina helps guide indigenous Australians, aged five to 25, into paid work while they are still in school as a method of building career paths. It declines government funding, so that it can set its own training models, which seek alternatives to having its clients employed on the basis of affirmative action.

“Seeing the excitement of family and friends makes it more worth while than the actual award itself,” Adrian said yesterday.

Eulogy for Stan Bisset

Twenty years ago, we were interviewing veterans for a documentary on Kokoda. When Stan Bisset appeared, I distinctly remember thinking: someone’s called central casting and they’ve ordered a hero!

Stan didn’t think he was a hero but he was a hero to me and I know he was a hero to many others here today.

Stan had star quality: that indefinable amalgam of physical presence and character that sets the remarkable ones apart. He was a sporting hero who blossomed into an authentic hero in the cauldron of war.

Stan was an elegant man who carried himself with grace. He was a gentleman in the true sense of the word: one of those rare individuals who had both style and substance. He showed respect to others … and in turn he received respect. He had, and he lived by, a deep sense of duty and honour. He was a natural leader.

He lived his life true to his principles … a man of courage - both physical and moral - of compassion, loyalty and selflessness. He inspired many of his own generation … and many of those that have followed.

I know that barely a day went by that Stan didn’t think about his beloved brother Butch. He was determined to lead his life well so that Butch’s sacrifice was not in vain.

I was proud to have had Stan as a mentor and a friend. I learned so much from him and I’ve admired so much about him. I loved the way he refused to concede an inch to Father Time ... how he fought to the end, showing the courage for which he was famed.

I remember a couple of years ago, when he had some lingering leg sores, Stan heard that the Brisbane Broncos’ players had used a hyperbaric chamber to hasten their recovery. Stan checked it out on the web and arranged for the department of veterans’ affairs to take him to Brisbane to follow the Broncos’ example. He cured his sores and then started a new exercise regime. He was 96 at the time.

Stan loved and was deeply proud of his children, Tom, Holly, Sally, Jim and Ros. His world revolved around his beloved Gloria. I thank you all for sharing your Stan with us.

For more than 60 years Stan was the lifeblood of his battalion association. He helped countless old comrades. He worked tirelessly to keep the Kokoda story alive. He was unfailingly generous with his time and his energy to all who found their way to his door, inspired by his part in the Kokoda legend.

Who could forget Stan singing … in his beautiful baritone voice … his battalion song “Spearhead of the Army”

Who else but Stan could inspire awe and admiration with lyrics like “we’re fistical, ballistical and very much militaristical. We’re the boys for the scraps, just look at the tilt of our caps … we’re even very definitely most belligerent chaps.” When Stan sang it, it roared like a battle anthem … a sacred hymn of praise to a band of a special men.

Stan now joins Butch … and so many of his mates who have gone before him … Phil Rhoden, Don Duffy, Chas Butler, Bob Dougherty, Teddy bBar, Maurie Taafe, Alan Avery, Charlie McCallum, Bruce Kingsbury, Ralph Honner, John Metson, Claude Nye, Lefty Langridge and so many, many more.

Australia is a better nation for having a man like Stan Bisset as one of her sons … and we’re all better people for having had Stan in our lives.

Like the spirit of Kokoda, Stan’s spirit will live on.

Godspeed old friend.

VALE Stan Bisset MC OAM (1912-2010)

Stan Bisset, who died on the Sunshine Coast on 5 October, aged 98, was one of the heroes of the Kokoda campaign in WWII, and Australia’s oldest Wallaby rugby international.

I’ll never forget watching Stan as he stood in front of his beloved brother Butch’s grave at Bomana War Cemetery outside Port Morseby. It was August 1998, during what Stan and his fellow Kokoda Diggers called The Last Parade, their pilgrimage to say a final farewell to the mates they left behind. 

It was the first time Stan had visited the grave since Butch had died in his arms on the Track 56 years earlier. He stood there silently for a long time. I could see the emotions surging through him. As always, he stood ramrod straight but tears welled in his noble eyes as the memories flooded back. 

There before him lay Butch, his life cut short by the terrible random selection of war like so many others on the Track. Stan had vowed to lead a good and productive life to honour Butch’s sacrifice. And he had been as good as his word. He had raised a fine family, forged a long and successful career and had done all in his power to keep Butch’s memory and the story of Kokoda alive. 

While I watched, Stan gently wiped the tears from his eyes with his powerful hands and then brought them to his side. He squared his shoulders and paused. Then he swept his right arm up in a crisp, practised salute: an homage from a warrior, a farewell from a brother.

Stan has a deep rooted sense of duty and an unshakeable sense of honour. He had, and still has, star quality: that indefinable amalgam of physical presence and character that sets the remarkable ones apart. He was a genuine sporting hero who blossomed into a military hero in the cauldron of war. 

I vividly remember when I met him for the first time, doing interviews with the veterans for a documentary. My immediate thought was that they’ve ordered a hero from Central Casting and they’ve sent the perfect specimen.

Stan’s former commanding officer and lifelong friend, the late Phil Rhoden, told me that Stan had no time to grieve for Butch during the battles along the Track and took many years to recover from the loss. Like so many other Kokoda veterans, the campaign was one of the defining experiences of Stan’s life. Somehow, Stan dealt with the blows and got on with his life. 

Stan Bisset is quite simply one the finest men I have met. I have been privileged to call him a friend and a mentor for twenty years. He personified so many attributes of the Digger to me: courage (both moral and physical); compassion; selflessness; independence; loyalty; resourcefulness; devotion; coolness; and humour.

He carried himself with the bearing of a natural leader and a champion sportsman. Even as he neared his century, he continued to inspire me and all those who know him with his dogged refusal to surrender any ground to Father Time. 

Since the rediscovery of the Kokoda story about 15 years ago, barely a day would go by without someone wanting to contact Stan and meet him. Without fail, he gave his time and his support.

In 2000, Stan was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his service to veterans, particularly through the 2/14th Battalion Association.

Stan is survived by Gloria and his children and grandchildren

Stan Bisset, like his story, is timeless.

Have our Pacific Neighbours Missed Out Again?

At first glance, our Pacific neighbours are one of the big losers in Prime Minister Gillard’s Ministerial Line-up.

The portfolio of Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs - which was dropped, without any explanation, by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last year - has not been reinstated by Ms Gillard.

Duncan Kerr occupied the office in the Rudd Government and many credited it with playing a significant role in improving Australia’s relations in the Pacific, particularly those with our nearest neighbour, Papua New Guinea.

Many experts had tipped that Prime Minister Gillard would take the chance to reinstate the position, in the light of her avowed aim of establishing asylum-seeking processing centres in the region and of the growing volatility in the Pacific: Fiji’s continuing democratic crisis, the smouldering parliamentary uncertainty in PNG and the growing influence of Chinese, Malaysian and Indonesian interests in the South-West Pacific.

The omission is more surprising given the statement by former Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith in the lead-up to the election:

“In our own region, in the Asia-Pacific, when we came to office there was a breakdown in relations between Australia and Papua New Guinea and a breakdown in relations between Australia and the Solomon Islands. They have both been repaired.

“Our opponents, when they were in office, the Liberal Party for 11 years, never chaired the Pacific Island Forum. We chaired it, most successfully, in Cairns last year, establishing the Cairns Compact for the coordination and effectiveness of development assistance in our region.

“This is the century of the Asia-Pacific. Economic, strategic, security, military, influence is moving in our direction: the rise of China, the rise of India, the rise of the ASEAN economies combined; the ongoing central significance and influence of the United States; the continuing importance, economically and strategically, of Japan and the emergence of Indonesia, not just as a regional power but as a global influence.”

Perhaps Ms Gillard plans to allocate the Pacific Islands Affairs role to one of two new Parliamentary Secretaries for Foreign Affairs, Justine Elliot and Richard Marles.

One of the Rudd Government’s positive legacies was its work towards developing a substantial improvement in relations with PNG. The Kokoda Initiative was born of this new approach, as was the PNG-Australia Development Co-operation Treaty, signed last April.

But many within those structures are concerned that they may not be renewed. They will be hoping that Mr Rudd, as the new Foreign Affairs Minister, will be able to maintain his enthusiasm for the region. He has been tasked with handling the prickly negotiations with East Timor over Ms Gillard’s proposed establishment of an asylum seeker-processing centre there.

Let’s hope that this focus on the region and his passion for Kokoda, will motivate Mr Rudd to elevate the Pacific’s priority in his successor’s government. It would be to his lasting credit.

The "Few" of the Pacific War

In 1940, in one of his most celebrated speeches, Winston Churchill praised the Allied airmen who fought in the Battle of Britain: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

I believe the Coast Watchers were the Pacific equivalent of the Battle of Britain’s famous “Few”.

Just like the gallant fighter pilots over Britain, the Coast Watchers were a tiny gallant band, which had an impact far out of proportion to their numbers. And, like the fighter pilots, the Coast Watchers changed the course of the war.

The Coast Watchers volunteered to stay behind the enemy lines in the Pacific islands when, all around them, others were fleeing in the face of a seemingly invincible invasion force. When they volunteered there was no guarantee – or even likelihood – that the Allies would ultimately prevail in the conflict. The only certainty was that if they were captured they faced torture and death.

Indeed, at least 30 Coast Watchers were captured and executed, mostly by beheading.

They were remarkable characters. Most were ‘old hands’ in the islands, who knew the land and the people intimately. They stayed on, in their jungle posts, after the Japanese swept through the islands, constantly moving camp, living off the land, working with their islander comrades, all the while on the lookout for enemy patrols intent on hunting them down.

They made their reports using the then ‘state-of-the-art’ communication system the ‘portable’ AWA 3B teleradio, an absurdly cumbersome set of gear that weighed 150 kilos and needed between 12 and 16 men to move it.

Many Coast Watchers died heroically, like Con Page on Simberi Island off New Ireland, who continued to radio reports, even when the Japanese were closing in on him.

Greg Benham and Bill Kyle stayed behind, refusing the last chance to escape when a group of civilians left New Ireland by boat, to keep reporting.

Just last week, speaking at Camden Library, I met Greg Benham’s nephew. He showed me his uncle’s last letter to his family, taken out by the escaping civilians.

In it he wrote that he stayed behind because his mate Bill Kyle had been ordered to stay behind with the radio: “I felt it my duty to volunteer to stay with him instead of going on the boat to the Solomons and thence to Sydney. I know I owe you all a duty to return and to dear Lillian – however I know you all realize the decision I made was the only honourable one.”

Both Bill Kyle and Greg Benham continued to send their reports until they were captured by the Japanese, just hours before they were due to be rescued by submarine. They were both beheaded. 

Time to Right a Wrong

The wonderful news that another 19 missing Fromelles Diggers have been identified highlights two things: one, that the original bureaucratic dismissals of the chance of any identifications were well wide of the mark; and, two, that the time has come to have the name of the battle inscribed on our major war memorials.

Currently, of 250 sets of remains discovered, 203 have been identified as Australian and, of these, 94 have been individually named. This result far exceeds the authorities’ expectations.

Indeed, when Lambis Englezos originally approached our bureaucrats asking that they search Pheasant Wood, he was told there was almost no likelihood that any remains would be found and, further, if any remains were found they would have virtually no chance of identification.

So, having overcome both these hurdles, surely the time has come for the name of this tragic battle to be added to our war memorials. Many Australians will be staggered to learn that Fromelles, the worst loss of life in a single night in our nation’s history, does not appear on our major memorials.

The long-term advocates of Fromelles, call their quest for the battle’s recognition on our war memorials, the Third Battle of Fromelles: the first was the original in July 1916; the second was the fight to find the missing soldiers, now in its final stages.

Fromelles appears on the Australian Memorial in London’s Hyde Park and on the 5th Division’s Memorial at Polygon Wood, near Ypres in Belgium, but it does not appear on any of Australia’s major memorials.

The original argument that prevented Fromelles being inscribed on our memorials was that it formed part of the Battle of the Somme. Certainly, Fromelles was originally designed as a diversion to hold German troops away from the Somme, about 80 kilometres away, but it was a separate battle and, in scale and importance, far outweighed many other battles that have been long since carved into our history. (For example, almost four times as many lives were lost at Fromelles than those who died in all our years fighting in Vietnam.)

Inclusion of Fromelles on the memorials would in no way denigrate the battle honours already there. Rather it would right a wrong that has endured for almost a century.

Hawks take the lead

Many Australians draw inspiration from the story of Kokoda and from the challenge of walking the Track but few give anything back to the people of PNG.

That’s why it’s great to see that the Hawthorn Football Club has embraced the spirit of Kokoda – in word and deed. Not only have the Hawks integrated the spirit into their club culture, they have committed to play a Kokoda Game each season, with funds raised at it to be used to help educate the kids living along the Track.

The Hawks will donate funds raised at the Kokoda Game to the Kokoda Track Foundation’s Adopt An Angel Scholarship Scheme, which provides scholarship and school resources to the descendants of the beloved Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels in the Kokoda catchment area.

Hawks’ President, Jeff Kennett, and club director, Geoff Harris, are showing great leadership by initiating the project, which is in keeping with their determination to use the Kokoda spirit to inspire their players to become better men.

The Kokoda Track Foundation currently supports 156 children with primary and secondary school scholarships and provides educational supplies to 18 schools along and around the Track. The Hawks’ initiative will mean the Foundation should be able to substantially increase the number of children it supports.

The vast majority of current scholarship kids have parents who are subsistence farmers – and can’t afford school fees – or are orphans. Many of them simply would not be able to attend school without their scholarship.

It costs about $300 a year to send a child to primary school and about $1000 for secondary school. If you can afford to help the Foundation by donating an Adopt An Angel scholarship, please check out the Foundation’s website at www.kokodatrackfoundation.org

Fromelles Missing Get Their Names Back

Thanks to the science of DNA identification and the persistence of men like Lambis Englezos and Tim Whitford, at least 75 of the Missing Diggers of Fromelles now have their names back.

After 94 years languishing unknown and undiscovered in a series of burial pits dug by the Germans following the battle in July 1916, the Missing Diggers will at last have a dignified individual grave and at least 75 of them will have their names on their gravestones.

This will bring great comfort to their families, many of whom have waited for almost a century to finally discover the fate of their loved ones and to have a place where they can commemorate their sacrifice.

We should not forget that it has been the dogged persistence of Team Lambis (Lambis Englezos and his supporters in Australia and around the world) which has made this day possible.

Without the impetus of Team Lambis, the Missing Diggers and Tommies from the Battle of Fromelles would still lie jumbled and unsung in the damp mud of French Flanders. 

Without Team Lambis, every day, the people of Fromelles – and the many visitors roaming the tragic killing fields there – would still have passed by Pheasant Wood, just below the town centre, without knowing that the Missing Diggers where lying there waiting to be recognised.

When you see “the great and the good” basking in the reflected glory of the reinterment ceremonies of the Missing Diggers, spare a thought for those who fought through the bureaucratic inertia and obfuscation to make sure they were discovered and identified – even though, at every turn, they were rebuffed and told that both goals were impossible dreams.