December 2013

The PNG Social & Cultural Group was apologetic about being slow this year to arrange the usual large-scale Independence Day bash in Darwin but its President, Rick HIGLETT, formerly of DCA Moresby, and his effervescent wife Hudson from Matupit, Rabaul, refused to let it pass unmarked. They turned on a delightful family affair in their spacious back garden where nearly 50 parents and children listened to PNG music and danced before kai was served. 

In the space of a week the letters page of the NT News has been peppered with comments from ‘grumpy old men’ of the PNG fraternity. Pat Somers, kiap; Keith Gregory, chalkie; and Graham Hockey, didiman. An exploit of the latter on a Darwin rugby field is worth recounting.,When nearly 50 years old he headed off on a Saturday afternoon to referee a C grade game, as permitted by his wife, but surreptitiously changed into his kit and played instead. In fact he scored the match-winning try but pleaded with his club not to have it publicised lest it occasion domestic strife. Rugby being a game for gentlemen ... there was agreement that the points be assigned to a second rower who, to borrow from Cricket jargon, had not “troubled the scorers” for the past 20 years. He was delighted and the didiman got away with it ... for a while.

You might have thought that by now Ben Moide who, aged 16, joined the PIB in 1940 and was discharged as a Sergeant in 1945, had attended his last parade but in the PNG Independence Day Honours list this September he was awarded the Distinguished Military Service medal. From Pari village he had already travelled to Buckingham Palace to receive a CBE from the Queen so he won’t have to make that long journey again. A good thing as he is not quite as sprightly as when he played for Magani in the Moresby Rugby League during 1961-62.

2018 may seem to be some years away but Port Moresby should not delay planning for APEC (the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum) which is to be held there then. This will bring 3000 delegates and multiple logistical problems. One idea is for a massive Convention Centre and hotel complex to be built over the water at Ela Beach, or alternatively for participants to be accommodated on cruise ships anchored in the harbour. We can only wish PNG luck in turning ideas for this project into reality.

I haven’t discovered where the Governor of Oro Province received his education but seemingly Gary Juffa did not skip the class in Florid English Rhetoric. Regarding the so-called Manus solution to Australia’s asylum-seeker invasion he wrote “Not everyone in PNG will accept being fed the foul excrement of injustice that emanates from the bowels of neo-colonialism”. Phew!