Notes from the Northern Territory: Jim Toner

September 2009

An 'Island Night' at the Kombiu Club, Rabaul was always a lively frolic and Darwin's PNG-Australia Social & Cultural Group held a similar function at the Filipino Community centre in July. There were the usual Hawaiian shirts, music and frangipanis and as a fund-raiser it was succesful.

Ex-kiap Mike Press who lost his wife, the jolly Elmah, some time ago would have been heartened to see over 70 of their friends attend a ceremonial unveiling of a memorial stone at Darwin's cemetery in July. A dozen women and girls in colourful meri blouses sang hymns delightfully in Kuanua, the Tolai tongue, very reminiscent of choral festivals at Queen Elizabeth Park, Rabaul.

The Arafura Games held biennially since 1991 brought 2000 athletes to Darwin in May. The PNG contingent included the volleyball team from Vabukori, a coastal village with perhaps 1500 inhabitants just outside Moresby. They had won the PNG championship for the past five years and maintained that form to take the gold medal here, as did the women's soccer team. PNG won three other gold medals amongst its total collection of 27.

The considerable golfing fraternity amongst us may be interested that Charlie Earp, revered coach of Peter Thomson and Greg Norman, was here and his comment on a 15 years old PNG ladies golf competitor was "has a beautiful swing which should never be changed". Remember the name Shavina Maras.

There was a time when an icon was a painted religious image but the word's usage has expanded somewhat to include sportsmen, the Hill's Hoist, etc. But who would have anticipated that the Burns Philp store in Moresby would be designated "a colonial icon"? Alas, it is no more having been burned to the ground during July. It had of late transmorphed into locations for such disparate entities as the Tribal Den nightclub and the National Narcotics Bureau. But it will stick in the memories of ladies coming into town after months on remote stations. What heaven to ascend those steps to a  'shopping paradise' called Beeps ?

The long march to gender equality has turned into a "Left. Right. Stick them chests out...." as 24 women recruits to the PNG Defence Force commenced training at the Goldie Depot outside Moresby. They are the first female soldiers although in the past three women were inducted for pilot training in the Air Wing.

In the Sixties Don Fox was a leading batsman for the Boroko Colts and has stayed on in Moresby where he is Operations Manager for Ela Motors and now also chairman of the Rugby League.

Another long stayer is Terry Shelley once a Co-ops Officer. He spent a bit of time at the Humpty Doo hotel in the NT but has been back in the Highlands for many years. He moves weekly between Kundiawa and Goroka and last May, presumably in an odd spare moment, calculated that during his lifetime he had made 2670 crossings of the Daulo Pass. Old Native Affairs mates will look forward to him letting us know when he has made 3000 'runs'.

Indigenous accountants were not exactly thick on the ground in 1975 but it is reassuring that the Certified Practicing Accountants association of PNG currently has nearly 2000 members. The British Graduates' Society, established in 2006, includes indigenes who have studied in the UK, has rather less but on the last Queen's Birthday celebrated with, quite appropriately, a tea party.

Apart from taking the stage as leading lady in many Australian musicals over the past 20 years the singer Marina Prior has another claim to fame. She was born in 1963 in Moresby where her father worked for some years at the hospital. She returned there in July to help celebrate the birthday of Sir Brian Bell. His electrical goods store in Boroko, if still there since the Fifties, must surely be another 'colonial icon'.

In the middle of the Ramu valley halfway between Lae and Madang there is now an agricultural project vastly larger than anything we might have contemplated in the good old 'colonial era'. Ramu Agri-Industries concentrates on sugar and oil palm (with each having a mill) also beef. It has 3500 employees and uses 1500 pieces of machinery (for which there are six workshops) from harvesters to motor-bikes. Need for aerial spraying of the sugar cane means that a plane is based for this purpose at Gusap the WW2 airstrip. Currently the sugar mill is crushing 24 hours per day just like those in Queensland during the season.

RAI staff accommodation adjoins a 9 hole golf course and a Club with a pool leaving little to be desired. The development spreads over about 80 km of the valley floor and is patrolled by security guards 24/7. The company's intention is to go through the complex process of leasing customary land for further plantations and Norm Oliver, former Land Titles Commissioner, is presently at Ramu setting up a Land Administration section.