Why should we concern ourselves with PNG's living standards when we are allowing the Morrison government to wreck our own.

The people PNG made their bed in '75, now their descendants have to lie in it !
Same as Australia when it made its bed in '72.

I'm sorry, but I disagree! Palm oil is a counterproductive measure as is its cultivation. What is wrong here is the provincial thinking inside a locked and bolted mindset? That can't see beyond endless land clearance and crops?

If you want oil? then how about growing oil-rich algea. Some types have up to 60 oil that can go straight into the diesel tank or jet fuel tank as filtered oil. With the remain ex-crush able to support other industries as a valuable food source material. Or go straight to the digestors to become biogas or petrol replacing methanol. And all doable without further deforestation.

Other than that there remains the embrace of nuclear power as MSR thorium. And able to be ferried as SMRs that can be ferried to where needed on double hulled floating barges. To provide energy for less than 3 cents PKWH for all manner of cottage industries and industrial/technological startups. Yes, there are numerous opportunities for vast hydroelectric projects, up and down the Fly. but will need to come with millions of miles of transmission lines and over some of the most difficult terrain imaginable.

Whereas, SMRs could be choppered into the most remote sites to begin powering whatever, wherever in veritable days. And far better, more profitable use of an annual 600 million.

Instead of the endless bunfight over allocation? Maybe the proponents could simply draw straws, then assist the others by adding their after cost profits into a common pool that advances the remaining claims? And where every success story speeds up the entire self-help process!TBC
Alan B.

It is not the locals fault they are in trouble. It was that idiot Whitlam, with an academics love of grand gestures, giving them independence about 50 years before they were ready for it.

To make matters worse he gave them millions to use to buy out the existing planters, & give the plantations to the villagers. Total catastrophe. Mostly the villagers did not have, or want anything to do with the plantations, with planters to bring in labor from other districts. A 30 ton a month plantations rapidly became 2 ton a month, & not worth a stop by the local copra boats. It was Whitlam interference that set the first disaster in motion.

The last thing we need to do is give any PNG government money to squander as they like. They are going to have to learn by their mistakes, or they will never learn now.

When whitey leaves, the joint goes to the pack, India being the one exception.

When the aid package is routinely plundered to support endemic corruption? It cannot be increased!

Moreover, it should be provided as materials and to on the ground NGOs, not corrupt government officials! And has to support self-help initiatives!

Further, I agree with Hasbeen, we got out far too early! IN fact, I believe, we should still be there! And grooming a new demographic of qualified uni grads to eventually run things under oversight provision, in say, another fifty years! When a rail system that would include cog wheel locos, connecting cable cars and a fully opened up highlands?

Or served by completely autonomous nuclear/electric-powered VLT C130s or Cargo Masters? Don't scoff, they're already on the drawing board and feasible!

And of course, they'd be powered by miniaturised MSR SMRs thorium!
Alan B

God only knows how many times I have stated here that foreign aid should not be in money. It must be in tools & whatever goods manufactured here. We need to keep our industries rolling in order to establish theirs.
We've seen it countless times that giving millions isn't doing a thing ! Send prefab homes, water tanks etc.

Good call individual and rational thinking!
Alan B.

Alan B,
40 years ago the then DAIA (Dept Aboriginal & Islander Advancement) worked along similar lines. Progress was modest but progress there was. There were indigenous tradesmen Plumbers, carpenters, Mechanics in fact just about every everyday job was performed by indigenous in their communities.
Sadly, in the eyes of the then Labor opposition, heavily aided by the by then incompetent Qld Liberals & utterly ignorant do-gooders that system was portrayed as discriminative & paternalistic etc. & the Dept was dismantled in the 90's. Several thousand lost gainful employment & this gave rise to the hordes of incompetent surplus Bureaucrats from major centres flooding the communities thus ruining any prospects for self management.
Of course, Labor Qld who did this then went on a blame-game of blaming the previous Bjelke Petersen Govt.
The price for this mess is still being paid for by all.