I read this article elsewhere. It is a 'must read'.

Stuart Ballantyne is a perfect example of a practical thinker who is outnumbered by bureaudroids. If I had my way, the EPA would not be allowed to have any say in areas where their bureaudroids don't reside !

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help." - President Reagan Aug. 12, 1986

Having lived on Norfolk Island for two years back in the 1980's, I agree with Stuart Ballantyne's analysis of the inept Australian Government's lazy and penny-pinching obfuscation and inaction on Norfolk's major problem. Captain Phillip’s instructions from King George 111 contained this passage – Norfolk Island ….being represented as a spot which may hereafter become useful, you are as soon as circumstances will admit of it, to send a small establishment thither to secure the same to us, and prevent it being occupied by the subjects of any other European power.
https://firstfleetfellowship.org.au/convicts/norfolk-island-settlement/

Obviously, the present owners [Australian Commonwealth Government] cannot be trusted to follow simple instructions from the King!

When that intrepid navigator Captain Cook sailed the Pacific Islands on his way to discovering Oz, the islanders had home designed & built 80 to 110Ft double hulled canoes, capable of sailing rings around poor old HMS Endevour. Those canoes could make multi thousand mile voyages, & be dragged up on any beach they could approach through the reef.

The fact that those people have degenerated into a cargo cult society is no reason to supply them with ships they should be building themselves. Those olden day canoes, suitably powered would be the perfect landing craft for humanitarian missions after a cyclone in the islands. I see no reason to supply Fiji with any ships/boats.

Way back in the 70s a container ship service included Rabaul in it's itinerary. They had a self loading traveling gantry that traveled the length of the ship. It would steam into port, pick up a mooring for easy handling, & unload containers into the bay. A couple of small 40 Ft launches would then tow the containers to individual moorings, or to shore where they were to be unloaded.

Export containers, or empties would be towed out & picked up by the ship. It would unload & load a dozen containers each way in not much more than an hour. Such a service could be easily handled at Norfolk. Perhaps Norfolk is too small & inconsequential to be included in such a service, or perhaps politics prevent it. Perhaps the workforce doesn't want to lose its regular employment. What ever, the freight involved is definitely not worth a huge undertaking in harbor
building.

Obviously Stewart does not read history, otherwise he would know that garrisoning such places is total waste. Doing so in Rabal & Kavieng for WW11 simply killed a few brave, trained pilots, who could have been useful somewhere else, & a few hundred men, likewise totally wasted. The Japs could not hold such islands with up to 20,000 well armed & dug in defenders.

Pie in the sky can be quite tasty, until you have to actually pay for it.

Hasbeen, you said they unloaded containers into the bay.
I presume you meant onto barges or something as the containers are not watertight.
as someone said, please explain.

please explain.
Bazz,
Are you an ignorant Academic to need this explained ?

Thanks Individual for your inquiry.
No I am not an academic, just a poor working class sod.
So I am ignorant of these highly scientific matters on how you get containers off a ship where no wharf exists.
It is just if Hasbeen wrote literally or presumed we all knew that
containers are never watertight, after all many yachts have smashed into floating containers.

No Bazz, directly into the bay, & at times sat on a mooring for days.

I never bothered to look closely at them, perhaps they were specially constructed, or had a special sealing system, but that is how they were handled, & I never heard any complaints about water damaged products carried in them.

Thanks Hasbeen, now Individual can claim he knew that all along.
That is amazing, I would have thought it would have been impossible to
have made the doors waterproof, certainly after many hard drops off
trucks etc. I have not had much to do with containers but never
noticed any seals on the one whose door I opened and closed.
Amazing !

Ordinary containers do float Bazz, at least for quite a while. A funny story, way off topic but fun.

My son had to weld one of our old assault ship, either HMAS Manoora or HMAS Kanimbla, I can't remember which, after it hit a floating container off the Queensland coast one night. Glad it was the navy, & not my yacht.

Those ex US navy tank landing ships were immensely strong in the bow. They had to be to drive ashore to unload tanks & vehicles, & survive to back off. We had welded the bow doors fully shut which made them even stronger.

Well this one ran into a container at night. The strong bow was not effected, but hitting it made it submerge. It's buoyancy made it attempt to resurface, which it did, but under the ship. It pierced both the outer hull, & the inner hull, causing flooding of part of void space between hulls, & one compartment of the ship. To the ship it was not an important compartment, but was to the crew. It was the sewerage treatment plant room, which meant no toilets for the 50 some hours it took to steam back to Sydney at reduced speed. He reckoned the stink was horrible.

Unfortunately in a cost cutting exercise the government had leased the Garden Island dry dock to a private company, & was not available for the navy to use to repair the ship. They had to repair the thing themselves, in the water.

They made a coffer dam type box to fit the hull, more or less sealed it to the hull with foam rubber, pumped everything dry, keeping it so with pumping, fumigated the area, & fixed both outer & inner hulls from the inside. He was quite proud of that one.

As it turned out they could have simply pulled into Gladstone or another deep area of smooth water & fixed the thing no problem.

Bazz,
I came across too harsh, apologies, I just had too much experience with these Uni educated experts' lack of common & practical sense. I have had a lot to do with shipping equipment around including containers.
Yes, containers can float for a long time particularly if they have buoyant cargo & if they turned upside down.
If there is no loading terminal such as you'd experience on small islands then containers get delivered by barges which run right against the beach or barge ramps.
I have been out on a rescue where they let the boat & full 44 gallon drums drift away at sea because they're only there to save lives. Another one was a yacht that ran up on the top of a reef at high tide & all they needed to do was wait for the next high tide & float it into deeper water. What did the official in charge decide ? He dragged the boat off at low tide over the coral & turned a perfectly good yacht into a wreck which instantly sank when off the reef.
He was given the authority by some idiot bureaucrat !