PNG honours ‘Chief’ Malcolm Fraser

In this autocue age so many political leaders are ‘presenters’ rather than premiers or prime ministers and genuine leaders are as rare as philanthropic bankers.

So it was heartening yesterday to see Papua New Guinea’s High Commissioner to Australia, His Excellency Mr Charles Lepani, honour former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser for his leadership during PNG’s fledgling days as an independent nation.

Acting on behalf of his nation’s Governor-General, Mr Lepani conferred PNG’s highest honour on Mr Fraser: Grand Companion of the Order of Logohu, which carries the honorary title of Chief.

Mr Lepani explained that logohu is the Motu word for bird of paradise, PNG’s national emblem. He said the award recognised Mr Fraser’s services to PNG, particularly in its early years of independence.

Mr Lepani recalled that he was the head of his country’s planning department at independence and that his country faced a potential financial crisis as it made the transition from colonial control to national independence.

When Mr Fraser assumed the prime ministership in 1975, he was greeted by blunt advice from his Treasury: now that PNG was an independent nation, Australia should treat it as it did other nations and only give it project-based aid, rather than the budgetary support it had previously given.

This prospect caused panic in the PNG government and bureaucracy. They knew they did not have the fiscal and structural depth to withstand such a drastic change in support. The new nation would have been stillborn.

Malcolm Fraser overrode his treasury advice and maintained the budgetary support, allowing PNG time to stabiles and grow. It was a gesture that has lived long in Mr Lepani’s memory.

Speaking after the award, Mr Fraser said he was well aware of the consequences of following the hardline treasury advice. “It wasn’t the only time I rejected treasury advice in those years,” he added with a smile.

Mr Fraser called on PNG and Australia can work together to continue to be a force for good in the Pacific region.

Japan’s POW apology may shed light on Montevideo Maru mystery

It’s taken almost seven decades but yesterday Japan’s Foreign Minister, Seiji Maehara, finally apologised to a small group of former WWII prisoners of war in Tokyo for their treatment at his country’s hands while they were in captivity.

 The long-awaited mea-culpa will give some measure of closure to the dwindling band of surviving veterans who endured and it heightens the prospect of securing Japanese Government assistance in finally solving the 69-year-old mystery of who was aboard the Montevideo Maru, which had its holds chock full of Australian Diggers from Lark Force and civilians when it was unwittingly sunk by an American submarine in 1942.

The Australian POWs who received the apology showed superhuman forgiveness in accepting it. One Thai-Burma Railway survivor, Harold Ramsey, 89, said he believed the apology was “sincere”. Prior to meeting the Japanese Foreign Minister, Mr Ramsey had said: “If you go through life full of hate, the only person you hurt is yourself.”

At the meeting, Mr Maehara also said that Japan would return to Australia historical records of former Australian POWs held by Japan during World War II. Ironically, these records – believed to be an extensive set of index cards - were originally offered to Australia by the Japanese Government in 1953. The Australian Government of the day chose not to take up the offer, saying it did not believe that they would not contain any new information.

On the contrary the Rabaul and Montevideo Maru Society has been asking the Australian Government to intercede with the Japanese Government to seek access to the records because it believes it may unlock the mystery of the fate of the POWs and civilians who perished on the Montevideo Maru.

Australian War Memorial Wins Funding Battle

The Federal Government has bowed to community pressure and committed to an additional $8 million a year funding boost for the Australian War Memorial.

 The decision follows a year-long public campaign by AWM supporters, including Council Chairman, General Peter Cosgrove, who last month said the hallowed institution faced “inexorable decline” and would be forced to close one day a week, cut staff numbers and reduce Anzac Day commemorations.

Prime Minister Gillard announced the funding increase today. It included a one-off payment of $1.7m for the redevelopment of the memorial's WWI galleries and would be in addition to the memorial's regular annual funding of around $38m.

Ms Gillard conceded that the AWM had been forced to dip into capital reserves to pay for daily running costs.

"The new funding will ensure the memorial can adequately respond to increased demands for these events as well as supporting general inquiries, multimedia and educational programs, research centre services and professional historical advice," she said.

AWM director, Steve Gower, only found out about the additional funding this morning. He said it would prevent staff layoffs and would be applied towards the return of open days, exhibition upgrades and more stands for veterans on Anzac day.

It would also mean that at least 20 AWM staff would now keep their jobs.

"I think everyone's aware that cuts in staff were projected over the next few years. So that won't occur,'' he said. "We can have more public activities, plaque dedication programs for units, more activities in the galleries to attract people we want to engage.”

So, once again it took concerted community pressure and potential public embarrassment before the government faced up to its responsibility to adequately fund one of the nation’s most respected institutions.

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.